Polka Dot Bake Shop, 1730 East Woodlawn Road, is featuring half-dozen boxes ($17) filled with Red Velvet, Kisses ‘n Cream, Death by Chocolate, and Heavenly Chocolate cupcakes. Decorations will include meringue hearts and Valentine such messages as Be Mine and XOXO. These will be available on Friday, February 12, and Saturday, February 13. The bakery will be closed on Sunday, Valentine’s Day.
Even though Cyros Sushi and Sake Bar, 6601 Morrison Boulevard, has only been open a short time, the proprietors have been around the sushi block a few times. Cryos is small. This is not the kind of place with oshibori (hot towels), kimonos, and shakuhachi music. But Cryos isn’t a raucous kind of place either. The only kind of vibrancy here will play out on your plate. The best I had this week was Cy’s signature roll: the Avante Garde ($11), with ahi, crab, avocado, and sprinkled with crispy microplaned bits of shallots and garlic. This is not a traditional roll, in fact, Cy will tell you (if you sit at the sushi bar) the roll has enough sauce that it shouldn’t be dunked in soy, and enough heat that wasabi isn’t needed either.
Einstein Bros Bagels loves their customers. A couple weeks ago they offered free bagels and cream cheese. Now they are offering buy one, get one free Twisted Bagel Sandwiches.
Just print this coupon out, grab a friend and go.
Offer expires Feb. 16. 2010.
Einstein Bros Bagels Charlotte locations:
Bank of America Plaza, 101 South Tryon St, Charlotte – (704) 332-4015
1501 South Boulevard, Charlotte – (704) 333-4370
9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte – (704) 687-7049
Ok, people. Tickets for the Eat My Charlotte Foodie Tour featuring chicken wings go on sale right … NOW.
We will take you to four different restaurants via bus to sample an assortment of wings at each. We’ll provided the beers on the bus to quench your thirst. Just bring your bib!
All food, transportation, tips and beers on the bus will be covered with your ticket. (Any additional beverages you wish to order from the restaurants will not be covered.)
Tickets are $25 per person.
*Bonus: Everyone on the tour will be receiving bottles of Burner Brothers hot sauce and a $10 gift certificate to Lebowski’s!
Here’s how it’s all going to go down on Saturday, March 6, 2010:
1:30 pm: Check in and board the bus at our offices at the N.C. Music Factory.
2 pm: Beep, beep! Bus departs.
From 2 – 5 pm:
5-ish: Return back to the N.C. Music Factory
Limited space available. No walk ups will be taken the day of the tour.
Related content:
Announcing the next Eat My Charlotte Foodie Tour
(Re)searching for chicken wings
More Wing Tour Research
The things I do for the sake of research. And our readers. Really.
Here are a few pics from a “secret location” where I sampled chicken wings. They were so finger-licking good, I now have orange stained nails … and I feel so full I want to put on a pair of overalls. Not a good feeling.
You want some of these? Join our Eat My Charlotte Foodie Tour featuring chicken wings on March 6. Yes, it happens to fall on the same day as the UNC vs. Duke basketball game.* The tour can serve as your pre-game party since we’ll be serving wings and free beer on the tour bus. Perfect.
*Only UNC fans on the foodie tour, please! (Just kidding … but not really.)
Related content:
Announcing the next Eat My Charlotte Foodie Tour
(Re)searching for chicken wings
A photo from last year's Souper Bowl at Davidson College
As cold as it is outside, there’s nothing like a good, pipin’ hot bowl of soup. Needless to say the
Souper Bowl VI, a soup cook-off and competition happening at Davidson College on Feb. 6, excites me even more than the Super Bowl … you know, the sports event. At the Souper Bowl, not only do folks attending get to taste a medley of concoctions from Lake Norman area restaurants like Brickhouse, Creole House, Jeffrey’s, Sabi Asian Bistro, Toast, Restaurant X, and more, but they also vote for their faves in a number of different categories. In addition, live entertainment is provided and a silent auction with items donated from Wooden Stone is held. And it’s for a good cause, as it all benefits Hands Around Mecklenburg Making Emergency Repairs Safely (HAMMERS), a local nonprofit organization that helps low-income families make emergency repairs to their homes. Tickets are $10 for adults in advance; $8 for students in advance; $5 for children in advance; There is a $2 increase on the day of the event. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Held in Davidson College’s Lilly Family Gallery in the Chambers Building, 320 N. Main St., Davidson. To purchase tickets in advance, call 704-892-4486.
