Chef and the Farmer- the star of Kinston, NC!

     Let the culinary road trip continue!  Mom, Dad, and I made the hour and half drive to Kinston, NC and after a 3 hour meal I can confidently say it was worth every mile driven.  I first learned about The Chef & the Farmer in 2010 at the Raleigh Round Up event, but it wasn't until recently watching the new PBS series, A Chef's Life, that I became fully convinced we should make the trek.  

     Vivian Howard and her husband, Ben Knight, first met while working at a restaurant in New York, Vivian was back of the house, Ben was front of the house, and seven years ago they moved back to her hometown of Kinston to open The Chef & The Farmer.  Everyone should watch A Chef's Life because they're an incredibly endearing couple with a fascinating story about how they live their busy lives as restaurant owners, parents to twins, and strong members of the Kinston community.

Dining Room

Bar

Best seats in the house!

(Not only could we see all the action on the line, but it gave us the perfect opportunity to meet Vivian (Ben wasn't there) and talk to her about the restaurant and her TV show.  She was delightful and just as beautiful in person as she appears on TV.  It was a busy night at the restaurant with every seat filled, so we were appreciative that she took the time to talk to us and answer so many of our questions.)

Menu

Pizza menu

Manhattan "short" (aka a mini-Manhattan)

     The Pork Belly Skewers with candied bell peppers and cilantro was our first dish and probably a favorite of the evening.  Each skewer was the perfect two-bite size seared on the flat top and then coated with the heavenly glaze dripping off the candied pepper mixture piled on top.  This sweet, tangy topping balanced perfectly with the fatty pork belly, making it a mouth watering combination.

     Disclaimer: we were so anxious to dig into this one that I forgot to take a picture of the complete dish, so this picture is once we were already halfway through it.  Our intuition was correct because this was yet another delicious dish named Benton's Country Ham Wrapped Peaches with gingered goat cheese, balsamic honey, and spiced pecans.  The peaches were juicy and ripe, wrapped in salty ham, and coated with the tasty honey mixture.  Another "must order."  

     Then we had the Benne Fried Green Tomatoes with chèvre and curried peach preserves.  It's not a true Southern restaurant if they don't have fried green tomatoes on the menu, so we were happy to see these on there.  They had a unique coating on them that I wasn't sure what exactly it was and I forgot to ask Vivian, but they had a great texture and the curried peach preserves was a great twist to the dish.

     Fried Okra with Ranch ice cream.... for $5... now who could resist trying this?!  The okra was fried in the lightest, fluffiest tempura style batter I have ever tasted and they were perfectly salted too.  I even ate half of them plain because they were so tasty, but the Ranch ice cream was a fun addition that made them even better.

     I am a sucker for wood-fired pizzas, but this one far exceeded any that I've had before.  We chose the Sweet & Smokey pizza with caramelized onion, bacon, garlic crema, and fontina cheese.  Holy cow, it's all of my favorite things all on one pizza. The garlic crema is definitely the stand out of it all with its velvet texture and sweet garlic flavor.  We grilled pizzas at Philip and Ashleigh's just this week and while they were delicious I know that next time I'll be adding my own version of this garlic crema to them.  In fact, because Philip and Ashleigh couldn't make the trip with us for dinner we ordered them their own Sweet & Smokey pizza to go so they could try it too!

     Next we had the End of Summer Tomatoes & Hand-pulled Mozzerella with charred sweet onion, basil, and Georgia olive oil.  When reading the menu I thought everything about this dish sounded ideal  except for the charred sweet onion because I thought it was unusual to have a cooked, let alone charred, component to a dish composed completely of raw, fresh ingredients.  I thought this might upset the balance and muddle the fresh flavors, but I could not have been more wrong.  The onions were practically melted and therefore super sweet, making them an awesome addition to the tomatoes, mozzarella, and the unbelievable pesto that they sneakily tucked under the middle pieces of cheese.  My only wish for this dish would be to have more pesto! 

     Our last savory dish for the evening came from a section of the menu entitled "Pimp my Grits," just one of the many tiny quirks that I loved about this menu and restaurant in general.  There were three grit choices this evening and per the recommendation of our wonderful server, Angela, we chose the Grits with stewed apples, white cheddar, and crisp country ham.  The texture of the grits was perfect, just like my grandmother use to make them, and the cheese, apples, and ham created a winning flavor profile.  Plus I loved the presentation of the grits in a mini-cast iron skillet.  Too cute.  

