FTF – South End

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Food Truck Friday

I took a break from the blog for Easter but I did hit Food Truck Friday in South End on Good Friday.  This is a regular event hosted by Sycamore Brewing a local brewery with a nice taproom, beer garden and a big parking lot they corral the trucks in.  Sycamore is on Hawkins Street in Charlotte and this is a very popular event.

The normally quite sufficient parking lot is blocked off for the food trucks and patrons so here’s a caution for anyone planning to go, parking is a bear.  The event is from 5:00pm-10:00pm and I had arranged to meet a friend at 5:30ish and I arrived at 5:20 and it was quickly evident there was going to be a walk in my future.  I drove around for a while before parking at a business off Rampart St. hoping they wouldn’t be the towing kind.  Some of the businesses had signs up explicitly stating they would boot or tow.  Fortunately the weather was good so the short walk wasn’t bad.

I met my friend Jody and we did a circuit of the 8 trucks we had to choose from and I decided to try Queen City Sliders but they were having technical difficulties and didn’t take an order for some time that exceeded my patience so I jumped into the line for Tin Kitchen.  These folks have several trucks and a pretty regular schedule so they are easy to find if you need a fix. 

The menu has interesting tacos, quesadillas, nachos & sliders as you can see from the menu below.  I thought hard about the Special but I’d had my mind set for sliders so I decided to go that route.

I got two Korean BBQ sliders and one of the Balsamic Portabella Stack.  It took about 10-15 minutes after ordering for the food to come up but it was worth the wait.

The Korean BBQ sliders were made with beef topped with what they called 30 minute kim-chi and some hoisin sauce on a brioche bun.  The meat was tender and moist with a good flavor, slightly sweet with a hint of spice and more filling than they would appear at first glance.  I got the portabella stack just for variety with fairly low expectations of a meatless slider but was really pleasantly surprised.  The portabellas were balsamic marinated and there were grilled red peppers and fresh mozzarella cheese plus basil and tomato aioli on a brioche bun.  That was so tasty I forgave it for the lack of meat.  The tang of the marinated mushrooms and the mildness of the cheese plus the textures all worked well together and honestly if I was to do it again I might get one BBQ and two portabella sliders.

Jody decided to try out Papi Queso, which has been featured on a previous blog but I will share a shot of the Pig Mac she got.  This is a pulled pork and mac and cheese grilled cheese that was apparently really filling and delicious based on her feedback.  If it was anything like the quality of the sandwich I tried before then they are two for two.

We ate our meals sitting on a low wall between the beer garden and the parking lot.  So here is another caution for those interested in checking out FTF, this is a dog friendly event and that is taken to heart.  The website says dog and child friendly but we saw twice as many dogs as we did children.  Now all of these animals were on leashes and their owners kept them under control pretty well so there were no incidents but I caught a malamute eyeing my sliders pretty hard.

After finishing our food we adjourned to the taproom to try an adult beverage.  The bar was several people deep so it took a few minutes to get to it and get some service.  I opted for their honey toasted amber and Jody got a Windy Hill Orchard peach cider.  They also have some wines for those who go that way.   The beer was decent but not really noteworthy.

We found a small table near a window so we have a view of the live music outside but couldn’t hear much because it was loud in there but we were able to toast a successful venture to expand our palates.

I’ll be hitting Food Truck Friday again this year for sure but I’ll consider a couple of lessons from this trip.  First if the weather isn’t too hot I’ll probably take the light rail to the East/West station with is just a couple of blocks from Sycamore Brewing.  If it is hot then I think trying to get there before 5:00 and trying to find a parking place then or wait until after 6:00 when the other businesses are almost guaranteed to be closed.

 

I Shall Return

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Philippines

This weekend I was able to add a new stamp on the Culinary-Passport by visiting a Filipino restaurant with great friends and previous blog participants, Andy, Melanie and Ian McGehee.  Any meal shared with friends I’m predisposed to like but Hot4Wings / Filipino Flair in Lexington, SC earned my like by serving up some great dishes.

The restaurant is in a busy little shopping center and isn’t very big but the few booths and tables they had accommodated the small number of patrons that visited while we were there. That was good for us but this place should be busier than it was on a Saturday afternoon.  As the name implies the place has wings and in quite a large number of flavors but that wasn’t what we came for and judging by what we heard I think the Filipino Flair side of the menu is what’s growing and was certainly what we came for.

