Triad City Bites January 2018

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2018: Be good, be consistent

L

ord only knows how many restaurants the Triad boasts — but certainly more than I as a mere observer of the local culinary

by Carroll Leggett scene can keep an eye on. So to maintain a modicum of credibility, I have marked my territory as center city Winston-Salem and betterknown spots elsewhere in the environs.

And sometimes I wander beyond that.

I am proud of what I have seen happen in Winston-Salem. The city now has an easily perceived vibrancy, and the culinary scene, which now includes crafted tacos and burgers and laudable “new Southern” offerings, regularly receives kudos as part of the warp and weave of the former tobacco and textile center, now boldly marketed as a “City of Arts and Innovation.”

As I am fond of saying: Applause! But as 2018 commences, we can become even better. It takes as much time and effort to maintain a reputation as it does to earn it. Perhaps more. And once it is lost, it generally is gone forever. I listen carefully to what I hear on the street and, of course, heed my mother’s sage advice: Always consider the source.

Consequently, I pay little attention to anonymous “Best-of” lists on the internet, but my ears do perk up when I see rankings by people or sources I know and respect in the food world. Locally, I know folks who generally understand and appreciate good food and, at the same time, I know the habitual “whiners” whom the Good Lord himself couldn’t please.

So where are we going with all this?

Simple. Recently I have been disappointed with dining experiences at restaurants that I patronize frequently, and so have friends whose opinions I respect. I won’t call these spots out “in open church,” as we Baptists use to do to congregational sinners, for one-time transgressions.

However, I do want to urge chefs and owners in this new year to pay attention

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Triad City Bites

to consistency and be zealous in guarding their reputations.

We have excellent chef-driven restaurants where regular patrons know the kitchens and, in many cases, make dining decisions based on a chef’s reputation.

We have all heard the expression, “Every plate has the chef’s name on it — regardless of whether he or she is in the kitchen.”

“Reputation,” said one wag, “is what people say behind your back.” It’s street talk. Cocktail banter. Bad experiences spread like a California wildfire.

Consistency. You cannot be consistent if you don’t know what you are about.

A clear culinary mission communicated to every employee is the logical starting point. Hire good employees, give them proper training and supervision, and make sure each has the ability and desire to execute. Create an expectation in the dining community and then make sure you deliver on that expectation every time a diner walks through the door.

In frustration, I once told an owner, “I will come back and eat with you. When you are good, you are very good. I will take the risk. But I can never bring another guest here and take a chance on being embarrassed because you aren’t consistent.” That restaurant eventually locked its doors because it never figured out consistency.

One last thought. There is tremendous competition in the Triad culinary community right now for experienced employees. New restaurants are popping up all over the place. There is constant churn, and I see familiar faces in unfamiliar settings. While this presents a challenge, it can also cause restaurants to focus on training and assuring there is never a disconnect between diner expectations and the kitchen.

And if you see me at one of your tables, ask me how my meal was. I will give an honest reply.

Carroll Leggett is a retired attorney who can often be found at the liveliest tables in any number of Triad restaurants.

Mission Pizza missionpizzanapoletana.com

707 Trade St. WS 336.893.8217

At Mission Pizza Napoletana, the mission is to combine outstanding food and warm hospitality in a convivial atmosphere. It’s an osteria masquerading as a pizzeria, where traditional Italian pastas share the menu with seasonal vegetables, fresh salads and unique specials.

NC’s first genuine Napoletana pizzeria, MPN has garnered much acclaim for its traditional pizzas, which feature premium imported and local ingredients, and emerge charred and blistered from the 1,000-degree Stefano Ferrara oven, with a light, soft cornicione and a crispy veneer.

Blue Denim bluedenimgso.com

217 S. Elm St. GSO 336.676.5689

Chef Jody Morphis honed his Cajun cooking chops in restaurants and kitchens from western Mississippi to Decatur Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. At Blue Denim, he marries that rich culinary tradition with the fabric that put Jeansboro on the map: denim. Lunch and dinner menus boil over with Southern delicacies like gumbo (both seafood and sausage), fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits, po-boys and beignets, with all manner of crawfish and oyster dishes on board. A slate of burgers reminiscent of the old Fincastle’s menu and a rotating list of one-of-a-kind dishes round things out.