     Our first dessert was the Muscadine, Lime & Buttermilk Parfait with Citrus Chantilly. Being my mother's daughter and the chocoholic that I am, this wouldn't have been the first dessert I would have chosen, but Vivian was kind enough to send this out to us and it turns out she knows my palette better than I do because it was exceptional.  There were so many flavors and layers going on in there and they worked together perfectly!  I'm so so glad that we got to try this one.  I feel like this dessert would make Willy Wonka proud because of its wacky creativity.

     Dad can never resist an apple pie on the menu and when the name is Triple Decker Apple Pie with cinnamon ice cream and caramel there's no way he would pass it up!  It was delicious and he even let us have a few bites of it.  :)

     Then the king of all desserts came out, The 10 Layer Chocolate Layer Cake with old fashioned caramel icing and toffee crunch.  It was sinfully rich and oh-so-delicious and we loved that she made her toffee with saltine crackers because that's how we make ours as well, so it brought back lots of happy Christmas memories for me. 

Chef Vivian Howard

     It was a remarkable evening that started with a warm welcome, inviting dining space adorned with beautiful artwork painted by Ben, knowledgable and personable waitstaff, and an extremely gracious and humble chef.  But the best part was seeing the love and pride that they put into their menu to showcase North Carolina ingredients that rounded out the whole experience and made it one of the best we've had in a long time.  Thank you again for everything, Vivian; we can't want to return again!

It was a beautiful night in Kinston, North Carolina and I highly recommend The Chef & The Farmer to anyone in the area.  If you don't live in the area you should consider planning a trip, but don't forget to make a reservation; seats fill up quickly!

Son of a Gun

     Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo have done it again!  I was slightly skeptical because I love Animal so much, but Son of a Gun did not disappoint in any department.  While Animal is sparsely decorated with barely anything on the walls, Son of a Gun is the exact opposite.  It looks like a seafood joint straight out of Martha's Vineyard with a great homey feel to it.  In case you missed my post about my last meal at Animal, Son of a Gun is its seafood-centric sister restaurant.

There were four of us for dinner and we decided to order a bunch of things and share it all. 

     Our first course was the Gloucester scallop, yuzu kosho, pickled shiitake.  It was extremely light yet there was a nice punch of citrus from the yuzu that was very refreshing.  We all enjoyed it but as the meal progressed and got heavier and heavier we all agreed that it would have been better placed in the middle of the meal to act as a palate cleanser between some of the fried elements of the other dishes.  

     Next came the Chips and Dip: Pimento cheese and potato chips.  The chips were nice and crisp, but the pimento cheese was mediocre at best.  To the non-Southern diner I would assume they would be perfectly happy with this version of pimento cheese, but all four of us are from the South and therefore a little bit tougher judges.  There wasn't any kick to it and it tasted merely like cheese and mayonnaise mixed together with no special or secret additions.  Clearly they need some Southern influence in the kitchen on this one, preferably of the female variety who grew up learning the tricks of the trade from her grandmother.  From what I hear it sounds like Hannah Parker could give them a run for their money. :) 

     We were told ahead of time not to miss their lobster roll and our waiter reinforced this by instructing us to order two of them for the table since they are fairly small and unfairly addicting.  I'm glad we took his advice because I could have eaten one all on my own it was so good.  It was the perfect ratio of lobster to mayo and the roll tasted super fresh and was painted with butter on the inside to create the perfect combination.  Yum.

    Then we had the Shrimp toast sandwich, herbs, and sriracha mayo that was a great nod to the traditional shrimp toast of chinese restaurants but at an elevated level.  They fried the two halves well and the sriracha was a perfectly spicy contrast to it all without being overpowering.  This was a favorite dish of two of four diners.  

     While the menu consists mainly of seafood items, one dish that they have become famous for isn't even seafood; it's a chicken sandwich.  Many people I talked to ahead of time likened it to a Chick-fil-A sandwich and while it is reminiscent of these same flavors, this one goes well beyond the sandwich of a fast food joint.  This turned out to be the other favorite dish of the evening because it was fantastic.  The chicken was the best and juiciest piece of chicken I've ever had and the slaw was outstanding.  Put it all together and you have one dynamite chicken sandwich.  I was tempted to order another one to go, but I resisted the urge.  

     Our next side was the Kennebec french fries and malt vinegar aioli.  Kennebec potatoes have been around for a while now, but they're just starting to pop up on the menus of some upscale restaurants.  They're supposed to be a higher quality potato with a thinner skin, which makes it easier to peel, and a more oval shape, which theoretically makes them look better and more uniform for presentation.  I didn't think they tasted any better than a normal potato but all thoughts of the fries were forgotten once dunked into the malt vinegar aioli.  They should have called this stuff crack aioli for how addicting it was.  If we had had any left over after finishing the fries I would have dipped my fingers into it... with no shame.  It was that good.  I am slowly but surely approaching the secret to duplicating it.  Wish me luck.

