California Here I Come! (Part 1)

In early January I got a call form my buddy Rich.  Rich is a photographer in Scranton, PA and travels often, mostly to professional meetings and trade shows.  Rich asked me if I wanted to join him in March when he had a trip planned to San Diego.  I told him that I would check out my schedule and try to make it.  As the dates got closer I was able to work it out.  My company has many more flights from Dulles to Los Angeles than we do to San Diego, so I looked into checking out places that were not only in San Diego but also along the way on the 2 hour drive from LAX to San Diego. 

I actually planned to fly out a day earlier than Rich, on Tuesday March 15th, on an early morning nonstop.  Arriving into LA at around 10am, it was off to get the rental and head to San Diego, but there were a few places to check out on the way.  First stop was in Long Beach, "At Last Cafe" is a small artsy cafe in a quiet neighborhood in Long Beach.  As I was driving through Long Beach, I saw that they were setting up bleachers along the roads for the soon t be run Grand Prix of Long Beach.  After arriving at the At last I was seated in a small booth and tried the signature Pork Chop meal that was featured on DDD along with an Orangeade, both were very good.  The small cafe is very popular and for lunch there is alot of traffic in and out of the restaurant.  The chef-owner met me and was happy to sign the book.  From there it was on to Anaheim and a place that is a landmark in the community, "Mamma Cozza's Italian".  This classic Italian eatery has been there since the 1940's and the walls are adorned with alot of pictures of celebrities that have eaten there.  In the hall way to the rest room are photos of many of the Disney celebrities that have eaten there as the Disneyland Resort is not too far away.  I got the signature dish there which is Pasta with Domery Sauce.  Domery Sauce is a tomato based with sausage and clams and is a bit on the spicy side but very good.  The coolest thing about Mamma's is that it is truly an Italian place with all the sides and homemade bread sticks on the table as soon as you sit down along with a side of marinated veggies.  Mr. Cozza, the co-founder signed the book, how cool is that!  I was then on the 5 Freeway south the San Diego, as I was getting on the Freeway I looked over and there it was the Pink Castle at "The Happiest Place on Earth", Snow White's Castle at Disneyland.

I checked into the hotel for one night and fell asleep almost instantly, I had worked overnight, caught a morning flight, stopped at two places and then drove 2 hours to San Diego, it had been a long day.  Luckily the next place I wanted to try was a 24 hour diner.  I went over to the "Studio Diner" a classic silver aluminum diner, that is seen all over the northeast.  For midnight the place was very buys and I had to try to whole belly clam dinner, another DDD featured dish.  They were very good, but a little bit more expensive than I would have liked. 

The next day Rich was scheduled to arrive around 1030a, so I had planned to check-out of the hotel, check out a DDD breakfast joint and then pick up Rich.  I would stay the next few nights with Rich at his hotel in the LaJolla area of San Diego.  I went to breakfast at a place that I am not really sure how to describe, it is a diner in the menu and food, but it is way more upscale than any diner I have ever been to.  "Hob Nob Hill" is in the hills above San Diego and affords a great view of San Diego's Lindbergh Airport.  I went in and as I said this is basically a diner but is very upscale, nice appointments and a staff that are uniformed in a very posh setting.  I got the Roast Beef Hast breakfast, which included eggs, potatoes, and a biscuit.  Get this, the Orange Marmalade was presented in a hollowed out orange!  Food was very good and service even better, if you are in the San Diego area, try Hob Nob Hill!

Well, it was now time to go get Rich and continue the adventure....Until next time!

