Hanging Out in Hunt Country

Back in the spring of 2014, No Crowds wrote about college-touring in the US in Bataan Death March? No our baby is going to college.

Recently, we dropped that very same baby off at the University of Virginia and then high-tailed it down to North Carolina to get out of her way. After a lovely visit with The Tribe – my family and friends in the great State – it was time to head back to London. But first, we had to face the always-horrific drive up Interstate 95 to Dulles Airport. How I hate that highway. I used to love it as a child when we would cruise down from New York with my mother, the Mario Andretti of transplanted southerners, eager to get home. With no regard for speed limits or bodily functions - my brother once had to pee in a bottle - it was all great fun. But I digress.

So daunting was the idea of closing up the farm, driving and then flying all in one day, in the interest of our sanity and marital relations, we decided to drive the day before and spend the night somewhere near Dulles. But where?

Here’s where my father, well traveled and a man of few words, piped in, “Go to the Red Fox Inn in Middleburg, Virginia. Great place. Close to the airport.”

And so we went but we didn’t want to tell our daughter that we were heading back her way and wouldn’t be stopping to take her out for a free meal. In our defense, we thought it was disruptive. So very quietly, we made our way north.

Middleburg hasn’t changed much since I was last there in the 1970s for my sister’s graduation from the Foxcroft School. That’s good. Thank you town fathers, city planners and everyone who has kept out teardowns, dreadful add-ons and McDonalds. This horsey village is charming and filled with unique shops selling tasteful horsey stuff. It’s a lovely place to walk around.

And the Red Fox Inn? In a word – wonderful. Dating back to 1728 and still family owned and operated, there are 25 rooms spread over a number of buildings. We stayed in the dead quiet and comfortable Huntland room in the Stray Fox building,  that includes a terrific breakfast. We also had a nice dinner in the atmospheric Tavern.

The next morning we walked around some more and then took a leisurely drive (Middleburg is 23 miles to Dulles) through strikingly beautiful hunt country with a stop in Leesburg for lunch in the back garden of Shoes Cup & Cork that was very relaxing and the perfect antidote to getting on BA’s cattle class A380 to London.

So if you need a place to stay close, but not too close, to Dulles that is full of atmosphere, good service and good food, look no further than the Red Fox Inn in Middleburg.

A Chef, a TV Show and Flash Fried Collards

My daughter loves Master Chef. It’s charms are somewhat lost on this old curmudgeon. I haven’t been excited about a TV cook since Julia Child - until I was introduced to the award winning public broadcasting series “A Chef’s Life” featuring an eastern North Carolina girl, a Yankee husband*, and a backwater called Kinston that has a real Civil War ironclad the CSS Neuse washed-up in the center of town. Does this sound like the makings of a fabulous TV show? Honey, it’s a cracker.

I was introduced to “A Chef’s Life” by my friend Mase who would send to London DVDS and internet links and promises to take me to Chef and the Farmer, the restaurant featured in the show, the next time I was in North Carolina. And he did.

We arrived on a Tuesday night in July after a long journey with great expectations. Chef and the Farmer sits right across from that famous sinister ironclad across a large parking lot already filling with cars. It was an exciting start. We were early hoping to grab a table before our 7:45 reservation as Mase had a 3-hour drive home. So we started out in the wine bar and shop, had a lovely glass of red, got to study the evening’s menu and met some nice folks who had driven all the way from Raleigh. In my usual “sotto voce” I let it be known that I had come all the way from London and Mase all the way from Greensboro. That impressed the Raleigh folks.

It also caught the attention of Susan, a member of staff from the show who took wonderful care of us. Such is the charm of “A Chef’s Life” that we felt like we already knew her before she appeared, in real life, at our table. And there was a film crew all over the place shooting Season 2. How fun was that.

Throughout the night, Mase and I would spot all our favorite folks from the program. “There’s Vivian!” “Look, it’s Ben.” “Oh, her parents just arrived.” I acted like a complete idiot and boy did I have a good time. The lovely Susan realized we were besotted and brought Vivian and Ben over to the table. We were shameless in our praise. They were just as wonderful as on film.

And what about the food? Reader, it blew me away. Describing the cooking as a farm-to-table symphony of local classics just doesn’t do it justice. We had country ham with peaches, pork belly, flash fried collards (incredible), gazpacho (also incredible), squash casserole and tomato pie. We ate our way through the summer gifts of eastern North Carolina. We ate our way through the filming of our favorite TV show. We ate our way through an inspiring direction for a town that had fallen on hard times.

