GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS
Today’s Podcast is another full-length episode of the Food Fans Radio Show, which airs every Friday and Saturday on WPVM 103.7fm, Asheville’s Progressive Voice of the Mountains! This week’s show starts with a travel-blog style review of some places I visited in & around Orlando, Florida, then Mamacitas Food Truck & Snap-o-razzo Hot Dogs at Olde London Road, then a Burgerworx burger, and a Benne burger, and various other things at The Times Bar, Chai Pani, Session Cafe, & the new Andale Way Mexican restaurant at the bottom of the South Slope.
Today’s Newsletter contains words and pictures of and about chicken & biscuits, the New Tastee Diner, the perfect egg sandwich, pani puri & more. Please scroll down to look and read, I hope that you will enjoy!
BEST BISCUITS?
I channelled my inner 12-year-old a few weeks ago and ordered some chicken tenders and mac ‘n’ cheese, with corn 'and ‘nana puddin’s from Rocky’s Hot Chicken Shack delivered by Kickbackavl and it was fucking great! I worked at Kickback during the 2020 shut down & I happen to know that Rocky’s is THEE most popular restaurant in Asheville from which to order food for home delivery. Congrats, Rocky’s! In my opinion, you totally rüle, and everything you do, you do jehhhst riiight.
I forgot to mention that I also got a biscuit with this order. Whenever I order food from Rocky’s, I never don’t also get a biscuit. In my opinion they’ve got some of the best biscuits in Asheville! I got this one specifically to eat for breakfast the next day. It did not make until breakfast.
Who do you think has THEE best biscuits in Asheville?
TASTEE TASTING
Just in case you haven’t heard, the good ol’ Tastee Diner is now the newest thing in town! Chef Steven Goff and his crew have transformed a long-time local favorite into something really special. It’s like AUX Bar meets Tastee, straddling both worlds deftly, with all the usual skill, creativity & passion that Chef Goff always brings to the game. My friend Rick went so far as to say, “This changes West Asheville,” and I agree 100%.
It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of Chef Goff and his cooking, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I loved every bite of every dish he fed me at the special tasting he did for me. What you see in the pictures below are, in order, the very deep, rich & savory smoked pork kimchi ji gae, then sharing one plate is 1/2 of a delicious vegan sumac roasted squash sando & 1/2 of the best bologna sando I think I’ve ever had, then a small sample-size of Steven’s famous, award winning chicken wings (no, not duck wings), then the super-decadent Asheville Hot Chicken Sando on a donut, and then some crab & rabbit gumbo in one of their 100% biodegradable to go packages, that I reheated at home & it was insanely goooooood! All of this food was outstanding!
I have always said that Chef Steven embodies the spirit of the Asheville culinary scene to me, and I will definitely be going back to try everything on the menu, and if you’re as big a fan of this chef’s food as I am, you should get in there as soon as you can! ❤️🤘🔥🤘❤️
EGG SANDO PERFECTION
Y’all, I recently ate a perfect egg sandwich. I got invited into Zella's Deli on the corner of College Street & Rankin Ave, where the manager treated me to a bacon, egg & cheese sandwich on a Kaiser roll! Gah! So good. Kaiser rolls are so soft, that they’re sof’. The letter “t” is just too hard. I love almost anything, but especially an egg sandwich, on a Kaiser roll. They are one of my personal all-time most familiar & comforting food items. I must have bonded with a kaiser roll as a baby or something. I’ll ask my mom. Maybe she tossed one in my crib whenever I was fussing.
The cheese at the center of sandwich was folded up inside the egg, and oozing out the sides, the bacon was thick and yummy & even the tin-foil was perfect in every way. Someone left a comment on my Facebook post that they will eat anything wrapped in foil, and I feel the exact same way.
I used to eat one of these things just about every day when I was working and studying in Boston as a teenager & young man, and Zella’s version hit every nail on the head for me, flavor-wise, size-wise, and price-wise, as well as authenticity and nostalgia factors, all 100% on point. Super high recommends. 🔥🥚🥓🤘
Who else has great Kaiser roll sandwiches in WNC?
PANI PURI
I happened to be walking past Spicewalla in the Grove Arcade the other day, while they were offering these amazing little “pani puri” bites, which they are now doing every Friday & Saturday from 5pm - 9pm. They are only $1 each, and if you’ve never had a pani-puri, it’s like a small, very crispy little puff-ball that they poke a hole into to make into a tiny bowl, which they fill with chick peas and/or taters, and and then pour “water” into that is either sweet or spicy! Then you pop it into your mouth whole, crunch it up & down it goes! They are cool & refreshing, delicious & fun to eat. Pro-tip: DO NOT BITE INTO ONE. You will be wearing it if you do. One bite. The whole thing goes right in the ol’ eatin’ hole. You can do it.
Not kidding: I could eat a dozen of these cute li’l things without blinking. And locals, Downtown is not nearly as crowded as it was before 2020, but it will be again one day, so take advantage, and get down there to enjoy it while you can. It’s really fun, and there’s stuff like this. 🔥❤️🎉🤘
Thank you to all of my subscribers and paid subscribers! I truly hope that you find my newsletter to be entertaining & informative! If you do, please invite your friends & family to subscribe as well, or get them a gift subscription! If I reach my new goals by December 31st, I’ll do something special, I haven’t decided what just yet.
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Good Morning, Friends...