PT's Grill - Lunch 8/7/08

If you live in Wilmington, you already should know about PT's Grill. They've got the best burgers in Wilmington, hands down. My brother flew in from Williamsport, PA and wanted a burger so off we went. As always I got their standard burger all the way. He got the smaller burger with whatever it is that he wanted on it. As always it was awesome. The closest you can get to a charcoal grilled burger. As if it's not enough to have the best burger in town, they have the best fries as well. Seasoned, hot and fresh, and probably more than you should be eating at once, but really, who's complaining. My brother is quite the picky eater and agreed that Williamsport has nothing that even comes close. Oh and I almost forgot the fresh squeezed lemonade! Best burgers, best fries, best lemonade and it's a local joint. If you haven't been there, you should make it tonight's dinner.

Oh and by the way, I guess I'm going to start blogging here again. So sorry for the three month lag for those two of you who have actually looked at this blog.

Sweet & Savory - Mother's Day Brunch 5/11/08

Sweet and Savory always gets my vote for breakfast!  The wife and I took her mother for a mother's day brunch and were seated within probably ten minutes or so.  The place was as busy as I figured it would be, as Sweet and Savory's breakfasts aren't exactly a hidden secret in Wilmington.  The service was very good as always, impressive as the placed was jammed to capacity.  Try as I might, I couldn't seem to get to the bottom of my cup of coffee.  

I've never strayed away from the omelet selections, namely the Olympian, but for some reason the Messy Marvin was speaking to me.  I asked the waitress her thoughts and she claimed the Marvin was her favorite sandwich.  Sold!  I was quickly brought a fresh baked croissant with two over-easy eggs, country ham and havarti cheese.  Messy indeed;  I ended up eating it with a fork and knife.  It was delicious.  The eggs were nice and runny, the cheese perfectly melted, the croissant was fluffy and light and the ham had just enough salt to tie everything together.  Perhaps I need to stray away from the omelets more often.  As with all the breakfasts, it was served with hash browns and fresh fruit making it a nice filling breakfast.  Filling as it was, I couldn't leave without splitting a side order of Wrightsville Beach Toast (french toast made on their cinnamon raisin bread) with my wife.  My only criticism was the fact that our cinnamon raisin bread was lacking raisins!  It was still good, but I'm a big raisin fan, so a bit disappointing.  

The wife ordered the California Dixie sandwich, which is her favorite.  It was good as always with ham, avocado, pico de gallo, havarti and scrambled eggs on tomato basil bread.  Her mother ordered the Meatless Masterpiece omelet made with, ahem, three eggs.  I'm not sure if they're using chicken eggs or ostrich eggs, as my three egg omelets are just a tad bit smaller when I make them at home.  Plenty of onions, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese.  Though the idea of an omelet without meat is frightening to me, she definitely enjoyed it.  She swapped out her hash browns for cinnamon raisin toast instead and only ended up with two raisins.  Bring back the raisins!  

We finished off our coffee, and left with a loaf of marbled rye bread and a biscotti for the mother, her favorite.  Sweet and Savory has never disappointed and this time was no different.  The best breakfast in Wilmington.  Total bill was just over $30 including the loaf of bread.  You can't beat it!

Stuffed,

-W

Flaming Amy's Bowl - Lunch 5/8/08

Ah, Flaming Amy's Bowl.  Being a huge fan of Flaming Amy's Burrito Barn, I've been anxiously awaiting the opening of their second restaurant since hearing of the idea a few months ago.  The idea is a simple one, take the numerous ingredients Flaming Amy's uses, and turn it into a Mongolian Grillish type restaurant.  When you're seated you're given a bowl (hey, that's the name of the restaurant!) into which you pile your ingredients to give to one of the three cooks manning the flat top grills.  My favorite part?  The endless possibilities!  Choices include around 30 vegetables (roasted garlic!  eggplant!  edamame!) a half dozen or so proteins (tilapia, beef, pork, shrimp, bacon, chicken, tofu) and then the choice of ten different sauces to incorporate into your creation.  Between the wife and I we were able to test drive the General Mux, Thai Peanut, Sesame Ginger, and Creole sauces, all of which we enjoyed.  You're also given a choice of whole wheat or regular linguini noodles, brown and white rice, and some finishing items, such as parmesan cheese, peanuts, red pepper flakes, and so on.  Any math majors out there want to come up with the exact number of possible combinations?  My favorite combination was the Thai Peanut with shrimp, although with all the different possible combinations, it may take a long time to come up with the perfect bowl.  I'm perfectly willing to try.

