Eating Out

Hot Meat

Regular readers know that our go to Sunday morning breakfast is about a 10 mile bike ride to Ridgecrest Coffee Bar in east Aiken with a 3-5 mile ride home. Well, our go to meal is to split one of their signature Breakfast Paninis: large pieces of thick crusty sourdough bread surrounding a layer of white American cheese, a 1/4″ thick layer of baked scrambled egg patty and 3 or 4 slices of deli ham and toasted/melted in a industrial panini press.

The pressing does a great job of toasting the bread in a perfect “ruffles have ridges” way and melts the cheese, but the ham can be an issue. Depending on who was cooking on Sunday mornings the meat, which comes out of the fridge, was anywhere from lukewarm to actually cold, which totally ruins the combination. In the beginning we made a “suggestion” to the owner one morning when she was there that they should heat up the ham first. She said, “They are supposed to, but I’ll reiterate that to them.” Since then we have had slightly better luck with the results. So recently Donna has specifically reminded me, because I’m the one who traditionally does the ordering, to remind them to really make sure the meat is hot before making our sandwich. And most of the time I actually do tell them to, “Make sure the ham is hot.”

Today when I ordered from the young girl at the register I started with, “Please make sure the ham gets heated up real well because my wife likes her…errr-likes it that way.” I almost said, “…my wife likes her meat hot.” I self corrected mid-sentance because I just wasn’t sure if she would have understood that I wanted to make sure the ham was hot in the sandwich for my wife, groaned at my double entendre, thought I was flirting with her or maybe even bragging about my imagined sexual prowess.

Acronym Smacronym

On this visit to Hendersonville we didn’t stay in our usual Holiday Inn Express, instead I figured we could save more than $20 by staying on the other side of the Interstate at the Mountain Inn and Suites. Sometimes, and this was one of them, you get what you pay for. The walls were thinner, the shower weaker and the TV was a tiny 24″ LCD wide screen model with no available HD channels.

We put some of that money saved to good use on Sunday morning too. The free breakfast at the hotel didn’t start until 6:30 and we were up and ready to go at six. Figuring that the quality of the morning fare would probably be mirrored by the quality of the room, we opted to walk the 100 yards down the road to a Waffle House.

Because it was early, there were the night shift folks waiting to go home and day shift workers just coming on, so there were like six Waffle House employees in the restaurant and just two customers, Donna and I. We had snagged a Sunday Asheville paper on the way out the door of the hotel to enjoy as we were waiting for our breakfast to arrive and because I was reading, I really wasn’t paying attention to the conversations of employees, but occasionally I’d catch a snippet. One of them that stood out was when one of them said something like, “You know, like John says, ‘Tee Eye Em, Too Much Information.’ ”

Awwww Mom!

Even though this morning’s temperature was borderline freezing, Donna and I still bike rode over to our usual Sunday breakfast spot, Ridgecrest Coffee Bar for a panini. We were the only folks in the place until we were just about finished and a family of five came through the front door.

It was a man and woman probably around 30-years old, two boy kids maybe 5 & 6 and a infant in one of those car seats with a basket handle. The parents had on puffy vests, car seat infant was under a blanket, but the kids were just in flannel shirts. As the group approached the counter, the younger of the two kids, noticing the sliding window behind it, said, with as much exasperation as a person that age can muster, “They have a drive-thru!”

I’m not sure whether his annoyance was because he had to get out of the car and walk 15 feet to the door (in the cold) or because this was the first time in his life he had ever been in a restaurant that had a drive-thru and and they hadn’t used it.

Bagel Run

Destination - Cemetery

We drove to Lexington to get bagels for breakfast. We have come to the conclusion that we just can’t live with the store bought or Dunkin Donuts version of a bagel, so we have been pretty regularly (once a month) driving to Bruegger’s Bagels to get something that more resembles the real NY/NJ bagel.

On the way back we stopped and got a couple of Motoring Challenge points, the Cemetery above and a Sign with Bullet Hole(s). Even though the total trip was a hundred and twenty miles I only counted half that towards the miles driven, because that was only half the reason for the trip.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 146

Motoring Challenge Points 3, Approx Miles Driven 60
Totals So Far: 38 points & 800 miles

Your Favorite Restaurant

Destination - Your Favorite Restaurant

Another on our dwindling list of Motoring Challenge destinations was “Your Favorite Restaurant.” We went round and round on this one as we have a few places we really like to eat, but this is it, the Mellow Mushroom in downtown Aiken. While it is a chain, each restaurant is different in look, but the aesthetic is the same. We’ve eaten at a couple of other locations and the food is consistently great.

