Eating Up Downtown Durham

For the past month, one half of GWG has been exploring the convenience of her new home in downtown Durham. The desire to devour all things Durham was already there, but this newfound ease of access provides a seemingly insider’s view that fuels the drive to see and do and try it all—a Durham “habit” has developed.

So Wednesday evening, the GWG paired up at this new home base and headed out to browse Durham on foot. Tempted by the food trucks in formation along Rigsbee, we quickly agreed to head over to the NoCo hotblock for beer, food, and whatever else might come up. A typically impromptu Durham adventure ensued as a bite to eat turned into four hours and several beers later.

While we did not set out to create blog content, we could not resist another chance to highlight a great evening brought to you by Durham, NC. The following stream of conscience entry intends to mimic the mood of the night and is packed with all the local goods we encountered along the way:

Must get out of the way I think as runners (hundreds??) stream straight toward us but all I see are the FOOD TRUCKS in my near future; guess I haven’t earned my calories like the running brigade, but not planning to let that stop me. Today it felt great outside—I wish it would stay like this. Okay, what are we here for?—beer and food. First stop, FULLSTEAM. Let’s start a tab—two CARVER SWEET POTATO LAGERS (please) to tide us over as we wait to order up some slices from PIE PUSHERS. Look at that…she’s being reasonable—one slice of BARB’S MARGHERITA (with ELODIE FARMS goat cheese) should be enough, but I’m going for two: BACON & PINEAPPLE = sold…and one other slice with a name I’ll never remember (sausage and brie). Let’s find a picnic table tucked in the shade and begin to indulge. It’s great to see all these people (and dogs) out…really should try out that FULLSTEAM AHEAD! RUN CLUB...back to the pizza. Now the food is gone, the beers are drained…time for round two. Maybe I’ll go for something different…don’t think I’ve tried the SUMMER BASIL FARMHOUSE ALE…and two meat tamales from DOS PERROS, por favor! It’s dangerous to know about these great tastes happening just around the corner…is the ice cream truck still here?…keeping my eye on that. Tamale goes down with a swallow and the beer follows quickly behind it…is the ice cream truck still here? (yes, but I’m getting nervous). Time to make our move...THE PARLOUR bus waits for us across the street (and parked in the front of my mind). Scan the menu…decisions…single or double scoop? I’ll go big. Two scoops of SALTED BUTTER CARAMEL with HOT FUDGE and homemade PRALINE PECANS. And my counterpart will have a scoop of BLUEBERRY with PRALINE PECANS. Hey look at that, it’s PINT NIGHT at MOTORCO…just enough reason to stay out a bit longer. So many NC beers to choose from…don’t know them all but pretty sure you can’t go wrong. One NATTY GREENE BUCKSHOT AMBER and one CAROLINA BULLPEN ALE and now we are feeling good. Hey, there’s Jeff from WHISKEY…and an offer for another beer…NATTY GREENE BUCKSHOT AMBER v2. Now, down to business…we were gonna talk about the blog…yeah, let’s do that. But you know I could really go for another scoop…let’s split a double of vegan MEXICAN HOT CHOCOLATE (in the name of research). This frozen goodness could make me go vegan for an instant. Just got a text from Margaret…she’s around the corner at GEER STREET GARDEN…small world! Oh, forgot to close my tab so back over to FULLSTEAM…wow, there are still a lot of people out. Pretty cool Wednesday. Okay, time to be reasonable as both of us have to work in the morning...so we start our reverse trek along GEER replaying the night’s events and trying to figure when can we do this again??