restaurant review

Halbachs Take the South, Part IV – Alone Time

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Finally, it was time for Sara to go to her conference. I was sort of dreading this part of the trip, because it meant handling both kids in a strange city by myself. Although it was exhausting, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. The main thing was to keep out of the hotel as much as possible, since keeping them quiet for any length of time was out of the question, and having a routine certainly helped a lot.

Every day we would eat breakfast at the hotel, and then go to Discovery Place for 3 – 4 hours (for FREE — thank you reciprocating MSI membership!). We would eat a delicious lunch of PB&J (every day), and then Oliver would fall asleep in the stroller just when we were almost home. We’d get him into bed, and then Evie and I would play a few games of cards

and read books until I fell asleep on the floor. At this point, Evie would do “exercises” for 20 minutes or so (don’t ask me, I was asleep), and then wake me up to ask if I had slept long enough. In the afternoon, we’d find something to do such as go to ImaginOn, a fantastic children’s library. Finally, we hit up a delicious restaurant for supper, and go to bed.

Evie's gift to the children's museum

The hotel we stayed in was very nice. We specifically chose it because they had a suite with a separate bedroom, so Sara and I could stay up after the kids were in bed. It was really more of a business hotel, and there weren’t really any other kids staying there. Consequently, we were very recognizable (especially with all of our comings and goings throughout the day), and all of the front desk staff really enjoyed interacting with the kids.

The one snafu with the hotel was the parking. When we first pulled up, we found out it was valet, which we were unprepared for. It makes you feel a little flustered when you have to spend 20 minutes cleaning out everything from your car while a pair of valet guys look on and wait. Sara kept insisting we’d have to pay for parking and it would be expensive, but I kept denying it because the whole city seemed to be made of parking lots, and parking didn’t really seem to be at a premium. Well, she was right and I was wrong (first time for everything I guess), since after they took the car they informed us it was $22 a night. Yeowza!

Imagine my surprise when I got up to my room and opened the window to take in the view, only to see a parking lot literally across the street that was advertising $5 parking. Seriously hotel? I called down to the front desk immediately.

Me: “Excuse me, I just paid $22 to park in your garage, and now I see it is $5 to park across the street?”
Lady: “Well actually, it is $5 for only 12 hours. So really it’s $10.”
Me: “That’s seriously your argument? It’s still less than half the price!”

Now, they ended up being sort of right, because parking there ended up being something of a headache. We were right next to the arena for the Charlotte Bobcats, and twice they had a game while we were there. When that happens, the price of the lot shoots up to $10 for a couple of hours during the event. This lead to a couple times where we had to drive around a little to find somewhere else to park (we ended up finding a free spot just down the street), and then going and getting the car later at night and moving it back to the lot. So this did cause a little bit of a headache.

Maybe I was just being cheap, I don’t know. But when you consider that we were staying for 4 nights, and that you have to tip the valet every time you get your car,  I think we conservatively saved around $60. And really, it was the principle of the thing, you know?

Aaaanywho, we continued our string of delicious restaurants while in Charlotte.

Midwood Smokehouse – After just eating at 12 Bones, we were desperate for more barbecue.   Unfortunately for Midwood Smokehouse, we had just eaten at 12 Bones. Midwood Smokehouse was perfectly good, but it was more “polished” or chain-y somehow and just suffered in comparison. They did have bacon wrapped jalapenos, which certainly helped their case, but overall it just couldn’t compete at the end of the day, especially in the side dish arena. The barbecue was more than adequate, and on any other trip it probably would have ranked up there with some of the best meals of the trip.

Fern – Fern was a place that we just happened to see after leaving Midwood Smokehouse, so we ended up giving it a try. BEST. STUMBLE UPON. EVER. Fern was possibly better even than 12 Bones, but it is so hard to compare  a vegetarian restaurant to a barbecue joint. We ordered so much food that we thought we would never be able to eat it all, and then we proceeded to eat it all. If I lived in Charlotte, I would go to Fern every day and eat Buddha bowls with forbidden rice until I puked, which I would never do, because I wouldn’t want to waste it. My only regret is that I didn’t take them up on their half priced wine night.

