Triad City Bites November 2019

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

NOVEMBER 2019

Turkey time The eater’s guide to Thanksgiving in the Triad

Curated By:

Also featured in this month’s Issue: The night before Thanksgiving

The Tasting Room $-$$$ 631 N. Trade St. W-S 901 S. Chapman St. GSO

The Tasting Room, with both Greensboro and Winston Salem locations, is perfect for girls’ nights, date nights, social gatherings and work meetings!

The staff is extremely knowledgeable and love to introduce people to new varietals with an unintimidating approach.

They showcase small, quality production, unique wines from all over the world with a diverse retail wine selection. Tasting Room staff takes the guessing out of your wine shopping — like having a personal wine shopper. Love wine or new to wine, the Barrel Club membership offers a huge value that includes tastings, discounts and two bottles of wine per month — a great way to shop local for your holiday wine needs! Custom selections for your holiday gatherings, gift bottles for the collector in your life too. Special ordering available.

B. Christopher’s $$-$$$ 201 N. Elm St. GSO

A classic, an original, a steakhouse. Owned and operated by Executive Chef Chris Russell, B. Christopher’s is located on the ground floor of Greensboro’s iconic Center Pointe building.

Guests are treated with views of Center City Park and an unforgettable dining experience. An upscale bar scene, a selection of private dining rooms, each with a unique atmosphere and art by local artists, all define the physical accoutrement of the restaurant. The approachable menu features hand-selected steaks, fresh-caught seafood and freerange poultry all combine with fresh flavors and classic favorites.

In addition to its indulgent dishes, the culinary team takes pride in its partnerships with local farms, sourcing local ingredients, all yielding superior freshness and quality with classic steakhouse preparations. Every detail puts B. Christopher’s in a class all its own.

Krankies $-$$ 211 E. Third St. W-S krankiescoffee.com

This bar, kitchen and Downtown Winston-Salem hangout serves breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and brunch on the weekend. While known for its fresh-roasted coffee, the restaurant is the heart and soul of Krankies Café.

The menu and the façade have changed over the years, but the core remains the same: a commitment to using local ingredients and fostering relationships with farmers, producers, artisans and customers.

The original space for the Cobblestone Farmers Market, Krankies Café has blossomed into a place where the community comes to eat, drink and be merry. A prominent force of both the breakfast and weekend brunch menus is the chicken biscuit.

A hand-cut chicken breast is, brined, breaded, deep fried and doused with Texas Petespiked honey or smothered and covered with a house-made rich and unctuous sausage gravy. The crisp, buttery edges of the biscuit give way to a hot and crispy union unlike any other.

Don’t miss the wine and beer dinners in collaboration with local vintners and brewers.

These signature events invite guests to the Krankies Café experience, which above all else is approachable, affordable and tastes good too.

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Triad City Bites

November 2019

Mozzarella Fellas $$ 336 Summit Square Blvd. W-S mozzarellafellas.com

The fella behind Mozzarella Fellas, Brian Ricciardi, invites you to experience a relaxing and enjoyable home away from home with Winston-Salem’s most unique and creative Italian cuisine.

Sprinkled with Southern influence and enveloped in passion, expertise and tradition, the focus above everything is creating a warm and welcoming environment for all guests.

Unique flavor combinations, gluten-free options, and vegan creations are the crux of the menu. Try an oyster mushroom-calamari appetizer that’s breaded and fried, served with lemon and marinara, or Southern-fried pork chops with garlic-Parmesan mashed potatoes, a fontina-cream sausage gravy and bacon jam tempered with a fresh apple slaw. Chicken cacciatore might be the dish that calls you home with a roasted-vegetable tomato sauce covering bone-in chicken thighs on top of creamy polenta grits. Vegan BBQ jackfruit pizza with mozzarella, fresh jalapeños, red onions, pineapple and ranch drizzle might wake up your taste buds while the Shrimp and Grits Arrabiata may spice up your life with its Argentine red shrimp, bacon, cheesy polenta grits, Calabrian chilies and roasted peppers.

Whether you drop in for lunch or dinner, the hospitality paired with your new favorite dish will keep you coming back for more.

Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours $$

W-S and GSO tastecarolina.net 919.237.2254 Lesley Stracks-Mullem founded Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours 11 years ago as a way to bring attention to all the wonderful downtown restaurants and foodie shops. The walking weekend guided tours — also available during the week by request — combine lots of food and drink with city history, architecture and culinary information. Tour guides Nikki Miller-Ka and Jessica Harris have been with the company since the tours started, and they love to host locals and visitors on these tours of downtown Greensboro and Winston-Salem, and in even more cities around the state. The restaurants on the tours, some new and many long established, get to tell their stories, too, which bring a personal touch to this unique, movable dining experience.

