After climbing for five straight days, it was time to rest, so we packed up the car and headed to Asheville, NC to hang for a day or so before continuing our climbing trip at Rumbling Bald over the weekend. For the record, whacking your funny bone on the edge of the car door is not funny at all; it hurt less when I broke my wrist, although I was glad that nothing was broken. Oh well, it gave me the opportunity to learn I can drive my car while having an ice pack strapped to my elbow.
We checked in to the
Sweet Peas Hostel, then ventured out to explore Asheville. Our initial destination was an art store we passed on the way in, but before we got there, we saw the
Gourmet Chip Company. Since this sounded delicious and we were both hungry, we stopped for a snack and we were glad we did! After a thorough reading of the menu, we decided on the Americana chips, a delicious combo of gouda, bacon and pepper. Mmmm. We decided that we'd have a progressive meal, having a bite to eat a various places as we walked around downtown in the afternoon and evening.
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| Course 1 - Americana Chips |
As we finished our chips, the worker brought us and the other customers some bonus chips, Belgium Caramel flavor - chocolate shavings, caramel drizzle and sea salt. Heaven!
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| Course 1.5 - Belgium Caramel Chips |
Our next food and beverage stop was
Wicked Weed Brewing Company. We split some citrus marinated olives.
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| Course 2 - Olives |
After some more walking to rebuild the appetite, we walked into
Asheville Brewing Company. The menu said the salsa was amazing and M and I agreed. The queso was pretty good, too.
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| Course 3 - Chips, Salsa and Queso |
The bathroom decor in this place was awesome as well!
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| Love it! |
Our next course was liquid, ginger ale for me and a flight of beer for Mandy at
Green Man Brewery. We played darts there and I won. Not that it was a very good game of darts.
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| Course 4 - Ginger Ale and Beer |
Four hours into our progressive dinner, it was time to get some actual dinner. We went to
Farm Burger and split chicken pot pie fritters and a burger with cheddar, caramelized onions and FB sauce (aka The Number 1). Both were fabulous and I finally found a burger that topped the one I enjoyed (several times) when I was out in J-Tree. They served the burger medium without even asking and it was prepared perfectly; it would have been a shame to cook this burger to well-done.
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| Course 5 - Chicken Pot Pie Fritters and No 1 Burger |
We got our second bonus dessert of the day, a mini vanilla shake. I guess washing our hair and leaving the baseball caps in the car pays off!
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| Course 5.5 - Vanilla Shake |
We headed back to the hostel, since our planned dessert stop was located in the same building. Unfortunately, it's not the only bar located in that building, which we found out when we walked in and discovered we were at
The Southern. We decided on a spontaneous course of deviled eggs, which we had seen on the menu at several other places. M discovered a beer that she really liked, so it was a fortuitous mistake. The eggs were tasty, but by this point in the evening, I felt a bit like Cool Hand Luke eating them.
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| Course 6 - Trio of Deviled Eggs |
Our seventh and final course was dessert at
The Lab. There were many tasty choices, but we went with the rhubarb sundae - rhubarb ice cream, candied peanuts, chocolate coveted pretzels, rhubarb caramel and cinnamon whipped cream. It was a great way to end the meal!
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| Course 7 - Rhubarb Sundae |
Despite all that we ate the night before, we were hungry when we woke up. The guy working at the hostel recommended the
Early Girl Eatery. It was a great recommendation. M and I both got the Early Girl Benny (grit cakes topped with tomato, spinach, poached eggs, tomato gravy and avocado) with a biscuit. Both the meal and the condiments were delicious; the
jam was tasty, the O'Yeah sauce provided a touch of heat with excellent flavor and the
Fire from the Mountain Smoked Habanero hot sauce gets my coveted* "Not for Wimps" designation.
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| Early Girl Benny |
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Yummy Condiments
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We did more exploring and then went to some beer store so M could pick up some brews for the weekend, but mainly we were just killing time until we were hungry enough to eat again. Second breakfast was beignets. It made a fine pre-climb snack, since we were heading over to the local climbing gym,
ClimbMax, afterward.
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| Beignets |
The only thing better than a pre-climb snack of beignets is a post-climb meal at Farm Burger. Given all the tasty restaurants in town, it seemed a bit silly to repeat, but that burger was really good, plus, we didn't sample the fries. We ordered the No 1 again, plus the No 6 (bacon, sunny side up farm egg, pepper jack cheese, salsa verde) and an order of the pimento cheese and jalapeno fries. Delicious again!
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| Burgers |
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| Fries |
Our time for eating in Asheville was over. We drove to our campground and got ready for a weekend of climbing and camping.
Asheville is a great place to get your eat on!
* Coveted by exactly no one.
