albionmoonlight

We are looking for a romantic, really delicious place in the Raleigh/Durham area to have dinner for our anniversary. Any suggestions? We like interesting, tasty food and cool/interesting/pleasant ambiance. Money less of an object than usual since it's a special occasion.

Oh, the second question was, does Mountain Smokehouse Barbecue still exist in Asheville? I have seen references to it, but the phone number doesn't work.

I actually have two questions: 1. We are staying in Hendersonville for a couple of days/nights with a small child. We are interested in finding some places in both Hendersonville and Asheville that (a) have good food, and (b) don't mind/like kids being there. Please answer quickly if you see this in time; I forgot to post until today and we are leaving tomorrow!

We are in Brooklyn for a few days and are interested in recommendations for good, reasonably priced restaurants to try, especially for French, Italian, or Chinese food. We are also interested in good bakeries. ("Reasonably priced" means around average for the area.) Specifically, we are in the Bococa neighborhood (around Smith and Court Streets), but recommendations need not focus on that neighborhood. We have already tried (and very much enjoyed) Bar Tarbac and Savoia.

Does anybody know what's going on with Suchi in Cary, NC? It is an Indian food place that we really loved for a while, but after a bit, we could no longer turn a blind eye to the poor sanitation scores (at one point, it appeared that they were being threatened with being shut down). Then they seemed to be under new management. But all reports suggested that the food was not very good under the new management. Now, apparently, the old management is back. Does anybody know what happened? Any chance that this restaurant is back to being awesome? Awesome and clean? We really miss it.

I LOVE Lily's. Never had their wings, so I can't speak to those, but the pizza is terrific -- really high quality ingredients, tasty crust. Worthy of standing up with really good pizza anywhere, as far as I am concerned. If you eat in, there will be a wait (at least at traditional going-out-to-eat times), but I feel it's well worth it. (Or do it take-out.)

Hey! I am not from Denver, but I just visited, and I have to put in a plug for one of the best Japanese restaurants I have ever enjoyed -- I don't know Denver well enough to know if it's in the Denver top 10, but if it isn't, Denver must have some amazing places to top it. We ate at Domo, a Japanese restaurant with both excellent food and a really unique and elegant ambiance -- you could eat outside in a lovely Japanese garden, or inside, which was almost equally impressive. I ordered the daily special nabe -- they have a number of seafood stew options -- and I enjoyed it extremely. My friends who eat there frequently say that pretty much everything on the menu is that good. They had an exciting array of teas too -- many different kinds. And there was a fascinating room full of Japanese artifacts. Also given the quality and amount of food and the lovely atmosphere, the price was extremely reasonable. So I can't speak to rest of Denver cuisine, but Domo is phenomenal.

Sarah's Empenadas are really, really good. Also, if your person likes Korean barbecue, you might want to try Chosun OK on Hwy 54. A Korean friend of ours recommended it as very authentic Korean food. He knows about authentic, so we'll take his word on that -- all we know about is tasty. Which it was. Very. Spicy food options are available there if you want them, too, which we liked. Not sure if they stay open for dinner, but it would be well worth checking, though I should note the ambiance is not particularly elegant -- would be best for an informal kind of dinner.

FWIW, we ended up doing Bullocks Family Style and locopops afterwards. As you would expect, it was all very good. And it was my birthday, so I got an extra popsicle :-)

My birthday is this week, so my friends want to take me out this weekend to celebrate. My instinct is to go to Bullocks, in part because I would like to end up at locopops when it is all said and done. And, while a birthday dinner at Bullocks with locopops for dessert would be a great time, it occurs to me that, even staying constrained by locopops, I may have more options out there. Basically, are there any places on 9th street that fellow Triangle people here think that we should try? I am very open to pretty much any type of food, as long as it is really good. I went to school in Chapel Hill, live in Cary, and work in Raleigh. So, Durham is really the last frontier for me. I could tell you about good resturants in any of those other three cities. Durham, I know next to nothing about, so anything that you can present to me is welcome. Thanks in advance.

Thanks to this thread, Mrs. A. and I decided to make sure that our last trip out to Tennessee involved spending the night in Asheville in order to check out the Early Girl. We really liked it. The food was very good. Their most unique dish that we tried was a sausage/sweet potato/egg scramble. Mrs. A. really liked it. I thought that it was only OK, but I didn't expect to like it because I am not a big fan of sweet/savory together. The Banana Bread was amazing (probably our favorite part). I also really liked the biscuit and herb gravy. I like sausage gravy better than herb gravy, but this was a very refreshing taste. And, unlike with sausage gravy, one can really put it down without feeling like it is a brick in your belly later on that day. The service/atmosphere was really great, too. They had made a mistake on one of our food items, and they apologized, fixed it quickly, and did not charge us for it. They were also really friendly. Even though it was busy, we did not feel rushed at all. Also--and this is important--they had just squeezed the oranges for juice that morning, and you could taste it. All in all--a great meal. Thanks for the recommendation.

One of my favorites there is the Old Post Office on Edisto Island. Last couple times we were there, it took them a few minutes more than I would have liked to seat us (we had reservations), but the food is always great. Both the grits and the duck there I remember in particular as amazing.