Dixie Belle Coming to Crabtree Food Court
Dixie Belle’s Smokehouse
of Apex is getting ready to expand with a second location in the Crabtree food court. The restaurant will be in the space formerly occupied by Le Petit Bistro as well as a NY Deli. The space is now equipped with a hood, so there can now be a griddle/grill in the space (this is why only sandwich-based places and ice cream were there before. Le Petit’s cooked items were prepared in a bakery in RTP which got a “B†sanitation grade one time).
Dixie Belle has been around for 6 years now. They feature 3 sauces: Eastern NC (vinegar), Western NC (tomato), and South Carolina (mustard). Their signature sandwich is The Big Dixie, which offers…well who cares. That name is hilarious. The menu in Apex (. pdf version ) features a surprising array of meats, including broaster fried and rotisserie bbq chicken, grilled or fried shrimp, flounder, and catfish, ribs, wieners, burgers, pork bbq, beef brisket, turkey breast, and pulled chicken. I suspect the Crabtree location will feature an abbreviated version of their menu, and hopefully the smell, while great at first, won’t envelope the entire mall.
I haven’t been to Dixie Belle, but it sounds like a big improvement over the Mr. Barbecue and Stuff that was in the pre-1994 food court.
Natalie Merchant Coming to DPAC
On Monday, August 30
Natalie Merchant
will be coming to the DPAC in Durham. She’ll be touring in support of her new CD, “Leave Your Sleepâ€. No word on
tickets
yet.
Umphrey’s McGee Coming to The Walt
On Friday, August 13 Umphrey’s McGee will be playing at the Raleigh Amphithteatre and Festival Site (the one that should be called the Sir Walter Amphitheatre).
Tickets
go on sale Friday (5/7) at 10am.
The Wiggles Coming to Memorial Auditorium
Be sure to wake up Jeff in person as
The Wiggles
will be at Memorial Auditorium on Sunday, August 15.
Straight No Chaser Returning to Meymandi
Straight No Chaser
will be returning this Christmas season to Raleigh’s Meymandi Hall. The slick a cappella group will be performing three performances, December 17 (Fri) and 18 (Sat). Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, May 7 at 10am.
Triangle Modernist Homes Day-Tripping to Washington
While the Mod Squad is taking a bus trip to Charlotte in a few weeks, they are also happy to announce a day-trip to Washington, DC. The trip includes stops at the Charles Gwaltney-designed Rales Museum near Potomac, the Richard Neutra-designed Brown Residence, the Gordon Bunshaft-designed Hirshhorn Museum, and the Maya Lin-designed Vietnam Veterans Wall. The trip includes a 6:45am flight to BWI, lunch abord the air-conditioned, internet-equipped tour bus, and a return to RDU at 10:30pm. Dinner is on your own, and about 2 hours are allotted (so there is ample time to get to Rosa Mexicano 😉 ) Tickets are $459 per person.
LEGO Mini Build Coming Tomorrow
That’s right…it’s time for another LEGO Mini Build. This month’s project is a flower that appears to have a dozen parts. The free event begins at 5pm Tuesday at the LEGO store in Crabtree, and is open to ages 6 to 14 only. (Note, quantities are limited, and the line will get long in the 30 minutes preceding.)
REI Bike Maintenance Class Coming Tuesday
REI at North Hills will be holding another free bicycle maintenance class on Tuesday night at 7pm. The class will teach customers how to lube a chain, fix a flat tire in record time, and make other minor adjustments to your bike. No experience necessary!
Wide Shoe Warehouse Brings Options in RTP
Wear extra wide shoes? Then the
Wide Shoe Warehouse
may just have what you are looking for. The SRI-styled warehouse features shoes for women and men who wear wide, extra wide Large sizes. Women’s sizes include 6 Wide to 13 Extra Wide and Men’s sizes include 7 Wide to 15 EEEEE.
The store is located at 6405 Westgate Road, just north of the Hwy 70 interchange. Store hours are: M-Th (10-6), Fri (10-7), Sat (10-6), Sun (12-6).
Yadkin Bridge Gets Ped Fencing
In the wake of 3 area bridge slot deaths in recent years, new fencing recently appeared on the 440 bridges between North Hills and Crabtree that cross Yadkin Drive. According to
this document
(.pdf), the project is a joint venture between the NCDOT and the City of Raleigh. Other similar situations exist at I-440 crossing Raleigh Blvd and New Bern Avenue over I-440. No word on fencing projects for these two locations.
