We're Moving to Asheville, NC!

No, not really. But maybe one day...

I couldn’t resist that title. I’m so sorry for ruffling any feathers but I immediately said JK in my subtitle, so that has to count for something.

*Reader note: You’ll more than likely need to open this letter in your email and click “View entire message” because mama went a little cray-cray with details and pics*

In all honesty, I wanted to name this letter something catchy rather than a boring “North Carolina Trip Recap!” or “My Guide to North Carolina!” Those feel so tired, and I wanted to stir the proverbial pot that is your inbox. Did I succeed?

First off, it’s been a few weeks, so HI! I’ve missed my readership and typing out these letters, so just a few sentences in and I’m already feeling great. The last week of June and the first week of July were busy — Zac and I went from frolicking about the southeast coast to returning home to a house full of my sister and her family for the 4th. By the end of last week, I felt mentally exhausted and creatively drained, but after a lot of naps and sleep over the weekend, I’M BACK!

I felt our trip to North Carolina deserved its own letter, so I’m giving it that space today. I’m going to recap where we stayed, what we did, what we loved, and what we didn’t. If you’re planning on visiting anytime soon, bookmark this email/letter.

To start, I had crowdsourced a list of my Instagram audience’s favorite Asheville recommendations prior to our trip. If you’d like to see what a small sampling of internet strangers insist you must eat and drink while in AVL, you can check out this Google Sheet where I wrote down every single submission and tallied the votes.

This trip was a complete surprise for Zac’s birthday. Without getting into detail, I feel like I fucked up his 40th birthday last year (he insists I didn’t) and decided that I was going to redeem myself this year come hell or high water. Unlike myself, Zac is very easy to surprise because, while he’s caring and thoughtful and creative and handsome and handy, he is generally pretty aloof. Or should I say he’s not suspicious like I am? It is basically impossible to surprise me because I have a knack for ruining things for myself. In fact, the only two legitimate surprises that’ve ever been pulled over on me are one of my best friends showing up for my birthday in Dallas (surprising because she had just been here and there was no way she was going to double back), and Zac’s proposal (only because he had literally decided the night before to do it the next day, so I had no time to be suspicious or investigate my hunches).

Zac, on the other hand, would legitimately forget his own birthday if I wasn’t around to remind him of it for weeks leading up to the event. Therefore, my plotting and planning went unnoticed for a month and a half, and I got to shell shock him four days before our trip to North Carolina. Did you just ask me if I recorded it? BUT OF COURSE.

Why North Carolina?

Zac started his collegiate career at a very small school in the mountains of North Carolina (he ended up finishing at UGA) and pretty instantly fell in love with Asheville and the surrounding area. So that’s why I chose North Carolina. Also because one his best friends since childhood lives in Chapel Hill (a 3ish hour drive from AVL), so I realized we could do two trips in one!

FIRST STOP: ASHEVILLE

WHERE WE STAYED

As a Marriott Bonvoy member, I decided to earn myself some points this trip by booking us at the Grand Bohemian Hotel, which is located right next door to Biltmore Village. Biltmore Estate itself is a major tourist draw in Asheville as it’s a sprawling mansion built in 1895 that has been converted into an incredible museum, which you can spend the entire day at if you wish. We never made it there because there was so much else we wanted to do, but next time for sure.

Asheville is small, so we were 8-10 minutes from where the main action was, and we also had a rental car so everything was super convenient!

WHAT WE DID

Tuesday night: After we got settled in at the hotel, we freshened up and headed straight for one of the top-rated eateries on the spreadsheet I shared—Chai Pani. I had been told that there are no reservations and always a line down the block, so we went in knowing we’d be waiting a while but that, according to internet strangers, it was totally worth it. We waited in line just to put our names down on the list for about 15 minutes and the wait itself was about 25-30 minutes, so all in, we waited around 45 minutes, give or take. We spent that time walking to a brewery in the vicinity (one thing about Asheville? You can thrown a pebble and hit a brewery from wherever you’re standing) where I took this stunning picture of Zac.

Then we headed back to Chai Pani, and my life was forever changed by their “Sloppy Jai.” Spiced lamb hash simmered in tomatoes, ginger, and spices and garnished with onions, cilantro, green chutney, and sweet yogurt. All served atop two toasted buns. It was absolutely wildly incredible.

Once we were good and full, we started to walk toward another brewery for post-dinner brews, and I suddenly got a case of very violent hiccups. They were so violent and loud, that the two women walking behind us started laughing and joking about how maybe they should scare me to cure me. We chatted them up and asked them if they knew what the crowd outside the Civic center was for. “Robert Plant and Alison Krause are playing tonight!” they exclaimed. Both Zac and I love Led Zeppelin with a deep, fiery passion, so I immediately suggested we go to the window and ask if there were any seats left.

Turns out, there were and not only were they floor seats, but they were extremely affordable. So, we grabbed our tickets and got to see and hear Robert Plant belt out a few tunes, and it was incredible.

To end the evening, we went to one of Zac’s favorite breweries (and a highly suggested one per my spreadsheet): Wicked Weed. We sat outside on their incredible patio and enjoyed refreshing IPAs under the moonlight, and it was perfect.

Wednesday: We agreed to make Wednesday (Zac’s actual birthday) our hiking day, so we got up, got dressed, and headed to the highly recommended Biscuit Head for a casual breakfast before heading into the mountains. This had so many tallies from my crowdsourcing, I figured it had to be incredible. Alas, it wasn’t. I’m sure I just shocked a lot of people with that proclamation and some of you are clutching your biscuits, but we just weren’t impressed. The gravy with pieces of fried chicken in it was amazing, but the actual biscuit itself—their namesake for god’s sake–was pretty crumbly and dry and underwhelming. Personally, I would skip this and not give it a second thought.