The gentleman working the counter and we presumed an owner of the establishment was very glad to answer any questions and offer up suggestions from the menu.  One thing to note is this is a smaller place and they may be out of some of the items temporarily or have limited supply.  He was quick to point out what he was out of or was limited in so as to set expectations which is a great customer service move.  As we talked through out orders we made it clear there would be sharing and he brought plates and the meals were set in the middle of the table so they could be communally shared.

We started with the lumpia rolls.  We got pork and allegedly they had vegetarian as well but there was an option with meat so….


Lumpia are basically a deep fried egg / spring roll kind of deal but these had some very tasty marinated pork in it and not just a speck but a significant porcine presence.  The dipping sauce was a fairly spicy chili sauce, not too hot and a little sweet.  Great way to whet the appetite for the feast to come.

Next up we got the house pancit.

This dish was rice noodles with meat and shrimp and a lot of goodness.  The noodles were light and flavorful while the meat was tender and tasty.  The shrimp all disappeared as well so I’m assuming it was good.  We quickly put a dent in this which was good because the next two dishes arrived soon after.

Here we had the pork adobo and sizzling sisig.  Both came with white rice and the adobo had some vegetable garnish as well.  The adobo was marinated pork bites served in some of the marinade that made a nice gravy for the semi-sticky rice.  The sizzling sisig was shredded pork cooked in a sauce that has mayonnaise as a key ingredient and those red peppers on top added spice aplenty.  For the curious sisig was originally made from the pigs face being all chopped up with other ingredients that wouldn’t necessarily make the first cut at your finer dining establishments.  I doubt this was pig face sisig but even if it was I don’t care because it was good.  The last of the entrees we were told would take a little bit longer and it showed up after we had done some serious damage to the these two.

The final entrée was crispy pata which is deep fried pork leg.  I expect this takes longer because as I now understand it the joint is typically boiled to tenderize it a bit and then deep fried.  The deep frying turns the skin into crackling and actually cooks out some but not all of the fat.  The pata was served with two sauces, one vinegar based and one we couldn’t determine the composition of but it was brownish grey, a little bit sweet and complimented the pork very well.  I think the vinegar was rice wine vinegar but I wouldn’t swear to it.  Dipping the pork in the vinegar gave it a kind of eastern NC BBQ flavor.  Oh yeah it had that unnecessary vegetable garnish as well.

As full as we were we had to try one of the deserts and opted for the banana lumpia.

The banana lumpia is pretty much what you could guess.  Banana and some mystery ingredient (we forgot to ask) wrapped in a roll, deep fried and topped with powdered sugar.  It really wasn’t that sweet and there was general agreement with Melanie’s observation that they would go great with ice cream.

I’d definitely recommend this place to anyone.  I know most of our dishes had pork but they have a number of chicken and other shrimp dishes as well as wings and sandwiches.  If you can round up friends to take all the better.  Give them a try if you’re in the area and if you want to know more about the Philippines check out the Tell Me More page.

 

Seafood Sunday

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USA

I kept it domestic this weekend and decided to visit a place I’ve been meaning to check out since I moved up here from Augusta. Captain Steve’s.  As the name and the post title suggest this is a seafood restaurant although they have steak, chicken and pork as well.  I had seafood on my mind however so I thought I’d give them a shot.

When I moved to Fort Mill the parking lot, which is huge, was gravel and dirt and the exterior had the look of a fish camp.  One of those places that has a ton of seating in an open area with lots of plain tables and chairs designed not to be too comfortable because they have a high volume of people to serve on any given weekend.  That’s what I imagined anyway passing it countless times without ever going in.  Over the years they’ve obviously been successful and the parking lot has been paved and the exterior got a facelift and based on what I saw I’d say the interior got a boost as well.

The parking lot was about half full when I arrived and I was seated immediately.  They do have efficiency in mind because they have two lanes for you to get seated, one for parties of 4 and under and one for larger parties.  Being Sunday after noon the attire of the crowd was everything from me in my shorts and t-shirt to the guy in the 3 piece suit and family all dressed in their Sunday best at the table next to me.  As you can see from the menu they’ve got a pretty good selection so it is a place you can bring just about anyone.