A New Year and a Quest

As 2011 began (with a great Caps win in the NHL Winter Classic!, Thanks Dave Steckel - you hockey fans know what I am referring to!) I really began with a mission, get to Hawaii in December with a party of number 150, but I was sitting at 102, so I had some places to try.  Last may Guy was in the DC area and visited 5 or 6 places so I figured it was time to "go local"!  My friend Amy asked when I would be going to a place near her home in Silver Spring, MD and ironically Guy visited a place just a mile or so from her home called "The General Store".  I met Amy at her home and we made the drive over to the restaurant.  The restaurant is located in an old General Store located next to a historic Post Office, that now operates as, well, I am not really sure.  The small building is home ot some really good food and presented in a unique manner.  The menu changes from day to day and if you went there on a Sunday night they presented a fixed menu.  The specialty there is their Fried Chicken, but they also make some really good sides and a very unique Orange Glazed Brie and Turkey Turnovers.  The owner-chef is Gillian Clark opened the place just a few years ago after coming to the area from her native Denver.  She had a good time on the DDD episode with Guy.  Since then she beat Bobby Flay on his Food Network show "Throwdown with Bobby Flay"  beating him in a Fried Chicken Throwdown.  Both Amy and I got the Fried Chicken dinner which was fabulous, maybe the best Fried Chicken I have ever had, with a side of mac and cheese, which was very good and great cornbread (and I like cornbread but not a favorite).  I also got a Brie Turkey trunove and it was really good, too.  It was a great fun have a wonderful meal and sharing it with a super friend!  I knew that I wanted to go back,especially since it is so close.  I did return a few weeks later and tried the Chicken and Waffles on a Sunday morning and it was also very good.  The General Store has since closed, not due to lack of patronage but over a dispute over rent, I really hope that Gillian opens up in a new location. 

I met up with another high school friend, Charlie, t0 visit a classic diner in Arlington, VA named the "Metro 29 Diner".  This is a classic Jersey style Diner, form what was revealed on the DDD episode, the diner is 12,000 square feet, 6000 on the upper customer level and 6000 on the lower lever where they prep all the great meals and bake all their own bread and pastries.  They make their own Halal Bread for the French Toast.  Charlie and I met up there on a Sunday night and I got the classic "Sunday Greek Lamb Dinner".  It was featured on the show and this is the type of meal that Greeks have on a Sunday afternoon.  It featured soup, salad a nice portion of lamb and two veggies.  the meal was very good and I am looking forward to going back to try more of their great food.

One of my "new" traditions is to take a cruise during the Super Bowl and this year my friend Jeanne and I planned for a cruise on Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas for the big game and we met up a day before the ship sailed in South Florida.  Now this was a big time for Jeanne as it was not only the Super Bowl, but her hometown team the Green Bay Packers were playing the game, so she got me some packers stuff to wear during the game, I am not a big fan of Green Bay but since they were playing the Steelers, who I REALLY don't like, I became a huge Pack fan for the game!  In two other trips to the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area there was one DDD location that for some reason I could not find, the GPS would send me to the middle of the road near some swamps, and it became my mission to find the "Blue Marlin Fish House".  Barry and I had tried but failed, I had tried on my own and failed so I was hoping that the third time would be the charm!  I picked up Jeanne off of her Frontier flight from Milwaukee and away we went in search of what seemed impossible to find!  I followed the GPSand it seemed like, here we go again!  But as we made the same turns, the GPS read turn left and Jeanne looked to the right and saw a small sign reading "Blue Marlin Fish House", "Thee it is!"  I had to make a u-turn and turn into what looked to be a small state or local park and the Blue Marlin is like an outdoor lunch shack.  Jeanne was a bit less adventurous and got a burger that she said was great.  We shared the Grouper Fish Spread and I got a Shell Fish sandwich that was very good.  The Blue Marlin, despite being hard to find is worth the time and attempts that it takes to find it.

The cruise was great!  The Packers won!  What could be better!

Hitting the Century Mark and Beyond!

Benny's Seafood, My 100th DDD Visit!



