Daily Archives: January 18, 2011

We were afraid the vegetarians were going to be left out of all the fun on restaurant week and decided to be one of the places they could take part in the event.  So both our lunch and dinner menus for the week are vegetarian.

I’m excited about the “vegetales pibil” and am frankly surprised it’s taken us this long to do it.  It’s based on a classic pork preparation where the meat is rubbed with a Yucatan spice mix before being slowly roasted in banana leaves.  We’ll be using a combination of cauliflower (because it’s just so meaty, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, and onions.  It should be delicious.

I recently had one of our particularly loyal vegetarian customers ask if or when we were bringing back the vegetarian mole amarillo (a tangy stew of vegetables and masa dumplings in a red-chile, tomatillo sauce).  So, this seemed like a fine enough time for it to make a comeback.

I think everything else sort of describes itself…

Dinner $20

Goat cheese-stuffed Anaheim chile with guajillo-citrus salsa

“Vegetales Pibil” – Achiote spice rubbed vegetables roasted in banana leaves.  Served with black beans and pickled onions

Maple-walnut tres leche cake

Lunch $15

Black bean sope with soy barbacoa, white onions, and queso fresco

Mole Amarillo with masa dumplings and vegetables

Mexican chocolate ice cream with walnut cookies

OK, so a bit of a refresher as to what and why this is.

For a variety of reasons, we end up with odds and ends of various delicious beers.  Some times they’re left-overs from a beer dinner.  Sometimes we buy a case of something to pour as a special and sell all but one bottle.  Some were casualties of a recent list over-haul.  Two in particular are because we’re transitioning our beer list to be completely North American.

I’d call it making lemonade from lemons, but none of these are lemons.  Not even close.  They’re all delicious craft beers that would normally cost more than the $3 we charge for them if you’re willing to roll the dice.  Some, a whole lot more.

See, that’s the rub, you don’t know which of these beauts you’re going to get when you order the mystery beer.  Nobody does.  The bartender just reaches blindly into the mystery door and pulls one out.

Oh, and we only call it Mystery Beer Night because that sounds better than Mystery Beer Day.  However, as with all drink specials in the state of NC, this deal is good all day long.

Without further ado, here’s the line-up for this Tuesday’s Mystery Beer Night.

Now, in full disclosure, in some of these cases, there may be only one or two in the hopper.  However, as you can see, there’s not a loser in the bunch.

Anchor Christmas Ale
Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
Leffe Golden Ale
Highland Oatmeal Porter
Highland Mocha Stout
Founders Porter
Brooklyn Lager
and more…