     Our last savory dish was Blackened local rock fish, tomatillo salsa, and crema.  To be fair to this dish I have to disclose that at this point we were already pretty full, but I also have to note that it was the only dish all night that we didn't finish.  The fish was cooked well but the other flavors seemed kind of muted and one dimensional because the crema and tomatilla salsa both tasted kind of bland.  Not a stand out dish.

     We were really stuffed by this point, but one dessert proved too difficult to resist, so we ordered the Italian Hamburger: Gianduja, brioche, caramel, maldon.  Man am I glad we did!!  

     I loved the presentation as it was made to look like a hamburger, complete with a brioche bun that was the dusted with powdered sugar that looked like sesame seeds on the bun.  Gianduja is a sweet hazelnut chocolate that was incorporated with the ice cream component that mixed really well with the rich caramel and the maldon sea salt.  I have recently become particularly obsessed with the salty and sweet desserts so this certainly hit the spot and was the best possible end to a remarkable meal.

    We also could not say enough good things about our waiter, who helped us make all of our choices and was very apologetic about being out of soft shell crab tempura dish that we had all been excited about.  He answered all of my nerdy foodie questions about the menu and paced all of our dishes very well so we were never without something to eat.  It was a great evening all around and I look forward to my next trip back when I'll be sure to get an earlier reservation to ensure I get the soft shell crab next time!  

Happy diners!

Flying High

      I blame Carrie Bradshaw for the fact that I put "Try a Trapeze class" on my bucket list back in high school.  My bucket list has grown so long over the years that this one seemed to get pushed to the wayside and conveniently forgotten about.  I'll deny that it had anything to do with the fact that I'm pretty terrified of heights and just thinking about doing anything that high up in the air makes my palms sweat.  Then a few months ago a Groupon popped up in LA for 50% off a Trapeze Lesson on the Santa Monica pier.  There was no denying it now, so I took this as a sign and I purchased the Groupon on the spot.  I found out about a month or two later that Lang had purchased the exact same Groupon and I felt a little better about having a friend to do it with me.  We found a Saturday that worked for both of us and headed to Santa Monica.  I don't think either one of us really had any idea what we'd gotten ourselves into until we got to the pier and approached the hut where we were to check in and sign all of our safety waivers.  My rule of thumb is the longer the waiver the more dangerous the activity, so I got a little more nervous when I saw the waiver was eight pages long.  Nonetheless, I signed on the dotted line and we joined the rest of our class by the trapeze setup.

     After going through all the safety rules, getting fitted for our harness belts, and learning the basics of what we'd be doing in the air, we put ourselves in order and began cheering on the first person to give it a shot.  There were ten people in our class and I felt lucky to be in the tenth spot so I could learn from everyone going before me.  We had one or two that made it up there and then just couldn't make the jump off the platform, but Lang did really well and even made it look easy.

Lang flying through the air!

     I still wasn't entirely convinced but I knew that I still had to get up there and give it a shot.  Lang was under strict instruction not to baby me and that if I showed even the slightest sign of hesitation to heckle me until I did it.

     I finally made it to the top rung of the ladder and then climbed onto the platform and hooked myself in to wait my turn.  The person in front of me finished their turn and he began hooking me up to the ropes and pulled the bar towards us with a hook.  Then he tells me to lean out and grab the bar with my right hand as he holds my harness from the back of my waist.  This already feels like it could pull me straight off the platform and makes my palms start sweating all over again.  Now he's let go of the hook, is holding my harness with both hands pulling me back towards the platform and has me reach for the other side of the bar with my left hand. I now have both hands wrapped around the bar, seemingly holding on for dear life, my toes on the edge of the platform, and leaning over at almost a 60 degree angle.  At this point I just have to trust that he knows what he's doing and that nothing too terrible could happen to me.

     What seems like an eternity later but what is probably only seconds, he asks if I'm ready, I say yes, and he tells me to jump.  I take a small hop off the platform, my arms lock and catch me as my weight pulls me down towards the net below, and I'm flying through the air.  It is such a cool feeling that I almost forget to listen to the guy below that's controlling the ropes attached to either side of my harness.  He tells me to swing my legs up and to hook them up and over the bar.  I have a quick flashback to playing on the monkey bars as a kid and remember this sensation well.  You fold your legs back towards your chest and then hook your knees onto the bar.  Then he tells me to release my hands from the bar, arch my back, and pretend like there's a person on the opposite bar that I'm trying to reach towards.  This is a completely foreign feeling, but one that you get use to, and then you show him "catch hands."

