Triad City Bites July 2019

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JULY 2019

North Point Grill

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Also featured in this month’s Issue: Potage

Dinner Guest

The Summer of Burgers Tour

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n my role as the Man Who Ate the Town, I have eaten a lot of burgers.

You can look at me and tell that I am telling the truth about that. I have been teasby Timothy G Beeman II ing my Top 5 burgers in Winston-Salem on Instagram for a while.

Finally, someone called me out and asked when I was going to post my list of best burgers and stop dangling it like a carrot over everyone’s head.

That got me to thinking. I honestly can’t say what the five best burgers are because I don’t know that I’ve had the five best. I have a couple of places that I return to often because I love them. I have one location in my own Top 5 that was ravaged by fire and another that has closed permanently, so I had to rethink that personal list.

I knew what I had to do: I resolved to try as many as I could.

I think of summer as burger season. I think a lot of folks do. So I decreed it to be the Summer of Burgers.

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, even though it is a few weeks before the actual start, and Labor Day is the unofficial ending, though it doesn’t quite yet feel like fall. But Tuesday, May 28 — the day after Memorial Day — was National Burger Day. What better time to start? The Summer of Burgers runs from Memorial Day until Labor Day at which time I will formulate my favorite burgers into a Top 5 Best or Top 10 Best list.

However, there are some caveats here.

I won’t eat burgers from national fastfood chains such as the Golden Arches, the Crown, Hardly’s or the Little Red Head.

If they are regional chains, preferably North Carolina-based, I will have those (looking at you, Cook Out). All burgers under consideration must be available on a regular basis — a consistent menu item. There have been a couple of burgers that were “made special” for me but while I did docu-

ment them and share them on Instagram, I can’t enter them into the list. The submission must be available to everyone.

I am restricting this to the Winston-Salem area only. Once this is over, I may spread across the Triad, but for now, I’m keeping it in Winston. After all, the “Town” in the Man Who Ate the Town is Winston-Salem. Rest assured, I am taking submissions from my friends, podcast listeners and readers of my blog as I need to make sure I have the whole town covered.

Then there’s the health aspect. I have been eating healthier lately, and I don’t want to regress on that. I recently found out that my doctor follows me on social media.

Talk about a weird conversation. My wife watches what I eat, too. So I made a promise to both my wife and doctor that I would have no more than three burgers a week, and that I would increase my green veggie and fruit intake to sort of balance it out.

So far, my list is full of surprises. Some places that I thought would be great have turned out average products, while some that I dreaded going to have been out of this world. I stopped predicting how I would like a burger after the first week; now I try to clear my head of expectations and just let the burgers speak for themselves.

There will be categories, as most diner burgers cannot be compared to gourmet burgers and vice versa. I am not saying that one is better than the other; I let each stand on its own merit. I find that the right accoutrements can make an outfit better and that is certainly the case with burgers.

Certain buns work better than others, and some configurations are just for flash and excess. The ones that fit the burger best gets higher marks. All of this is considered; I keep a spreadsheet to document my findings.

So far, I’m sticking to the regimen, but I’ve still got a lot of burgers to eat before Labor Day. I just keep reminding myself that it’s a marathon and not a sprint.

I think of summer as burger season. I think a lot of folks do. So I decreed it to be the Summer of Burgers.

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Triad City Bites

6th and Vine $-$$

6thandvine.com 209 W. Sixth St. WS, 336.725.5577

Start pre-gaming your weekend on Thursdays with halfoff glasses of wine. Every Friday enjoy select wines from the Reserve List: well-priced varietals at $15-$20/glass that explore Napa Valley reds. Sunday Funday wouldn’t be complete without half-off bottles. Cool off any day of the week with zero-proof beverage options such as the Blackberry Lemonade Fizz or the Hibiscus Orange Tea. Beat the heat and relax in one of the unique seating areas tucked away in corners of the main dining room or chill at the bar and people watch.

Don’t forget to pair your wine with a small plate from the menu. The popular baked brie goes well with any beverage choice. Golden puff pastry wrapped in creamy, melted brie cheese is garnished with a fresh raspberry compote, garlic-studded honey and fresh fruit. Cured meats, olives, a selection of cheese, fresh fruit, briny olives and buttery crostini make up the substantial antipasti board. Add smoked salmon and triple cream cheese for a real smorgasbord. Spice it up with the Korean BBQ meatballs or oven roasted chicken wings.

Sirloin meatballs are bathed in a spicy apricot chili sauce alongside a pineapple slaw. Oven roasted chicken wings are served with an herbaceous, flavorful garlic chimichurri sauce.