Stuffed,

-W

Airlie Seafood Company - Dinner 4/18/08

The wife and I joined two other couples for dinner at Airlie Seafood Company on a beautiful Friday evening.  We arrived by boat and sat on the deck quickly ordering drinks and appetizers.  The wife had a margarita (on special!) which she was very happy with.  ASC serves Front Street Brewery selections on draft which was a nice touch.  The table shared orders of Bleu Chips and Seared Tuna.  The Bleu Chips were interesting, I somehow liked and disliked them at the same time.  I felt like the flavors were mismatched, sweet potato, gorgonzola cheese, bacon and scallions.  I had no problem finishing the plate but didn't fall in love with them.  I feel like the toppings would have worked better with regular potato chips.  As for the seared tuna, I felt it was a tad overcooked, but still had a nice flavor and worked well with the sauce.

We then ordered dinner, island shrimp for the wife and mango grilled tuna, ordered rare, for me.  My tuna seemed to have gotten comfortable on the grill as there wasn't even a touch of pink by the time it made it to my plate.  This was a disappointment, but I wasn't in the mood to send it back.  The mango sauce was good, as were the julienne vegetables.  The sticky rice lacked any noticeable flavor and was easily ignored.

The island shrimp were pretty good.  Possibly over breaded, but were well cooked, and we both really liked the orange marmalade that they were tossed with.  The wife opted for a house salad in place of the sauteed spinach and was pleased with it.  The house dressing was a white balsamic.  She liked the dressing a lot, I thought it was a bit overpowering.  The roasted red peppers were a nice touch.

Over all it seemed to be a pretty average meal.  The location was great, and the food was by no means bad, but wasn't very memorable either.  

Stuffed,

-W

Elijah's - Drinks and Appetizers 4/10/2008

This was my first trip to Elijah's since moving to Wilmington four years ago. I have heard mixed reviews about the restaurant from locals and was not really impressed by the online menu, so really had never been tempted to dine there. My co-workers had decided to have a girls night there for drinks and it was a beautiful day so I decided to go along. I can honestly say that the outside seating on the Cape Fear River was the most enjoyable part of my experience. We started off by just ordering drinks. I ordered a Margarita, one of my friends an apple martini and my other two friends had beer. My margarita tasted like tepid tap water with a hint of lime, not the least bit refreshing after a long work day. My friends apple martini was average at most. After the bad experience with the Margarita, I decided to order a beer. My Yuengling arrived in an unfrosted glass and was barely cool. Definitely not off to a good start here. We then placed our order. I ordered calamari; it is a favorite of mine and it said it came with a horseradish dipping sauce, which sounded interesting. My friend opted for the olive and cheese bread, as she is a vegetarian. The calamari was anything but enjoyable, instead it was rubbery, cold, soggy, and lacking in quantity compared to other restaurants portion sizes. The sauce that accompanied the calamari tasted as if the server had dumped some jarred horseradish into a ramekin and threw it on the plate. It was so strong I could barely eat it. My friends olive bread was boring and bland. It tasted like shredded store bought mozzarella with plain black olives on a sub roll. I do not believe a single herb or spice was used in preparing it. Needless to say, although we only ordered two things off the menu, I was not impressed. Although the Cape Fear River is a beautiful back drop on a sunny spring day it could not make up for the boring experience of the food. I definitely will not be returning to Elijah's anytime soon. I'm still irritated that I spent $20.00 at the joint!  

Stuffed,

-K

Osteria Cicchetti - Dinner 3/29/08

This was our second trip to Osteria Cicchetti, the newest member of Ash Aziz's group of restaurants.  Easily Wilmington's greatest restauranteur, Mr. Aziz may have kept his best for last.  Located in the Forum where Rossi's used to be, you'll quickly forget where you are after entering the lobby.  The design of O-C is impeccable, from the mismatched dinnerware and flatware, to the street lamps in the dining room, and ending with the open kitchen featuring a wood burning pizza oven.  

