LA Kiwi W XYZ Lounge, Aloft Hotel Chapel Hill Since this was my first time at the W XYZ Lounge, I thought I’d share a little about the atmosphere of the spot before diving into my cocktail review. The W XYZ Lounge is the main floor of the new Aloft hotel in the East Highway
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Blue Fin Chardonnay 2008 Napa, California This wine is bland on first sip, but then a note of eucalyptus chimes in. It’s just a fleeting note, though, so bland still wins the day for me. It might be a stretch, but I think I taste pineapple and light brown sugar. It’s quite sweet for a
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This past weekend, I was able to attend Farm to Fork for the first time, an event I’d heard a lot about in the past couple of years. It’s basically a celebration of the restaurant-farmer relationships of the fantastic food scene we are blessed with in the NC Piedmont and of course, a fundraiser, too. 
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Jump’n Java Café 2945 S Miami Blvd Research Triangle Park Sandwiches: $5.99 Double Cappuccino: $3.29 Hours: 7 am–3 pm, Monday through Friday Jump’n Java Café is a coffee house/sandwich shop in RTP with brightly colored yellow, red, and green walls. They have old wooden booths, a few small tables, one large table, and conference room
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Napa River Merlot 2007 Napa County Nose: Clove, tobacco, and prune in that order. There’s a lot of fruit in this medium-bodied wine including raspberry, cherry, and prune. Clove notes hang out for the aftertaste. It’s not terribly complex, but it’s a good, easy sipper.

The Fearrington House Restaurant 2000 Fearrington Village Center Pittsboro Website Three courses: $69 Four courses: $79 The Fearrington House Restaurant is known as one of the Triangle’s finest restaurants, and after finally enjoying one of their meals myself, I couldn’t agree more. The cuisine is modern American, a bit eclectic, a bit experimental, but all
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I’m really low on alcohol right now, so don’t judge me. It strikes me that nearly all of the self-made cocktails I’ve posted have been pretty bad, which is a shame, because I swear I can shake a good drink! I think I need people to randomly send me liquor samples so I can have
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Handy Kitchen 5279 N. Roxboro Road Eno Square Shopping Center Lunch Specials: $4.65–$4.75 Dinner Combos: $5.95–$6.95 Handy Kitchen is your standard Chinese-take-out restaurant offering Hunan, Mandarin, Szechuan, and Cantonese dishes. They also call themselves New York-style, which I think is just a clue that they offer the American versions of these dishes that we are
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McWilliams Hanwood Estates Shiraz 2008 Southeastern Australia Curry leaves and pepper come forward in the nose. The taste is interesting: cherry, not fully ripe, is foremost on the palate, but with a spicy tone that actually reminds me a lot of Trader Joe’s Cherry Cider. I can down a jug of that beverage in no
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It’s kitten picture time! At least we’re still calling Mazu a kitten, even though she’s up to 10 months now and has enough fur to convince us she’s much larger than she is. It’s pretty impossible to deny that she’s a Maine Coon anymore—heck, I’m not sure if she’s got any of her calico mother
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