Happy hour at Zink American Kitchen means $2 select beers, a slider bar from 4 pm to close, and 1/2-price sushi from 5 to 7 pm, Monday through Friday. Here’s what it all looks like:
Bar Bites Slider Menu
(available in bar only, Monday – Friday, 4 pm – close)
1 for $2.50
3 for $6.00
5 for $10.00
Daily beer special for just $2 more
Buttermilk Fried Chicken Slider with Pepper Jack cheese, Zink Ranch
American Wagyu Burger with Herb Aioli
Pulled Pork Slider with Carolina slaw
Street Side Tacos: Braised Pork, Beef Short Ribs, Spicy Braised Chicken, or Citrus & Ancho Mahi Mahi
Sushi
(Monday – Friday, 5 pm – 7 pm)
½ price in the bar and patio
The July I spent in Australia (their winter) a few years ago, I encountered the Tim Tam Slam, the Down Under equivalent of the American summer S’more. Fortunately for the past two years, I have been able to make them here in Charlotte. Slams have become an especially popular treat in my house on snow, um, melting ice, days.
Pepperidge Farms, a sibling company of Arnott — the cookie’s Australian producer — introduced Tim Tams, a thick chocolate covered sandwich cookie, into the America market in late 2008 for the debut of the movie Australia. Tim Tams are available from October to March and are sold locally at Target. Although these cookies come in several flavors, the best Tim Tam Slam uses the original Chocolate Crème.
To make a Tim Tam Slam you will need a mug of hot chocolate and a Tim Tam cookie. You can make hot chocolate from a quality cocoa (recipe is on the back of the box) or use a mix. I like Old Fashioned Marshmallow by Chocoholics Devine Desserts. Once you have the hot chocolate in front of you, bite off two diagonally opposite corners of the Tim Tam creating a rectangle straw. Place one end of the cookie into the hot chocolate and then sip. The hot beverage will begin to melt the interior of the cookie about half way up. Immediately eat the cookie. It can be a messy affair — which is why children universally love it.
It’s not another restaurant going in the shuttered Ruby Tuesday in the Morrocroft Village Shopping Center, 3904 Colony Road, in SouthPark. An ABC store will open in that space.
Happy birthday to two of our sales representatives at Creative Loafing!
In honor of their birthdays, I decided to bring out the big guns … filled and frosted cupcakes that took me a good portion of my afternoon/evening to make. (Complicated assembly required.)
These Ice Cream Sundae Cupcakes don’t really have any ice cream in them, but only resemble sundaes (sorry, you ice-cream-o-holics). But they just may be better than an ice cream sundae. The base is a chocolate cake, which is then cored and filled with chocolate ganache, piped with vanilla buttercream, and then topped with sprinkles and a cherry, oh yes, and more ganache.
The creamy chocolate center and the buttery, rich frosting made the birthday boy and girl, and co-workers, very, very, happy. According to some, these taste ridiculously fantastic. Really, how freaking cute are these? So cute I can almost overlook the hassle of making them…
After the chocolate cupcakes are baked and cooled, you’ll need to dig out a core. I didn’t have a round cookie cutter small enough to cut out the middles of the cupcakes, so I used an inverted circular piping tip instead and used the tip of a knife to pop the core out.
Once cored, you spoon in the ganache filling, which is just a melted mixture of cream, chocolate, and butter.
The buttercream frosting requires 5 minutes of whipping after each 1/2 cup addition of powdered sugar. Thank goodness for the KitchenAid stand mixer, because that adds up to a lot of whipping. To get the frosting to look like whipped cream, I used a round piping tip.
After you pipe the little white clouds of frosting on each, drizzle on more ganache sauce, add rainbow-colored sprinkles, and top with a stemmed maraschino cherry. Read the rest of this entry »