Stracks-Mullem was applying for jobs in 2008 when she planned a couple of food tours for her visiting foodie family. They went from restaurant to restaurant, enjoying appetizers and wine the first night and then on an elaborate barbecue adventure the next day — to seven different places. These culinary journeys were as much fun to plan as they were to do, and Stracks-Mullem began to think there might be a market for food tours in North Carolina. Even 50,000 guests later, she loves to help people discover delicious, independent restaurants, and the city centers they reside in.

Lesley, Nikki, and Jessica would like to invite you and yours to explore the area’s best restaurants with them this season and to please consider Taste Carolina as an experience gift. Happy holidays!

November 2019

Mindfully Made $ Mayamike.com

Marie Sharp is best known in this country for her array of hot sauces rooted in deep Scoville territory by virtue of the noble habanero pepper.

But in her home country of Belize, the line of tropical jams and jellies shares equal billing.

Look for green or red habanero jellies, mango chutney and jams of banana, pineapple and papaya. Order it online at mayamike.com.

Triad City Bites

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

In the Weeds

Drinksgiving

FOOD+DRINK

T

hankfulness has its limits. Sure, it’s able drinking limits, awkward encounters with people you great to come back to town for a left behind in grade school and the occasional emotional few days. On Thanksgiving Day breakdown. That goes for the Industry folks too. Blackout though, when the spread is getWednesday has a place in notable bar nights, so does ting cold on the table, and the family Amateur Night. Where the night before is full of good cheer factions are retreating to their comfort and brotherhood, Thanksgiving night is an odd assortment zones while screeches of young relaof people eager to get away from the reunion. Industry tives are echoing from the backyard, folks take advantage of this while taking the opportunity to

by James Douglas an irresistible urge starts to form. It’s escape as well. Family time loosens up and some need to instinctual, primitive, impossible to ignore. I call it “The Exit come out. Our holiday begins when everybody else goes Strategy.” back the grind.

When you’re through lying to Brayden about not having So, by choosing to work on these days for the payoff, games on your phone and Linda is walking that tightrope there’s a social contract to accept the shitshow that comes she made opening that third bottle of red, it’s time to go. with it.

Old friends are texted, plans are formed, excuses made.

There’s something about seeing new faces at the bar Your cousin down from DC is the only one without kids you work at. You finally get to meet the random relative now, and he’s got the itch as well. Nana is taking a nap on you’ve heard so much about from established regulars. You the couch, and Linda decides to start in on politics. That see glimpses of who that regular was before they started convinces a couple others to join you on your quest. Ardarkening your door after work. It’s eye-opening to see how rangements are made — the sooner, the better. So as dusk people act around family versus people you only know from turns to dark a caravan is formed, like covered here. Some are alone, and know nothing about wagons headed to the promised land. The bar the city, but just have that need to be around Black-Out that everyone finally agrees on will be tonight’s strangers. There’s some that don’t have anyone Wednesday is Zion. else, and their bar crowd is the closest thing the night before they have to family.

Thanksgiving Day has a unique place in the annals of drinking.

We do a potluck at the bar on Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, Black-Out Wednesday is the night before open to anyone. We’re all orphans at work.

Thanksgiving, notably the most popular bar and notably the most These examples are what makes it hard to restaurant night of the year. It’s the night where popular bar and gauge the outcome of the night. families come together to go out, because, Sarah doesn’t come out much, but she wants restaurant night “Tomorrow we cook, tonight we drink.” Long to keep up despite her low tolerance. Nick is of the year. absent relations are reunited; familial bonds going through a divorce and this is the first are strengthened. The bar is full of long hugs, Thanksgiving without the kids. You haven’t seen laughter, the spiced smell of toddies. Every your best friend in a year. The nasty break-up restaurant has large groups and wait times. Frantic servers Justin had in high school is sitting a booth away. Unknown hustle to each table, refilling glasses, yelling at expos and factors like these can influence the evening. avoiding levitating children in the throes of sugar highs.

All of these scenarios have happened and will continue to.

There’s money to be made, and while busy, it’s not that Our job is making it as enjoyable as possible without judgedifferent from any other holiday. However, the day after ment and with a healthy dose of compassion if the night has an edge to it. There’s something about having to work turns sour. We don’t know their stories or what they’re going on Thanksgiving night that feels… off. It’s not bad, — I look through. There’s a need present, and we accommodate. forward to it, mostly. There’s an “in the trenches” mentalYour crew arrives on schedule. Time to wallow down in ity. To make up for the slow weeks of fall, most who don’t gossip, exaggerate about what you do for a living, maybe leave town for the holidays jump at the opportunity to pick see a welcome face you didn’t expect. Everyone will go up shifts, work doubles, jumpstart that inevitable boom that their separate ways in a day or two, but tonight you’re arrives between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We count on together, even if you don’t know the guy sitting next to you. it. We thrive on it.

Even Linda shows up, she took a nap and it’s time for Round Restaurants, understandably, are slow on Thanksgiv3. “What kind of Reds do you have?” ing Day. But the bar scene is a powder keg of unknowThere’s happiness in company, even if it’s not yours.

Interested in Triad City Bites? Call Brian at 336.681.0704 to find out more.