September 16 – 28

Sunday dawned bright and clear, and I hung out at the apartment until it was time to head up to Summit Coffee in Davidson to meet Joanna (after her book club outing) and members of her Carolina family, including Debi, daughter Kristen and her husband Brian, and Shaun’s partner Hannah and their one-year-old boy, Jason.  One of the downsides of moving back two California was the distance it places between us and Joanna’s family, who all moved to North Carolina not long after we arrived in 2008. 

After a healthy dose of coffee, we drove to Huntersville to drop in at our favorite REI location in Charlotte, browse the selection there and check in with long time employee Darrin, who we are always glad to see.  From there, it was back down to Plaza Midwood to meet up with Lyndsay and Dave for another one of our beer hopping Sunday afternoons, starting this time at Asheville’s Burial Brewing’s new Charlotte outpost. 

Given that it was one of those nearly perfect Charlotte fall afternoons, we passed through the downstairs bar and made our way upstairs to the taps on the rooftop seating area overlooking the neighborhood.  For my first beer of the day, I selected the Contrition Pils, a good and refreshing example of that style beer that would carry me forward. 

We enjoyed conversation with a local friend of Lyndsay and Dave’s and then, having finished our beers, took off to south Charlotte for Gilde, one of the town’s newest breweries.  Opened in early 2022, this 9,500 square foot brewery and restaurant features authentic German architectural details, design touches, and millwork, all centered around the German-made brewhouse.  Established in 1546 in Hannover, Germany, Gilde is one of the oldest breweries in Germany.

This is a large venue, with multiple indoor seating arrangements and a nice patio outdoors.  We decided to sit indoors to start and while there ordered our first round of beers, a Smoked-on Dewitt (smoky Rauchbier) for Joanna and a Miner Lager for me, and we all split half orders of the Currywurst and Brezel (pretzel) with Obazda (cold German cheese dip topped with slivered onions and chive).

As it was Oktoberfest time, they had a band playing traditional German drinking songs which during that first beer, was OK but combined with other interior noise, drove us outside to eat dinner.  Joanna and I split the Ham Hock, a seasonal offering, served with a large dumpling and sauerkraut and I finished up my drinking with an Oktoberfest Bier.  The size and nature of the hock made for challenging eating and for me, it’s not a cut of meat I would order again, but it was filling and good for what it was. 

We finished up at Gilde and drove to our final stop of the day, Supperland in Plaza Midwood.  A new concept from the husband-and-wife team of Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown, who also operate Haberdish, Ever Andalo (formerly the long running Crepe Cellar), Growlers Pourhouse, Reigning Doughnuts, and Leluia Hall, this concept opened a year or so ago in a building once built and occupied by the First Church of Christ. 

We bypassed the main dining room in the Sanctuary, the larger of the two buildings on the property and made a beeline for the bar in a smaller building.  There, I ordered the Black Widow Manhattan (widow jane 10yr bourbon, widow jane applewood rye, and averna amaro) and Joanna soothed her cravings for mezcal by getting the Maybe Tomorrow (ilegal joven mezcal & el jimador blanco tequila sour with lemon oleo saccharum, lemon juice, sugar, and an herbaceous hint from absinthe & yellow chartreuse). 

These were both imaginative and refreshing, and it was nice to be outdoors on a warm fall evening, something that often eludes us living close to the beach in Los Angeles.  To finish, we split the Lemon Meringue Pie (fresh lemon curd, toasted meringue, and candied lemon peel), more a good-sized tart and while delicious, at sixteen dollars it belies the notion that prices in Charlotte are lower than those in Los Angeles. 

We bade farewell to Lyndsay and Dave and walked the short four blocks back to the apartment ready for a good night’s sleep.  The next couple of days, out last two of this trip would be low key and mainly involve meeting friends for meals.  The first of these would be with our biking buddies at the Bonefish Grill at Concord Mills.  I’ve written a number of times about this chain and how much we appreciate its fresh seafood and reasonable prices and lament that there are not outlets west of the Rockies. 

Arriving early, we sat at the bar and ordered a couple of glasses of house wine and once everyone arrived, were seated at our table for dinner.  Joanna went big and ordered the Sea Bass, an expensive option but worth it for the quality of the fish while I opted for Swordfish with Pumpkin Ravioli.  While we ate the conversation flowed with the primary topic being whether we might all convene again in the spring for the Cycle North Carolina Coastal Ride, a weekend long event that occurs in one of three coastal towns each April.  It was agreed we would all try to do so, and we began thinking about a two-month road trip that would include the event.

The next morning, we met up with Jay Z, one of our friends from the Piedmont Adventure Club, an outdoor based social club we belonged to when we lived in Charlotte.  Our meeting place was The Goodwurst Company on Central, a seemingly odd choice for breakfast until we got there and discovered they do Montreal Style Bagels in house and have very good breakfast sandwiches.

We drank our coffees to start while we waited for our order, a plain bagel with cream cheese and a Taylor Ham, Egg & Cheese breakfast sandwich with Gruyere because when was the last time you had a sandwich of this type with that cheese?  This was the first time we’d encountered the concept of Taylor Ham and were surprised to find that is a product with a long history. 

Also known as a Pork Roll, its early history is unclear.  It’s possible this popular breakfast meat has origins in the Revolutionary War at the Battle of Trenton.  If pork roll can truly trace its history back that far, it’s because the Continental Army needed a food that could withstand travel and carried their rolls of salted, cured ham around to each battle.  While New Jersey would love for that story to be true, Taylor Ham’s official history begins in 1856 when John Taylor created his pork roll in Trenton, New Jersey and originally sold it under the name Taylor Ham, which is what North Jersey still calls it today.

Taylor was forced to change his product’s name when the Pure Food and Drug Act passed in 1906 and his product no longer met the new legal definition of ham.  In order to meet the new legal regulations, Taylor Ham was rechristened as pork roll, but in North Jersey the old name stuck.  On April 14, 2015, Assemblyman Tim Eustace introduced an Act in the New Jersey State Legislation requesting that the regional delicacy be declared the official state sandwich of New Jersey.  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, the bill didn’t make it out of committee. 

One might mistake the product for Spam, but fried up it had a better consistency and taste than that aforementioned product and when combined with gruyere cheese it made for a very good sandwich with which to start the day.  We will finish up our activities for that day in our next post.  Until then, get yourself some Taylor Ham. 

Links

Burial Brewing: https://burialbeer.com/location/charlotte/

Gilde: https://gilde1546.com/

Supperland: https://supper.land/

Bonefish Grill: https://locations.bonefishgrill.com/north-carolina/concord-mills/8503-concord-mills-blvd

Cycle North Carolina: https://ncsports.org/event/cyclenc_coastal_ride/

The Goodwurst Company: http://thegoodwurst.com/

Taylor Ham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_roll