Going against my southern DNA I decided to get broiled instead of fried and chose the 2 item Create a Platter with the Greek style flounder and sea scallops.  As a side note here my server was a very pleasant young lady who’s name I didn’t get but I liked that when I asked a couple of question she didn’t know the answer too she admitted it and offered to let me try an item or she could ask someone else.  The question she did know the answer to, “What’s Greek style?”, she led with “Do you like feta?” and when I said yes she completed the rest of the ingredients.  She only checked in a few times but they were are the right times and my tea didn’t get empty and I didn’t have to wait long when I was ready for the check.  Ok, back to the food.  The platter came with a house salad and side which I elected to be potato salad.  Along with the salad, which could have been a meal by itself, a basket of hushpuppies was served up.


A nice thing about a place that’s really busy is you can count on the stuff being fresh and this salad tasted fresh and I’m not even really a salad person.  I tried a couple of the hushpuppies and they were decent as well.  Then came the seafood.

The flounder fillet had feta, tomatoes, celery, onions, carrots and herbs, all finely chopped, on top and the generous portion was cooked just right.  The flounder had mild fish taste as you’d expect  and the feta was in fact the strongest flavor in the mix.  The potato salad was ok but I only ate a couple of bites because I had to prioritize at this point and the scallops were going to be priority one.  The scallops were about the best I’ve had in a long time.  They were tender and had a great scallop taste a subtle salt flavor like they were just pulled from the sea unlike at many places where they are rubbery and almost tasteless.  I’m not sure what seasoning they used on them and at first I was afraid it might overpower the scallop taste but it didn’t.  I finished the scallops and most of the flounder but I could not clean my plate today.

So lessons learned, either don’t eat the salad or go for a one item platter otherwise something gets left behind.  I definitely will be going back to Captain Steve’s and trying something fried just to keep things in balance.

 

MRE Showdown

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USA & Russia pt 1

I had an idea for a do ahead blog to drop in some weekend when I wasn’t able to do the normal blog.  I thought it might be interesting to compare MREs from different countries with the US being one for sure.  The only other country’s rations I could find easily was Russia’s so I ordered up some of each.  Due to the fact that there are multiple meals involved this will be a two part post starting with the challenger, Russia.

The Russian one actually is one package for a full day or 3 meals whereas the US ones are packed one meal per package.  Neither one had what I’d call anything like a normal breakfast but both have fairly high calorie count as you’d expect to need if you’re doing strenuous activities often associated with military life.

The Russian arrived first and as you can see in the first photo it was vacuum packed.  Inside is a cardboard container with a nicely packed series of packs and containers.  Now this is all in Cyrillic and I don’t read Russian so this is pretty much a by guess and by golly although some I could figure out.  So here’s what was in the box:

3 large foil tins, 2 small foil tins, 1 small round can, 4 packs of crackers, 2 individually packed tea bags, one pack of coffee, one mystery foil pack, one pack with peaches I figure is a desert of some sort, a pack of powder with fruits & vegetables on it I figure may be a drink powder, 3 packs of sugar that are at least 2 tablespoons full, salt and pepper packets, 3 two packs of what I assumed were wet naps (they were), 5 charcoal tablets for water purification, 3 waxy tablets and a foldable heater, 6 matches and a striker, 3 spoons, 3 napkins, some weird little plastic device and something that is clearly a pill of some sort.

Since I wasn’t planning to start a fire on my table I threw most of the accessories in my emergency zombie apocalypse stash.  I decided one big tin, one small tin / can, one pack of crackers, one of the other packs and a caffeine source would make a meal.  Here’s the first batch.

The first big tin turned out to be rice and meaty flavored fat dish, allegedly beef.  It honestly had a fairly decent flavor with a  bit of black pepper added. The crackers had a kind of stale taste that was the first thing you noticed and was a bit off putting but I powered through.  The little can turned out to be filled with a cheese flavored substance much like the old C rations had canned cheese but this wasn’t quite that good.  It did have a mild cheese flavor and covered the cracker taste but that’s about all you can say for it.  The mystery foil pack had jam that made me wish I still had crackers left.  It was sweet and tasted like a cross between apple and apricot.  The tea I heated in the microwave and it was nice and strong and a packet of the sugar made it something to carry you through a few more hours.