Lobster Mofungo at Benny's

 As many of you know I love to cruise.  I have been on over 50 cruises and really have found no way that I like to get away than on a cruise ship.  I have cruised on many different cruise lines but Royal Caribbean (RCI) is the line I have been on the most.  The cruise lines have loyalty programs that are like the ones that all the airlines have.  On RCI I had attained the Diamond Level, which is a pretty high level but I was just a few cruise credits away from attaining the highest level (since becoming the second highest level) called Diamond Plus.  RCI announced last year that December would be Diamond December with Diamond members getting double cruise credits during December.  I looked into taking a cruise and saw that I could take two cruises, a 3 night followed by a 4 night on the same ship for LESS than doing a regular 7 night cruise and get 4 credits in the deal, so I booked back to back cruises on RCI's Majesty of the Seas for the first week of December.  The two cruises would start on Friday and then Monday so I decided to fly down to the Miami area (into Ft. Lauderdale on jetBlue) two days before the cruise and try as many of the DDD locations in the Miami area that I could.  After arriving an getting the car I headed down to Miami to my first of 4 stops on the day.  The first place is in the Little Havana area of Miami, near the location of the old Miami Orange Bowl stadium where the new huge Florida Marlins baseball stadium is being built and will open in Spring 2012.  I found "La Camonera" in a very busy strip mall.  This restaurant is really a fish market with a large lunch counter inside.  They fry alot of the fish there and I got a Fried Shrimp Sandwich that was very good and thankfully not too spicy.  It was then onto a very cool restaurant just over the causeway in Miami Beach.  "Tap Tap" features Haitian cuisine and it seems almost like it is an Haitian art museum.  The walls are covered with colorful Haitian art.  I got a small portion of Oxtail, which is a traditional meal in Haiti.  I was able to chat with the owner-chef who was featured on the DDD episode and he told me all about the restaurant and his cooking with Guy.  He was a great guy and not only made me feel welcome but invited me to walk all around the restaurant to see all the artwork.  From there I needed a break and went over to the airport to find the offices of "Airliners", a magazine I have subscribed to since it debuted in the late 1980's.  I had a nice visit with the editors and told them all about the Washington Airline Society (of which I am the current President) and the airline scene in the DC area.  After a nice visit I headed to a small town called Kendall Lakes to go to my 99th DDD visit.  "Jamaica Kitchen" features authentic Jamaican cuisine and also features a Chinese-Jamaican fusion cuisine.  Jamaica Kitchen is a carry-out restaurant and I was able to get a real light Jamaican snack of a turnover and malt drink.  I chatted with the owner and she gave me some of the dirt surrounding Guy's visit there.  She told me that Guy showed up a few hours late, which infuriated the chef to no end.  I found out that one of the reasons he has featured so many South Florida locations is due to the fact that The Food Network sponsors teh Miami Food and Wind Festival each year so Guy films locations during that time and it seems that Guy had had a really fun night before coming to the restaurant, you'd never know it from watching the episode!  For dinner that night I headed to a place that I had pre-selected as my 100th location, "Benny's Seafood".  Benny's was featured in an early episode and it is one of Guy's favorites and features Puerto Rican cuisine.  The specialty at Benny's is Mofungo.  Mofungo is a meal consisting of smashed plantains, spices and sauces and topped with the meat, fish or vegetable of your choice.  I got the Lobster Mofungo, come on it was number 100!  The staff there was very friendly but I didn't see the owner-chef, so I asked the server if she would sign my book and explained what I was doing so she went into the office and got the owners, the main chef and his wife and they were every happy to see me and not only signed my book but gave me a traditional Puerto Rican drink to celebrate my achievement, what a great place and super people!

The next day I planned to see my friend Jeff, who is a Circuit Court judge in Ft. Lauderdale and spend the day watching him in his courtroom.  I had to be there at 11am so I headed out early north about 25 miles to Boynton Beach to a real New York style diner called Flakowitz of Boynton Beach.  This is a very popular diner in a strip mall and a very good place for a meal.  I was seated in a long booth that is shared by others a and as I sat down a plate of homemade sweet rolls was placed on my table.  I got the typical scrambled egg breakfast, but the real fun was eaves dropping on the conversation next to me, I thought I was in an episode of Seinfeld!  They were more seasoned citizens and they were talking about their homeowners association and running for office, I thought I next to Seinfeld's parents!  Onto court, very interesting and fun to see Jeff in action.  For dinner I went to Deerfield Beach to try a seafood joint called "Whale's Rib Raw Bar".  the seaside eatery is all wood and very popular and features all types of seafood, I liked it!

After a fun and relaxing cruise I returned home and had planned a celebration dinner for family and friends at my number 68 location "Comet Ping Pong".  The owner told me he would love to have us celebrate there and reserved the huge table of 15 in the center of the restaurant.  We all ate great pizza and calzone and played some ping pong.  I had alot of friends come and also my dad and step-mom, sister, brother, too.  It was a great night!  Shortly afterwards my friend Karin in Hawaii told me that they would hold a part for my 150th visit, so that is what my new goal became, maybe they would host my 200th, we shall see!

