Goodberry’s Creamery is a Triangle based frozen custard shop that is very good. It isn’t fancy, but it really hits the spot on a warm day. Although they have a couple of locations in the area, the closest to me is this one in North Durham (3906 N. Roxboro Rd):
Their daily special was called sweet cream, and it was excellent.
Seriously, go ahead and stop by — you know you want to.
A guest-blogger!
I’m always on the lookout for pizza that does not make me want to vomit. I’m a Randy’s fan since back when, but lately their pies have seen a significant downturn in quality, and their delivery times are starting to border on comical. Also, all recent pizza I have ordered from there has arrived at my house with the temperature and texture of Jello.
Anyway, with Randy’s sucking, I was intrigued when I spotted Brooklyn Pizzeria (2812 Erwin Rd) recently opened next to Six Plates Wine Bar in Erwin Terrace. A little research described a relatively long-standing North Carolina pizza chain with locations in mysterious backwoods locales such as “Fayetteville” (that sounded like a made-up town to me, but sure enough it’s real). A smattering of reviews - mostly by New York emigres - paint a picture of authentic thin-crust pizza.
I was feeling pretty lazy and hungry last night - and I had drank four beers - so I and two other tasters decided to give Brooklyn Pizzeria a shot. After a fairly reasonable thirty-minute wait time (interspersed with several panicked, direction-seeking phone calls from the driver) the pizza arrived, and I could feel the heat radiating from the bottom of the box. A good sign.
Feeling pretty excited at this point, I laid the box on the kitchen counter, opened it up, and…
OH SWEET MERCIFUL CHRIST WHAT HAPPENED TO IT?
Seriously. Dude. Wow.
There are only three reasonable explanations for this horrorshow:
1. They are now using fighter jets as delivery vehicles, and the driver was pulling enough Gs to cause complete molecular disruption of the pizza..
2. The driver carried the pizza in the fashion one would carry a large book or framed picture, or he just stuffed it into a messenger bag.
3. The slice on the bottom left is an evil murderer, and the slices on the top right literally crawled away to cower in the corner.
Whatever happened, it was a hideous gargoyle of a pizza. A grotesque, Boschian parody of what should greet hungry people upon opening a pizza box. Brooklyn Pizzeria, I am angry with you.
HOWEVER. As you can see in the above tableau of mutilation, there are two pieces missing. This is because we were so ravenous that we couldn’t take the time to rearrange the pie into something resembling palatable food. We just grabbed the first two generally unspoiled slices and crammed them into our slavering maws.
The verdict, and the general point of this entire story, is that Brooklyn Pizzeria’s pizza is awesome. The crust is crispy and flaky, the cheese/sauce ratio balanced and satisfying, and the mushrooms…well, they were definitely picked by cheerful nymphs in some Hibernian wood, that’s how happy they made me.
Screw you Randy’s. You’re done.
By Nick Williams
UPDATE: I tend to misuse words and think everyone knows what I’m talking about. Slumming = eating at less-than-haute places such as trucks and gas stations.
I know we’ve been missed. It’s finals, sorry. But I managed to take a break for some slumming (by which I mean awesomely not fancy, nothing negative implied at all) and here are the results:
These are chicken livers and collards from Metro Express Market & Grill (2500 Erwin Rd, in the Exxon shop). I have wanted to like livers, especially fried ones, for a while now but have been having trouble. I’ve heard from people who do like them that they’re not as ubiquitous around here as they’d hoped, but that a couple of mysterious days a week, they’re available at Metro Express. I got lucky and they were there today (it’s Thursdays and Fridays). It was by far my best liver experience…maybe it was the pretty high fried-to-liver ratio, and/or the spiciness of the fried. Anyway, I recommend, but then I don’t know from fried livers, so take it with a grain of salt.
The collard greens were less good, though I’ve had worse.
We’ll be spotty during finals (the rest of April) but don’t give up on us.
Five Points Cafe (347 West Main St) is apparently finally open. We will check it out within the next couple of days and let you know!
This post is for that special banana pudding loving co-blogger out there. I went to Crooks Corner in Chapel Hill the other night for some fancy Southern cuisine (had an out of town guest). This is apparently the home of the shrimp and grits. And yeah, the shrimp and grits were great: unlike a lot of places, Crooks gives you a ton of big meaty shrimps. Anyways, onto the big find relevant to banana pudding lover: Crooks serves a pretty decent “Good Banana Pudding.” Big enough to share, the banana pudding is *drum roll* topped off with a thick layer of fresh meringue. The custard is slightly tangy with a consistency reminiscent of the custard in an ile flottante. The bananas are neither too ripe nor too green. And oh yeah, there’s the meringue. I am a HUGE meringue fan, so I was totally loving it. The only bad thing I can say about the pudding is that it’s somewhat miserly with the vanilla wafers (or maybe the person with whom I shared the dessert hogged it all?). Sorry about the quality of the picture, it was taken with a camera phone.
