Lucky 32, Hooray!

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Last Thursday was the Triangle Tweet-up at Cary’s Lucky 32 (7307 Tryon Road
Cary, NC 27518).  As always, the event was hosted by the lovely ladies @andreaweigl and @durhamfoodie. Tony and I thought that the Moldy Peaches’ song “Lucky Number Nine” should have been co-opted for the event, but I guess we wouldn’t have been able to get the rights in time. Luckily, the food there was so good, it didn’t need fanfare.

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Starting the New Year in style: Carolina Beach

Tony and I spent New Year’s 2009 at Downtown Raleigh’s Acorn Drop. It was fun….until the cold air sent us hailing a taxi and racing home to see the ball drop in Times Square. For 2010, we wanted to do something a little special.

Getting away from it all in Winston-Salem

It’s been a while since Tony and I went away and our empty pockets made a beach getaway a no go, a week in the city completely out, and an all-expense paid month touring Europe so unlikely, I think I had to pay $5.00 just to think about it. However, a day away was greatly needed, so we looked around at what we had in North Carolina.  Luckily, we have some neat places to tour and get away from it all right around the corner in Winston-Salem(well, maybe if that corner was a couple of hours away).

Woody’s Barbecue

Whenever I enter a barbecue joint of any kind, part of me hopes for bluegrass blaring, sawdust on the floor, and a smoke filled whiskey splattered dive bar.   Given a choice between a rundown restaurant in the sticks that is badly in need of renovation after fifty years of neglect and a spotless shining new more gourmet barbecue place, I will always choose the former.  I don’t want to turn this into an anti-corporate rant about the McDonaldization of the world, so I will just say that I would prefer that barbecue places make a greater effort to acknowledge their roots.

Woody’s (6176 Falls of Neuse Rd Raleigh, NC 27609) is a barbecue place that opened up recently at the Northridge shopping center on Falls of Neuse in a building that used to be a Hardee’s.  It should also be noted that Woody’s is a chain barbecue place that can be found in a lot of areas of the Southeast.  The building doesn’t look like much from the outside as it still holds a great deal of that crappy fast food restaurant charm including  crumbling drive thru.  Once I got inside I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had put a lot of work into renovation including new booths, pine paneling on the walls and many many signs with a vaguely country theme.   The bar at the back was a nice addition though, and I was very happy to consume a Blue Moon with my meal.  The signs irked me a little and they are likely the source of my discussion of barbecue authenticity at the beginning of this post.