Pairing weekly wine specials with small plates is a great way to relax during the summer’s heat wave.

July 2019

Juice Batch $-$$

Juicebatch.com 2758 NC 68 HP 336.875.4107

Gather your crew and say Aloha to Juice Batch, where smoothies, acai bowls and poké bowls rule supreme. It’s time to squeeze the day and check out the Hawaiian-inspired freshpressed juices, customized smoothies and stylized poké bowl shop in Heron Village in High Point, right next to sister restaurant Small Batch.

Try the Southern-inspired Yallmondmylk, which is a blend of almond, cashew and coconut water. Get a spicy kick from the Kickin’ Karot Gold made with carrot, ginger, coconut and pineapple. Can you get a Kale Yeah? Absolutely. Kale, spinach, cucumber and pineapple lead the trend report in this thirst-quenching, nutrient-rich juice.

Check out the Beach Vibes smoothie with pineapple, apple, kale, matcha powder and coconut milk.

Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, try the OG poké bowl with spicy tuna, cucumber, pineapple and crispy garlic or customize your own bowl and toss in wonton crisps, pickled ginger and a sprinkle of togarashi seasoning.

Grab and go with a fresh pressed juice or go with a Smoothie Bomb topped with chia seeds, granola and raw honey. When you’re ready to power up and head to High Point to fill up on good-for-you eats and drinks, Juice Batch is open and ready for business.

Greensboro Farmers Curb Market $-$$ gsofarmersmarket.org 501 Yanceyville St. GSO

Greensboro Farmers Curb Market will host its Annual Tomato Celebration Day on Saturday, Aug. 10 from 9 a.m.–noon. The day’s event includes live music, kids’ activities, a tomato-tasting bar and a brunchtasting plate featuring tomatoes both fresh and prepared. Picnic table seating is provided and patrons are encouraged to bring picnic blankets and stadium chairs.

The Market will offer a Tomato Taster brunch plate with open-face tomato and bacon sliders, tomato-and-cucumber salad, tomato consommé, tomato pie and a tomato-and-egg scramble. Tasting plates will be available for a donation of $7 per person. Sample and vote for the tastiest tomato from the Tomato Tasting Bar with more than 10 varieties of in-season tomatoes including Pink Girls, Goliath, Carolina Gold, German Johnson, Better Boy, Big Beef, Mountain Fresh, Heirloom Cherry, and Cherokee Purple.

Patrons may also purchase a prepackaged Fried Green Tomato Fixing Kit to make their own fried green tomatoes at home. The kits will include includes corn meal from Old Mill of Guilford. The kit can be pre-ordered at the GFCM website while supplies last.

Proceeds from the event help raise funds to support food security programs that provide fresh nourishing foods to those in need.

Event partners include: Duke’s Mayonnaise, Neese’s Country Bacon, and Cheerwine and GFM farmers.

July 2019

Triad City Bites

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The little diner that could While family-owned restaurants come and go, North Point Grill has roots that began decades ago.

Open since 2005, this award-winning, family-owned and operated restaurant is located on North Point Boulevard near Wake Forest University and Silas Creek Parkway.

Butch and Karin Eddinger welcome guests to dine as if they were visiting their own home. They started a family, a community and a budding empire in that building.

But their story began more than 25 years ago when they worked together at another family diner, Robinhood Grill.

“It was a little diner at the intersection of Robinhood Road and Olivet Church Road,” Karin remembers. “It actually was where I had my first waitress job at age 14, too. And his mom and my mom worked there too, so Butch and I knew each other at a young age.”

A tiny little shopping plaza located across from the Harris Teeter in the Robinhood Village shopping center is where it started. The restaurant closed between 1999-2000, but five years later North Point Grill came to fruition.

Butch worked at Southern Family Restaurant in Pfafftown years ago. He and owner Mike Noah along Gus Stogias of Liberty Restaurant in Lewisville, saw potential in Butch and made the decision to expand their businesses to bring on Butch as a partner. While Noah is a majority owner, he stays at Southern and Butch tends to the Grill.

The homey restaurant serves up fresh homestyle sides, an extensive list of sandwiches and several salads and soups. The lunch and dinner menus boast seminal favorites

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Triad City Bites

such as oven roasted turkey and stuffing, mea breaded chicken tenders, fresh local seafood a pasta with homemade sauces, which are all ac by a large selection of vegetables, sides and a cadre that features an award-winning vegetabl The soup was the recipient of the Golden Ladl the 2019 Empty Bowls fundraiser for NWNC F in April. It beat out over 30 favorites from aroun County.