Studying is already making me fat, and there are still more than 2 weeks to go, plus all the soul food and tacos that I endure for this blog lately aren’t helping. It’s gotten to the point where I actually crave salad sometimes. Does anyone have any suggestions for good ones? Here’s what I know:
I actually like the salads at Cosmic. I was in denial that they could be good, but now the chicken salad is my favorite thing on the menu. Something about the dressing is different and good (it’s pretty vinegar-y) and they always seem fresh.
Toast’s salad is simple but delicious. Has interesting, peppery greens and great cheese.
The Federal’s special salad is usually good (of course!), and tends to have a good (that is, low) ratio of greens to other (fattening) stuff. Same goes for Alivia’s spinach and arugula salads (not too healthy, that is) which are also a pretty nice price, considering the good stuff on them.
I don’t like Green Tango much. I’ve gotten too many salads there with bitter old spinach and dried out beans, etc.
What am I missing?
According to the consensus of several dim sum aficianado friends, Hong Kong Restaurant’s (3003 Guess Rd) dim sum rates among the best they’ve ever had anywhere. It was definitely a pleasant surprise when I moved down here to even find a dim sum place. The best way to experience dim sum is to pick the yummy stuff from pushcarts. Hong Kong has dim sum everyday, but the pushcarts only come out on the weekends. I’ve made several aborted trips to dim sum at HK on Saturdays & Sundays, only to give up after an hour because of the long wait. Unless you show up at 11 am on Saturday or 10:30 am on Sunday, you (and your group of eaters) will need to have a lot of patience. It can help (not always) when you call ahead for a number, or in my case, to go with a friend whose parents are friends of the owners. Because law school professors like to hold classes at 8:00 or 8:30 am, I sometimes accidentally wake up at 7:00 am on a weekend morning, such as today. Being up so early, I and a friend headed over to HK at 11 am. Got a seat right away (yay!). We got the Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce, pork and shrimp shumai, taro cake, spicy fried squid, beef tripe, and shrimp noodle rice rolls. The sauce for the beef tripe was a little heavier than what I am used to. The shrimp rice noodle rolls were solid: the shrimp cooked just right and served with that addicting sweet soy sauce (HK’s is just right–not too sweet, not too thick). For whatever reason dim sum has the rep of being a cheap meal. Maybe I eat a lot, but that’s never been my experience. The bill came out to $24 for 2 people. Afterwards, I took a 3 hour nap, which means that I probably won’t start my 30 page paper until Sunday.
Chubby’s Tacos (748 Ninth St)
Also, rumor has it Five Points Cafe (next to Toast) just had its final inspection and will be opening imminently. Although, this has been the rumor for a half year, so take it for what it is.
UPDATE: Chubby’s isn’t really open, unfortunately, but there is painting being done on the outside so maybe it will be soon. It’s where Xiloa used to be. Something to look forward to, maybe.
I’m very sorry if no one does. But I’m going to keep going on the pudding track for just a while longer. The banana pudding at Honey’s (2700 Guess Road) is quite good, if not one of my favorites. I’m partial to puddings with more solid wafers; in this one, the wafers were almost totally dissolved into the pudding. This made the pudding itself pretty delicious, and it was also airy-er than any of the others I’ve had, but I think I prefer it denser.
Honey’s is a good place to study. The music is pleasantly innocuous (well, I kind of like oldies, maybe that’s weird), there is lots of coffee and unhealthy food but I don’t feel pressured to keep ordering, there is a smoking section (for the cool kids, not me), and it’s open 24 hours. Mainly, they have wireless and at least a few outlets.
So, one (out of three total) of the cool things about Chapel Hill is that there are a couple of neat local food blogs that have popped up. (In case you are wondering, the other 2 cool things are Jujube and Bonne Soiree.) On the recommendation of the folks at The Biscuit, I stopped by No. 1 Panda House (3808 Guess Rd).
As was recommended, I ordered off of the “super secret” Shanghai menu. The lady taking my order was very friendly and helpful with explaining some items on the menu to me. Unfortunately, this place just didn’t do it for me.
I ordered the San Huang chicken (chicken served cold in a soy based sauce), and it was just OK (basically tasted like cold chicken in soy sauce).
I also tried the Lion’s Head Casserole, which was a huge pork meatball-ish thing. It had potential, but something about it caused me to not finish more than one of them.
The nice lady recommended the Sauteed White Fish with Wine Sauce, and this was by far the best food of the meal. However, it wasn’t good enough for me to eat all of it, and is not something I would return for.
The Durham/CH divide continues..