My Nephew Nathan at my 100th Celebration at Comet Ping Pong

My friend Eric with a jar of Comet's Pizza Sauce

Comet's Brick Oven Pizza

Me with my dad, step-mom, sister Sue and Brother-in-Law Dale

My Brother Chris and my dad

A Full Day in Connecticut!

Now that my DDD visits was in the 90's I really wanted to get to 100.  I was checking out places that I could go to that were quick trips from Dulles.  I looked into a number of places to try and decided that maybe getting to a few places in the state where I was born would just be the ticket - Connecticut!  I saw that Guy has visited 5 places there and I really had only one day to do it so it would be quite the task.  The flights to Hartford looked pretty good and although I would have to drive some distance to get to the places I wanted to try, Hartford would be easier than flying into New York as the drive is quite a bit easier.  In my planning I decided that I would have time only to get to 4 places so I mapped it out and away I went.

After a quick morning flight into Hartford I got the car and headed down to Southern Connecticut.  The first stop was in the first place I remember living, Norwalk.  I headed into a really great Venezuelan Restaurant called "Valencia Luncheria".  The small cafe is putting out some killer food and the place is always packed, when one table is cleared it is quickly filled.  I got a Pork Arepa, which is like a small, overstuffed sandwich, and a Beef Empenada, which is like a baked turnover, along with a Mango Smoothie made for a great lunch!  I headed into another town where I had lived when I was very young to visit two places Fairfield.  The first stop is a place that has been featured in numerous television shows including the first travel-food show I had ever seen, "Sandwiches That You Will Like" a great PBS show made by Rick Sebak (it gets shown during money raising times).  "Super Duper Weenie" started out as a truck operation but has grown into a popular restaurant.  I got the Slaw Dog and a Regular Dog, both were very good, I just wish we had a place this in then DC area, good hot dogs are hard to find!  I sat at the counter right in front of where the owner did his magic.  After seeing him in so many different shows I really looked forward to talking to him and as I watched, he seemed very open and outgoing to others (I was thinking that they were regulars) but when I I asked told him what I was doing and asked him to sign my book he signed it but really sort of blew me off and that was very disappointing, this was one of the first times that I was treated in in a negative manner, oh well, the food was good!  I went onto an unusual place for Connecticut, homegrown Southern Style Barbecue.  "Wilson's Holy Smoke Barbecue" is sort of a fusion of many types of Southern Barbecue.  I got the Burnt Ends and the meat tips is sauce was very good.  On to my last stop to the town of Westport and a very unique looking diner that appears to be on stilts just off the river and under Interstate 95.  The "Black Duck Cafe" looks like a boathouse and is putting out good burgers and seafood.  I was so full by that time that I tried the Oysters Rock, an oyster and spinach combo that was very tasty.  After getting the book signed it was back to the airport and a quick flight back home.

A few days later I was headed into DC for a meeting at the Air ansd Space Museum I decided to try a place that Guy went to in Falls Church.  This little place is attached to a small hotel called The Stratford.  The place is called "La Carquena" and specializes in Venezuelan and Peruvian Cuisine.  I got there when it opened and was lucky to get a single seat table, they take reservations and they are always full.  I got their version of a Arepa, there's is like a chicken salad sandwich and a very good Empenada. 

My DDD count was now at 96 and I had an upcoming cruise vacation out of Miami and was hoping to get to my 100th location.

Minnesota There I Go (part 2) and maybe some DC!

Bryant Lake Bowl, A Gourmet Restaurant with 10 Lanes of Bowling!

I had another day left in the Twin Cities and then it would be back home.  I made this trip the first weekend of November 2010 and the weather was perfect!  Sunny each day and temps in the 60's.  If I had decided to make this trip just one week later, I would have been in the middle of the first blizzard of the season for the Twin Cites, 2 feet of snow the next weekend, boy am I glad I chose the weekend I did!