Speakeasy Tavern speakeasytavern.com

1706 Battleground Ave. GSO 336.378.0006

1618 Seafood Grille 1618seafoodgrille.com 1618 W. Friendly Ave. GSO

Speakeasy is more than just a dive bar with a pin-up sensibility — though it is that, with drink specials, late nights and occasional live bands.

There’s a menu, too, with sit-down versions of barroom classics like wings, nachos, chili and crab dip.

Look for sandwiches, burgers, quesadillas and tacos, too. You can even eat at the bar. And if you’re just there to drink, that’s okay too.

Mary’s Gourmet Diner marysgourmetdiner.net 723 Trade St. WS 336.723.7239

Mary Haglund owns breakfast in Winston-Salem. Her first venture, Mary’s of Course! Which opened in 2000, was the original farmto-fork restaurant in the city. There she solidified her relationships with local purveyors and her commitment to real, local ingredients, as well as her biscuit recipe. Her egg dishes are legendary, her pancakes sublime. And the specials board always has something interesting. Open only for breakfast and lunch and the sweet spot in between, Mary’s Gourmet Diner is a Winston-Salem original.

The cornerstone of 1618 Concepts exists at the corner of West Friendly and Radiance Drive, the seafood restaurant that propelled owners Nick Wilson and George C. Neal into the fore of the Triad dining scene. Seafood provides the backbone of a menu with Latin, Asian, French and Southern influences and a preference for local and organic ingredients.

The staff knows the way — some of them have been on board for more than 10 years. With an exemplary wine list, a slate of local beers, craft and classic cocktails and, 1618 Seafood Grille remains a standard-bearer. Open for dinner and weekend brunch.

Triad City Bites

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When the time came to build his own bar, Tony Stevens knew exactly what he wanted to do with the Burke Street space, which he would call Vintage Sofa Bar. “There used to be a place in downtown Greensboro,” he said. “The Paisley Pineapple. Remember the Sofa Bar upstairs? I wanted it to be like that.”

The Sofa Bar, in what is now the second4

Triad City Bites

floor barroom of Natty Greene’s downtown brewpub, was classy and casual, strewn with couches like a large living room, the kind of place grown folks could go for a drink without feeling so… grown.

Couches and conversation areas, leisurely table sports, a sunken patio, cocktails from true mixologists and a wine list curated by a sommelier. And Vintage is home to the best

bar menu in the Triad.

“Vintage is the kind of place I want to hang out in,” he said.

Not long after graduating Johnson & Wales there decades ago, Stevens returned to his home in High Point and established the Grappa Grille, a Furniture Market mainstay that eventually moved to Lawndale Drive in Greensboro. After closing Grappa,

Vintage Sofa Bar

vintagesofabar.com 1001 Burke St. WS,336.905.9008 ston-Salem, and sought about creating something specifically for this market. He found the spot on Burke Street, which has housed numerous bars over the years, where he would fulfill his vision.

He tapped head bartender Logan Gebhart, who helped Stevens open the Screen Door in Charleston and established the drink menu at the Katherine. He’s created a cocktail menu built from house syrups, fresh juices and top-shelf liquor, with curated wine and beer selections that stray from the everyday. He refinished the interior with wood tones and soft lighting. He found a shuffleboard table.

Vintage serves a menu created by Stevens himself, with homemade beef jerky, housecured olives, small-batch charcuterie and a rotating cast of small plates that relies on the ingredients at hand and the whims of the chef.

Open four nights a week, with brunch on Sundays, there’s no dress code at Vintage and no cover charge; $5 gets you a lifetime membership. It’s dog-friendly, available for catering and private events, and there’s a private parking lot out back.

It’s everything a grown-up could ask for.

