Fairly Ill: The Reprise

Since I’m no longer the young whippersnapper who can recover from enormous amount of fat intake in a single bound, you’ll have to read this old, but kick-ass post to check out my review of foods from the Mountain State Fair.

Other than that, here’s an extremely brief summary of the last month.

Love the tile floor of the Universal Joint, and the jukebox.  And that’s about all I love.  I need to go back and eat a few more things, but so far, I’m just not that impressed.

There’s a new Thai restaurant downtown, and it’s pretty good.  Thai Orchid offers decent curries, very good spicy basil eggplant, and their pad thai tastes great (but still not as good as Noodle Shop’s pad thai).

I almost ate  a new Soul Food restaurant on Merrimon Ave, down the street from the dude dressed like a chicken.  The sign said Grand Opening, but it was completely empty, and 9pm on a Sunday, so I just went home and piled huge amounts of saurkraut on a bunless veggie dog, watched 2 episodes of Battlestar Galactica and went to bed kind of miserable, dreaming of apocolypse, and awoke convinced veggie dogs are made by cylons.  When I eat there for real and figure out their name, I’ll let you know.  Update:  Their name is Chameleondj.  Still need to eat there, though.

Luella’s BBQ has also moved to Merrimon.  Hooray for them.  Great location, open nights.  They do some things really well, like Brunswick stew.  Still wish 12 Bones were open nights.  UPDATE:  I don’t like BBQ, so I’m not really a great expert.  But in an informal poll of my friends, Luella’s wins best BBQ pork and chicken in Asheville, while 12 Bones wins for best ribs.  I’m more of a ribs fan, myself.  But for BBQ, you really should check out Luella’s.

I’m completely obsessed with Curras Dom in Woodfin.  Ever since Austin, I can’t stop craving micheladas (beer cocktail thingies), migas, or breakfast tacos.  I need to move forward, I really do.  But then they built the patio, and I’m just kind of in a really delicious, high-priced rut.

Asheville’s branch of the Stir Fry Cafe has closed down.  I’m sure I had nothing to do with that.

In other Hendersonville Rd news, I noticed the Thirsty Monk South has opened behind Five Guys.  And now you’ve figured out the sole reason I ever travel down Hendersonville Rd.

Cook’s Illustrated annual Cooking for Two 2009 issue has pretty much changed my life.  Last week we made meatloaf with roasted asparagus, the week before it was chicken and steak fajitas the week before that we made the most incredible fish tacos I have tasted outside of San Diego.  This week we will try roast chicken with feta, spinach, and Israeli couscous.  Plus, jerusalem artichokes are in the farmers markets, so that spells quiche!