We went on a Saturday night and it was packed, so make sure you have a reservation if you want to go on a weekend.  I’ll do my best to describe the dining room, but must note that I had eye surgery two days prior and was wearing an eye patch over that eye (yes, like a pirate) so I was somewhat limited in my visual observations.  The dark wood-paneled dining room was set up like a large banquet hall, with a large buffet area in the center.  There was also a bar area upstairs with live music and even, I’m told, a belly dancer when we left.

Ordering at Chima is pretty simple.  You can either choose to have just the salad bar, which is well-stocked with salads, cheeses and cold meats, or you can have the Rodizio service, which includes all-you-can-eat grilled meat and the salad bar.  There is certainly enough on the salad bar to keep non-meat eaters happy, but let’s be honest here: the only reason to go to Chima is for the meat.  Our large group circled the buffet and several of our party made the rookie mistake of loading up on the green stuff and fillers.  I avoided that mistake, and sampled only the cheese, beef carpaccio and the excellent artichoke hearts. 

As soon as we got back to the table, the gauchos swooped in.  Some in our party described this as overwhelming, perhaps even stressful, as gaucho after gaucho approached with a new and different meat choice.  A few words to the wise–try to take your time.  If you don’t get it the first time around, the gauchos WILL be back around several times so you’ll have ample opportunity to get whatever you want. And if there’s something particular you want to try, ask a gaucho and they will send someone over with that meat in short order.  Every time we made a request, a new gaucho showed up in just a couple of minutes to satisfy the request.

As for the Rodizio, well, the pictures on the Chima site say it all.  I tried almost everything, except for the beef ribs, fish and the parmesan pork loin (the only thing I was disappointed to miss).  I asked my brother-in-law about the fish, which looked a bit dry and overcooked, and he said “its a steakhouse”, which says it all.  Our table was evenly split as to the best meat on offer–one side (let’s call them the AARP crew) liked the ribeye.  The other side (the young and stylish pirate crew) loved the house special top sirloin.  The top sirloin was easily the best piece of meat I’ve ever had–perfectly cooked, slight char on the outside and the most delicious, butter-like ribbon of fat running along each piece.  It got to the point where Carlos, the top sirloin gaucho, came straight to our table from the kitchen so we could have the outside pieces from each piece of sirloin, as those had the best char.  The gauchos were also accommodating about temperature and did their best to give you medium, medium-rare or rare based on your preferences.  Other notable choices included the flank steak and the surprisingly good bacon-wrapped chicken breast.  The sausage was fair and the filet mignon was actually a little disappointing, probably because this is not my favorite cut of meat due to the lack of any marbling.

Chima also offers an array of desserts that are not included with the buffet, but how someone could eat dessert after stuffing his pie hole with the finest in grilled meats is beyond me.  Its also not the cheapest meal, with the Rodizio service running $40/pp, which doesn’t include tax, tip or alcohol.  One way to save money is go Sunday through Thursday and use the $25 preferred diner coupon that will be emailed to you if you register on the Chima site.

This was a great meal and a welcome addition to the Charlotte restaurant scene. Its not the type of place you can go to on a regular basis, but when you want to eat yourself into a meat coma, this is far and away the best choice in Charlotte.

The first thing you notice when you walk in is the beer-themed decor, including beer keg columns.  This is appropriate since the pub offers an impressive beer list, including 20 draft beers and more than 60 bottled brews ranging from the commonplace to the incredibly obscure.  For me the choice was a no-brainer:  Franziskaner, and be quick about it!!  As a fan of all things hefeweizen, this is far and away my favorite unfiltered German beer.  Another notable selections included the Mecktoberfest microbrew, in the style of a German marzen, and for which $1 is donated to a local food bank for each pint purchased.  The other big winner is the Young’s Double Chocolate Stout, which was much-enjoyed by a food-loving friend who is just discovering the many wonders of beer.  This stout had a fantastic chocolate aroma and was quite drinkable, even for me and I don’t really care for stouts and porters.

The dinner menu at Liberty is also quite impressive.  With an emphasis on locally grown ingredients which leads to seasonal changes, the menu has a good mix of traditional pub food and edgier fare.  From the selection of “Pub Food”, our party of six ordered the fresh daily pickles, house-made pretzels with creole mustard, devils on horseback and pork belly sliders.  The pickles are made on-site and had just the subtlest hint of “pickle” flavor while retaining a lot of crunch and cucumber-ness.  The pretzels were a nice compliment to the beer-centric menu, but how do you screw up soft pretzels?  I wasn’t a fan of the devils on horseback, which consisted of grilled dates, bacon, bleu cheese and almonds. The warm dates were mushy and slightly off-putting.  The  pork belly sliders were excellent.  These had all the wonderful flavor of bacon but with the hearty texture of the belly.  Next time I plan to get the warm crispy BBQ pork rinds, which were ordered by an adjacent table and appeared yummy.