Stevens opened restaurants in Charlotte, Charleston and other foodie cities before coming back to the Triad, where he opened Stevens Oyster Bar in Greensboro and the Cast Iron Kitchen in High Point. Then he was tasked with opening the Katherine Brasserie in the lobby of the Kimpton Cardinal Hotel, inside the old Reynolds Tower.

He quickly became enamored with Win-

Find out more at vintagesofabar.com Triad City Bites

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Natty Greene’s Kitchen + Market nattygreeneskitchenandmarket.com 2003 Yanceyville Street GSO 336.656.2410

Flash in the Pan:

Locavore-ish

T

jerusalemmarket.com 310 S. Elm St., 5002 High Point Road GSO

en years ago, “locavore” was anointed 2007 Word of the Year by the Oxford American English Dictionary. Since then the idea of wanting to eat closer to home has only gained traction, which has naturally invited skepticism. Number crunchers have found enough cases

by Ari LeVaux of it being more carbon-friendly to purchase food from faraway places than closer to home, that the locavore case would be sunk, at least if saving the world is the goal.

Pierre Desrochers, co-author of Locavore’s Dilemma: In praise of the 10,000-mile Diet, argues that it’s more energy-efficient to ship a tomato thousands of miles in winter then to grow one in a heated greenhouse close to home. His calculations miss an important X-factor: Few locavores have much interest in a fresh tomato in the middle of winter. They tend to taste like red snowballs.

I prefer to put away tomatoes in summer, when they are delicious, cheap and plentiful. Marinated or dried are the best tomatoes for winter salads. (Ketchup, meanwhile, is a perfect tomato product for dressing the all-American burger and fries.)

Once upon a time, a winter salad didn’t even contain leaves, much less tomatoes, and was made of shredded roots that had been squirreled away during warmer times.

Such a meal was originally made possible by the advent of root cellars and other winter storage facilities that kept certain crops cool but not frozen. It wasn’t much, but it was fiber. And given the human habit of eating extraheavily in winter, fiber was a dietary commodity.

Today, at a grocery store or even winter market, it’s pos-

Since 1989, the Triad’s favorite Middle Eastern Grocery built a loyal following near Adams Farm with its international market and sandwich counter in the back.

Jerusalem Market specializes in imported groceries and ingredients, and the most unusual softdrink cooler in town. It’s newest location, downtown on South Elm Street, carries a full board of specialty sandwiches using ingredients like Italian mortadella and salami, Turkish dried sausage and in-house butchered lamb and beef. Fresh-made baba ghanouj, tabouleh and “the best hummos in the world” every day, with organic produce and locally-sourced ingredients whenever possible. Open for lunch and dinner. “You will be pleased.”

sible to easily acquire a rainbow of tubers. I just returned home from the winter market with carrots, purple and white daikon radish and sweet salad turnips and onions.

I passed on a bunch of others that I wasn’t feeling, like Jerusalem artichokes, because I fart enough as it is, and red beets, which would dye the winter salad in beet red.

Nowadays a winter salad can mean more than roots and cabbage. Actual leaves are being grown in unheated greenhouses, as greenhouse innovations have ushered in a winter-salad revolution on par with that brought on

After changing the face of downtown Greensboro in 2004 with the opening of the original brewpub on Elm Street, Natty Greene’s kicked off a massive project at Revolution Mill with the opening of Kitchen + Market. The large dining room and bar area has menus offering everything from house-ground burgers and sausages, and house-cut steaks to fun cocktails, wine and, of course, the full cadre of Natty’s signature beers. Under the same roof you will find the in-house Butcher, Baker and Marketplace, offering all the best things on the menu to take home. Everything is made fresh from scratch, daily.

Jerusalem Market

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Triad City Bites

by the advent of root cellars. My winter market was flush with leaves as well, and cold weather leaves are a special sort, with lower water content then their summer counterparts, to avoid freezing. Stunted by cold like alpine shrubs, they are dense in body and larger than life in flavor. Sure, you can buy kale or lettuce from afar and not feel guilty, but nor would you feel pleasure.

