Chicken n Waffles...St Louis brunch topped off with some Cleveland

It's been another one of those crazy travelling periods, but this one doesn't feel so bad. First, chicken n waffles, best idea ever. Had at multiple places, the best: Marvin's in DC. I would go as far as to say it's better than Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles. Marvin's are the best. But this place in Durham was really good: Dame's Almost World Famous Chicken and Waffles. It's right in downtown Durham. They have a lot of choice, which I really don't like. Read their menu, they try so many different things, when all you really want are some chicken wings or leg and thigh and a waffle. Their waffles, however, are amazing. It's like a thick gourmet waffle, and you can choose from regular, sweet potato, gingerbread, blueberry, and vegan. I went with just regular, don't like anything fancy. They also have a bunch of shmears that are really good. Try a couple, you won't regret it. Two things makes this makes not as good as Marvin's. One, you need gravy. Chicken needs gravy and waffles need syrup, mixing those might not be the best of ideas, but it's still needed. Two: You tried to be too fancy. All you need is chicken, waffles, maple syrup, and gravy. The end. You don't need BBQ sauce or even crazy different types of combinations. Just chicken and waffles please! Their grits were ok, not great, just ok.

So now I'm off to St Louis. My plan was to drive, with my cousin, from St Louis to Cleveland and then onto New York. Since we got packed and stuff a lot earlier than expected, we grabbed brunch in St Louis. It was fantastic. Half and Half is known for it's coffee. I'm not a huge coffee snob, nor do I know a lot about coffee, but this place has some GOOD coffee. Apparently it was from Ethiopia and you had a bunch of other choices. What was phenomenal about this place was what my cousin got. It was a grilled chicken sandwich. Doesn't sounds special. WRONG! It was grilled chicken with an avocado cole slaw on top. I got the French toast, though still very very good, caused me to have food envy for her avocado cole slaw. If you ever find yourself in St Louis, go to Half and Half for brunch. 

So on to Cleveland! The drive was actually not that bad for Memorial Day, but then again, my idea of "not that bad" is up and down I-95 corridor, which is always god awful. The city of Cleveland is a little rough around the edges.... you can tell that it had it's heyday during the manufacturing boom and has seen better days. The place we picked for food was good. It was in a little skwanky part of town on Market Street. Our original idea was Market Street Wine Bar, but then we realized we were more hungry than expect. We decided to go to the Flying Fig. We got the Medjool Dates. Apparently, after googling Medjool is a type of date, they were bacon wrapped dates stuffed with chorizo with a tomato sauce. I am not a fan of dates, but bacon and chorizo make almost anything palatable, and these were excellent. Not amazing, but excellent.I ordered the duck breast, which was good, nothing too special and my cousin got the hanger steak. She likes her meat as rare as you can legal get it, and I'm not a huge fan of meat THAT rare, so I didn't try it, thought since she finished it, I assume it was great. The rest of Cleveland was kind of weird. We were sitting in the parking lot and two cars got pulled over by two unmarked police cars, with 2 detectives inside (not just regular beat cops). They pulled two people out of each car, sat them down, and then cuffed them fairly quickly. Then 5 other police cars and 1 more unmarked detective dressed in a mechanics uniform came up. We guessed something serious was going on, but didn't stay to find out. When that many cops are in the area... it is best to leave.

Cleveland... yay....

So we left, and the next morning went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It is worth going to just for the nostalgia of it all. I also love music and learning some stuff there was pretty cool. No major other highlights. It's worth the trip, but not worth tell you about it, have to be there kind of thing.

Pretty cool building for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

18 Seaboard and Grits

There is something about grits south of Fauquier County. It is just so much better than anything in Arlington or DC or the north. For some reason, I love Waffle House. It's one of those places that I have to go to in the south. Don't know why there isn't a Waffle House near me... it's irritating. There's something to be said for a pecan (please don't pronounce it PEE-can, thank you) waffles, eggs, hash browns with jalapenos and onions, and of course grits. The consistency is, I feel, a thicker or coarser down south...I know that there is that myth that fried chicken in the south is better because the flour they use has a higher percentage of cornmeal, I don't know how true that is though....you'd think you'd be able to get the same flour everywhere in the country. Anyways, I digress. Waffle House, dirt cheap, NOTHING fancy=GREAT!

Exactly...take that paleo

Now, with grits in mind, I needed to find a restaurant for a nice date. I haven't seen her for a while, so I was looking for something nice. She was also on paleo diet (the merits, or lack there of, I will discuss in a later posting), which means its GODDAMN tough to find ANYTHING. I ended up deciding with 18 Seaboard, which had great reviews on Yelp. Of all the places in NC that I've been to, this may be the best, tough call between this and Glenwood Grill (read about it my previous post). The chose here was between scallops and pork shank with grits for me, and my date got there grilled fish of the day.

I ended up with the pork shank and grits. Her fish was excellent, and it came with a side of roasted cauliflower. I have been fairly surprised at the quality of seafood, considering Raleigh is nowhere near an ocean, nor is NC really known for great seafood, but the last 2 times she's gotten fish and it has been good. My pork shank was also amazing. It came roasted, bone in, which means that there is still a little bit of bone marrow left in it. If you haven't had bone marrow before, you have not lived. It is one of the joys in life. There wasn't enough of it left, because marrow tends to melt fairly fast, but the essence of it all went into the grits (AMAZING)! There was no dessert, because most all dessert, not paleo!

All in all, NC has yet again surprised me, but then it really shouldn't. The south has a long standing tradition of good comfort food. I think the South and Mid-west is true American food, as opposed to the north which Italian and European tends to dominate or the west, which is more Mexican and sometimes Asian as you move north. The south is what American food was founded on, and it's good. REAL good. Keep it up NC, I'm digging it. The south also has Waffle House. Point, set, match. 

Yup.. that's what's up