“It’s truly an honor to find out our soup came considering the competition,” says Butch.

At North Point it’s served in a fresh-baked br this potage of juicy chunks of beef and fresh ve only one of many items on the menu.

Prepare to be impressed and delighted with and quantity of the food and hospitality at this u restaurant.

When asked what he wants people to know restaurant, Butch said, “Food, family and friend we’re about.”

The Eddinger children, April and Austin, are the restaurant. April, now a high school junior, tend to be a waitress and help the customers w younger. Long-time customer Tracy Spencer w the street at the North Point United States Pos would come over after work where he’d conver April. This summer, she officially started workin On her days off she still enjoys coming in, main

July 2019

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North Point Grill $$ 7843 North Point Blvd W-S northpointgrill.com

also to interact with the customers and when time allows, she loves to draw pictures for them. Austin is a little more shy, but makes an appearance in the dining room from time to time. He has mentioned wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps and learn how to cook and also run a restaurant someday.

In the spirit of connecting with friends and community, North Point Grill is hosting Nik Snacks Restaurant Takeover sponsored by Triad City Bites on Saturday Aug. 10. The dinner menu features award-winning dishes straight from Nikki Miller-Ka’s blog, Nik Snacks, including the infamous Philly Cheesesteak Cheesecake, which was featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer after it went viral on Twitter in early June. Essentially, it’s a savory provolone and cream-cheese quiche with a Saltine-cracker crust, topped with sautéed ribeye steak, onions, peppers and a Cheez Whiz drizzle.

Also on the menu are white cheddar-and-chive biscuits which won Best Biscuits at the World Food Championships in Las Vegas in 2015. Extra sharp white cheddar and fresh-chopped chives are folded into Nik Snacks’ signature butter biscuits. The NC-pickled blueberry salad with basil vinaigrette has fried red-onion straws, sliced apples and feta cheese. Finish the meal with the award-winning strawberry red wine cream cheese brownie, which is featured on Dixie Crystals website. Strawberry jam and local red wine are swirled inside a thick, rich cream cheese ribbon and decadent chocolate brownie and paired with ice cream. All entrees are á la carte.

July 2019

Triad City Bites

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Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours $$ WS and GSO tastecarolina.net 919.237.2254 Tours start at $59 per person

Since 2009, Taste Carolina has connected thousands of people to North Carolina’s historic cities and their best restaurants through the lens of locally-sourced food and restaurateurs. Recognized as a top option in the Food & Drink category on Trip Advisor, Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours is perfect for couples, families, groups and corporate events. Walking tours, foodie adventures, and corporate team-building and appreciation events can be booked in Greensboro and Winston-Salem, and all across the state.

Whether it’s a private tour for ten people or 200 people, Taste Carolina will tailor a special day or evening to your needs: - Client and employee lunches/dinners - New employee/intern socials - Meeting and convention activities - University events and student orientations - Family and tour travel - Field trips - Wedding weekend activities and bridal showers Food tours are an ideal way for corporate and other groups to get to know a city and build camaraderie with each other. Enjoy food, drink, and conversation while discovering the area’s best gathering places—hip and hidden, tried and true. Sign up for a weekend walking tour, or book a custom weekday or weeknight event and let Taste Carolina plan an unforgettable experience for your group. We look forward to seeing you.

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Triad City Bites

Twin City Hive Coffee Lounge $ 301 Brookstown Ave.,W-S twincityhive.com

The soul of the coffee at Twin City Hive Coffee Lounge is the espresso roast. A perfectly pulled shot has three parts: the heart, the body and the crema and at TCH, it’s a custom blend of three beans: The Arabica Peaberry, the Trebollios and the Kaapi Royale.

The peaberry is a handpicked cherry which provides flavor and exclusivity. The Trebollios adds a deep flavor to the body. The Kaapi Royale provides has a very pronounced woodsy aroma, with a noticeable earthy flavor with a mellow, smooth and fullbodied mouthfeel and aftertaste, all providing an intense caffeine concentration and a smooth finish contributing to the crema that rises to the top of the shot.

While coffee is generally all about the caffeine, what most people don’t know is the lighter the roast, the more caffeine is present.

Judging coffee by its tasting notes is better than deciding what a coffee will taste like based whether it is dark or light roasted.

Just like a fine wine, aged whiskeys or Michelin star-worthy food, there is a much more pronounced and enjoyable flavor experience to be had from this custom blend.