I started my third and last day by going to breakfast at a place that was and still is one of the most unique places that I have ever been to.  It is hard to figure out what type of establishment I was at.  The "Bryant-Lake Bowl" is both a gourmet restaurant and a bowling alley.  It is named for the intersection that it sits at in Minneapolis, Bryant and Lake Streets and I arrived there at it's opening time on a nice Saturday morning.  The food they serve here is very good.  I got a Breakfast Quesadilla which was very good.  The place is know for it's quality gourmet meals, but right next to the dining area is a 10 Lane Bowling Alley, I have never seen that before, I have seen lunch counters in bowling alley but usually the most gourmet food at those places is grilled cheese sandwiches and huge greasy fries, not here, oh no!  For lunch I headed to St. Paul to try a staple St. Paul meal at two different places.  The first stop was at "Casper and Runyon's The Nook".  At The Nook, the sandwich to get is the "Juicy Lucy".  This is an 'inside-out' cheeseburger.  This delicious burger has the cheddar cheese inside the burger patties and is served with some really good fries.  the sandwich is served with a warning note about the "Molten Cheese" inside the burger.  From there I went over to the "Blue Door Pub".  At the Blue Door I got the "Juicy Bluecy", pretty much like the burger at The Nook, but the burger is stuffed with Blue Cheese.  I also had to try the "Spam Bites".  The bites are like a hush puppy with a Spam center.  The bites come with a Sweet Chili sauce and are very good.  Spam is made in nearby Austin, Minnesota and really when done in this manner gets a really bad rap!  It is hard to pick which one I enjoyed more, both were excellent, I did like the gooey cheddar better, though.

Niki, The Owner of Victor's 1959

My last meal in the Twin Cities would be with a friend of mine that I have known since my days at Mosby Wood Elementary.  Suzanne has lived in the area for a number of years and we met at a really great (but small) place called "Victors 1959" and specialized in Cuban cuisine.  It was funny as I was driving to Victors I followed my GPS but I could not find it, it is so small that it sits away from the road and Suzanne watched as I drove by it 4 times.  I got a meal called Picadillo, which is a meat based stew that has all kinds of  veggies with alot of capers, it was delicious.  Suzanne and I had to sit at the bar due to the number of others there and that was a real blessing, we got to talk to Nikki, the owner and she told us all about the filming and the fun she had with Guy.  She told me that the meal I got was Guy's favorite and that during breaks he would go back to get more!  Cuban is not the type of food you think about when you hear Minnesota, but if you can try this place.

My Friend Suzanne at Victor's 1959

I flew home and had to bypass a stop in Chicago because if I had stopped there I might still be there!  The flights were all full so Delta Connection brought me home and I must say that they have very nice service and they upgraded me into First Class so you can't beat that!  From Dulles I headed into Washington DC to try two places.  I drive to the East Falls Church Metro and took the train into DC, first stop was the Capitol South Station to try a burger joint called "Tune Inn".  The Tune Inn is a family run place that proudly calls themselves a "DIVE!"  There are alot of cool wall decorations and I got the Roast Beef sandwich and it was very good.  Then I left to Metro over to the U Street Station to try a place that serves authentic "Soul Food".  The place is called "Oohs and Aahs".  The place was packed but there was a seat right next to the grill so I was able to see the chef crank out alot of great food and also talk with the owner, she was super nice!  I got a turkey meal, that was the closest thing to a Pork Chop that you would ever find.  I also got the Mac and Cheese, which was super rich and tasty.  I left as just about everyone else that goes there - VERY FULL!

I drove home and had now visited 91 DDD locations and a fun weekend was over!



The Owner of "Oohs and Aahs" on U Street in DC



Minnesota - Here I Come! (Part 1)









The Tiki Drinks at Psycho Suzy's

 