From the appetizer list, we ordered the calamari, which was tossed in a sweet and sour sauce (not Buffalo-style, as advertised online).  It was excellent and very similar to that served at Upstream, which makes sense since the folks behind the Liberty were previously there. Next time I’ll order the mussels which looked wonderful every time they passed by our table.

As for entrees, I had a braised Angus short rib, served with risotto and sautéed green beans.  I’m not a huge fan of braised meats; I often find them stringy and unpleasantly reminiscent of childhood pot roast or beef stew.  But this meat was excellent and the wine reduction in which it was braised was extremely flavorful.  Other dishes on the table included the salmon, trout, lamb and roasted chicken.  The salmon had excellent flavor, but was slightly overcooked and not the best piece of fish.  The trout was also good but would have better without the skin on both sides (yes, I know trout is often served skin-on).  The lamb was extremely tasty, as was the chicken which was billed as “chicken and dumplings” and served over gnocchi.  Everyone seemed happy with their choices, although we’re looking forward to trying different entrees next time.

Given that this is a dessert-loving crowd, we ordered all four of the offered desserts.  The rocky road creme brulee was a very different take on the traditional dish with marshmallows, nuts and chocolate, but still had the hard sugared crust that is a must for any half-decent creme brulee.  The warm chocolate cake was good, but this dish seems to have become a bit cliché on dessert menus and its hard to find one that is markedly different from the others.  The apple-walnut tart was tasty, if forgettable. The sticky-toffee pudding was the only real loser in the bunch–it came out more like a muffin and appeared to have been severely overcooked. 

All in all, we had a great meal and a good time in a fun setting.  This place is located within walking distance of the East/West stop on the Lynx Blue Line and has adequate parking.  The staff was friendly and knowledgeable and the bar area was hopping when we left.  I look forward to the thoughts of my fellow diners in the comments, and in the meantime, check this place out!

The restaurant is gorgeous: spacious, modern with clean lines but very comfortable.

We ordered several items…all were excellent. Fresh, well prepared, nicely presented, and Yummy! Smoked chicken and artichoke pizza: very flat, crispy crust, with bechamel and wild mushrooms. Ricotta and Lemon Marmellatta: served with grilled garlic crostini. Smoked chicken and spinach agnollotti: with garlic cream sauce, mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes. Pan seared tirgger fish with crab-potato ravioli. Desert: Black and white Tiramisu…not traditional but excellent!

 The place seems well managed with excellent service. The prices were very reasonable…clearly they thought about their price points as they opened in the middle of this Great Recession.

In short, I have not been this excited about a Charlotte restuarant for a while. Highly recommended!

The restaurant has a decidedly different vibe than Red Robin’s kid-friendly atmosphere–Big Daddy’s is edgier and definitely louder.  As for the food, it was excellent.  We started with an order of fried pickles.  Unlike your typical fried pickle chip, these were long slices, like the “stackers” you might put on a sandwich.  They were perfectly cooked and a great way to start.  For dinner, I had the Blue Cheese, Bacon and Tomato stack burger, which featured two patties and a large scoop of blue cheese spread. It was excellent, especially the Maytag blue cheese spread which was milder than your typical blue cheese and which didn’t overwhelm the sandwich. 

The wife ordered the Cantina 1511, which featured a meatless black bean patty, topped with chilies, cheese, avocado and chipotle ranch.  The patty was seasoned extremely well and this was quite a tasty burger, even for a dedicated carnivore like myself.   Quick side story–at the end of the meal, my dear mother, who also ordered the Cantina 1511, mentioned that she liked this burger, but that she wished it had more meat, thinking that it was supposed to be a hamburger patty topped with black beans, and wondering why the waitress had failed to ask how she would like this “burger” cooked. Imagine her surprise when we told her–AFTER she was done eating–that there was in fact no meat in her meal….I guess that just goes to show how tasty it was?!

The official dad and grandfather of your blogger both ordered the Classic Southern Burger, topped with chili and slaw.  This too received solid marks, with the sole criticism that the chili could have been a bit spicier to contrast against the slaw. 

With your burger, you can get fries, housemade chips, sweet potato fries, onion straws or tater tots as a side. We tried all of the above except the tots, and each was very good.  I look forward to returning on a weekend for their famed duck fat fries.

The restaurant also has a varied beer selection and even has “hard” milkshakes with liquor.  We got the Peaches and Cream which was good but had a bit too much alcohol for some (if that’s possible…).