Here are the contestants for the evening meal.

The tin that looks like dog food was a salty beef in liquid and the white stuff is congealed fat.  When heated it the beef was tender and swimming in what I’m going to call broth.  The beef wasn’t bad but there was so much liquid it had to be part of the equation so I took half the semi-rancid crackers and broke them in to small shards and added them to the mix.  In addition to soaking up the “broth” it had the added benefit of softening the crackers and masking their taste.  The smaller tin had a meat paste that sort of tasted like patê if you’d never actually had any.  The other half of the crackers were devoted to this delight.  The final course in this meal was the fruit bar thingy.  As the picture showed it definitely had peaches but also finely chopped nuts and a peppery taste from some spice.  It wasn’t bad but it’s not going to be on my “gotta get me more of that” list.  So filling but not a meal I’d really want to have again.

The last I only snapped after the lids were removed as my enthusiasm waned but I supplemented with a nice snap of the tea and coffee.

 

The big tin had a beef stew in it and was actually the best of the lot.  It was mainly potatoes and beans in gravy but there was enough meat to let you know it was beef stew and honestly was fairly good.  The small tin had eggplant paste the consistency of pumpkin pie filling but not the taste.  I didn’t know how you were expected to eat it but I busted out another pack of the crackers and used it as a dip.  It wasn’t as disgusting as it looked but it was filling.  The green pack was a drink powder but didn’t have much of a distinct flavor and the coffee was everything you’d expect instant coffee to be.  I didn’t but if you added a bag of the sugar to the coffee that would get you moving for a while.

The beef stew and the tea were definitely the highlights of this package.  To reflect my final judgement let me tell you what should be a joke in the Russian army if it isn’t already.

Why did the Russian dog lick his butt?  Because he was trying to get the taste of the Russian MRE out of his mouth.

To be fair the packaging was well done and the contents efficiently packed.

Part 2 will be 3 US MREs.

Finger Food

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Ethiopia

This weekend I decided it had been a while since I’d had any food from Africa and I had seen something about a new Ethiopian place opening just a few weeks ago so I took the culinary passport to Abugida Ethiopian Café.

The restaurant is in what used to be a house with 2 parking places in front and a lot of parking in the back.  There was only one car in the lot when I got there and I wondered if they might be closed but it just turned out they weren’t busy.  I walked in and there was just a guy playing with his baby at the register and he called the young lady who waited on me.  Everything was freshly painted and they have décor that let’s you know it is an African restaurant plus they play African music.  The menu is not extensive being just one page with both meat and vegetarian options but it is all ethnic so don’t expect to get the kids a chicken nugget meal.

The young lady who took my order asked if I’d had Ethiopian before to make sure I knew about injera and offered to answer any question.  I decided to go with the Doro Wet which is the spicier of the two doro dishes.

So just up front they don’t bring silverware, you eat the meal with the injera bread by tearing off a chunk and scooping up food.  I’m sure they would have brought some if requested but it’s not provided normally.  The doro wet is a chicken leg in a gravy made from herbed butter, onion, garlic, berbere spices, and other stuff and a boiled egg for good measure.  The white pile on the side is aybe, an Ethiopian homemade cottage cheese.  When she brought the plate she carefully spooned the chicken leg and egg onto the injera and covered them in the sauce and left the balance of the sauce in the little pot.  The spoon in the pot actually looked like it was made from animal horn but I didn’t confirm that.

A nice thing about this place is in addition to the injera the food is served on they also bring an extra one rolled up so you have plenty to scoop and eat with.  The chicken was very tender and the egg was suitably eggy but the sauce is where all the flavor is in this dish and it is tasty and just spicy enough that I broke a light sweat before I finished.  The aybe had a nice mild cheese taste, frankly better than any cottage cheese I’ve had from a store.  At first I was skeptical that one chicken leg and an egg were going to be sufficient to the task but I was stuffed by the time I got though and had my coffee.

This was the set up I could see across the room plus a cappuccino machine to the right that didn’t make the picture.  Honestly I expected to get some strong black coffee but that was not the deal when I agreed I wanted the Ethiopian coffee.

What happened was they came to what I thought was just a display in the corner that you see below and grabbed a cup and saucer went to the back and 10-15 minutes later I was served up a little pot of coffee plus a little brazier that had some resinous incense sprinkled on an ember.

