Downtown Raleigh Restaurant Week: Irregardless

Blauer Zweigelt

(and Jeff)

Crispy Crab Rangoons

Portobello Mushroom Stack

Beet and Goat Cheese Crostini 

Chile Relleno

Chocolate Truffle

Vegetarian Menu

Hello all, this is the final post in the Downtown Raleigh Restaurant Week series. I chose to end my food journey at Irregardless. This was my first time going to this restaurant and I was not sure what to expect. I had heard great things about this place but for one reason or another had not yet had the opportunity to dine with them. I was really happy to see that they offered two different menus for their restaurant week specials one was vegetarian and the other featured various meat dishes. They also featured gluten free options. ( I love having plenty of options.) While I am not a vegetarian myself I did find that the vegetarian menu appealed to me more that the meat one so all of the dishes I chose came from that menu. I started with the Crispy Crab Rangoons which were pretty good, then for the entree I opted for the Portobello Mushroom Stack and I finished with the vegan Chocolate Truffle. We also decided to get a bottle of wine for the table and chose an Austrian wine that none of us had tried before. The mushroom stack was surprisingly filling and the flavors paired nicely with the wine and the dessert was to die for!  Overall I loved dining at Irregardless. Not only were the food and wine great but they also had live music! The waitstaff was very knowledgeable and the service was great. It was a great place to go and catch up with old friends. I will definitely be revisiting this local restaurant!

Downtown Raleigh Restaurant Week: bu•ku

Tahitian Coconut-Lime Gazpacho

Ethiopian Steak Tartare

Kinoko Somen

Pan Seared Monkfish

Ichigo Daifuku Trifle

Hello Stash of Sass! As promised we will continue our magical food adventure for Downtown Raleigh Restaurant week. Our next stop is bu•ku. bu•ku is known for their global street food and is home of the crème brûleé trilogy. (Which we will have to talk about another time because it was not part of the restaurant week special and therefore is not a part of this particular food post.) I will insert the link to the restaurant week menu bu•ku featured here for you all to reference in case you are interested. 

http://www.godowntownraleigh.com/restaurant-week/menu/54

To start off I ordered the sangria with the Tahitian Coconut-Lime Gazpacho. Both were amazing! The gazpacho had crab with cucumber, tomatoes and onions in it and the coconut flavor was not too overpowering which is something that I find often happens with coconut dishes. I loved the sangria and featured a dark but cute image of it being poured in boomerang on my Instagram page. (https://www.instagram.com/p/BYHyTEJj9Gs/?taken-by=adrimonima)

For the main course I chose the Kinoko Somen which featured Buckwheat soba noodles with an array of mushrooms, corn and scallions. This portion was huge! ( and no, that's not a complaint!) I had enough for dinner and lunch the next day. The soup had a kick too it but it was not too strong. (This is coming from someone who hates spicy things!) Then for dessert I got the Ichigo Daifuku Trifle. This dessert consisted of strawberries, dark chocolate, sponge cake and azuki bean custard. Honestly, this dessert was not my favorite. I didn't care for the way the flavors mixed and the texture bothered me. I think it may have been the bean custard mixed with the chocolate that I didn't care for. I think I also expected it to be sweeter which is my fault because I should have read the menu more carefully ( I just saw dark chocolate and got excited!) seen the azuki bean custard which is typically not very sweet by American standards. As a whole I really enjoyed dining at bu•ku! This was my second time eating there and each time the service and food have been outstanding! I will definitely be returning and when I do you all can expect a post featuring the crème brûleé trilogy! 

Downtown Raleigh Restaurant Week: Taverna Agora and Lunch at 18 Seaboard

Hey guys! As promised here are some food pictures from downtown Raleigh restaurant week. This will be the first of a set of three posts featuring the food my friends and I tried while on our magically food adventure through some of Raleigh's awesome restaurants. My biggest regret is that I didn't get to sample more of the restaurants participating in downtown Raleigh restaurant week!
I decided to put lunch at 18 Seaboard and dinner at Taverna Agora together into one post simply because I was too excited about eating to remember to get enough pictures to feature for a full post for each individual restaurant. I also apologize in advance for the poor lighting in these pictures my phone has a mind of it's own and was refusing to focus.
Anyway, I started my week of devouring delicious food with lunch at 18 Seaboard. This was my first time experiencing what this restaurant had to offer and I was not disappointed! The service was outstanding and so was the food. I started with a watermelon salad and ended up also eating my friend's cucumber gazpacho. ( The gazpacho was a bit on the vinegar side and my friend was not a fan.) I thought both were refreshing choices for a summer lunch and I loved the way the salty favors of the goat cheese meshed with the sweetness of the watermelon in the salad. For the main course (For the restaurant week lunch and dinner special you picked you starter, main course and dessert. The lunch specials were $10 and the dinners specials were either $21 or $31. A dollar from each restaurant week meal sold went to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.) I got the veggie lasagna ( unfortunately, I can't remember the exact name of the dish.) followed that with the crème brûleé. Overall the experience was amazing and I will definitely be back to try the seafood 18 Seaboard is so well known for!
Later in the week, I went to dinner at Taverna Agora. The restaurant was pretty packed when we got there but we had made reservations through an app called open table so we didn't have to worry about a wait. I started with the greek lemonade, a mixed drink made with Absolute vodka, housemade lemonade, blueberries and a basil garnish and another watermelon salad. ( yeah, I know... clearly I'm on a watermelon salad kick ok! They're good!)  I really enjoyed the basil flavors in the drink. I felt that it mixed well with the lemonade. For the main course I ordered salmon over green beans and Baklava for dessert. For some reason when our entrées came out they were switched and my salmon came out on the fig compote and the pork chop Colin ordered came out on green beans. I assumed this happened simply because they were super busy and I was no big deal at all we just switched the pork and the salmon and it was all good! I absolutely loved the atmosphere of this restaurant. We were able to sit in the outdoor section on the second floor of the restaurant. The weather ended up being perfect for it and the decor was very Mediterranean and relaxing. ( as I'm sure you can tell by the picture.) By the time the baklava came out for dessert I was pretty stuffed so I ended up taking most of it home to have for lunch the next day.