A new menu item to the TCH lineup featuring the most flavorful coffee is the Trebol-Mocha Chill. This blended coffee drink begins with the Mexican Trebollios and is combined with smooth caramel, chili powder, a splash of cream and ice. A perfect way to beat the heat, prepare to chill down with this blended up beverage.

July 2019

Flash in the pan

Gruel Summer

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by Ari LeVaux

ummer is a parade of fruits. First come the berries, the strawberries, blueberries, and finally the raspberries, followed by the stone fruits like cherries, peaches, apricots and whatnot. My friend Sarah has a certain combination of grains that she calls by the unfortunate name of “gruel.” Her gruel is not the kind you might expect to be served at the local prison camp or Rainbow gathering. It’s thick and interesting, with a complex, nutty flavor, and it’s great beneath fruit from

breakfast to desert.

“I like it because it sounds like Dickens,” Sarah told me, knowing full well her grains aren’t gruel.

Porridge and gruel are two points along a spectrum of boiled grains that can be cooked and served with, among other things, berries and fruit.

Porridge is thicker, and has a better name, derived from an old world style of one-pot cookery called ­potage. Porridge has a homey, comforting sound that takes you to a world of where breakfast is just right.

Gruel, on the other hand, is what babies, refugees and hippies eat. It is not a pretty word for food. The sound itself is unappetizing, and rolls off the tongue like wet cement. As the inspiration for the word “grueling,” it implies that eating a bowl of the stuff is some kind of ordeal.

Whatever we call it, the good news is gruel is great with strawberries and yogurt, and works in savory dishes too. Sarah’s gruel, anyway, which is on the thick side of porridge, and more like a pot of cooked grains than a liquid.

It has no business being called gruel, but I suppose when you have as many glass jars filled with seeds as she does, you can call your potage Ahab the Sailor. But in hopes of never making you read the word gruel again, I’ll just call today’s recipe potage, short for Sarah’s Potage Process.

Based on a mixture of quinoa and steel cut oats, Sarah tweaks her potage with smaller amounts of other grains like sunflower, hemp and chia seeds. It forms a thick matrix of grains that are not overcooked, with the right amount of resistance to the tooth.

There is a long tradition of mixing grains, fruit and some dairy product, from cobbler with ice cream to granola and fruit with milk to bread with butter and jam. Even a berry cheesecake, with a crust based on finely ground wheat, would qualify. Potage deserves a place on this Pantheon as well.

When putting together a plate of fruit, cream and grains, the sweet and sour levels are crucial. If you have a sauce like chokecherry syrup, that’s ideal. Otherwise, make something with rhubarb, or pie cherries.

I usually cook my potage unsweetened, so the sweetness I add at serving time is the sweetness we get. Everyone likes a little sweetness — no big surprise there. But the tartness is an unexpected game changer, making the whole dish more interesting and balanced.

The core of the potage process is to simmer a mix of equal parts quinoa and steel cut oats, as both grains cook to perfection in the same amount of time, each arriving at a place that complements the other. Quinoa cooked to this point would not hold together alone, but the steel cut oats add their binding, moisturizing, some might say slimy soluble fibers, forming an invisible mortar, while the quinoa sucks up the excess, drying out the oats.

A pot of this gruel holds together with the ease of a pot of rice, and the leftovers don’t harden into a solid mass the next day — at least in my version, where I leave out Sarah’s chia and sunflower seeds, keep her hemp seeds, and add sesame seeds. This mix of nutty earthtones sets up a delicious, interesting contrast with the fruit, cream, and especially that tartness.

The ways to doctor any such mixture toward sweet and creamy are many, but it can be served savory as well. My favorite is dressed with soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and minced green onion or scape, served room temperature.

July 2019

Potage, pottage, porridge, and other versions of the historical dish upon which this meal is based, is the original one pot meal. Some renditions include beans, meat, bones, while others are sweet from the start. But the rules of this ancient game have remained steady since long before they were ever written down. Cook the pottage in a pot, slowly. Don’t burn it. Add water when necessary. But not too much, unless you want gruel.

Berry Peachy Potage This rendition contains sesame and hemp seeds, but you should definitely adjust explore ways to augment the quinoa/oat base, and find your own grueling groove, whatever that may be.