The dreaded "lean"

off the platform

start to tuck

hook the knees

"catch hands"

     After swinging a few times like this the blood really starts to rush to your head so he has you release your legs back down so that you're once again hanging from the bar and then comes the dismount.  Instead of just letting go of the bar we are to learn how to do a backflip dismount.  I've never done a backflip in my life, whether that be on dry land, into a pool, and especially not in midair at the height of a three story building.  I kept reminding myself that nothing too terrible could happen, people do this all the time, and then I just go for it.  Three swings of the legs forward, back, forward, tuck my knees and there I was.... back flipping from a trapeze bar on the Santa Monica pier.  Bucket list item #52 complete.

     After the celebratory high fives and hugs I had mentally already crossed this off my bucket list and was ready to take off my harness to remain on solid ground for now and the indefinite future.  Our instructor had a different idea.  It was time to try a catch.  This meant that instead of imagining someone on the other trapeze bar opposite from us, there actually would be a professional over there this time and his job was to catch us in mid-air and we were to swing from his arms.  If I hadn't just completed the previous skill set  I would have thought this to be impossible.  But the little boost in confidence I had gained from just the initial swing gave me the nerve to try the release.  The same fundamentals went into this new skill and as I hooked my knees on the bar, reached back with my "catch hands" I felt his hands latch on to my wrists and I released my legs from the bar and we were flying as one.  The best part was that I thought we would stay like this for a few swings but I guess I hadn't paid close enough attention to the flyers before me because it was a one time swing kind of thing before he quickly released me.  You'll see in the video how this takes me by surprise as I thought I was going to face plant onto the net and luckily righted myself enough to just land awkwardly on my feet on the net. But despite the messy landing, I had done it.

    Lang and I both had perma-grin for hours after the lesson because we couldn't believe we had actually done it, how much fun it was, and how great of a workout it was too.  I'm happy to have completed another bucket list item and that my fear of heights has lessened ever so slightly thanks to this activity.  If anyone has the chance to do this I would highly recommend it!

Santa Monica beach

Another AMAZING trip to Animal!

While I have been to Animal several times since moving to LA and loved every meal there, it felt appropriate writing about this particular dinner because of the special guests that we had visiting from out of town.  Jessica and Chase flew out for a week in LA and after weeks of back and forth planning, we decided on Animal for our splurge meal of the week, and I'm THRILLED that we did.  Kelsey was also back in town for the summer, so we had a great size group of five which allowed us to try lots of dishes.

                                           

We started out with the Charred octopus, lima beans, pistou, and bitter greens.  The octopus was cooked nicely (not too chewy) and they gave you good size pieces in there so you could really taste the octopus.  The pistou was delicious and added great garlic flavors to the dish.  (Pistou is similar to a pesto but without the nuts.)  It was a nice first dish because it was cold and surprisingly refreshing even though it had octopus in it.

Next we had the Heirloom tomatoes, stone fruit, pistachio, red onion, and celery blossom.  This was a beautiful dish with all of the bright colors from the fruits, but it wasn't a standout because it was kind of one dimensional.  It almost felt like a palette cleanser to lead us into the next dish.

Then we had the Shrimp & rabbit sausage spring roll, water spinach, and green curry which was very tasty.  The sausage was clearly house made and the spring roll was fried perfectly.  They were cute little mini spring rolls and they were sitting in two delicious sauces.  One was the green curry sauce which was excellent and there was also an orange sauce on the plate as well that they didn't identify but that went very well with the dish.  It almost looked like a duck sauce, although I'm going to guess it wasn't duck sauce from a bottle and instead one of their own concoctions.  Credit goes to Mark on choosing this one.

Then there was the Kampachi tostada, herbs, fish sauce vinaigrette, and peanuts.  What's interesting about this dish is that during my previous trips here I've had this same dish but it was originally made with Hamachi, a yellowtail fish, but I was curious as to why they decided to switch to Kampachi.  I looked around online and found an interesting description of Kampachi that said,

"It's not genetically engineered in any way, just well bred. It's sashimi-grade and sustainably farmed without hormones or prophylactic antibiotics. It's richer in omega-3 than just about anything else in the ocean and has no detectable mercury. It melts on your tongue, holds up on the grill, and is so rich in oils that it'll fry in a pan without butter" ("Kona").