All in all, this place has much promise and we’ll definitely be back.  I don’t think Red Robin will suffer too much, and likely both will be fine given their different menus and atmospheres. I know that other contributors to this site have visited Big Daddy’s and I look forward to their comments.

But what the area really needs is a some good Thai.  Sure, there is a Thai House at Tower Place on Hwy 51, but its not even good enough to warrant the less than 10 minute drive from Blakeney.  There is plenty of space available in the new Best Buy-PetsMart shopping center, so come on down!  I promise you’ll have at least one loyal customer if you can manage decent red and green curries and some tasty pad thai!!

Cuisine: Modern Mediterranean meets California meets…Alabama?

The Scene: Order at the counter, minimalist modern decor with bright colors…think CB2 or Ikea

The Word: I was a little skeptical about this place. I had looked at the menu on-line several months ago and was not too excited. I was wrong.

First, the menu has been recently expanded to included several yummy new options. It’s not just dry chicken pitas. I ordered Chicken Roll-Ups: a tortilla with chopped grilled chicken, caramalized onions, tomatoes and feta cheese. They were better than I thought, especially for “healthy” cuisine.  I chose a side item of braised white beans. They were creamy white beans–a little too heavy with rosemary and olive oil (I didn’t think that was possible), but pretty good.

My companion ordered the shrimp kabobs–a little risky you might say. But, they were moist and spicy and charbroiled! The kabobs came with grilled zucchini, rice pilaf and cucumber raita, all of which combined quite well. An “ok” Greek salad also came with the entree. They have homemade Greek salad dressing on the tables that you add to the salad yourself. That’s a nice touch. They also have sea salt and mixed peppercorn grinders on the tables along with real utensils. The best part, I didn’t see an item on the menu for over $10. The manager also gave us a free bowl of their made fresh daily chicken and orzo soup.  They throw it out every night so if they have some left, they give it out at the end of the day. It’ll be good when it’s cold out.

The Final Word: Recommended for casual, Modern but not very authentic but that’s ok because it’s still good Mediterranean. No falafel, but that’s ok. Oh, the Alabama connection: The place started in Birmingham, Alabamer.

We took the train (LYNX Blue Line) from the 485 stop all the way up to the last stop, which added a metropolitan feel to our evening. Debarking at 7th Street, we walked through Uptown over to 4th Ward, stopping to admire the Ward’s colorful Victorian houses.

Alexander Michael’s is in the heart of 4th Ward. The first thing we noticed upon entering the restaurant was that it was extremely dark inside. Our table had a little lamp at one end, but it only served to illuminate the two menus on either side of it. Our spouses had to lean over to read their menu options.

Regarding the food, I highly recommend the fried pickles.  These dill chips were perfectly battered and fried. The crisp coating perfectly enveloped the pickles. No mush, no flaking. The pickles were tart and not too juicy. Just right. For my main course, I had the Shrimp Marsala ($15.75). It was good, not great. The menu description boasted  mushrooms…The mushrooms should have been much greater in both quantity and size. They were mushroom bits.

One thing this restaurant has: location, location, location.  After dinner, on our way back to the train, we walked through the park. What an amazing view of the city: Victorian homes behind us, flowering trees around us, and the lights of the high-rises ahead of and above us. A beautiful end to an evening.

I look forward to hearing my cohorts’ take on their meals/experiences.

Note: Here is some history about the building that hosts Alexander Michael’s. According to Desire’, a local historian, the lot was purchased in 1896 for $300 and a store with an upstairs apartment was built.  Earnest Berryhill, who lived in the Victorian home catty-corner to the building, purchased the store in 1907. Along with his wife, Gussie Newcomb, and helper, Amzi Rosman, he ran the store until his death in 1931. In 1960, his son, John, converted it into a laundromat, which closed in 1973. It then became a grocery and now a restaurant.

PJ O’Reilly’s is a nice place.  Rumor has it that O’Sheas’s owners were going to open PJ’s as well, but something happened and it opened with new owners.  The similarities between PJs and O’s is that they are both similar looking pubs with friendly staff.  PJs wins points for no smoking.  I am not a big beer drinker but I did have a nice beer that night (D, help here, what did I have?) and I have had beer at Os.  In this case they are both equal to me.  However, the biggie is the food. I think Os wins here.

I had the corned beef and cabbage at PJs and while it was tasty, it was not as memorable as Os.  The PJs corned beef  was small strips of meat, a tad dry, some peices of cabbage and mashed potatoes (no gravy).  O’s is a hearty portion of  beef, cabbage and potatoes (with gravy) and it will fill you up.  It was fine, but I would expect the corned beef and cabbage to be stellar at an Irish pub.