And as the sun set over the ironclad and vast parking lot of Chef and the Farmer, I asked myself, not for the first or last time, what the hell I’m doing in London when my tribe – and flash fried collards – are here in North Carolina. Well, I’ll always have Season 2 of a “Chef’s Life”.  

It’s not home, but for now, it’ll have to do.

* Mase says that since Ben is from Chicago, Illinois, he doesn't really qualify as a Yankee. I say that hailing from the land of Lincoln qualifies him for sure. The Yankee description stands.

See America Profonde - Just Like Hannah Montana

I was comparing a trip to North Carolina with an English friend recently. She has a son attending Duke University and is a frequent visitor to the Tarheel State. We were both there during the UK October school break. And what did she describe as the highlight of her visit, besides seeing her son? Going to the North Carolina State Fair. The state fair is an annual exposition that has been running in Raleigh, North Carolina since 1853, with only a few time-outs for the Civil and Second World Wars

Wow, I exclaimed. We were there too. Didn’t you just love it! Such crazy food - deep fat fried ice cream. Weren’t the animals beautiful? I loved the goats, and the cows. Did you go to the pig race? And for the next 20 minutes, we recounted more highlights: the Demolition Derby, the Grand Champion turkey and the record-breaking pumpkins. We agreed. It was extraordinary. We loved it.

In listening to my English friend, I realized that the state fair had given her a real glimpse into ‘America Profonde’ – a view that few foreign visitors get to see. Without irony, she embraced the spirit that enjoys crashing cars, eating ridiculous food and racing pigs. But she also appreciated the young farmers who know a lot about farming and take excellent care of their animals, the bee keepers working hard to maintain healthy hives, the church groups serving up ham biscuits in support of good causes and the local dairies making cheeses the old fashioned way. In short, she found going to a state fair to be a great way to experience what makes America, well, America.

And I like the reaction of one of my daughter’s friends from Singapore when Eloise told her she was going to the North Carolina State Fair.

Oh my God, Eloise, you are just like Hannah Montana!

The Blue Bottle Coffee Company

Bring me food. No matter what it is or where it comes from, I love receiving food from foreign lands. If I’m not on the road, then the next best thing is for the food of the road to come to me.

Recently, my son brought me coffee from the Blue Bottle Coffee Company in Oakland, California. Mom, this product takes coffee to a whole new level.

He was right.

The coffee has a vivid, romantic aroma. The taste is rich and elegant and a million miles away from Starbucks fare. The Blue Bottle Coffee Company, a quintessential Bay area concern, is small, hip and totally radical about what it does. - taking “freshness and small batch roasting to an extreme not considered practical anywhere else in the coffee business.”

And now comes my favourite part. So where did the Blue Bottle look for inspiration when setting up the company? Seventeenth century Vienna. The story goes that during the siege, Franz George Kolshitsky, an Austrian who spoke Turkish and Arabic, was sent through enemy lines to deliver messages to the nearby Polish army who later helped rescue the city. The fleeing Turks left everything behind: camels, tents, honey and strange bags of beans thought to be camel fodder. Kolshitsky, having lived in the arab world, knew better, taking the 500 sacks of beans as a reward for his heroism. He then opened Central Europe’s first coffee house, the Blue Bottle and started the Austrian craze for coffee.

So here I am in my London kitchen, drinking Blue Bottle Coffee while dreaming of both foodie San Francisco and coffee house Vienna and while Blue Bottle in London is pretty fantastic, if you are in the Bay Area, you can experience ‘the real thing’ at their kiosk in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley at 315 Linden Street or at their café at 66 Mint Street at the corner of Jessie. If you live in the United States, Blue Bottle will ship you some beans and you can check out their on-line store here.

Otherwise, it pays to have a nice, San Francisco based son.

48 Hours in Berkeley or Why I Envy my Son

At last, we arrived in Berkeley. I was beside myself with excitement but filled with questions. America’s epicentre of student radicalism looms large in the imagination of anyone raised in 1960s America. This was the home of the Free Speech Movement and a place where students had put their careers on the line to fight for civil liberties. But what would it be like in post 9/11 America, where would Berkeley now come down on the civil liberties versus national security debate and what would Eloise make of it all.