We started out at the bar as the dining room was full and bustling, always a good sign for a new restaurant.  O-C has quite a wine list, but we both opted to start with beer as we knew we'd be ordering pizza, and honestly, what's better on a Saturday night than beer and pizza?  To answer my own question, Calamari, beer and pizza.  We started out with calamari to go along with our basket of bread.  My first criticism was that we were served both bread and calamari without any plates.  Normally the table is stocked with mismatched china, but our table was lacking.  Anyway, beware of the bread!  It's better than the offerings of most other restaurants and can take up valuable room in your stomach!  The calamari was delicious, expertly fried and well seasoned.  I find calamari tends to be over seasoned, but this was not the case here.  A generous portion was served along with a pepperoncini aioli, also very tasty.  In order to save room for desert, we actually failed to finish the calamari, not something I'm proud to admit.  

Next comes pizza.  We ordered the Funghi to split.  It was very good, though I was hoping for a wider selection of mushrooms as topping.  The cheese was great and the mushrooms had a great earthly flavor.  The taleggio cheese paired very well with the mushrooms.  I would have added some fresh herbs for color, but honestly the pizza really didn't need it so that's a moot point.  We saved nearly half the pizza in order to save room for dessert.  It's worth mentioning that the last time we ate at the O-C I ordered the Tortelloni Michelangelo at the recommendation of the waiter and was amazed at the quality and quantity for the price I paid.  I'm not sure you can find better food at this price point in the city.  I would say if anything, it's well underpriced.  You can buy delivery pizza for the same price as the pizza here, although I can't think of any reason why I would.  I'm curious if I can call in a pizza order and pick it up.  If so, there may be a lot of pizza in my future.

Ok, so dessert.  The wife and I were completely stuffed the last go-around, so we made sure to save just a little bit of room this time.  I had my heart set on tiramisu the entire evening but made a last second decision to try the opera cake.  I've gotta hand it to myself, it was a fantastic decision.  If I remember correctly, the opera cake consisted of almond cake soaked in espresso with coffee buttercream icing and chocolate ganache.  You can see why I strayed from my original plan of tiramisu.  I dare say it was the best cake dessert I've ever ordered.  I would have liked a little more coffee flavor in the buttercream, but the cake was very moist and full of flavor and the chocolate ganache was very bittersweet which is much preferred when it comes to chocolate.  It was absolutely delicious.  I have no idea how I did it, but I ate the whole thing.  It didn't take long to regret this decision as I was so stuffed I could barely sleep (I'm a stomach sleeper, which was a curse after this meal.)  The wife ordered cannoli, which was her plan from the get go.  She ended up with a plate of three of them, and she wisely decided to save two.  She said that the cannoli was by far the best she's had in Wilmington.  I liked them too, although I've never really been a cannoli kind of guy.  We wrapped up our meals, paid our insanely small bill (just under $50 drinks included) and left to digest.

As this is my first review, it feels weird to give such high marks.  I am critical when I eat, and this will not be the norm.  Osteria Cicchetti is just that good.  Our waiter was excellent, overlooking our appetizer plates and nothing else.  The food was fantastic and under-priced.  The ambience was great, immediately leading you away from the Forum (really just a nicer-than-most strip mall) and into somebody's Italian grandmother's massive and popular dining room.  Lastly, the ultimate measure of a pizza: cold the next morning for breakfast.  Unsurprisingly, Osteria Cicchetti once again delivers.

Stuffed,

-W

Stuffed in Wilmington

Welcome to the Stuffed in Wilmington food blog.  The idea to do this was quite a simple one.  After spending plenty of time sitting in restaurants talking about how awesome it would be to be a food critique, we came to the amazing decision to be *gasp* food critics.  After all, it is the internet age, so it's not like it's a difficult idea, except for trying to name the thing!  Here's some quick background on us.  I'm 28 and my wife is 27.  We were both raised in Pennsylvania and moved to Wilmington five years ago to be on the beach.  We both work desk jobs and love to cook and eat.  Yeah, we really love to eat.  So without any further ado, here goes...

- W