Dinner at Psycho Suzy's

 In the early seasons of DDD Guy featured a number of locations in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota (MSP).  There were at least two of them that when I saw the episodes I said to myself, "I need to try that place!"  There are more than 10 places in the area so it would be a very aggressive plan to get to 13 places in a few days.  Originally I was planning to go there on a Thursday morning and fly back on a Sunday morning.  As I looked at the flights, the normal routing from Dulles to Minneapolis via Chicago, since United didn't fly nonstop at the time of my trip.  I also thought that I could use the stop in Chicago on the way home to hit a few places in the Chicagoland area.  As the trip got closer the flights didn't look good at all (I fly standby so when flights are full I get left!) so I needed to rethink my flight plans.  As an airline employee we get some discounted tickets on other carriers and so I looked around and saw that Delta had the only nonstops from Dulles and that the flights looked pretty good so I got what we in the airline industry call "ZED" fares on Delta.  I left on a very rainy Thursday morning  on the 630am Delta Connection nonstop flight.  After arriving into MSP I got the car and went into the city to get going.  I headed into a small place in the University of Minnesota area called "The Weinery".  This place is very amazing, on the show and in my visit, the place is a one man show.  One cook who also acts as the server and he makes everything from scratch, if you order slaw he doesn't pull out a big tub from the cooler but pulls out the cabbage and makes it from scratch.  The food was very good and I was very impressed.  I then headed to an interesting place makes their own sausages and specializes in Scandinavian cuisine.  "Kramarczuk's Sausage Company" is a restaurant-deli and has a huge assortment of products.  I tried a dish that is like a huge Swedish Meatball and it was good and very filling.  The staff is mostly family and seemed a bit cold.  They looked at me at some trepidation on how I found them and why I was there but the owner came over and signed the book.  I was there early in the day and would like to try it sometime when it was going full speed.  After resting a bit at the hotel and making a quick stop at the Mall of America I headed to a very eclectic cafe called "The Modern".  It is a quaint place and I got a soup and a specialty drink there and I would say that the prices were a bit higher than I would like to pay, it seemed from what I could see form the others as very good.  I headed to dinner and one of the places that was a reason to make this trip and it has probably the best name of any DDD location.  "Psycho Suzy's Motor Lounge and Tiki Gardens" is one of the most unique places that you could try and was housed at that time in an old A & W Drive-In (it has since moved to a larger location.  The owner (who unfortunately was out a the time of my visit) goes to Tiki Conventions to supply the restaurant with lights and Tiki Cups for the exotic drinks.  I just had to get the Cream Cheese Rollups and  Deviled Eggs (how cool is that!) along with a Tiki Drink.  They also feature Fried Snickers bars, but that was way too much and figured I had tried enough.


 


Al's Breakfast in the Dinkytown area of Minneapolis





Al's James Beard Award (the Academy Awards for Restaurants) hangs over the grill!



The next morning I headed out very early (530a) to go back to the U of Minnesota area to go to the second placed that made me make this trip.  "Al's Breakfast" is a great place, but get there when it opens at 6am or expect to wait!  I got there at 6am and got one of the last seats in this place.  Al's was built many years ago in an alley so it is small and narrow and seats about 25.  Al's owner Doug is quite the character and his restaurant has won a James Beard Award.  The Beard is like the Academy Awards for restaurants and the award is tacked up over the flat top grill!  In front of each seat is a pad of paper the server takes your order on the pad and away your order goes.  It was a fun place and I would go back there any time I am in the area.  I headed up to a place called "Emily's Lebanese Grill".  Emily's looks like a house in a neighborhood.  I tried the Lebanese Burger and it was very tasty.  While there I noticed alot of cool photos all around, all from Lebanon.  There was an older gentleman there wrapping napkins and he came over and showed me all shorts of photos and maps of Lebanon, it was Emily's dad!  The thing that really surprised me was that there are mountains and ski areas in Lebanon, I would not have believed that if not for seeing the photos.  This is a very homey and friendly place.  I then made a road trip out to a town called White Bear Lake.  I had visited White Bear once before as that is the town that my younger brother, Chris, had gotten married as it is the hometown of his wife, my sister-in-law Angie.  She told me that the place I would be visiting "Donatelli's" was a hangout for her in her high school days.  The food was good Italian but, although it's not a chain, it reminded me of a good Italian place that can be found all over the place (we have Giovanni's in Leesburg).  I ended tha day having dinner with a good friend of mine that lives in the area, Ilene met me at the "Town Talk Diner".  The place was packed and I would say it is a "Yuppie Diner"  The food was good and I really enjoyed catching up with a good friend and it is really great to be wioth others when most of the time you're by yourself, so thank Ilene for such a great time. 

My MSP trip was half over but I had another full two days of visits so stay tuned....



Triple D Meets Mayberry!