In every way, Berkeley exceeded expectations. Eloise’s expectations were simple. She just wanted to hang out with her brother and so we did. He proudly gave us a tour of the beautiful University, where Nobel prize winners are so numerous that they have their own parking spaces. He drove us around the lovely Berkeley hills. We watched him play a spirited match of Ultimate Frisbee. Eloise attended a Game Theory class at the Haas School of Business and to the surprise of the other students, launched herself into a discussion of Red Bull marketing. While this was going on, I attended a presentation by Matt Kistler, SVP for Sustainability at Wal-Mart. Although Kistler convinced me that Wal-Mart was paying serious attention to the environment, I still had trouble connecting his remarks to my experience as a Wal-Mart customer. Nevertheless, I valued the fact that Berkeley had organised the debate, that Kistler had agreed to speak and that I was allowed to attend.

As part of Eloise’s sentimental education, we paid a visit to the activists who set up shop daily on the campus’s Sproul Plaza. At the time, Free Tibet was the hot topic. We also had a lengthy discussion with a young woman named “Citizen” who was handling communications for the Memorial Oak Grove Tree Sit, a group that has been living for over a year in trees which the University would like to cut down to build a sports center. Eloise suggested that we throw some food into the trees for the campaigners but Citizen said we should join the Sunday gathering of grandmothers who were resupplying the treesitters. Otherwise, we might get arrested. Of course, there are always two sides to every story and the counter-argument to Citizens position was well articulated in an open letter sent to all students by the UC Berkeley police chief. If you’re interested, you can read the letter here. Eloise and her brother (who supports the University and as a Native American studies major in college, claims that the Indian burial ground argument is rubbish) had lively debates about the issue.

In addition to the treesitters, we also made a point of visiting the Code Pink:Women for Peace (aka the Pink Ladies) campout in front of the Marine Recruiting Office which was also attended by a large contingent of Berkeley police and a group who opposed the Pink Ladies waving American flags. This time, Eloise felt the police presence was out of proportion to the threat posed by the singing women in pink outfits and we had another discussion about civil liberties, free speech and national security. I was really happy that Eloise had a chance to see an American city that was so engaged in debating the big issues of the day. She takes so much flack in Europe for her American heritage. The next time she is accused of coming from a country of apathetic ignoramuses who don’t care about the rest of the world, she can respond, “I have been to Berkeley and I know better.”

But our stay in Berkeley was not all protestors and politics. It was also about the pleasures of an interesting hotel, fabulous food, and the great outdoors. While in Berkeley, we stayed at the historic landmark hotel, the Berkeley City Club which was built by Hearst Castle architect, Julia Morgan, for a woman’s organization dedicated to fostering social, civic and cultural progress. Much of Morgan’s signature style, used to such great effect at Hearst Castle, such as the gorgeous 1930s swimming pools and the flamboyant Moorish Gothic architecture, can also be found in this wonderful club and hotel in Berkeley. The hotel rooms are comfortable, paying tribute to the club’s genteel antecedents and feeling much like a very nice bedroom at your granny’s. Rooms look out over either the San Francisco Bay or the Berkeley hills. Staff is appealingly eccentric. Arriving back late one evening, the desk clerk used us as an impromptu focus group to critique the cover of his new 1980s disco compilation CD. The City Club’s location, a block away from the UC Berkely campus and a few minutes walk from the BART rapid transport system, couldn’t be better. For all of this we paid $125 a night for our room with breakfast included which I felt was good value given that we were staying in a fantastic bit of history in such a great location.

As for food, eating in Berkeley is like dying and going to heaven. Starting with Peets, the cult-like purveyor of coffee and tea on the corner of Walnut and Vine, to the nearby Cheese Board and Pizza Collectives (no boss, no manager, no non-owner worker) which serves some of the best tasting cheese, bread and pizza found anywhere in the United States, to the small restaurant across the street, Chez Panisse, which single headedly created a philosophy of food that changed the way America eats, this is a city which cares passionately about what it eats.

During our stay we ate at a remarkable delicatessen called Saul’s that could give Katz’s Delicatessen in New York a run for its money. The pastrami sandwich brought tears of homesickness to my eyes. Our dinner at the Chez Panisse Café, was everything I hoped it would be. We loved the lively informality of the Café, which looked like more fun than the shrine-like restaurant to “Saint Alice” downstairs. We had asparagus with lemon, ricotta and herbs, halibut with leeks, turnips, potatoes and romesco sauce, duck braised with artichokes and rosemary and polenta and Lee chowed down on a large piece of rib-eye roast with potatoes, spinach and anchovy butter. Prices were fair with starters ranging from $7.50 to $14 and mains from $17 to $28. There was even a 3 course prix fixe for $28 which looked good.