The coffee was stronger than your average American cup of joe and while sugar was provided dairy was not part of the standard setup.  I was offered milk if needed but I declined.  I sat and enjoyed a couple of tiny cups of coffee and wondered why this place wasn’t busier.  I enjoyed the food and coffee but honestly what made the biggest impression was the people.  While I was there I had my main server but there were three other people, not counting the baby, who worked there or at least passed through the dining room and every single one of them asked if I needed anything or if they could do something for me.  Very warm and welcoming and all from Ethiopia from what I could discern.

If you don’t mind getting a little handsy with your food I’d recommend trying this place out.

In case you missed it the first time here is the Tell Me More page for Ethiopia.

WTF at FTS

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What the Fries?

This weekend I actually hit food trucks in Augusta, GA and Charlotte, NC both times with friends and live music so it was a pretty good weekend.  I didn’t take any photos or note the name of the truck in Augusta because I am a slacker sometimes.  That being the case I’m going to focus on Saturday evening’s food truck but want to give a shout out to the folks who made that polish sausage on a big roll with grilled onions and peppers plus slaw but sadly no napkins.  It was a miracle we didn’t wear more of it than we did.  Also thanks to Renee, Mike & Kim for sharing the evening and enduring some good and not that great cover bands on the Commons in Augusta for St. Patrick’s day.

Saturday evening I had my stuff together a little better and met with friend and fellow food enthusiast Jody at Food Truck Saturday (FTS), sponsored by The City Kitch and Wild Wing Café in northeast Charlotte.  We had been stalking a food truck called What the Fries Charlotte for a while trying to find a time and place we could meet to check them out and this event worked out.

From the skies you’d never know we had a short rain delay but the evening turned out to be a fantastic one for eating outside.  As you might expect from the name the headline truck specializes in fries but not just any fries.  They had a number of different and interesting selections and we settled on the Truffle Parmesan fries and the Smokey Bacon Fries.

One of the great benefits, aside from good company, to bringing a friend is you get to try more things that you would on your own without being a total glutton.  I was the primary on the Smokey Bacon and Jody was the primary on the Truffle Parmesan.  Both were good but the general consensus was the Smokey Bacon was the better of the two.  The sauce on the Parmesan Truffle was creamy, truffley and parmesany and the fries were good.  The Smokey Bacon was really good. Applewood bacon, shredded smoked gouda, tomatoes and scallions on fries that were cooked through but not crunchy.  The flexibility of the fries let you fold them around the great toppings like a potato corral and scoop up the tasty results for a delightful bite.  After downing those we decided we had to try at least one more thing from one of the other 6 MoFUs (that’s Mobile Food Units I learned from the City Kitch blog).  Since we were in topped carb mode we strolled over to Bebo’s Mac Shack and grabbed a small Chili Mac and Cheese and two forks.

This was some serious comfort food.  The base is their straight up mac & cheese which has pesto cream cheese, smoked gouda & cream topped with chili, shredded cheddar, scallions, sour cream and a few jalapenos to keep it interesting.  This was definitely worth having and without a partner I’d not have been able to hit two trucks without ditching some food.

According to the website they will be doing this a couple of times a month (1st & 3rd Saturdays) with a rotating line up of food trucks so I will definitely be going back for seconds.  A couple of tips if you plan to go; parking was tight at 6:00pm when I got there so be prepared to walk a short ways, there are places to set up a chair if you are so inclined or you can pull up a curb, there is a limited beer and wine selection, and I didn’t see any public restrooms but I wasn’t looking for one either so I could have overlooked them.

Anyway I’d recommend the event, What the Fries & Bebo’s Mac Shack food trucks.

 

Cheese, Coconut & Weird Yoga

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Papi Queso

Well this weekend was another food truck lunch.  I happened to see a tweet that the Papi Queso Truck would be at an event at Sycamore Brewing.  It was a brunch for the Salty Coconut Can Release.   How could I pass up a gourmet grill cheese truck at a brewery.

The brunch was from 9-12 and I got there around 11 so it wouldn’t be too early but hopefully they wouldn’t have run out of too many things.  I guess I should mention you won’t just notice Sycamore Brewing as you’re tooling around town as it’s kind of on a side street but that means they have lots of parking on the street and in their spacious lot.  They were already serving up draft beer in the taproom and selling cans of the aforementioned Salty Coconut beer (more on that later).