Cook Out – This was the one place that I actually had plans to go to while in North Carolina. I became acquainted with Cook Out while Sara was going to school in Greensboro. It’s a fast food place, but the burgers really do taste like you cooked them out on the grill. They have cajun seasoning for their fries. They have over 40 flavors of milkshakes. And if all of that wasn’t enough, their burger sizes are “Small”, “Regular”, “Large” and “Huge”. You can legitimately drive up to the speaker and say, “I’d like a huge burger,” and you will get your wish my friend. I had plans to go to Cook Out multiple times, but it didn’t really work out, so we ended up having to go without Sara. However, the kids and I enjoyed it thoroughly without her.

Afterwards, it was time to head home. I mentioned the night we stayed in Asheville, and we also stayed at a place in Louisville that had an *awesome* pool. It was indoors, heated, and featured both an enormous shallow end where Evie could touch, but also an extremely deep end that was over my head. Finally, on the last day, we met Rachael in Indy and ate a very improvised lunch at her apartment.

And then we were home! Evie did fantastic in the car all the way down and all the way back. Oliver did great on the way there, but by the time we got to the end of the trip, he had pretty much had it with the car. There was a lot of howling. No matter how much fun we had on the trip, we were all glad to be back on dry land as it were, and ready to get back into our regular routines.

Halbachs Take the South, Part III – Time to Eat

/ Shane / 2 Comments

The second half of our trip was quite a bit different then the first half of the trip. The first half was rustic and the second half was urban, but more importantly, during the first half of the trip we cooked most of our own food, and during the second half of our trip we went out to eat at amazing restaurant after amazing restaurant.

Our first stop was in Asheville. Asheville is a really cool place, but sort of hard to describe. There are musicians on practically every street corner. There are tons of cool, unique shops and restaurants. If I had to sum it up in one catchy little phrase, it would be “buy local”. This is probably because most of them had a sign advising you to buy local (which is probably due to the opening of a large new Urban Outfitters). I have to agree with them though; you don’t get that awesome, unique vibe without that concentration of local shops, which are bound to be more interesting than chains.

It reminds me of a day a little further on in the trip, when we just got done eating a fantastic meal at a local eatery. We were driving back to our hotel, and we passed chain restaurant after chain restaurant, Applebees, TGIFridays, and Logan’s Steakhouse, each one packed fuller than the last. “Poor fools,” I thought. “Who would want to eat at one of those chain places when there are so many tasty and interesting places everywhere?”

Anyway, I digress. We bought our only souvenirs of the trip in Asheville; local honey, hand-dyed yarn, and some homemade soap. We even stayed in a non-chain hotel, which had a great location, but was a little on the shady side. It kind of seemed like there’s not much crime in Asheville, but what crime there is takes place at that hotel.

What we didn’t do in Asheville was go to the Biltmore estate. I actually really wanted to go to the Biltmore estate. First off, when I go somewhere, I like to go do the big thing of that place. The Biltmore estate is the biggest attraction in the Asheville area. Second off, it is billed as the American version of Versaille, which happened to be the very best part of our trip to France. So I thought, conceivably, it could have been the very best part part about our trip to North Carolina. However (and this is a big however), tickets to the Biltmore estate were going to run our family about $100! Just for comparison, tickets for Cedar Point would cost about $115 for our family. Are you really going to tell me that the Biltmore estate is roughly as much fun as Cedar Point?? “Hey kids, forget about roller coasters, look at this interesting architecture!”

Before I get into the restaurants, I just want to comment on something wonderful I discovered on the trip: the vegetable or side plate. Is this a southern thing? Basically, it just allows you to order some number of the side dishes on the menu (3, 5, 7). It worked out so well to order a bunch of side dishes and then dish them out to everyone and get to try everything. It’s like tapas or dim sum with delicious, Southern-made vegetables. Way better than ordering the chicken nugget kid’s meal.

