Question 1

Intimate conversation over Cocktails and Small Plates at Isa's Bistro

Accepted Answer

This was a milestone birthday for me, so the celebration stretched over a few days.
My sisters and husband celebrated with me over dinner at Chestnut. Then a few days later, my husband and I celebrated again, just the two of us, at Isa&#8217;s Bistro.
Their dinner menu isn&#8217;t huge and it&#8217;s about half Small Plates and Snacks. The intimate evening called for cocktails and sharing of small plates as we talked about our life together over the last 30-some years and what the future might hold.
Our plates came out of the kitchen as they were ready, tapas-style dining. Mixing and matching was part of the fun.
These Castelvetrano Olives ($5) were a first for me tonight. They looked like mini Granny Smith apples, were slightly crunchy, and had a distinct taste of clove after a light brine. They are my new favorite olive.

French Onion soup is great in the winter when you want a strong, hot, hearty bowl of bread, cheese and soup. Isa&#8217;s lighter version, Vidalia Onion Bisque ($7) is perfect for warmer weather. Served hot, but as a light bisque, it was topped with &#8220;yellow corn crunchies&#8221; and roasted mushrooms. Our server was great through the entire meal. She was attentive and efficient, with no sideways glances when we asked her to bring us two spoons.

On the menu as &#8220;Spring Asparagus&#8221; ($11), I was surprised and pleased with this presentation. Thinly sliced saffron poached fingerling potatoes, hard-boiled quail eggs, Parmesan, and a scattering of dainty greens were tossed, along with the asparagus, in a light truffle vinaigrette. The flavor was terrific, but &#8211; and this may be a personal thing &#8211; although I like asparagus al dente, these tiny spears could have been cooked just a tad longer.

Executive Chef Duane Fernandes has designed a lovely Roasted Baby Beets ($11) plate. Toasted farrow anchors alternating baby beet varieties, topped with sugar snap peas, shaved Parmesan cheese and scattered marcona almonds, and baby arugula. A light citrus vinaigrette pulls it all together.
I wasn&#8217;t too interested in the baby arugula &#8211; a little to much like a vine for my taste. Other than that, everything else on the plate had great flavor and a nice mix of texture from tender-firm to crisp.

Our last dish was Louisiana &#8220;Lobster&#8221; Roll ($12). As we ordered this, we asked our server to cut it in half. That&#8217;s when we learned it would be served on two rolls. Happily the house-made yeast buns were soft and easy to bite through. It was easy to keep the filling from spilling out, also.
I&#8217;m not sure why the word Lobster is in quotation marks, unless it means there isn&#8217;t lobster in the roll? We didn&#8217;t ask, but I&#8217;m thinking it might have been more crawfish, as named an ingredient on the menu, than lobster? A tasty tarragon aioli holds the mixture together.

Chef Fernandes is a comparative unknown (by the public) culinary star that doesn&#8217;t get a lot of coverage. Why? Now, this is my own opinion, unsupported by any hard facts, but I think it&#8217;s because he doesn&#8217;t actively cultivate a following &#8211; asking diners to vote for him as a James Beard Award winner on social media, for instance. And I&#8217;m guessing neither he nor Isa&#8217;s Bistro owners have a publicist or public relations company working to build and maintain media buzz. If they do, they&#8217;re not doing a very good job. Fernandes seems to be happy creating some of the best food in Asheville in Isa&#8217;s basement kitchen without fanfare.
Located right in the heart of downtown, where two popular streets walked by many intersect, Isa&#8217;s patio is a great spot for taking in Asheville&#8217;s bohemian vibe.
Isa&#8217;s Bistro
1 Battery Park Ave
Asheville, NC 28801
Phone:(828) 575-9636

Question 2

Sweeten Creek Brewing - Have you been?

Accepted Answer

Even though the address is 1127 Sweeten Creek Rd, you&#8217;ll find Sweeten Creek Brewing tucked behind street-front buildings, a short way down what looks like a side street.
The building houses a tasting room, a sandwich shop, and the brewery. I can&#8217;t quite decide how I feel about the exterior. It feels like something once nondescript that&#8217;s been given as much creative exterior treatment as it can take.
Inside is another story. This building underwent huge changes, mostly done by the owners, over quite a long period of time. To see what it takes to put a new brewery together, follow this link to their Facebook album, The Making of Sweeten Creek Brewery.