In addition to the regular menu Papi Queso had a couple of special items for the event, a Salty Coconut French toast and a croque monsieur sandwich.  I went for the croque monsieur because if you’re going to get a fancy grilled cheese you might as well have one with a snooty French name too.

It was taking them about 10 minutes per order so I went in and grabbed a pint of the Salty Coconut Red Ale and a 4 pack of the cans to help bide my time (just the pint not the 4 pack too).  This was a very interesting beer.  You immediately got the coconut taste and then the smooth red ale washed it away until the next sip.  I wouldn’t want to make a steady diet of it but this was a great change of pace beer.

 

The croque monsieur was a really tasty grilled cheese as you might expect from something made from French rosemary ham, gruyere cheese on French Pullman bread with sea salt and scallions sprinkled on the top plus a side of truffle mornay sauce for a little dipping.  I’m thinking any of the menu items would certainly be worth trying and like any good grilled cheese provider they offer tomato soup as well so you can get all your comfort food needs met at once.

I was going to just go sit in my car and eat the sandwich but the Sycamore Brewery has a beer garden plus additional seating at picnic tables and on one of these tables was a lady on all fours and a guy was taking her picture with two other folks standing there watching.  Well I figured I might as well have a show while I ate and sauntered over to one of the other tables to observe this spectacle.  By the time I got to table the young lady was contorted into some odd pose with her hands on the table and her legs up around her elbows which made an impressive centerpiece for the picnic table.  Based on my observations the story I decided on was that it was a photo shoot for some yoga studio or classes or something.  One of the other folks was the posers husband and joined her in some of the shots doing some tai chi looking stuff.  It was an interesting accompaniment to brunch.

Final judgements; Papi Queso Truck – Yay Cheese!, Sycamore Brewing – Yay Beer! also they have food trucks regularly on site, Yoga show – Yay yoga pants!

 

Skol

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Norway

Well I did a little searching for some new countries to take the culinary-passport to and while I didn’t find a restaurant dedicated to Norwegian cuisine I did find one that had a Norse theme and a Norwegian burger so that was the stop this week.  The Valhalla Pub & Eatery is in uptown Charlotte on South Church street at the mouth of a cool little alley with several restaurants shops.  I was in the same neighborhood almost exactly a year ago so you can find that post if you’re interested.

Since I know from my Norse mythology you don’t just roll in to Valhalla and I couldn’t find any Valkyries to take me I settled on a Lynx.

It was nice parking at the end of the light rail line and riding uptown.  I experienced no frustration, didn’t cuss at anyone, and didn’t have to find or pay for parking when I got there.  Yay transit system!

The Valhalla lives up to its name and is a nice little pub.  It wasn’t crowded when I got there but it started to get a little more lively as the football crowd started arriving to watch some match.  What?  There’s no football being played now you say.  True.  This was the other football, the one with the totally round ball.  Some of those fans were odd but there was no face or body paint (visible). One guy brought his ball like he thought a pick up game might happen or maybe it was his lucky ball, I don’t know.  Anyway I got out just before the match started so I won.

Back to the food and drink.  I went for the previously mentioned Norwegian burger and a local brew, Black Blaze Chocolate Milk Stout, to wash it down with.

The Norwegian burger is not your normal round burger but an oblong mix of beef and pork on a nice soft roll.  It came with Jarlsberg cheese, a smattering of red onion, something called Norsk sauce and fried egg topping it off.  That egg was over easy and runny so it added a little moisture to mix.  It was good and I liked that they were very spare with the red onion.  You got a taste but they didn’t overwhelm the meat and cheese.  The other item I considered was the Norwegian meatballs but since I did meatballs for Sweden that felt like it would have been redundant.

The Chocolate Milk Stout was really smooth and as you can see from the photo quite dark like a good stout should be.

I did appreciate the sentiment expressed by the chalkboard hanging on the wall.  And this isn’t something you hear everyday but the bathroom was kind of cool too.  No pictures were taken in there because I do have limits.  Standards no, limits yes.

Overall I enjoyed the outing to Valhalla and honestly I can see doing it again.

For some more authentic examples of Norwegian culture check out the Tell Me More page.