Now we have to admit that is not finite, next year if you ask the same question the answer might be different, but looking back, the menu aesthetic might be the same. A year ago our favorite restaurant was Apizza di Napoli on the south side of Aiken. A couple years ago we couldn’t sing the praises of West First in downtown Hendersonville, NC enough.

Motoring Challenge Points 1, Approx Miles Driven 10
Totals So Far: 150 points & 7980 miles

Breakfast at Betsy’s

Breakfast at Betsy'y

Donna and I arrived at Greg’s Gas Plus about 15 minutes early, so we would be there before anyone else. We were, but not for too long as Hal and Trudy Scott joined us. We chatted for awhile about the usual stuff while we waited for other Miatas to arrive, but mostly marveled at the shear amount of traffic that stopped at Greg’s and 90% of it was pick up trucks. The mix was 50/50 with lawn care trailers headed south to the lawns of the cities and boat trailers headed north to Clarks Hill Lake.

At one point the lot was so full that a truck hauling a boat stopped directly in front of us. The passenger disembarked and headed into the store for ice, a rest room break or maybe just a cup of coffee. The driver came out and called to us, “You guys don’t need to go anywhere in the next 5 minutes do you?” So I asked, “What time is it?” He dug into his pocket, pulled out his phone, unlocked it, pulled up an app and said, “Seven thirty-seven.” “Actually, we probably should be gone already,” I said, “But you don’t have to move, we’re small and can get around you.” He got back in his truck and by the time I finished a quick Drivers Meeting1 and the four of us got in our cars, he was fully out of our way, so we drove off with a wave.

We arrived at Betsy’s about 10-15 minutes later than advertised and there were three Miatas already parked outside. Inside we found John & Pat Clark, Rita & Larry Garner and Tom Varallo at a table with enough empty seats for the 4 of us plus a walk-in2. The nine of us ordered our food and in typical Miata Club fashion one plate was slightly late, one plate needed to be returned for fixing and a couple of dishes weren’t piping hot.

Counting today’s group we had a total of 14 people for Breakfast at Betsy’s if you count the 5 members who ate there last week too after I published the detail’s of this month’s breakfast on the front page of the web site without the date in the post.

All and all, Betsy’s is a splendid spot for breakfast in Aiken on a Saturday morning3, the food is good and the prices are not that expensive.

1 I handed Trudy a map she didn’t need and told them, “Follow me.”
2 No one did.
3 The only day they are open for breakfast.

What Goes Around

The Sunday before last on our way to Palm City we stopped for lunch at a Carrabba’s in Jacksonville. Donna had a series of coupons from a newspaper awhile back that were 2 for $10 off two dinners and in the middle was a $5 off two lunch entrees. We thought we’d use the lunch coupon, but as it turns out, there is no lunch menu on Sunday. Not a problem, we could just use one of the $10 dinner coupons. Figuring we would not use the other dinner one before it expired, Donna gave it away to a couple that was at a table near us.

We usually come back from FLA and stop near Ocala which is about halfway home. This time, because the University of Florida had a home football game, the usual Hampton Inn we stay at for $98 was charging a hundred bucks more. So last Saturday and instead of coming back up the Turnpike like we usually do, we opted to go straight up I-95. This put the halfway point on the southeast side of Jacksonville’s outer loop. I found a Hampton Inn there for a mere $75. When we were checking in, Donna asked the lad behind the desk if there were any restaurants within walking distance. He mentioned three, one of which was a Carrabba’s.* Because Donna really likes their Mama Mandola’s Sicilian Chicken Soup and I’m easy, that is where we went for dinner. Guess we should have kept that other $10 dinner coupon.

It was a lot busier on a Saturday evening compared to a Sunday lunch, but fortunately it was still early enough that there wasn’t any real wait for a place to sit. We couldn’t get a booth of course, but ended up in a half booth right next to a family that had a baby in a stroller between their table and ours. We both thought to ourselves, “Uh oh,” but they had just got their check so we knew it would be OK. As they were leaving, the woman leaned over to Donna and handed her a piece of paper and asked if we wanted it. It was a coupon for $10 off two dinner entrees…

*Not the same one as last week, that was on the north side of town.