I was excited for Foster's because everyone kept raving about the grits bowl there and how amazing it was, so I was eagerly awaiting my chance to try it. It's a super cute country market/cafe type place - you can walk around and buy all sort of adorable Southern focused food items and then they have a entire prepared foods section where you can order food to-go or to stay. They have a lovely outdoor patio where you can sit and enjoy your food.
I was all set to order the grits bowl when the guy at the counter said it would take over 45 mins for it to be ready. I was super bummed because the bowl sounded amazing - stone ground yellow cheddar grits, two fried eggs, black beans and salsa. Even though I wasn't in a huge hurry to go anywhere, it seemed a bit ridiculous to wait that long for food. He said that we wanted something faster we could either order the farm plate or breakfast biscuit and those still came with a side of grits. I'm not sure how they works where we could still get a side of grits but couldn't get an entire bowl of it. Isn't it the same thing except the bowl is bigger and had more ingredients mixed in? In any case, I wasn't going to argue with him and got the farm plate ($10) which came with 2 scrambled eggs, choice of meat (I got the country sausage), herb cheddar biscuit, fresh fruit and a side of cheese grits.
You order at the counter, you seat yourself anywhere and then they come and find you. Normally places will give you a number on a stick so that they can find you easily but here instead they take your name and then just scream it across the whole restaurant while they walk around with your food. There has got to be a better way for them to do it because most of the time you're trying to eat our food but the waiters are just running around screaming "Jenny! Is there a Jenny?". In any case, my food came relatively quickly and in true Southern fashion it was hearty and great - for the most part. The biscuit was fluffy and you could tell that the sausage patty was home made. It was easy enough to make your own biscuit sandwich with the eggs and sausage. The Rise sandwich was better but this one was also really satisfying as well. Ironically enough the thing that wasn't good about this dish was the grits. They were actually really plain and flavorless. I'm normally not someone who puts hot sauce on anything for flavor but for this, I dumped a bunch of hot sauce to give it some kind of flavor profile. I was shocked at how bland it was and this was the whole reason we came here. Aarti commented how it must have been a bad batch because it was normally much better than this. It's too bad that I didn't have enough time to come back for another try. Total bill: $29 for 2 with tax, tip and coffees
Photo Credit: Yelp
Rose's Meat Market and Sweet Shop 121 N Gregson St., Durham, NC 27701 4 Forks
Even though Aarti and I were pretty full from our breakfast at Foster's, we had to stop by Rose's Meats and Sweets because Will and Aarti's friend is the pastry chef there and they were insistent that we stop by for a bite before we left for NYC. When I walked in, this place reminded me of a place that you would easily find in Brooklyn. It had a super hipster feel complete with heavily tattooed chefs and waiters, but I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all - in fact, it was nice to something that was very non-Southern. Even the name has an artisanal feel to it, doesn't it?
Another surprising element was that the menu is actually Asian and not a BBQ focused place, which is what I would have thought with a place that had "meat market" in it. The menu changes daily but they had things like steamed buns, silken tofu, smashed cucumber and ramen and then the dessert portion was more Southern focused with pies, ice cream, ice cream sandwiches, cookies and tarts. When we sat down the waitress told us there was only 1 ramen ($13) left, so of course without even knowing what was in it, I had to have it. It was barely 1:30pm and they were already out of it, so I guess it must be good! Plus everyone around us was inquiring about it so I figured I didn't have any time to waste.
I was pleasantly surprised by how tasty it was given that this wasn't a ramen shop. It was a fairly traditional ramen with a salty flavorful pork broth, chashu, egg and greens in it. The noodles were soft, the pork sliced thin and the egg was poached well so what's not to love?? It would have been nice to have some seaweed but overall I was impressed with the dish.
I was stuffed to the gills but of course we had to have dessert and the flavored ice cream sandwiches were awesome. They are huge and the cookie is more like a soft gingerbread consistency and the ice cream is hard but not too hard that you can't bite into it. We had a few samples the night before and trust me, they can be very addictive. Unfortunately we had to run to the airport so we couldn't stay long but it was a lovely glimpse of a funky cool restaurant that caught me by surprise in what is otherwise a cute Southern town. Total bill: $35 for 3 people with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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