Yum! Put these eight local dishes on your 2022 dining radar
.JPG "Raleighs (ish) delicatessen makes a housemade pastrami or corned beef sandwich with Swiss, Super Russian, braised purple cabbage, on Boulted Bread rye. It is served here with a side of potato salad made with charred onions and dressed in olive oil and mustard.")
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What’s the Future of Dining Out?
Nearly two years into the coronavirus pandemic, diners are more accustomed to navigating menus on their phones, flashing vaccine cards and reheating takeout. Now the choice of where to go out includes a new option — whether to go out at all. We explore how COVID has reshaped dining, what it looks and feels like to go out for a meal and how the Triangle’s celebrated dining scene advances. Plus, we’ll tell you which new restaurants — and meals — are drool-worthy.
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Yum! Put these eight local dishes on your 2022 dining radar
Diners will have a full plate in 2022, with dozens of restaurant openings and return visits to old favorites.
Here are a few special dishes to seek out in the new year:
Kimchi fries
Bolkogi has been one of the Triangle’s most popular food trucks for years. In joining Boxyard RTP, Joe Choi said he was able to add kimchi fries to the menu, something he hasn’t been able to do on the trucks. These baskets of waffle fries are topped with marinated bulkogi beef, kimchi, cilantro and a fried egg.
“This represents who I am,” Choi said. “I grew up in Chicago eating hot dots and fries. I couldn’t eat kimchi at school because kids would make fun of me, saying it was too stinky. But I’d make this dish at home using leftover fries and I’d feel good. I’ve been eating it for a long time.”
Emma’s cake
Cakes are known as slices and slivers, but Plum puts pastry chef Emma Shank’s weekly creations out for all to see in their original glory, with each piece cut to order.
Most tables order dessert, said Shank, whose husband, Trent, is Plum’s chef de cuisine. Cake is the top seller, usurping banana pudding once they went on the menu late in the summer.
In September, Shank put her own wedding cake on the menu, salted caramel frosting and sauce with a yellow cake. It’s impossible to predict what the flavor will be week to week, but expect a slice matched for the seasons.
Recently that’s meant an eggnog cake paired with a cocktail, or a spiced gingerbread with molasses topped with orange buttercream frosting, cream cheese filling, a dusting of crushed gingerbread and whole ginger snaps resting delicately on puffy rosettes.
Fonda Lupita gorditas
There’s no hotter restaurant in North Carolina than this Sanford Mexican restaurant, which the online food publication Eater named as one of the 11 best spots to open in the nation last year.
The restaurant is named for owner Biridiana Frausto’s mother, Fonda Lupita, and its specialty is its gordita. These freshly made tortilla pockets are griddled then stuffed with steak or pork or stew.
(ish) Reuben
Matt Fern has spent years engineering the perfect Reuben sandwich, and it’s hard to say he didn’t nail it. Diners can pick pastrami or corned beef, but the (ish) Delicatessen Reuben comes with apple cider braised red cabbage in place of sauerkraut, popping with sweetness and tang. The rye is custom made by Raleigh bakery Boulted Bread, specifically for this sandwich, with a deep dark color and flavor without the caraway seeds.
Fern said it remains the top seller on a menu of stunners. But don’t sleep on the soon-to-be-blockbuster breakfast sandwich Green Eggs and Ham and Cheese, made with braised collards spiked with Tabasco, city-style ham and scrambled eggs.
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Old North Meats fried mushroom sandwich
In this golden age of chicken sandwiches, this meatless wonder in the Durham food hall may best them all. Owner Joel Schroetter smokes then fries oyster mushrooms, making them as crispy and crave-able as any piece of chicken. The sandwich is topped with celery and shredded lettuce, charred onions and a housemade green goddess ranch.
This sandwich is a real pleasure.
Strong Arm miso caramel brownie
Biting into this brownie is like drowning in fudge. The Oxford bakeshop and sometimes pizzeria is often the longest line at the Durham farmers market, attracting fans with delicate pastries, seasonal pop tarts and changing versions of brownies.
Here the familiar flavor of salted caramel is deepened with miso. And the brownie itself has a dense softness that lives in two worlds, tapping into the illicit joy of licking the last of the brownie batter, and the chew of a crispy corner piece. It’s a beautiful thing that happens to be a brownie.
Gym Tacos nacho tower
This wildly popular food truck opened its first brick and mortar last year and has another on the way. Co-owner Gamaliel Romero kind of scoffs at the trend of quesabirria tacos, believing the fried and dipped style of taco is too greasy to eat as much as one’s heart desires tacos.
But there is one Instagram trend Gym Tacos has adopted and perfected: nachos. With the opening of its North Raleigh sports bar, Gym Tacos added something it couldn’t from a food truck, nacho towers.
A great plate of nachos is a feat of construction as much as cooking. The trick at Gym Tacos is building a platter of nachos in a large metal can, layering crispy chips, steak, shredduce, landmines of jalapenos and a river of queso. Once the can is slipped off, it’s a mountain of nacho mastery.
“We wanted to do something to get people’s attention,” Romero said.
Wonderpuff cotton candy, carnival style
When you order your cotton candy carnival-style at the new Wonderpuff in Durham, what you’re saying is you want to eat it immediately. Rather than a tub, carnival style orders come on a paper wand, the silky threads of candy wrapped around and around and the air smelling like toasted sugar.
The top flavor is raspberry mojito, but look out for blueberry waffles. It is a cloud of joy on a stick.
This story was originally published December 19, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