We also had a fabulous pizza lunch with root beer from the Cheeseboard Pizza Collective sitting, in clear defiance of the law on the grass median right in the middle of Shattuck Avenue, just like everyone else.

On top of all the amazing places to eat in Berkeley, the city also has one of the coolest owner/operator grocery stores in America. If you want to see what Whole Foods was like before it went the way of ‘big organic’, head for the 40,000 square foot Berkeley Bowl, located about one mile south of downtown Berkeley. The produce aisles will blow your mind. There’s an aisle as long as a football field devoted just to citrus, another just for mushrooms. People from all walks of life and income levels were in there shopping up a storm. Prices were fair and the quality and selection was extraordinary. This may sound silly but I found this grocery store very inspiring. Every American deserves to eat better and owner/operated businesses deserve to succeed. I thought the Berkeley Bowl pointed the way to how both those goals could be achieved.

In addition to the incredible food, another thing that blew our minds during our stay was a trip to visit the coastal redwoods in the Muir Woods National Monument. Just 12 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, this is the sole remaining stand of old growth redwoods trees in the Bay Area and one of the last on the planet. It’s a heavily visited place but you can easily get away from the crowds by taking one of the many trails leading out of the valley. And its more than worth the effort. There is something about these awe inspiring, ancient trees, some more than 1,000 years old towering more than 250 feet above your head, that puts your place in the universe into sharper perspective. After communing with the majestic trees, we headed for the Marin Headlands, which, along with Muir Woods, is part of a 75,398 acre Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Seeing so much magnificent (and valuable) land saved from development, stretching for miles along the Pacific Ocean within spitting distance of San Francisco, was also an inspiring experience. As we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, I had the thought that being envious of your own child was unattractive and un-maternal, but in the case of my Bay area son, I couldn’t help myself. This place is just too perfect. Come see for yourself.

Useful Addresses

Berkeley City Club
2315 Durant Avenue
Tel: 510 848 7800
Fax 510 848 5900
http://www.berkeleycityclub.com/

Peets Coffee & Tea
2124 Vine Street
516 841 0564
http://www.peets.com/

The Cheese Board Collective
Bread and cheese: 1504 Shattuck Ave
510 549 3183
Pizza: 1512 Shattuck Ave
510 549 3055
http://www.cheeseboardcollective.coop/

Chez Panisse Restaurant and Café
1517 Shattuck Avenue
Café reservations: 510 548 5049
Restaurant reservations: 510-548 5525
http://www.chezpanisse.com/

Saul’s Restaurant & Delicatessen
1475 Shattuck Avenue
Tel: 510 848 3354
http://www.saulsdeli.com/

Berkeley Bowl Marketplace
2020 Oregon Street
510 843 6929

Muir Woods National Monument
Tel: 415 388 2595
Admission: $3
Open 8am to sunset or 5pm in winter

San Francisco

As we drove north from Carmel, road and hotel weary, we looked forward to getting out of the car and back into a city. At last, we pulled up to a lavender/blue house which clung spectacularly to the side of a steep hill in the Noe Valley section of San Francisco. This was the home of my west coast cousin the Art Diva, and I was keen to see how she had “set up shop” with her family since the days when we had been playmates in New York. Waiting at the window of the welcoming house was Lucy, the Diva’s daughter who was the same age as Eloise.

What if she doesn’t like me?
Eloise, of course, she is going to like you. You’re related. Anyway, I like her mother and she’ll like you. How could she live in such an awesome place and not be nice. Just get out of the car.
Mom, you are so weird.

Weird I may be but I was right about Lucy and San Francisco. The girls hit it off and San Francisco was gorgeous and cool and perfect. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was a city with unique, well-preserved neighbourhoods and with spectacular panoramic views. Here was a city where you were never far from nature, a city with a passion for food, with a comprehensive public transport system and health care access for all. The only thing that wasn’t great, after southern California, was the weather but as I put my fleece jacket back on and ignored the rain, I was reminded of something one of my sons’s once said about London. “Mom, you should be grateful that the weather is crap, otherwise everyone would want to live here.”

