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Tasting Thomasville: Downtown Bar Crawl

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Thought we’d try something a little different for this installment of Tasting Thomasville, and share some video from the recent Chamber of Commerce sponsored YEP! Bar Crawl. I’m leap-frogging over quite a few other restaurant visits, but I’ll get to them all in good time.

Would it surprise you to know that I’ve never done a bar crawl before this?

But as I am a YEP! member and as we like to try new things (within reason), we decided to give it a go!

(Direct link for feed readers: YEP! Bar Crawl, August 2015)

3 Tips for surviving a bar crawl in your (late) 30s

  1. Pace yourself (You’re not as young as you once were)
  2. Eat something (alcohol on an empty stomach is a baaaaad idea)
  3. Drink some water (the more non-alcoholic hydration you do, the less chance of you making a fool of yourself in front of a very small town)

In addition to the comments I have in the video, here’s some more info on each of the day’s 5 stops:

Relish, 107A S Broad St

Used to be Relish & Dash a combo kitchen and running store (go figure). Recently, though, the owners decided to retire, sold the business, and the new owners each took their halves and open separate shops. Probably for the best, really. The front of relish is full of kitchen gadgets, cookware, and certain gourmet goods. The back is fitted with a bar area that, when not packed to the gills, is pleasant, I’m sure. We grabbed a glass of Oh, Susina (a peach and grape wine) and retreated to wander around the front because it was just. too. packed. back there. Alas, we missed most of the talk from the Historical Society.

The Billiard Academy, 121 S Broad St
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We grabbed bottled of water from the bar and our chili dogs and headed to the stone tables outside. I just couldn’t take the stale smoke smell in there* so we spent very little time in there. The chili dogs really were tasty: nothing fancy, but good, reliable hot dogs on a soft white bun topped with mustard, chili, and (for Todd) onions. Some things don’t have to be complicated, you know?

Sweet Grass Dairy, 123 S Broad St

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We have, of course, visited their delectable shop before on several occasions (see my Tasting Thomasville post from January) and are big fans! They recently moved down the street a bit into a new space that affords them a proper bar (but no deli counter, though the cheeses are available to purchase to take home, still, you just have to ask) and this was our first visit since then. We opted for American Innovators Cheese Board (featuring Big John’s Cajun, Psychedillic, Belle Honey Chevre, and Beecher’s Flagship Cheddar) and opted to add a meat, in this case the smoked duck. Seriously, I cannot say enough good things about that duck! It looked like thick-sliced turkey bacon, smelled like the best cookout ever, and was just so rich and good.

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Todd ordered the Watermelon Margarita (which was super-tart, not what I was expecting when I took a sip) and I had a couple of Ginger Crisp martinis (Gera vodka, lemon juice, ginger liqueur, lavender bitters). I could go for one of those Crisps right about now. Or any time, really.

The Plaza Bar, 217 S Broad St

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It was really dark in the bar, hence the super-grainy photo.

Between the heat and the wine and the martinis, yes, I was feeling a little sleepy by this stop, and the dim lighting in the bar certainly didn’t wake me up any. But a couple at a nearby table had ordered a platter of fried seafood and it smelled so good that we started getting hungry again, even after the cheese plate from Sweet Grass. We split a plate of fried oysters and it was just enough to satisfy any seafood cravings we had. This was a very different experience from when we wandered into The Plaza during a past Victorian Christmas and had a lackluster dinner, and I’d be willing to go back and give them another try after this more successful visit.

Bacchus Wine Bar, 229 W Jackson St

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Todd and I attended a wine-tasting dinner on Valentine’s Day (that will be written up in a future Tasting Thomasville installment) and I’ve attended another YEP mixer here, but this is the first time we’ve had a chance to try the sushi that they added to the menu at the beginning of the year. We got the Bacchus Roll (tuna, avocado, cucumber, carrots, scallions, and masago topped with spicy lump crab meat) and an order of their Chicken Nachos. Now, the nachos were a bit of a puzzle to eat as they came in a square bowl with the cheesey bits on the bottom, below the chips, with the meat, etc. on top. Asking for a side plate to shift some of it might not be a bad idea. It’s pretty (and tasty), just not practical. The sushi presentation was for more normal and, for their signature roll, I was certainly happy with it.