Elaine, my older brother Tom's wife, sent us notice in the summer that she would be planning a surprise 50th birthday for Tom in early October.  Tom and Elaine live outside Asheville, NC, but with their daughter Rebekah at Salem College in Winston-Salem they travel to see Rebekah as she plays percussion in the Wake Forest University Marching Band for all of the football games (they also travel to most of the basketball games, which is pretty impressive since the drive is about 3 hours).  Elaine planned it to be just prior to the Wake Forest vs. Georgia Tech football game on the first weekend in October very near Tom's actual birthday.  As I was making trip arrangements, I knew I would be driving and looked at some nearby DDD places to try.  Winston-Salem is under 2 hours drive from Charlotte and there were 5 places there I wanted to try (and 2 I wanted to go back to).  The game was on Saturday evening so I headed south on Thursday morning and after a lunch stop with a facebook reconnected friend from high school, Becky I made my way to the Charlotte area.  First stop would be dinner at a very eclectic cafe called simply "Dish".  I had a very delicious Salmon with orange sauce.  Dish is very popular and was pretty busy for a Thursday night.  The next two places I tried were true drive-ins.  Both places "Barbecue King" and "The South 21 Drive In" have no seating area, as your car is the seating area.  Both have really cool lighted signs, the South 21 is awash in neon, and have the always cool silver metal call boxes.  At "Barbecue King" I got an order of their famous onion rings and then at "South 21" I had to try their Cherry Milk Shake.  The problem with true drive-ins for me is that there is very little interaction with the staff, so getting my book signed is a chore, I was successful at South 21 but have yet to get a signature from the Barbecue King.  The next morning I headed to "Landmark Restaurant and Diner" and had a good breakfast there.  The owner and greeter were really surprised that I stopped in and readily signed.  After a visit to the newly opened NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte I made my second visit to "The Penguin" (I had been to The Penguin about 2 years earlier, actually my #8 DDD place).  The Penguin is known for their Fried Pickles and that might not sound too good, they are very tasty.  I also had to get a southern traditional sandwich, the Grilled Pimento Cheese sandwich.  It lived up to it's billing tasty and spicy.  Later I tried a place called "Cabo Fish Tacos".  As I looked at their website I noticed a second location in Balcksburg, VA, home of Virginia Tech, I knew there had to be a connection there.  As I chatted with the owner while he signed he told me that he was a Hokie and that he didn't have any plans to put a location just off campus, but when a really good location became available he jumped and now has two locations!  For dinner I headed into the nearby countryside outside of Charlotte to a place that seems in the middle of nowhere, but everyone makes the trek to try.  "Jake's Good Eats" is a really great place, I would say that it is a can't miss place if you're in the area.  it can be a bit pricey but the food is so worth it. 

Saturday morning came and I was off to Winston-Salem to celebrate Tom's 50th.  The party would be at a Red, Hot and Blue right next to BB and T Field home of the Wake Forest Demon Deacon football team.  I got there early and as Tom and Elaine are "Wine People" we decided to go and try some of the local wineries.  The area just south of Winston-Salem is a huge wine growing area.  The largest one we visited was Richard Childress Winery.  Richard Childress is a famous NASCAR team owner and some of the logos on the bottles have a checkered flag motif.  The party was awesome and Tom was really surprised, especially when my sister Sue and her husband Dale showed up.  As for the game, at halftime they had a birthday tribute to Tom on the stadium scoreboard and although the Deacons lost i the last minute of the game we all enjoy watching Rebekah perform in the band that is known as (I might not be exactly right but close) "The Spirit of the Old Gold and Black".

On Sunday I headed back home but had to make one more stop that was TV related but not DDD related.  The date was October 3, 2010.  On October 3, 1960 on of the best shows ever made debuted on CBS.  "The Andy Griffith Show" is a TV classic and one of my favorite all time shows.  Andy and Opie Taylor, Aunt Bee, Barney Fife and Gomer Pyle all lived in the town of Mayberry, NC.  Mayberry is based on the town of Mt. Airy, NC, which is Andy Griffith's hometown.  Mt. Airy is about 40 miles due north of Winston-Salem.  I just had to be there on the 50th Anniversary of the show.  The town is wonderful, fun to walk around and see, there is the Andy Griffith Playhouse and also the Mt. Airy Museum, that has memorabilia from the show including the suit worn by Otis Cambell.  After a quick visit I headed home and now could say I had been to 76 DDD places.