During our whirlwind visit to San Francisco, thanks to the Art Diva, we covered a lot of territory in a short amount of time. We saw the outside of the striking and controversial de Young museum in the Golden Gate Park and the inside of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. We drove around the kaleidoscope of neighborhoods. We saw the relics from the Summer of Love in the Haight, the uber-mansions of the rich and famous in Pacific Heights’ and the gayest scene on earth in the Castro.

Best of all, we spent the better part of Saturday wandering around the Ferry Building Marketplace and farmers market, which is a ‘must see’ destination for anyone who loves food. Not only is the beautifully restored Ferry Building an important city landmark but Northern California’s proximity to some of the best farmland in America has created a cornucopia of some of the loveliest, freshest, and most interesting food you’ll find anywhere in the US.

The people who go to the market are pretty colourful too. At one farm stand piled high with extremely beautiful ‘heritage’ beans, a woman stops, and with a strong accent of undeterminable origin, launches into battery of questions, “What are those beans? Do you really cook them? I never cook them. When do you cook them? Why do you cook them? How do you cook them?” The pretty young woman who was selling the beans patiently answered the bean inquisitor’s questions. After all that, the sale was not made. Fascinated by it all, we bought the beans instead.

Speaking of San Francisco and food, thanks to a reservation made several weeks ahead by my well organised son, we also were able to enjoy dinner at one of the city’s best known restaurants, the Zuni Café. Even living in London, I had heard about Judy Rodgers, who had trained with both the Troisgros brothers in France and Alice Waters in Berkeley. I really wanted to try her famous Zuni Roast Chicken and was determined that if it was better than mine, I would buy the cookbook and incorporate the technique. Now I roast a good chicken, but the Zuni chicken was far better, being more flavourful and more succulent. The secret is to salt the bird at least 24 hours in advance, buy a small chicken and cook at a very high temperature. While my son and I enjoyed the chicken, Eloise was wolfing down an order of pasta with wild sausage and rapini. Starters included the gnocchi ricotta with wild nettles (superb) and a rich and earthy lentil soup. The vibe was friendly and informal and while the service was imperfect with a few pacing problems and missed details, we ate lots of great food and had lots of fun. Maybe I’ve lived in London too long, but I also felt that the cost, at $145 for three people, represented good value given the quality of what we were eating.

After several days of imposing on the Art Diva’s generosity, it was time to return the uncool red Chevy Impala and Garmon Girl to Avis, hopped on BART rapid transport and head across the bay to Berkeley, the world’s most famous counter-culture playpen and temporary home to my oldest son who was studying at the University.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park
De Young in Golden Gate Park
Tel: 1-800-777-9996
http://www.famsf.org/
Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.


Ferry Building Marketplace
One Ferry Building
Tel: 415 693 0996
info@ferrybuildingmarketplace.com

Marketplace hours:
10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday – Friday,
9 a.m. on Saturday
11 a.m. – 5 pm on Sunday

The Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market Hours:
10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Tuesday
8:00 a.m. – 2 pm Saturday
Tel: 415 291 3276
http://www.cuesa.org/

Zuni Café
1658 Market Street
Tel: 415 552 2522
www.zunicafe.com

Three Emails = One Good Hotel

The countdown to Thanksgiving has started. The fact that 34 hungry pilgrims are coming for dinner on Thursday has distracted NoCrowds from the business or researching and writing. Instead of scouring the countryside for the undervalued and overlooked, it’s time to check the chairs, cutlery and glasses and corner the London market in sweet potatoes and pecan pies. With so little time, imagine our delight to open Outlook this morning to find three emails that did the job for us.

Let’s begin with the email from Sandy.

“The dollar’s unstoppable decline will make our premise - Europeans want to wander through the ‘real America’ - more compelling and actionable every day.

Here’s my precise prediction of what happens next:

1. The Saudi's will finally realize it's silly to recycle petro dollars--$20 Billion per shot--into the U.S. economy, via Chelsea Clinton's Hedge Fund. They'll get a better return by digging a hole in the ground than investing in S&P 500 and Russell 2000 equities.

2. The market, reacting sharply to this betrayal, will fall, quickly, by 10-15%...a few 1,000+ point daily drops.

3. Like the Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who reportedly refused to accept payment for her services in dollars, the Saudi's might just do the same, prompting a grave dollar crises.

4. At this point, Michael Bloomberg, who's been lately silent about his Presidential ambitions, will step forward, propose a turnaround plan and figuratively AND literally buy the Presidency. Like Abraham Lincoln before him, Bloomberg will assemble a all-star coalition government, and hopefully attract the best and brightest minds from both sides of the aisle.