Overall, we enjoyed the bar crawl. It provided a great setting for a fun date night, and while we were home around 9pm, we don’t feel like we short-changed ourselves for the night in any way. We had an reason to stop and try the chili dogs at the Billiard Academy, gave The Plaza another try, and got to revisit a few “old” favorites. Not a bad outing at all!

*For what it’s worth, I have A1AT deficiency, a genetic disorder that, among other things, leaves my lungs more vulnerable to the effects of secondhand smoke than the average pair and dramatically increases my risk of emphesema and COPD. I’m under doctor’s orders to avoid cigarette smoke and other inhaled irritants as much as possible, so it’s not just a personal preference.

Let’s Go for FroYo!

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Oh, twist my arm why don’t you?

Since today is National Soft-Serve (Ice Cream} Day, we did the next best thing and headed out to our favorite frozen yogurt place, Yoburst. And since I found out about this via the vlog prompts from Kat at Mama’s Losin’ It, we took the video camera with us on this most recent trip.

(Direct link for the feed readers: Let’s Go For FroYo!)

We generally don’t need an excuse to head to Yoburst, though we do have to remember to head that way before 9pm (I swear they stayed open later back when we first moved up here) and give up if we get a craving on a Sunday. Gotta love the South!

I mentioned in the video about heading there after getting news of Todd’s second surgery. That was a Wednesday and it was right around 5 when we stopped by. Since we’re usually squeaking in just before they close on a Friday or Saturday night, the cashier actually remarked that we were out of our usual habit coming in so early mid-week. It was then we started to wonder just how often we ate there!  A month or so after said surgery, we saw one of the surgeon’s nurses coming in as we were going out–that’s small town life for ya!

Of course, making soft-serve (ice cream or frozen yogurt) at home is pretty simple if you’ve got any sort of ice cream maker–just dish it up straight out the machine when there’s still plenty of air beaten into it and there you go! I made a delicious Limoncello ice cream not too long ago that was hard to resist in its soft, fresh stage–the only thing that saved it was that we were expecting company and I wanted to share it more with them than have it all for myself.

Where do you fall on the ice cream vs frozen yogurt debate? And what’s your favorite flavor?

The Case of Insufficient Breading

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And other recipe pet peeves because, hey, why not?

So I posted our menu for last week including the recipe links where available and, first, I’d like to pat myself on the back for not bailing on any of them. Wohoo!

But it didn’t start out all that great when the first recipe, the Orange Chicken, had me mixing up a second batch of both breading components in the middle of prep (and even then that wasn’t quite enough to get all the chicken coated, but by that point I was ready to move on!).

Now, this is not the first time I’ve come across this issue with recipes and I think I know why it pops up so often:

  1. Excess breading ingredients are pure waste: due to food safety issues you cannot use the flour, cornmeal, or breadcrumbs that you just dipped your raw meat or fish into for anything else. The excess has to be tossed.
  2. Nutritional data trumps practicality: a simple nutritional analysis of a recipe is the sum of its parts and does not take into consideration the excess flour and milk that may get tossed in the bin instead the pan. And it’s too much work for most recipe writers to backtrack and manually adjust the nutritional data based on what is reasonably consumed.

So, while it might be possible to coat 2 pounds of chicken breasts (or thighs, in my case) with 3/4 cup of flour and cornstarch combined, but once you chop up the meat the surface area increases exponentially and you wind up, like I did, grabbing more of both the wet and dry items while juggling a hot wok.

In comparison to the Mongolian Beef later in the week which required dredging the beef in cornstarch, while the components were similar in weight and volume, the fact that you were only tossing the beef around with the starch in a bag means that it’s going to spread farther. When you’re doing a 2 or 3-step breading, you lose a certain amount of each component as it reacts with the former, either sinking to the bottom of the bowl for the wet steps or clumping (usually around your fingers) for the dry.

I doubt recipe writers are going to change, so all I can caution you to do is mix up more breading materials than the recipe calls for. Yes, it’s a bit wasteful, but flour and such is usually pretty cheap, so it’s not the end of the world. Plus, breaded items are more of a treat sort of meal, not an everyday occurrence, right?

Also, for the love of flavor, season each component in your breading steps! Don’t overdo it on the salt or anything, a couple of pinches is usually enough, but by all means season the flour mixes: the one closest to the meat will help flavor the meat, the ones on the outer layer will be what hits your tongue first. Do you want to just taste blah flour? I didn’t think so.