One night in 2005 a Good Samaritan, attempting to aid motorists after a collision, jumped over the bridge median wall, not knowing that the two parallel bridges for unconnected. He fell to his death 40 feet below. This prompted the erection of a pedestrian fence on one bridge, but not the other. A similar incident occurred on November 27, only this time the pedestrian jumped over the remaining unfenced wall and fell to his death. Green pedestrian fencing was installed within a week on that second side of the bridge. A similar situation happened in the 90’s at the bridge slot on Glenwood Avenue crossing Crabtree Creek.
Poole’s Diner Swings For The Fences
Many restaurateurs successfully find their niche, an easy place between the cook’s comfort zone and the diners’ fancies. Some feel comfortable settling in with a mid-range menu that stays consistent, while others are exhilarated by changing it up frequently, and like to think of their kitchen as a laboratory. Poole’s Diner is one of the latter. I’m constantly intrigued by their Twitter messages, playing around with imported salmon, marinated avocados, ramps, and morels. The photos coming across on Twitter are sensational ( photo 1 , photo 2 , photo 3 ), and it appears that Chef Ashley Christensen is trying extremely hard to provide a selection of creative and difficult dishes to downtown Raleigh. I have enjoyed her other ventures in Raleigh, and this one has continued to be a success story, according to the masses. Unfortunately what landed on our table was another story.
The restaurant is a revived lunch counter place that went through a decade of looking like something in Pulp Fiction before Christensen dressed the place up a bit. The ceiling is metal tile and lights are low. Unfortunately the result is an extremely loud restaurant. The tables are retro formica, and the table setting is spartan (though I have no idea why a “bread plate†appeared given the restaurant’s lack of bread offering).
The very limited menu of 5 entrees and an accompaniment of salads and appetizers is posted on two chalkboards. We opted for the beet salad with marinated avocados and the green salad with red wine vinaigrette and sprinkled cheese. The beet salad was good, taking the strong flavor of the beet and steering it sweet successfully. The avocado was good, however the dish included an entire half of an avocado, a rich and fattening way to start a meal. The salad was ample size, the dressing was good, and the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese was delicious, but that’s all there was to it. I was hoping for something more complex…maybe a roasted red pepper, candied pecans, or olives to add some layers of flavor. Hell, just an offering of fresh ground pepper would have been nice.
We also splurged and got the fried green tomatoes which were the hit of the evening. The cornbread batter was appropriately salted, and the tomato was perfectly firm. Around the rim there was an aioli and a red and yellow pepper relish that were both excellent, though I think the aioli could have used more garlic (something I have maybe said 3 times in my whole life). Better too light than too heavy, though.
At this point the meal was going fairly well. We enjoyed our first two courses, but probably should have left at that point. One entree we got was the Shrimp & Grits, which delivered a very rich version that included tomatoes but not bacon. The cheese grits were good, but got overly heavy after a few bites due to the heavy cream used. A couple of the shrimp tasted fishy, while the others had a stand-alone taste that didn’t blend with the dish. The other entree was a disaster: Pork Bellies served over warm potato salad and bacon. A better description would have been: “Eighteen Dollar Plate of Pork Fat, with a few morsels of meat and potatoesâ€. I literally got 10 bites of meat after scraping it off of the fat globs and into the 1/4†pool of clear, liquid fat swamping the plate (pictured). The potatoes may have been good, but the only flavor I could discern was fat, fat, and more fat. It was literally the grossest dish I’ve ever encountered in a restaurant. Why didn’t I send it back? We had already waited 45 minutes for this dish.
Dessert didn’t go well either. We got a little chocolate mousse cup that was topped with sour cream. Sour cream? We did send that back and the result was a simple cup with the correct, though heavy and fattening cream on top. Absent were interesting layers of berries, mint, legumes, etc.
While it would be more fair to review a restaurant after several trips, I really don’t think I can do it, not with so many great $50-per-head choices in the area. Unfortunately we happened on the restaurant on a night when the chef was out of town, which perhaps helps to explain it. However guess what…to run a restaurant it has to be consistent. There is too much competition out there to have off nights, especially on weekends, when people are spending hard-earned money.
Few chefs on the East half of the Triangle have really gotten the knack of blending layers of flavors while avoiding an overt fat storm. While dishes don’t have to be “heart-healthy†to be delicious, there is a point where the fat content overwhelms the flavor and the health benefits of organic ingredients. Unfortunately that line was crossed in almost every dish offered. Poole’s Diner is creatively swinging for the fences, but on this account, has only managed an infield pop fly.
5 stars (out of 8 )
Charlotte Ranks as 10th Most Polluted
The American Lung Association’s rankings of the M ost Polluted Cities (by ozone) came out this week and Charlotte sits at the #10 spot. No other North Carolina cities were mentioned in the 25-city list.
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