A 4-qt pot’s worth, about 10 small servings

Potage Base 1 cup steel cut oats 1 cup quinoa (I prefer red quinoa, for color) 4 cups water (with more at the ready) 1 tablespoon untoasted sesame seeds 1 tablespoon raw, shelled hemp seeds pinch of salt Berries and Cream option 1 scoop per serving of creamy material, like whipped cream or heavy yogurt 1 cup berries, cherries, apricots, peaches, apples, or whatever is ripe and sweet A sweet and tart syrup like rhubarb, cherry or chokecherry Add the Potage Base ingredients to a heavy-bottomed pot, and bring to a boil.

Bring back to a simmer and keep it there for about 20 minutes, until the grains have all swollen and softened to the point where they feel good to chew. The water may disappear before you get there, so be prepared to add more. Don’t over-stir, but keep track of what is happening on the bottom of the pot. When the grains are good to chew, turn the heat to low and slowly let the water cook off.

Turn off the heat and let it cool to room temperature, and store in the fridge.

Serve room temperature or chilled with berries and creamy material.

Don’t let the components of this culinary structure mix until they reach your mouth. Just as you wouldn’t stir a plate of cheesecake into a sloppy mess before eating it, a dish of berry potage is best served deconstructed. Drenched in a sweet, tart syrup, of course.

Triad City Bites

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In the Weeds

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customer walks in, looking as unsure as anyone I’ve ever encountered at the bar. It’s strange to me how some people can get uncomfortable going to a bar by themselves. Maybe I’m just used to the solo approach.

He scans the room, glances at

by James Douglas his phone, and scans the room again. He pauses awkwardly by the door (To dash out if he realizes he’s in the wrong place?), he sits down at the bar and orders a shot to calm those nerves. First impressions are a bitch.

A woman enters a side door, and I see his face light up in partial recognition. Is this her? I think it’s her.

He greets her and I’m taking bets as to whether it will be the businesslike handshake, the awkward hug (the one where you lean forward, you know the one) or maybe the no-touch rule comes into play and it’s just tight smiles and pleasantries. The awkward hug wins. The Art of the First Impression is now in it’s first stage; they’re both playing it safe.

I remember when people would just come to the bar to hook up.

Now, dating apps take much of the risk out of the game. But still there are rules and guidelines.

When meeting at a bar, alcohol comes into play. It’s a casual “nostrings” meeting that provides an easy out in case a connection isn’t made. The general approach is that first dates order something they can take their time with. She gets a light cocktail, he gets a beer, they retire to an isolated booth.

This isn’t a coffee shop in the afternoon, so the rules are different. But one must be careful, I’ve seen firsttime meet-ups fail spectacularly after one too many.

Lips will loosen, ships may sink and the next thing you know it’s red-flag city.

I recall online dating becoming a thing when I was in college. It was a clumsy approach to an age-old method, but it had potential. Used to be, a bartender could make or break a first date. That’s still possible, of course, but it’s just not the same.

It’s not likely, but maybe those stars will align for

these two today. I’m always happy to see someone come out of their comfort zone and chalk up a win in the romance department. Part of the job is living vicariously through your customers.

This “Busy Bar” approach is a common method — the main advantage being that it’s easy to get out of there quick if it’s terrible. You might be a regular and know that the bartender or other customers have your back. Your friends might be hanging out at the bar next door, waiting for failure so you can join them after the sparks don’t fly. This happens a lot.

One of the bars I work at is a perfect place for more intimate encounters. It’s an out-of-the way place, plenty of nooks to nestle yourself in, the Heliocentrics or some other instrumental ’70s band sets the mood and nobody is screaming trivia questions into a microphone.

It’s a warm, roomy place with space to move. I’ve got some regulars who pick this spot as a neutral zone precisely because it’s out of the way and there’s less a chance of encountering anyone they know. Besides me, of course.

The couple is still talking. I’m optimistic about their chances. You have to be in this business — it’s very easy to acquire a pessimistic point of view with so many chances to fail at a bar.

So it’s nice to see something work out.

Body language is everything. I see eye contact, open postures, smiles.

That’s encouraging. I busy myself with other customers, while letting the courtship play out.

A bartender should have the ability to pay attention without hovering around the customers waiting for a chance to hop on the next drink. Especially with first encounters. Let them breathe.

I find myself talking to one of my regulars, and as I hear laughter echo from the booth, I look up and see the guy coming up for another round. He’s got a dazed expression with a half grin, almost like he’s surprised that it’s working out. I’m happy for him.

“You doing okay?” I ask. He grins, nods, and hurries back to the booth, where the woman expectantly waits with a smile on her face.

So far, so good.

The ‘Busy Bar’ approach is a common method — the main advantage being that it’s easy to get out of there quick if it’s terrible.

FOOD+DRINK

Date night

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