Okay, so without further ado:

Tupelo Honey Cafe – The was the first, and perhaps only, meal that everyone was happy about (and by everyone, I mean Evie). Evie is pretty picky when it comes to food, and she mostly only wanted to eat french fries. However, even she couldn’t resist steaming hot biscuits with homemade blueberry jam, cheesy smashed cauliflower, and parmesan corn on the cob (okay, we also had sweet potato fries). This was the first place we went to in Asheville, and it was very difficult to not go back again.


The Green Sage – We happened to walk by this place the night before, so we gave it a chance for breakfast. It was more like a coffee shop, but they had food too. Aaaaawesome food. They had carrot cake pancakes with cream cheese frosting topping. And they were perfect too, not overly sweet the way they could easily have been. I literally couldn’t eat any more. The coffee was good too. However, I couldn’t handle the trash/recycling/compost division, and I totally messed it up. Hey, I said the restaurant was perfect, not me.


12 bones – This was the best meal we had on a trip filled with excellent meals. It was also the most authentic southern restaurant I’ve ever seen. I ate ribs next to a guy with a gun in a holster. Real Southern barbecue next to a guy with a real gun in a real holster.

Speaking of ribs, this was a restaurant known for its ribs, but I was a little reluctant to get them. I’m usually more of a brisket kind of guy. However, I broke down and ordered the ribs…Oh Em Gee was I glad I did. I don’t know if I’ve ever tasted anything better in my life. The chipotle blue berry ribs were good, but the brown sugar dry rub ribs were out of this world. They also had a side platter option, and the sides were all great. The collard greens and green beans were the best, with the chipotle potato salad and corn pudding a close second. Seriously, there was something so great about the sides, I couldn’t even tell you. We had collard greens at three other restaurants, and they all looked more or less identical, but none of the held a candle to these. And I’m not the only one who liked the place:

Unfortunately for Oliver, he slept through the whole thing. The nice thing to do would have been to save him some, which we probably would have done if it were physically possible to do so. But it wasn’t, so we offered him a banana when he woke up right as we were leaving. No dice, he demanded a meal to go. We had no silverware in the car, so he had to eat it with his fingers. He didn’t complain. He couldn’t, because his mouth was full of pulled chicken and green beans.

Early Girl Eatery – Okay, technically this was on the way back. After Charlotte we stayed another night in Asheville on our way North. Once again, everything was really good (try the squash casserole). Sara had the sweet potato black bean cakes, and I had a blackened shrimp salad. Both were great.


If you’re keeping count at home, that’s four amazing restaurants in one small town. And I’m pretty sure we could have hit up more, but we ran out of time. Not too shabby. However, we couldn’t hang out with the hippies and foodies forever, because it was time for Charlotte…

Urban Belly

/ Shane / Leave a comment

We were looking for somewhere new for lunch and Sara vaguely remembered hearing about a restaurant by the name of Urban Belly.

It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

I think I can say that with some confidence too, since we ordered about 50% of the menu. Each dish was more amazing than the last. Seriously. There wasn’t a one that I tried that I didn’t like. We had Asian squash & bacon dumplings, duck & pho spices dumplings, and pork and cilantro dumplings. Pork belly & pineapple rice, phat rice and sticky brown rice. We had udon (shrimp, coriander, and sweet chili lime sauce) and Asian egg noodles stir fried with spicy garlic chili, tofu, and Chinese eggplant. And finally we had wrinkle beans and kimchi. I wasn’t kidding when I said we sampled half the menu.

As proof of the fact that all of the dishes were equally good, everyone had a different favorite. We were all eating off each other’s plates, but my dish was the phat rice, and I thought it was the best.

It’s Asian food, but Asian like I’ve never had it before. It’s kind of hard to describe what it is exactly that makes it different, but whatever it is, it’s kind of awesome.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the decor, which was also amazing. Everything is made of rough, old, reclaimed wood. The decoration on the walls, the table tops, and the “stools” which are sort of like sitting on a pile of old, stacked logs. The dining room is set up to promote “communal dining”, which it certainly would do, except it wasn’t very crowded when we were there.

Despite it’s pedestrian appearance on the outside (it shares a strip mall with a laundromat and a dollar store), this place is highly recommended. Well worth the trip.