Okay, I'll stop nerding out over their fish choice because it still doesn't get me any closer to figure out why they chose to switch.  So overall the dish was still so similar you couldn't tell a difference and we still thoroughly enjoyed it as it is always a favorite.  Fish sauce vinaigrette probably doesn't sound that appealing to a lot of people, but it essentially just makes for a nice salty dressing to balance out the tostada portion and the smooth, clean flavor of the sashimi-grade fish.

Chase gets props for picking this next dish because it was definitely a winner for many reasons.  It was the Duck breast, charred cabbage, liptauer, and mustard.  First off, I have to admit I had no idea what liptauer was, so we Googled it and found out that it's a spicy cheese spread made with sheep's milk.  It looked like pimento cheese in the pictures that we, but their version was a little thinner and the mustard kind of masked the cheese flavor for the most part.  Nonetheless, they cut up the duck breast into bite size pieces, it was perfectly pink, and the fat was rendered to just the right consistency.  It paired very well with the charred cabbage, which tasted more like melted cabbage it had such a great texture, and all came together beautifully.  It was one of my favorite dishes of the night.

Another favorite came next, the Poutine, oxtail gravy, and cheddar.  Poutine is traditional Canadian dish made from French fries topped with a brown gravy and cheese curds.  Their version at Animal was surprisingly true to form but definitely elevated because the fries were cooked well, they used a high quality cheddar, and the oxtail gravy was so rich and creamy I wanted a whole other bowl of it to eat on its own.  This would be excellent late night food.

                     

Then came the bone marrow!!!  Bone marrow, chimichurri, and caramelized onions to be exact and it was phenomenal as usual.  It comes with two perfectly toasted pieces of Texas style toast and a spoon to scoop out every bit of marrow.  Chimichurri is made with chopped parsley, other herbs, garlic, olive oil, and some kind of vinegar.  The vinegar is key here because the acidity helps to cut the fattiness of the marrow and the toast rounds out the dish nicely.  It was a great dish to split five ways because all you need is one perfect bite of it.

Our next to last dish was Mexican street corn, epazote, serrano, and parmesan.  Epazote is a Mexican herb that I'm guessing was in the sauce because that sauce was amazing.  It was similar to the spicy orange sauce you get on sushi sometimes and it was delicious.  The corn was really sweet and tender so it was a nice twist to have a spicy sauce topped with thin slices of serrano peppers and then sprinkled with parmesan as well to play on the sweet and spicy flavors.

     

Last but certainly not least... the Barbeque pork belly sandwiches with slaw.  They are out-of-this-world good and I want to bath in their bbq sauce.  Pork belly has been the craze for a while now and I think some restaurants are taking that fact for granted by slapping some sub-par, chewy pork belly on any sandwich on the menu and people just buy it because it has pork belly in the name.  Well Jon and Vinny definitely don't fall into that category because their pork belly is dynamite and I find myself craving it frequently.  They also use a delicious brioche-type bun that they of course toast perfectly. 

I don't know if they have one guy back there responsible for only toasting things perfectly, but if they do then he deserves a raise because he does a great job controlling that aspect of every dish with a toasted component on it and my hat goes off to him.  Then let's not forget the slaw which tastes like a Southern grandma made it it's so perfect and the three simple yet complex components come together in creating my absolute favorite dish on the menu. So needless to say we got two orders of these.

After all this food we should have stopped there, but we couldn't resist trying two of the three desserts.

The first dessert was their famous Tres Leches cake with dulce de leche.  It's been on the menu every time I've been here and it's what most people rave about when it comes to their dessert.  The cake is a great spongy consistency and actually pretty cold which I didn't think I'd like but it's so delicious and the icing is light and fluffy and the perfect topping.

The second dessert was a Bacon chocolate crunch bar with salt & pepper ice cream.  I'm a sucker for anything salty and sweet combined, especially when those two things happen to be bacon and chocolate.  It doesn't get much better to me than that.  The salt & pepper ice cream is definitely a head scratcher on its own, but I really like it with the crunch bar.  Both desserts were a nice end to an epic meal.

    

The food was phenomenal and there's nothing like catching up with old friends; my idea of the perfect kind of night.

 

While Animal is meat-centric, they have a sister restaurant called Son of a Gun that's seafood-centric and I'm looking forward to my first visit there this Saturday!  Family and friends back home in NC ask me all the time what my favorite thing about living in LA is and the first thing that comes to mind is the food.  I've never lived in a city where there are so many dining options and I've loved being able to experience so many already, but I look forward to how many I have left to explore!