Amusingly enough, the Orange Chicken was an exception to my hokey-pokey chicken peeve. (Which I’ve complained about several times.) In this case it really does make sense to cooking the chicken in batches and set them aside because you certainly wouldn’t want the sediment that collects in the bottom of the wok from the frying to mix in with your sauce. Of course, the reason why this exception works is that the process is fairly fast on all steps: quickly fry the batches of chicken, dump out the frying oil and any residue/sediment (and not down the sink–I don’t have to tell y’all why, right?), cook the sauce ingredients and add the chicken back in. Once the chicken is in the sauce you can, if need be, lower the temp to keep things warm while the rice or what have you finishes up.

Other recipe pet peeves?

Oh, things like missing ingredients or missing directions are easy to get peeved at. While I always caution everyone (including myself) to read the entire recipe before starting prep, I’ve been known to skim through the directions only to see it calls for adding extra water or whatnot along the line that I have to scramble for instead of having it pre-measured and ready to go. Worse is when there’s an ingredient listed and they never tell you what to do with it!

In theory, if the mystery item is between other things that are all added together you can be pretty sure that Item X goes in, then, too. Of course, if the recipe write hits another of my hot-buttons and does NOT list ingredients in the order they are used, well, then, you’ll just have to wing it! Some folks take the tack of listing ingredients largest to smallest by weight or volume. Nope, folks, that’s great for food packaging but not so good for recipes!

Of course, as a cookbook author, I’ve done some of these myself (mostly by accident: no matter how many times you proofread something there will still be errors) but I try to avoid them as much as possible. I also try not to get too peeved when others do it, which is why I don’t rant about it all that often. But some days…

Do you have any recipe pet peeves of your own?

What’s for Dinner: Week of 8/10/15

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Sometimes I feel like the most mundane things are potentially the most helpful. I see friends looking for dinner inspiration on the regular–even with the whole wide web to search. Menu planning is something I’ve done pretty much since I moved away from home in ’95–I honestly cannot fathom how you’re supposed to go grocery shopping without knowing what you’re going to cook the next week! It’s my week to cook, so here’s this week’s menu, along with some notes about planned substitutions (both for ingredient availability as well as Low-FODMAP adjustments).

Monday: Orange Chicken with Brown Rice and Spinach
The only adjustment I need to make for the Panda Express Orange Chicken Copycat recipe from KitchMe.com is substituting a wheat-free flour for to regular flour called for.

Tuesday: One Pot Lemon Orzo Shrimp
From DamnDelicious,net, this recipe assumes you have a dish that will go from the stovetop to the oven. Somehow I have yet to add one of these to my kitchen arsenal, so it won’t be quite one-pot, but it’ll still be fairly low-mess. Our local stores have started stocking gluten-free orzo again so we stocked up, I’ll use garlic olive oil and green onions for their counterparts in the recipe, and whatever frozen vegetables we have on hand.

Wednesday: Mongolian Beef, Rice and Spring Rolls
Another copycat, this time of PF Chang’s from Jo Cooks. Aside from the garlic oil for the garlic, this recipe is okay as is. The spring rolls are store-bought and while I could detour to Whole Foods for some gluten free ones, I opted not to. Overall Low-FODMAP isn’t as strict as allergy-level cautions, so a little wheat here and there isn’t going to hurt (it’s actually good to test tolerance levels regularly once the initial elimination period is over).

Thursday: Chicken Enchilada Zucchini Boats
From Cooking Classy, I’m going to use pre-cooked chicken breasts (I have several cans left from one of our Sam’s club trips), skip the onion as unnecessary with all the other spices going on, and use a sour cream substitute in the toppings. I’ll also use a can of strained diced tomatoes over the sauce called for–sauces usually involve tomato paste, and the concentrated tomato-ness can be a bit of a tummy-turner.

Friday: Latkes and Sausage Links
No recipe here, just shredded potatoes, seasoning, and a bit of egg to bind them. On our last Sam’s run we bought a huge carton of dehydrated shredded potatoes, just to see if they were any good (we do hash browns a fair bit). They actually work really well and I’ve used them in casseroles and as nests for fried eggs.

Saturday: Crock Pot Pork Taco Bowls
Spinning off from the Clean Eating Chicken Taco recipe on Dashing Dish, I’m subbing a pork roast I already had in the freezer and adding cheese to the other toppings. I’ll go ahead and put a jar of prepared salsa into the crock pot, but skip the tomatoes with green chilies as I think it’ll be unnecessary. I don’t usually use the slow cooker on weekends, but I’ve found that I’m more likely to not want to cook on the weekends, so this is my attempt to curb the take-out cravings.