Co-owners Joey and Erica Justice are behind the beer and their partner/co-owner Chad Gibson handles the food side of things. All three have worked enough in their respective industries before opening Sweeten Creek to know what they&#8217;re doing &#8211; and it shows.
As soon as you step in to the tasting room, it&#8217;s pretty obvious this team is creative. They&#8217;ve used old vine-covered downed trees found on the property, and one that a neighbor had to take down, to create beautiful live-edged bartops, tabletops, and wall paneling (the good kind). Upper concrete block walls have been painted a perfectly warm shade of burnt orange.
And see the board above the taps with multiple North Carolina cutouts? That&#8217;s where they post their current beer list. Speaking of taps, they had six of their own, as well as a two from other breweries and a cider ready to pour.

Food can be ordered directly from the sandwich shop or in the tasting room. To get to the sandwich shop you can enter from the outside, or through the tasting room and a corner of the brewery, where you can take a peek at the heart of the operation as you pass through. The menu is limited but offers a good variety, fairly priced, and from scratch. Vegetarians haven&#8217;t been forgotten, either.
Where the magic happens
Sandwich Shop
They were kind enough to let me sample all six of their beers. Loved five of them and would recommend the sixth to friends that like IPAs. My faves were the Porter, the Spring Ale, and Burn Dawger Brown Ale. For your non-beer drinking friends, I did spot some wine behind the bar.

You know, I&#8217;d go to Sweeten Creek Brewing just for the food. Friend Barrie ordered the Meat and Cheese Plate ($12). Charcuterie and premium cheeses were on the plate along with an apple chutney, seasoned seeds, and mustard made with their Black IPA. It&#8217;s served with pretty tasty warm flatbread and crackers. About half of this lunch went home with Barrie.

My Monte Cristo ($8) was chock full of brown sugar brined ham and fontina cheese slathered with dijon, and creatively sandwiched between white bread wrapped in a light crepe batter. It&#8217;s served with berry preserves &#8211; &#8220;for dipping or schmearing&#8221; &#8211; and your choice of side.
That sandwich was huge, hot, rich and delicious. The watermelon salad, made with red grapes, julienne jicama, and mint, was served overflowing a small jar.

Joey Justice was quoted in this Citizen Times article as saying, &#8220;We wanted to find something that we could turn into someplace interesting&#8221;. They&#8217;ve certainly done that. Sweeten Creek Brewing is family and pet friendly. In addition to the brewery, tasting room, and sandwich shop, there&#8217;s an expansive, level lawn area scattered with picnic tables that&#8217;s perfect for hanging out with friends over a beer, as well as special events.
If you haven&#8217;t been yet, get yourself over to Sweeten Creek Brewing.
Sweeten Creek Brewing
1127 Sweeten Creek Rd
Asheville, NC 28803
Phone:(828) 575-2785

Question 3

Excellent, Authentic Dim Sum (Chinese) in Asheville - FINALLY

Accepted Answer

Is there good Chinese in Asheville? The answer has always been &#8220;No&#8221; . . . until now.
Two years in the planning,  Red Ginger Dim Sum & Tapas quietly opened at 82 Patton Avenue during snow and ice storms last week.
Dim Sum is a style of Cantonese cuisine prepared as small bite-sized portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates.
I wasn&#8217;t too sure about Dim Sum and Tapas under one roof, but it works &#8211; in a Chinese kind of way. Tapas are Spanish &#8220;small plates&#8221; and Dim Sum is &#8220;a style of Cantonese cuisine prepared as small bite-sized portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates&#8221;. So, basically Chinese Tapas. You won&#8217;t find plates piled with noodles or General Tso&#8217;s Chicken here.
I was expecting traditional carts rolling through a dining room, slowing at each table so diners could ask for what they wanted, or just point if unsure of the name. In busy Dim Sum restaurants, it&#8217;s common to be charged by the number of steam baskets and plates on the table at meal end.
Owner Mary (Mai) Mendvedev explained she and her chefs felt it was better to serve hot, directly from the nearby open kitchen, which made sense to me. And there really isn&#8217;t room in this space for carts.
Perfect for sharing, each order of Dim Sum usually comes with three to five portions.
First to the table were Pork Dumpling in Shanghai Style. Tip: because there&#8217;s chicken broth inside, avoid chin-drips by taking a small bite, suck the broth, then pop it in your mouth.
Pork Dumpling in Shanghai Style ($8): steamed dumpling with ground pork, chopped green onion, and chicken broth.
These Pork Dumplings are served with an incredibly good (not soy) sauce, made only in and imported from a particular Chinese city. This is the only sauce we used during the entire meal. Each dish is created with flavors that beg to be enjoyed on their own merit.