Regardless of the means by which you acquire your winter greens, I’m going to present you with two salads that will make you miss summer about as much as you miss the dentist. At least, while you’re eating. And if you find yourself tucked in some desert oasis or tropical paradise, perhaps these recipes will give you that warm, fuzzy wood stove-y feeling that you relinquish in the land of endless summer.

The first step in many great winter-salad recipes is to prepare an onion by cutting and marinating it, which turns a spicy onion sweet and makes a delicious dressing that doubles as an onion salad.

Slice the ends off a yellow onion, and then slice it end-to-end. Pull the peel off, lay the flat (cut) sides of the onions on the cutting board and slice thinly, along the end-to-end axis, from one side of the onion to the other.

Leave the slices like this, or gather the onion halve back together and slice again crosswise, which will result in confetti-sized pieces. Marinate one onion in enough lime juice and/or white balsamic and olive oil to cover it, with grated garlic and salt to taste.

When I have this onion dressing, I have options. Wintersalad options.

If I’m feeling like an old-school shredded salad, I’ll trim and wash some shreddable vegetables, peeling any that I feel could use it, and then thickly grating the stuff, roots mostly, but maybe cabbage, into a bowl. If you are unsure about the flavor of the roots, or the proportions in which they should be used, start by shredding a representative sample of each item you plan on grating, and do a test batch.

If you want more hand-holding, start with a combination of coarsely grated carrot and finely grated garlic, a combination that, as I learned in Siberia, definitely works.

I’ll never forget my first carrot salad, with salt, fried trout and mayo. No tomatoes, no leaves, no olive oil, but it was a meal fit for Caesar.

Starting there, one can grate in yellow or white beet, a mild radish like daikon and salad turnips if you can find them. Mix the shreds and see how they taste together, then dress it.

One option is to add a few tablespoons of toasted sesame oil and a teaspoon of soy sauce to dress up these shreds. Toasted sesame seeds go well here too, as a replacement for sesame oil. Then mix with the onions.

Alternatively, skip the soy and sesame and just mix the shreds with onion dressing.

And if cabbage is what you’re grating, a dressing of garlic, lime, mayo, shredded Parmesan and a shot of Worcestershire sauce will give it a creamy, vaguely Caesarian flare.

Fresh Brussels Sprouts Salad The consummate gastronome Allen Broach of Greensboro happens, as we speak, to be on a binge of Brussels sprout salads, one of which he sent along from the trenches: 1 pound Brussels sprouts leaves torn form the sprouts 1/2 cup toasted walnuts 3 tablespoons finely grated pecorino Romano cheese 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil or to taste 1/2 t kosher salt 1 T freshly ground black pepper or to taste Balsamic reduction to sprinkle over the salad just before serving Notes: Pulling apart the Brussels sprouts leaves can be laborious, but results in a charming salad of green scallop shells. The inner core of the sprouts, which haven’t yet differentiated into leaves, can be thin-sliced. I swapped pecans for the walnuts, and they were great. Grate the cheese coarsely. For the balsamic reduction, heat a half-cup of balsamic on low, allowing it to slowly thicken to about half the volume. I dressed mine up with pomegranate arils, and the onion dressing, of course. It was special. And local.

Enough

Ari LeVaux writes for the Atlantic, Slate, Grist, Scientific American and dozens of other publications from his home in Missoula, Mont.

Triad City Bites

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Bites & Pints Gastropub bitesandpintsgastropub.com 2503 Spring Garden St. GSO 336.617.5185

COFFEESHOP/BAKERY

Hoots Roller Bar hootspublic.com 840 Mill Works St. WS One of the original tenants of the West End Mill Works, Hoots Roller Bar is more of a bar that makes its own beer than a brewpub that has a bar. Pinball machines, regular food-truck rotations and community events make this a key spot on the cultural circuit.

Cheesecakes by Alex

Joymongers Brewing Co.

cheesecakesbyalex.com 315 S. Elm St. GSO 336.273.0970 Alex Amoroso perfected his cheesecake recipe before opening his downtown Greensboro shop, which also boasts a full coffee menu and complement of baked goods.