With that said, I did start off with onion rings that were AMAZING!!!!!!  Huge, crispy, tasty… YUMMY!!!!!!  So maybe O’s was not on their full game that night with the other items.  I do think this is a place to try!!

I would be curious for my fellow blog dinner partners to pipe in with what they thought of their food.

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Upon a follow-up visit to PJ’s I must retract my previous statements.  Perhaps I hit Pj’s on a bad day, but my follow-up visit was nothing but amazing.  The corned beef was plentiful, juicy and awesome.  The potatoes was covered in a wonderful Guinness beer gravy.  The rest of my crew ranged in food from meatloaf and banger and mash to fish and chips.  I tasted it all and all is lovely.   PJs is redeemed!   AWESOME!!!

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Colemans

So this entry is a bit of a departure from the norm, or what should be the norm in the future, in that it

Crab anyone?

profiles a non-Charlotte eatery.  This weekend your intrepid bloggers trekked to Sunset Beach for a couple of days of fun and sun in the surf.  Saturday night we drove a few miles to Calabash, the home of fried seafood (when in Rome…).  We had our choice of 6 or 7 restaurants, but settled on Coleman’s Original Calabash Seafood because of the waterfront location and the steamed crab legs on the menu (for the wife).

View from our table

I would describe the meal as good, not great.  The highlights included the steamed crab legs and the fried flounder, which was easily the best item on the fried seafood platters.  The flounder was moist, well-seasoned and had the perfect ratio of batter to fish.  The fried shrimp was okay, but the boiled shrimp was much better.  The fried oysters were a definite loser as there was far too much batter and not enough oyster.  The hushpuppies were very good, but also the strangest hushpuppy I’ve ever had. These were more like funnel cake and had a distinct sweetness, as opposed to the cornmeal version I’m used too.  They might have worked better as a post-dinner nosh, but that didn’t stop our six-top from putting away a basket and a half.  Dessert consisted of the last slice of key lime pie that was really more of a key lime flavored cheesecake.  It was universally panned by the table.    The service was excellent though and our food arrived quickly.  Overall I would give it a 6.5  out of 10–if you like fried seafood, then you’ll like this place, but if fried food isn’t your thing, you’ll likely be disappointed.

After dinner we stopped at the much-hyped Calabash Creamery for some ice cream.  This place is very homey with a bevy of rocking chairs on the front porch to sit and eat your sweet treat.  Definitely a great way to end the meal, although you may have to add an extra mile or three to the next day’s beach run/walk after fried seafood and ice cream evening meal.

On July 4, 2009, our first NoDa stop was to the Crêpe Cellar Kitchen and Pub located at 3116 North Davidson Street.  The exposed brick walls in juxtaposition to the exposed ducting & modern fans gave the restaurant a darkly intimate yet still fresh (powder blue walls) atmosphere: romantic, but not feminine.  The six of us ordered a delectable mix of savory crepes (Ham and Gruyere Crêpe), sandwiches (Blackened Chicken Po Boy), salads (Curried Rotisserie Chicken) & stews (Steak & Guinness Pie) — and of course, sweet crepes: Crepes Suzette (truly to die for), Nutella & Bananas, Sweetened Mascarpone & Berries.  The French press coffee had great presentation with the table-container & timer, but was strong & bitter.  All-in-all, an overwhelming thumbs-up.

Next stop was to the 24-hour Amelie’s French Bakery & Cafe at 2424 N Davidson St.  Our full stomachs from Crêpe Cellar prevented total gluttony, but the selection was overwhelming.  It will be well-worth making a second trip back to NoDa on an empty stomach.  Do not miss the Passion Fruit Ganache Cups, or the Fresh Raspberry ganache cup.   The interior is charming with mis-matched intimate cafe tables, chairs & chinawear.  Don’t forget to take a moment to look up to see the beautiful pots-and-pans chandelier!

Since our visit to the NoDa location, we have checked out the new pastry counter at Cafe Monte French Bakery & Bistro in South Park/Philips Place, which now houses some of Amelie’s treasures.  There is a nice representation of goods there in a pinch or to bring as a wonderful treat to a party host, but the NoDa location has an overwhelming selection of fresh breads, tarts, pastries, etc that is unparalleled elsewhere in Charlotte.

Allie (contributor) at Crepe Cellar in NoDa, Charlotte

Crepe Suzette at Crepe Cellar in NoDa, Charlotte - highly recommended

Curried Chicken Salad at Crepe Cellar in NoDa, Charlotte

Michael (contributor) with strong French press coffee at Crepe Cellar

A small sampling of the treasures at Amelie's French Bakery in NoDa, Charlotte