We then made our way into nature and headed straight toward Chimney Rock State Park. There is no shortage of hiking to do in the Carolinas, and Zac had always wanted to see Chimney Rock. We took a pretty hilly trail down to the bottom of a waterfall, and it was truly glorious.

We explored a little more, taking in some killer views. I don’t understand the greenery. Dallas sucks.

We had an early dinner reservation but enough time to—you guessed it—grab a post-hike beer, so hit up both Burial Brew Co. and The Green Man. Both were lovely, and I highly suggest trying Burial’s Blitzed Baja Double IPA Slushie if they have it when you visit. It’s surprisingly amazing, and if you loved the Baja Blast from TBell, you will love this.

For Zac’s birthday dinner, I once again heeded the advice of the spreadsheet and booked a reservation for us at the NUMBER ONE MENTIONED RESTAURANT from my crowdsourcing: Cúrate (pronounced kur-rah-tay, although I decided to hatefully call it curate after our experience there). I’m not going to sit here and tell you all what I really think of this place because so many people recommended it. I’ll just leave it at—WHAT? REALLY? We did the chef’s tasting and left starving and entirely underwhelmed. Upon further investigation, I learned from Zac’s chef friend (who I’ll go into detail about here in a bit) that he would’ve never recommended this place to us. So. Do with that what you will. Here’s me being bewildered:

We were so starving, in fact, that we ended up driving through a Hardee’s right by our hotel and sharing a burger and fries that were honestly pretty damn good. Then I passed out with my silk bonnet on and snored, which you probably caught on Instagram stories.

Thursday: As luck would have it, one of Zac’s friends from his young professional days and his family were actually 45 minutes outside of Asheville at Lake Lure, where they had been renting a lake house for two weeks. Thursday was their last day there, so we woke up that morning, grabbed breakfast at a place called HomeGrown (simple, delicious food) and made our way to the lake!

If you’ve been subscribed here for a minute, you’ll remember the letter I sent out a few months ago all about lake house culture. A follower replied to my stories this day and said “All you had to do to be invited to a lake house is leave Texas,” and oh how it made me laugh. She was so right. We had the best afternoon catching up with Zac’s friend and his wife, sipping brewskies while floating, jumping off the tiny tower, and playing with their 2.5-year-old and 16 month old. It was such an unexpected and delightful surprise on our trip. Did we both get burnt to a crisp and are now peeling like snakes? Sure. But it was worth it.

We didn’t want to screw the pooch on dinner again after Cúrate, so we heeded our chef friend’s advice and dined at Cucina24 Thursday night and thank goodness we did, because it was phenomenal Italian food. Supposedly, the chef visits Italy at least three times a year and brings back local, popular dishes to share with the Asheville crowd. The tagliatelle al ragù made me borderline weepy, that’s how good it was. And the strawberry shortcake was the best I’ve ever had (yes, it looks like eggs benedict but I swear it wasn’t).

Friday: Before we left Asheville on Friday, I insisted we make a stop at Hole — a doughnut shop that only four people recommended to me, one of which was Maggie from Craveable who I trust implicitly, so I abided. Maggie, THANK YOU. This entire experience was epic. I can promise you that you’ve never been to a cuter, friendlier donut shop with fresher, made-before-your-eyes donuts. Maggie told me it was a religious experience for her, and I think I may have seen God in the cinnamon sugar donut. I can’t be sure it was Her, but I felt Her presence.

We spent the rest of the early afternoon wandering around the River-Arts District, popping into the endless amount of pottery/ceramic/craft stores down there, and did a little shopping at a boutique called There There (the owners moved to AVL from Dallas!).

Our last stop was a tour of New Belgium Brewery, which ended up being a private tour since we were the only ones who signed up for the 1pm. Our tour guide was nice, looked like a poor man’s Ronald Weasley, and gave us extra beer tastings since it was just us. The tour was fun, delicious, and I would definitely recommend it if you’re a beer person. We kept it very casual and grabbed sandwiches from Asheville Sandwich Company after the tour to soak up some beer, and it ended up being an almost perfect burger. HIGHLY recommend this joint!

SECOND STOP: CHAPEL HILL

I’m going to make this part very short and sweet because I’m honestly appalled at the length of this letter, and the funny part is that I could keep going. Asheville is a magical, mystical place that I hope to live in some day. The overall vibe, being surrounded by nature no matter where you are, the general person who lives there, the houses… it’s all just so amazing and I feel like we barely skimmed the surface of how many things there are to do there.

In Chapel Hill, we stayed with Zac’s friend Justin, and his very pregnant wife Zoë who is due in a few weeks. As I mentioned on stories, Justin is a renowned Southeast chef known for his delicate, simple, yet mind-blowing treatment of vegetables. He can cook just about anything, though, and he does. Justin has a storied past and has worked at the most prestigious restaurants in both Asheville and Chapel Hill and even had his own restaurant called Local Provisions for a few years before a shady investor pulled out. In 2007, he starred on Chopped and won. If you’re a Chopped girlie, it’s season 7, episode 4 and called “Have a Heart.”

Anyway, our Chapel Hill leg of the trip was mostly about being with Justin and his wife. We had an amazing dinner at a place called Mercato, ate the best froyo EVER from a place called YoPo, and talked non-stop about life. Justin also cooked dinner for us one night, and biscuits and gravy for us our last morning, and if I didn’t see God in that donut, I FOR SURE saw Her in that gravy. It was honestly the most incredible biscuits and gravy I’ve ever had, and I felt so honored to try Justin’s food. It was a very special moment.

And that concludes this North Carolina recap. If you made it all the way down here, I’m impressed and honored that you care that much.

So many good things and great content is coming this month on both the free and paid side of things, so consider upgrading your subscription!

—EGM