 

Lunch Lady

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The Dumpling Lady

This weekend was one for chasing down a food truck (of sorts).  My quarry was The Dumpling Lady and fortunately they were pretty easy to find since they are routinely at Atherton Mill on Saturdays.

It was quite a great day for outdoor dining and long strolls which turned out to be a good thing.  I’d never been to Atherton Mill before but it is apparently popular judging by the very full parking lot.  I grabbed a spot at the edge of the lot and got a nice walk in to the other end where The Dumpling Lady was parked.

As you can see it’s not a truck but more a food trailer and what you don’t see from this side is the line to order.  Whatever else you want to say about the Dumpling Lady popular has to be part of the description.  I got there about 11:45 and as I was in line a guy who already ordered was talking to the young lady in front of me and they were already out of 3 popular items when he got there at 11:30.  A couple of points worth noting: they source their ingredients from local farms and suppliers & this is not an express lunch so plan to be in line for a few minutes.  When I got to the window I chose the chicken & mushroom dumplings since they were out of the sweet pork belly that was my first choice.  They also have noodles, steamed buns & wontons for those who might not be enthusiastic for dumplings and they were moving these in good quantities as well.  When you order they give you a pager to let you know when it’s ready so you don’t have to hover around the window for the 10-15 minute wait.

This is the large with 10 dumplings, they have a smaller one too but I wasn’t paying attention to how many were in it when the guy taking orders mentioned it.  The dumplings were steamed and the texture was tender but not mushy.  The filling was ok but it was really outgunned by the sauce.  I don’t know what all was in the sauce but it was flavorful, reddish in color and slick.  It made eating the dumplings with chopsticks an adventure.  Some of the ingredients I believe were in the sauce were cilantro, ginger, garlic, chives or really small scallions, lemongrass, and possibly chili oil among others.

I washed the dumplings down with some green tea that despite the name wasn’t quite ice cold but was very interesting nonetheless.

There is plenty of seating in the area in the form of benches and tables near the market.  The market deserves a mention because most of the suppliers of ingredients used by the Dumpling Lady have stalls in the market.  Another item to mention is this is a very dog friendly venue so if you have one bring it, if you don’t like dogs maybe skip it.

I enjoyed the dumplings and the day provided a great excuse for a drive and lunch outside but I’m not sure I’d make the drive again just for lunch.  If I ran across them at another venue I wouldn’t hesitate to try them again or recommend them to someone else.

French Deux

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France

That’s right I’m leading off with the dessert pic (spoiler – I had dessert) since it’s nice and colorful.  So this weekend I wanted French food, probably in large part due to a friend posting pictures from France.  Whatever the reason I took the short drive to downtown Rock Hill and popped in to Amelie’s French Bakery.  I’ve been here several times for breakfast, which is fantastic, and I’ve had lunch at the flagship store in Charlotte as previously posted but never lunch at this location.

They had several savory options available that looked good but the turkey & cheddar quiche was what called my name.

It was a generous slice and was quite tasty.  They kept it really simple so the taste of the few ingredients stood out.  In addition to the turkey there was bacon as well and there was plenty of both so you got some of each in every bite.  They weren’t stingy with the cheddar on top either and being cheese it just complimented the rest.  The only nit I’ll pick is they didn’t leave the quiche in whatever appliance they used to heat it up quite long enough.  Tasted great but could have been better had it been hotter.

I didn’t bother snapping a shot of it but to wash this down I opted for their “mélange riche” coffee.  A medium dark roast with notes of blah blah blah and hints of yada yada.  It was good coffee, not as strong or dark as I prefer but a whole lot better than a lot I’ve had in some other restaurants.

One thing about Amelie’s is the eclectic décor and they love some interesting light fixtures as you can see from the one that was above my table.  There was another that had more fringe than a 20’s flapper and yet another that was an inverted Eiffel Tower with a cloud themed lamp shade.

As the spoiler lead off picture showed I had to grab some desert since I was at a bakery.  My selections were a pistachio macaron, a salted caramel & fudge macaron, and a fresh fruit mini tart just to give an impression of something healthy.  They were all three good but it was a toss up between the salted caramel macaron and the tart for the top spot.  No matter, they were just the thing to fortify me for some afternoon yardwork.

If you didn’t check it out the first time check out the Tell Me More – France page.