5. By 2010, the dollar will begin to turn around. The Saudi's will resume their petro-dollar recycling. The market will stabilize and also turn around.

6. In summary, we've a three year window to get the nocrowdsamerica blog off the ground!”

He’s right, we thought. We need more content about America!

We then opened the email from Jeff about the Carolina Inn which stated:

The Carolina Inn and Carolina Crossroads Restaurant Earn AAA Four Diamond Ratings

11-15-2007 CHAPEL HILL, N.C.

The Carolina Inn, one of the state’s most renowned hotel properties, continued that elite status with recognition as a 2008 AAA Four Diamond Hotel Rating. Meanwhile, its signature Carolina Crossroads Restaurant also was given an esteemed 2008 AAA Four Diamond Restaurant Rating.

Befitting the good news, The Carolina Inn will open its doors for five weeks of holiday activities during its 10th Annual “Twelve Days of Christmas Celebration” from Dec. 2-Jan. 6. A 10-ton sand sculpture depicting the final verse of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” carol, Breakfast with Santa, Teddy Bear Tea Parties and three community fundraisers highlight some two dozen events.

Long recognized as one of America’s “cultural resources worthy of preservation,” The Carolina Inn is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recently broadened that lofty stature with the announcement that it was among the Historic Hotels of America members joining the Preferred Hotel Group Brand.

He's right, we thought, the Carolina Inn is a perfect place to feature in NoCrowds America.

Then we opened the email from Gary where he suggested:

Some interesting things you can do when pointing out new destinations to people. You can include a “Google Earth” type map which has photos pinned to it from people who have been to the area and have posted them. Here are a couple of examples—note that the little blue markers are pictures that people have taken and posted online.

The cinqueterre:
http://loc.alize.us/#/tag:cinqueterre/geo:44.070814,9.481201,10,h/

Corvara:
http://loc.alize.us/#/tag:corvara/geo:46.551793,11.871055,15,h/

Kew Gardens Henry Moore sculptures:
http://loc.alize.us/#/tag:henrymoore/geo:51.480635,-0.298090,15,h/


The catacombs of Paris:
http://loc.alize.us/#/tag:catacombs/geo:48.856558,2.350966,13,h/

Gators in Myakka River State Park in Sarasota:
http://loc.alize.us/#/tag:gator/geo:27.272864,-82.293520,14,h/


Basically, you can see these places through the eyes of ordinary visitors before you, rather than tour book authors. It’s kind of cool. That means that as you post new no crowds destinations, you can create a link like this to allow readers to explore on their own.

Well, at least this geek likes it.

He’s right, we thought. What a cool tool and so here is the link for Chapel Hill:

http://loc.alize.us/#/tag:chapelhill/geo:35.907519,-79.054707,15,h/

And here’s why we think the Carolina Inn is worth a visit from Europeans in search of the “real” America. The Inn is old fashioned, in the best sense of the word, reeks of southern hospitality and gracious living and the food is absolutely superb. For much of the year this hotel is informed by the energy and enthusiasm of alumni who return again and again to the university town to relive the glory of their youth. While all of this luxury and ambience comes at a price, with an exchange rate of 1 US$/ 1.46 €, the Carolina Inn start to look pretty reasonable. Tonight, for example, you could have a large room for as little as €81.05. Not bad for a top rated hotel in a really fun town. With American Airlines offering direct daily non-stop service from London to Raleigh Durham, Chapel Hill is closer than you think.

The Carolina Inn
211 Pittsboro Street
Chapel Hill North Carolia 27516
Tel: 919 933 2001
Fax: 919 962 3400

For information on Chapel Hill, click here and for more information on travel in North Carolina click here.

Photo of the interior of the Carolina Inn courtesy of the hotel’s website.

Go to America - Eat in a Shack

No, this is not a Michael Moore movie about poverty in the land of plenty but Europeans, listen-up, no matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, some of the finest dining in America can be found in shacks. Sometimes, there isn’t even a shack, just some old tables by the side of the road and most of these roads, as Michael and Jane Stern, authors of Road Food, point out, are “near the ocean, the lake or river – in other words, near the home of what they serve”. A good fish shack in America is a “finger lickin”, “sleeves-up” “flip-flop” kind of place which can reconfirm ones faith in American food and the joys of America’s peerless informality.