When you have a group of four like we did this past Friday, the best thing to do is order a number of dishes and share. Ask for a knife if you want to cut some things in half.
I&#8217;m a Steamed Barbecued Pork Bun fanatic, ordering them whenever I can. These are some of the best I&#8217;ve had, in no little part because of the slightly sweet, house-made barbecue sauce.
Steamed Barbecued Pork Bun ($6): roast boneless pork loin with home made chef&#8217;s special sauce.
A star of our meal, Crystal Shrimp Dumplings. Just fantastic! Tip: if dumplings like these stick to the paper underneath, they are not cooked correctly. They should lift right off.
Crystal Shrimp Dumplings ($8): steamed shrimp dumplings with minced bamboo shoots wrapped in thin rice skin.
None of us had tried wine from Russian Chapel Hills Winery, the winery Mai and husband Andrey own in Columbus, NC. We enjoyed the Tempranillo we chose.
A Russian Chapel Hills Winery Tempranillo
Moving toward earthier flavors, we ordered the Black Truffle Shu Mai. Dense and savory, these bites were a great mix of pork, shrimp, mushroom, and truffle.
Black Truffle Shu Mai ($8): steamed ground pork, shrimp, mushroom, and fresh black truffle.
Another take on barbecued pork, these classic Steamed Barbecued Pork Buns were delicious. You will need to peel the paper off the bottom before eating.
Steamed Barbecued ork Bun ($6): roast boneless pork loin with home made chef&#8217;s special sauce.
The only Tapas plate we ordered was Steamed Japanese Sea Bass. Tip: dishes on the menu are numbered. Each number is preceded by a &#8220;D&#8221; for Dim Sum or &#8220;T&#8221; for Tapas. It was good, but next time, we&#8217;ll go for the Baked Chilean Sea Bass. It&#8217;s one of Mai&#8217;s recommended favorites.
Steamed Japanese Sea Bass ($16): with mussels and white wine sauce.
Not especially attractive to look at, but totally yummy. I hadn&#8217;t had a roll like this previously, but really liked the &#8220;rice flour skin&#8221; texture. The sauce was tasty, too. Not just bottled soy sauce poured over the plate.
Beef Rice Roll ($7): steamed beef wrapped in rice flour skin, served with sweet soy sauce.
Tip: sit at the open kitchen counter if there&#8217;s a seat available. Watching the chefs ply their art is entrancing.
Mai explained to our group that the art of true Dim Sum has traditionally been passed down from generation to generation, but that the younger generation now has lost interest. Red Ginger&#8217;s Executive Chef visited the Asheville area from New York City multiple times at the invitation of Mai and her husband, finally deciding it would be a good place to &#8220;retire&#8221;. You&#8217;ll find him in the kitchen, making Dim Sum non-stop.
Chef working the steam ovens
Reg Ginger&#8217;s dessert menu is limited to four offerings as of this writing. One of them is a custom cake made just for the restaurant by iconic Asheville bakery, Karen Donatelli Cake Designs.
Red Ginger Mini Cake ($7)
If you like tapioca, get the dumplings pictured below. Scrumptious!
Tapioca Dumpling ($6): sago, milk, coconut milk, and eggs
Take a look at the photo gallery below, clicking on any image to enlarge, and you&#8217;ll see part of why Red Ginger is something of a higher caliber than usual for Asheville. The other part is the food, of course, but the attention to detail, design, and authenticity of Red Ginger sets it apart from many Asheville restaurants. It&#8217;s more what you&#8217;d expect in a larger, more sophisticated urban environment.
Important Note: Because Red Ginger has filled such a huge demand for good Chinese food in Asheville, and because they are still working everything out, they frequently run out of the most popular menu items by 7 &#8211; 7:30pm. Go early for best selection.
Notes:

The cut metal sculpture (for want of a better word) hung under the outdoor patio ceiling was commissioned and imported from China. There are, or will be, lights above mounted above. During the day, it acts an architectural feature on its own merit, but when backlit in the evening, it will create a leaf pattern below.
Pendant lights above the open-kitchen counter feature a Peony design. Although The People&#8217;s Republic of China doesn&#8217;t recognize a legally designated national flower, most Chinese refer to the Peony as the national flower of China. It is said to bring good luck.
Many finishes and products used at Red Ginger are locally sourced. Table tops (Rainbow Poplar), bar tops, and reclaimed wood on pillars are from North Carolina.
Artwork and some special fine china are hand-made and imported from China. See the six plates in recessed cubbies toward the back of the restaurant and the five pieces behind the bar depecting the Cheongsam style of dress made popular in China in the 1920s.
Service pieces and flatware were designed specifically for Red Ginger and imported from China.

Highly Epicurean Recommended!
Red Ginger
82 Patton Avenue
(near Pritchard Park)
Asheville, NC, 28801
(828) 505-8688

Question 4

Biltmore's Dirty Secrets

Accepted Answer

Hidden, but visable if you know where to look, you can find the Biltmore Estate&#8217;s dirty secrets. They&#8217;re mostly across the river from Antler Hill Village.
A group of us with an interest in sustainable, healthy farming took a tour of the dirty (producing) side of Biltmore.
SO many fascinating things are going on in the &#8220;back 40&#8221;, it&#8217;s better to share an overview without going into too much detail, and include an Image Gallery you can peruse.
Our tour was led by the personable Dr. Ted Katsigianis, a 32 year Biltmore employee.
After earning master’s and Ph.D. degrees in animal science under adviser Thomas Merritt at Penn State, he worked as a livestock extension specialist at the Universities of Kentucky and Maryland. While at Maryland, a close friend called him about a buddy with a farm in North Carolina who was looking to get out of the dairy business and into beef cattle. The buddy turned out to be William Cecil, George Vanderbilt’s grandson. Katsigianis agreed to consult and eventually became a permanent employee of The Biltmore Company.
Dirty Secrets
aka What you probably don&#8217;t know about Agriculture & Farming at Biltmore:

The pretty Gazebo just outside Lioncrest used to be a livestock sale ring.
The old ferry used by anyone wanting to cross the river to the agriculture and farming side of the estate was replaced by a bridge about 4 years ago. Much easier for everyone, but a little piece of history gone.
All electric livestock fences on property are solar powered.
A couple dozen bee hives are producing honey used on the estate. They&#8217;re hoping to up production soon.
Chicken and Quail are raised on property, producing eggs and meat for Biltmore&#8217;s many restaurants.
Their chickens lay brown eggs and are the same heirloom breeds that Vanderbilt kept.
A limited number of pasture-raised pork are on site.
Estate sheep can be seen grazing under solar panels and throughout the vineyard. There are 150 to 175 lambs per season that supply Biltmore restaurants.
A 42 acre man-made lake moderates temperatures year round in the vineyard and is also used for irrigation.
Dairy cows used to reign, but it&#8217;s all Angus-Wagu cross now (600 to 700 head).
Biltmore Chefs get 20lbs of prime cuts from each steer. They serve up to 50 steers per year.
On-property solar panels (9 acres/5,000 panels to date) provide 25% of Biltmore&#8217;s power needs.
There are four to five acres planted in vegetables and microgreens, but there are plans to expand that to twenty acres. Fifteen to twenty percent of all produce used in Estate restaurants is grown on property.
Currently, 18 varieties of red and green lettuces are being grown hydroponically.
Non-GMO Canola is a big crop on the estate now. Look for the beautiful yellow fields when the canola is blooming. They make bio-diesel fuel from the canola that powers many work vehicles. Their goal is to some day produce food-grade oil also. See photos of their lab in the Gallery.
The Biltmore Mound, one of thirty currently documented archaeological sites on the estate, is an American Indian mound that was discovered in 1984 by an archaeologist working for the state. It remains today as a site that has over time yielded invaluable insight into the lives of the Connesstee indians, believed to be ancestors of the Cherokee tribe.
Different colored signs on the trees in various parts of the estate indicate Biltmore Challenge equestrian endurance ride routes. We&#8217;re talking 25 to 100 mile rides completed in one day! Competitors from around the world regularly participate.

Biltmore&#8217;s dirty secrets are out! Hope you learned some interesting facts about what goes on at Biltmore behind the scenes.

Category: Asheville

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