Yum Yum Dim Sum

/ Shane / 2 Comments

The other day we took a trip up to Chinatown to get some dim sum at Triple Crown Restaurant.

Usually when we go to Chinatown we go to regular Chinese restaurants, but we’ve talked about getting dim sum for a long time. First off, the idea of getting many small dishes and trying all of them is awesome for anybody, but it’s especially awesome when you have kids. If they don’t like something, you just move on to the next thing. Second off, we have a copy of Dim Sum for Everyone signed by Grace Lin, one of our favorite author/illustrators. We’ve read it many times, so the kids are sort of familiar with the concept of dim sum, and were excited to try it. (Note that the title of the post refers to a different dim sum book by that name that we’ve read with the kids, so they’re pretty well versed in the concept.)

Well, all for naught, because Evie didn’t want to try anything. She was her usual picky self, and tried a couple of tiny bites that she was pre-disposed to dislike, and therefore wasn’t going to like no matter what. She wouldn’t even eat any of the plain white rice.

Not to worry though, because Ollie *LOVED* it. His love more than made up for Evie’s apathy. The two of them have always been night and day about food. Considering we’ve raised them more or less identically in terms of what kind of food we offer them, etc., I believe Sara’s comment was, “I guess it goes to show you, it doesn’t matter what you do, some kids want to eat and some don’t.”

Anyway, there’s probably nothing Ollie likes more than eating a bunch of different things. Well, there is one thing he likes more, which is eating with chopsticks. Holy smokes did he love that. Don’t even think of trying to take them away from him. He even manged to pick a few things up with them.

The only think Ollie didn’t like is when he burned his face off. Oh, the poor boy, I’ve never felt so sorry for him. He had a sesame ball on his plate, and we assumed, like an adult, he’d take a small bite of it. Instead he quickly crammed the whole thing in his mouth. It was HOT and he lost his poor mind. He obviously thought he could get rid of the burning by trying to swallow it down as fast as he could, rather than spitting it out right away. His face went nuclear and he started shaking like a convulsion. We got him to spit it out and swallow some water, but, I’m not going to lie, it was very frightening. He cried a little bit, and then immediately went back for the sesame balls. Oh, to be a kid again.

Overall, everyone thought it was pretty great, except perhaps Evie. She did, however, enjoy the giant fish/crab/lobster tanks covering one wall, so at least she had something to do.

There was one definite high point of the evening for me. I’m sure what Evie meant to say was, “Yon television program is displaying raccoons.” But what she actually did was point across the room and shout, “I see rats!” There might be worse things to shout in a restaurant, but I don’t know what.

90 Miles Cuban Cafe

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I like to try all different kids of food. When you do that, you sometimes pick something you like, and sometimes you strike out. That’s just the way it goes (although I think there are a lot more wins than losses…I’m not very picky). However, there seems to be one kind of food that never seems to disappoint, and that’s Cuban food. Maybe its because they make ridiculously good sandwiches, and I’m a sandwich kind of guy. Maybe something about the pseudo-Spanish spices are just on my wavelength.

Anyway, all of this is just to explain why I found myself at the 90 miles Cuban cafe last weekend, the long odds it was up against, and how I ultimately wasn’t disappointed.

The cafe is very small on the inside. It’s more of a take-out kind of place. So when we showed up with the whole fam, we basically took up half of the available space. There’s only a high counter with bar stools, so it’s not exactly kid friendly, but they do inexplicably have high chairs.

Since everything sounded pretty good, we ended up ordering a metric ton of food. We were kind of sheepish about it, but A) we spent less than $30, and B) we ate all of it. So I guess it wasn’t so ridiculous! There wasn’t a single thing I didn’t like. The consensus winner was the chorizo and goat cheese empanada. We split on the yuca con mojo, but my cubano sandwich was amazing, and Sara’s bistec was equally good, if very different. There was much, much more (though they were out of shakes).

I even like their slogan, “Taste the Forbidden”. It makes me feel like I’m getting away with something. And gobbling down delicious empanadas also makes me feel like I’m getting away with something.

So, long story short: recommended!