Sunday: Dinner out with friends
A meetup group we joined ages ago always meets on the 3rd Sunday to hang out and then go to dinner. We could end up anywhere from a burger place to sushi, just depends on the whims of the group on the day.

There’s always a chance that any of the above nights might get scuttled due to unforseen events (or just plain not wanting to cook). The orange chicken, for instance, was a skipped recipe from 2 weeks ago when we had an unexpected take-out night. I try not to do it more than once a week, if even that often, because it messes up our lunch plans. Of course, if we manage to cook all nights then that usually puts us a day or two ahead on lunches, which makes the occasional night off not so big a deal.

Tasting Thomasville: Andy’s and Q Cafe

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If it seems like I’m dragging these tastings out, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. While we were deciding where to go for dinner last Friday night, I grabbed the phone book and the restaurant listings only take up a single page! Most of the places we’ve yet to try aren’t open for dinner, so I guess we’ll have to concentrate our efforts on weekend lunches in the future.

But that’s for later. Right now we’re winding the gustatory clock back to the end of November.

Andy’s

Small town radio is a wonderful thing. Morning after morning I kept hearing an ad for Andy’s and I was intrigued. Todd had never heard of the place, but they advertised having wings and that was something we hadn’t found a local source for, so I wanted to try them out.

The Friday night before Thanksgiving, after unloading and unpacking the large boxes of my grandmother’s china and silver my aunt had shipped down from New Jersey (early inheritance), we headed down Madison and, just over the overpass, was Andy’s–some place we probably wouldn’t have stumbled on, on our own, since it was outside of our usual routes. We almost didn’t make it in time to order as, even on a Friday night, they were closing at 9pm (as do many places here, we’ve found). It was nearly deserted inside, but looked clean and well-maintained, so we placed our order to-go.

Andy's Wings

Andy’s Wings

Their menu (which you can download from their Facebook page) reminds me of a Dairy Queen–ice cream, novelties, and fast food. This is not a bad thing, mind you, just an observation and a change from what I was expecting based on the one ad I’d heard (I was thinking more like a Wing Zone or Wing Stop).

Their garlic parmesan wings weren’t the best we’ve ever had, but they were certainly tasty and we’d definitely go back. I want to say the other flavor was BBQ, but looking at their current options it might have been teriyaki. The fries and onion rings were basic, reliable sides. Good for a “brown foods” night, as we like to call these sorts of noshes.

Q Cafe

The next day was jam-packed. I was co-hosting a baby shower that afternoon and tried to squeeze in a site visit to a piece of commercial property that was available on the edge of downtown. The building was in rough shape but at the moment we were considering taking it on (spoiler: we didn’t). After meeting with the realtor and taking pictures of the building, I was ready to head back home and finish getting ready for the party but Todd proposed we try out another downtown spot–who was I to turn down brunch?!

Q Cafe--the view from the entryway.

Q Cafe–the view from the entryway.

The Q Cafe is one of the spots we’d often pass on our walks downtown, but always when it was closed. It’s open for breakfast and lunch only, so this Saturday morning seemed like the perfect opportunity to give it a try. It was doing pretty swift business this morning, but we didn’t have to wait too long for a table to open up (there’s a line of tables just to the right in the picture above).

Q Cafe--Little Bit of Chicken Fried loaded potato skillet

Q Cafe–Little Bit of Chicken Fried loaded potato skillet

We both ordered from their Loaded Potato Skillet selections, Todd getting the “Little Bit of Chicken Fried” while I went with the “Big Boy” (sans onions). Mine was perfectly tasty but, oh, y’all, Todd’s was amazing. I had a little bite of the chicken on top of his and it was better than a certain “Christian Chicken” chain we all know and love. Seriously, it was so good. That same chicken is available on biscuits if that’s more your speed.

Q Cafe--Big Boy loaded potato skillet

Q Cafe–Big Boy loaded potato skillet

Since we had things to do with the rest of our day we didn’t linger too long downtown. But I wouldn’t hesitate to bring friends to the Q Cafe for breakfast, brunch, or lunch.

Looks like the next Tasting will be another out-of-town one, judging by the pictures in the queue. We also spent a lot of time going back to favorites (Moonspin, George & Louie’s, and Fallin’s) before trying a few more new-to-us spots.