Common Grounds Chef Kris Fuller, queen of the Crafted empire in Greensboro and WinstonSalem, joined with longtime Westerwood Tavern owner Mike Bosco to create Greensboro’s only true gastropub. Fuller’s menu takes bar food to the next level, with an eclectic slate of delectables suitable for sharing or grubbing down solo: boiled peanuts, shrimp tempura, chicken and waffles, melts, salads, a full component of burgers and hot dogs and even a kids’ menu. Bosco’s bar has all the necessary accoutrements. Open every day in the Lindley Park section of Spring Garden Street.

Undercurrent Restaurant undercurrentrestaurant.com 327 Battleground Ave. GSO 336.370.1266

commongrounds.coffee 602 S. Elam Ave. GSO 336.698.3888 This movie-themed coffeeshop anchors the corner of Walker and Elam in Lindley Park, with wine, beer, live music several nights a week and a small screening room in the back.

Geeksboro Coffee & Beverage Co.

geeksboro.com 2134 Lawndale Drive GSO 336.355.7180 Besides serving coffee, beer, ice cream and soft drinks, Geeksboro serves as a shrine to nerd culture, from video games to comic books. Check the website for events geared toward board games, TV shows, trivia, film screenings, art, performance and more.

The Green Bean

For 20 years Undercurrent Restaurant has been a destination for an elegant farm-to-table dining experience in downtown Greensboro. Over the last two decades, in both its original Elm Street location and its current spot at the end of Battleground Avenue, the commitment to seasonal menus, quality service and memorable events have remained a constant thread. Brothers Wesley and Chris Wheeler proudly continue the flavorful tradition while looking toward the future as downtown Greensboro continues to grow and thrive. Open for lunch, cocktails and dinner daily as well as brunch on Sunday, Undercurrent’s menu changes with the seasons but the quality remains the same.

Have you made plans for Valentine’s Day? If not, Undercurrent Restaurant is the downtown Greensboro destination you want to celebrate the love of your life or to pop the question. Reservations strongly recommended.

BREWPUBS

caminobakery.com 310B W. 4th St. (downtown), 300 S. Marshall St. (Brookstown) and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center WS The full-service coffeeshop and bakery, known for breads, pastries and unique libations also serves as a popular meeting spot.

Camino Bakery

gsobean.com 341 S. Elm St. and 2204 Golden Gate Drive GSO Downtown Greensboro’s first coffee shop and its sister café in Golden Gate Shopping Center serve Joe Van Gogh coffee for aficionados, with breakfast and lunch menus with surprisingly sophisticated choices.

Krankies

krankiescoffee.com 211 E. 3rd St. WS 336.722.3016 From an artists’ squat to a small-batch coffee roaster, restaurant, bakery and performance space, the history of Krankies is the history of modern downtown Winston-Salem.

joymongers.com 576 N. Eugene St. GSO 336.763.5255 Joymongers, which opened on the Downtown Greenway 2016, does not sell their beer anywhere but the Greensboro brewery — until their Winston-Salem barrel house opens later this year.

The brewpub features a wide patio on the greenway, regular food trucks and live music

Preyer Brewing

preyerbrewing.com 600 Battleground Ave. GSO 336.256.9450 Anchoring Greensboro’s LoFi neighborhood, Preyer makes adventurous beers in a cozy setting, with chairs, couches and small tables. A window into Rafted Street Food allows foodservice in the brewpub.

FOOD TRUCKS Bahtmobile

@bahtmobile facebook.com/bahtmobile 336.283.5086 Southeast Asian street food, with regular spots in Winston-Salem.

King-Queen Haitian Cuisine

@kingqueen.haitian.cuisinefacebook. com/kingqueen.haitian.cuisine Haitian and Caribbean food, with regular posts around Greensboro and WinstonSalem.

Don’t see your business?

Call Brian at 336.681.0704 to get listed.