The Shark Shack, on Atlantic Beach in North Carolina is just such a place. It’s both a “Drive-In” restaurant (where you can experience the unique American phenomenon of eating meals in your car) and a place where you can park your surf board, sit at picnic tables and eat “the catch of the day” either in the form of a sandwich or a platter. There are clams strips, grouper (a local fish) bites, fish tacos and a shrimp burger. For non-fish eaters, there are hot dogs, hamburgers, steak sandwiches and lots of chicken.

We ate lunch there last week and everything was delicious, plentiful, inexpensive and served by a blond, long-legged friendly college student with perfect teeth.When we asked if we could have our fish grilled, not fried, the charming student with perfect teeth said of course we could. The fact that our grouper sandwiches were fresh, succulent and only cost $6.69 blew this cynical pseudo-European away. Surprisingly, the Shark Shack has a liquor license and a pitcher of beer will only set you back $7. At night, there is live music and if you’re not hungry, signs invite you to bring your own chair, sit outside, watch the stars, have a drink and enjoy the music.

Shark Shack Revisited

Sadly, we also ate there this Saturday and had a completely different experience. Our waitress was also young and cute but so stupid it was ridiculous. Everything we ordered was messed up and the food wasn't as good as before. How can one place be so good and so bad? I blame it on the weekend (the bad experience) versus mid-week (the great experience). McDonalds may be consistently awful but alas, not all authentic places are also consistent.

The Shark Shack
Fort Macon Road and South Durham Street
Atlantic Beach, North Carolina
(next to the Beach Tavern)
Tel: 252 726-3313

Dinner at Stephensons

We're off to North Carolina to eat some Bar B Q. In case you can join us, our flight lands at 4:10, we're taking hand luggage so I reckon we will make Stephensons by 6:00. Until then.

Stephensons
Highway 50 North
McGee's Crossroads
NC
910 894 4530

Where's the Decent Roadfood?

This year, I resolved not to eat the revolting fast food which is the only obvious choice when travelling America’s highways. Even Eloise, after hearing Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation”, speak in London, was off the stuff. Having read about Jane and Michael Stern’s book “Roadfood” with reviews of 600 colourful, non-franchised places for travellers to eat, I happily spent $19.95 buying the book, confident that my problem was solved. Sadly, it was not.

“Roadfood” is a nice book, don’t get me wrong, the restaurant reviews are informative and charming but, and this is a huge “but”, they don’t tell you exactly how to get from the road to the food. What I wanted to know was simple. As I am travelling up and down Interstate 95 (or any other American major highway), where can I pull off the road relatively quickly and get a decent meal and how do I get there. What I really wanted to know was the driving directions and amount of time from road to food. Sadly, on that score, “Roadfood” does not deliver.

Which brings me back to my original question, how in the world do you get a decent meal off of an American highway? Why do American travellers find the current situation acceptable? What can the travelling public do about it short of packing picnics and boycotting the whole sorry mess? Has anyone addressed the issue with a source of information that you can take on the road and gets you from the road to the food?

I do have one fabulous suggestion for anyone lucky enough to be travelling on Interstate 40 south of Raleigh, North Carolina. Go to Stephenson’s Bar-B-Q. The pork barbeque is pit cooked daily, hand chopped and specially seasoned with the best sauce you ever tasted. Stephenson’s also has wonderful fried and barbeque chicken. They have an “all you can eat”, $7.50 a head, offer that is obscene. They have hot dogs and hamburgers and fried chicken gizzards and seven choices of delicious daily vegetables. The service is VERY fast. The waitresses are nice and the tea is sweet. Most importantly, Stephenson’s is a 7-10 minute drive from the Interstate.

To find Stephenson’s, exit I-40 at Exit 319, McGee’s Crossroads. Turn right on Route 210 for roughly 2 miles to Highway 50. Turn right at Hwy. 50 and Stephenson’s is on your right about another mile up the road. This may be my favourite restaurant in America. It is off the highway and, as they say in the Michelin Guidebook which will help you find fine dining in every village and hamlet in France, Stephenson’s is absolutely “worth the detour”.

Stephenson’s BAR-B-Q
11964 NC 50 North
Willow Springs, North Carolina 27592
Tel: 919-894-4530


Photo of Stephenson's kitchen. For the record, I neither work for, nor have any financial interests in this restaurant. I'm just a little obsessed with it.