I love any party that has shrimp cocktail, don’t you? I had the honor of attending another party by the ever gracious R, and this party had a theme. It was a holiday pollyanna, but the opposite of “healthy and clean”. I’ll let you all figure that out on your own. Shrimp cocktail. I could eat this all day. Grapes… and a lovely salad that A brought.
This bean dish was definitely the appetizer hit of the evening. A mix of pinto, black-eyeds, pimentos, white corn, onions, vinegar, sugar, etc… it was the perfect topping to the chips below. I could have eaten this whole thing. In fact, I probably did eat most of it. Sorry!

A variety of cheese and crackers, as usual, along with some other tapenade type stuff. Did I mention how many chips I ate?

This is where I always go wrong… I stuff my face with appetizers so that I’m already practically full when the main course comes around.  Here we have some roasted tomato and fennel soup (seriously, who makes this kind of stuff?) and a three meat lasagna. Both were excellent, as always with R’s gourmet cooking. He puts the rest of us to shame!

In keeping with the theme of this little party, E created a special dessert. Let’s just use our imaginations to figure out what this dessert is shaped like. It is banana wrapped in bacon (yes, this dessert had bacon in it!) with two scoops of ice cream. :-) And this whole thing was flambéed! Using cognac, we lit these puppies on fire to burn off the alcohol. The fire looks fake in this photo, but it is totally real! I saw it! I felt it! It was so fun! And even though the dessert sounds odd, it was delicious! Thanks for another great party!

For my last dinner in Greenville, I finally got a chance to go to Starlight Cafe in downtown Greenville. It had gotten fairly good reviews everywhere I had checked and my server at Plum Tree had recommended it. I had high hopes. Boy, was I disappointed. It probably also did not help that I had dined at Chef & The Farmer the night before. That’s a tough act to follow. But even if I had eaten at, oh, let’s say, Applebee’s, I would have probably still been disappointed with this place. The place is interesting on the inside. They have two main dining areas and one area was sectioned off for a private party on the night I was there.

I sat at the bar. This was probably my first mistake. There was a baby of an employee yakking next to me. I mean there’s nothing wrong with babies, but I don’t need to have to be forced to hear them when I’m eating at some place nice. If I’m ordering a $29 entree, and sitting at the bar, I shouldn’t have to listen to random baby yelling, should I?

Their menu has a combination of southern, seafood, and european, particularly belgian, dishes. I wanted to get the soup of the day, the corn chowder, but after deciding on my entree, I decided on a house salad instead. Boy, did this salad suck it. It was a pile of mediocre greens, with a few strips of carrots, a few slivers of red onions, some cucumbers, and 3 teeny tiny croutons. The apple cider vinaigrette was rather blah, and this entire salad was extremely blah. There was nothing interesting about it. In fact, the best part was the cucumbers. I worked really hard getting every bit of carrot because I was desperately searching for flavor. The complimentary bread was just ok, but the olive oil that came with it was actually quite good.

My gut told me not to get this scallop dish, but the server recommended it. She said everyone who orders it loves it and wants to drink the broth. I decided to go with it anyway because I just love scallops so damn much. This was a belgian style scallops dish, with the scallops being simmered with potato, leeks, celery, and littleneck clams. This wasn’t bad, but it was so bland! It was like a watery clam chowder broth with some scallops, potatoes, and clams thrown in. I tasted no leeks at all. Now there were a lot of scallops in here, and a few clams, but it was also seriously overpriced. This was much more expensive than my entree at Chef & The Farmer and that just doesn’t seem right. The quality of the food, the presentation, the ingredients, the service… none of that compared to what I experienced at Chef & The Farmer. Greenville, you are being robbed!

The service… oh the service… where to start? So I sat at the bar, and was waited on by two people. But I don’t think they were aware of each other. One would ask me if I was ready to order, I would order, and then the other would come by and ask me what I wanted to order. Same with the drinks. Then one would ask if I wanted my check, and then the other would come by and ask me if I wanted my check. It was super annoying. And the guy who was waiting on me, he came by, and while dropping off a pepper grinder asked me how my salad was. But he wasn’t really asking me. He didn’t even stop in front of me or look at me as he asked, it was just more of temporary slowdown as he dropped off the pepper grinder, and he had no interest in if I would have an answer. It was so distasteful. It’s obviously you don’t give a crap what I think of my salad, so don’t bother asking! Overall, I was very disappointed with my meal. I had read some good reviews, so I had some decent expectations going in. I was disappointed in both the overpriced and blah food and the service. I do not consider this place fine dining in any way. They might consider themselves this way due to the pricing, but boy, have they go it wrong! They need to take a look at Plum Tree and Chef & The Farmer and take some lessons!

Never in my wildest imagination did I foresee coming to the middle of North Carolina and having one of the best meals, EVER. I mean seriously, I’m in Greenville, where chain restaurants rule the world! In my initial research of Greenville restaurants, I didn’t find out about Chef & The Farmer. While I was in Greenville and doing some additional research on urbanspoon, I found out about it. It was tricky though, as it is in the teeny town of Kinston, 30 miles from Greenville. But man, if I hadn’t discovered this place while I was here I would have been kicking myself in the ass, HARD. Chef & The Farmer is a world-class restaurant… literally in the middle of nowhere. Who’d have though? Certainly not this girl.

The executive chef and co-owner is a veteran of NYC restaurants, and you can tell. Folks, she learned her chops from Wylie Dufresne and Jean George Vongerichten. Now I don’t really know much about famous chefs of this world, but even I’ve heard of Wylie Dufresne and Jean George Vongerichten. They’re like seriously famous and world renowned. If she learned from them, then you know she knows her stuff. And damn, does she know it. The chef and the other co-owner transformed what used to be a mule stable into an amazing restaurant space. It’s even decorated with paintings by the other co-owner. It’s truly an inspirational spot.

I sat at the food bar, which is beautiful in and of itself, but which is even more amazing because it’s at the kitchen. And you get to watch the free show. I absolutely love watching the action. And there’s nothing better than literally watching your food being cooked. It’s an art form people, and every time I watch this stuff happen, it still boggles my mind. And I absolutely loved the wheat grass decorations.

Really, it was like a free dinner show. And man, is it warm! I’ve never seen so many big hunks of ribeye being cooked in my life. Just look at the size of those suckers! And I also heard them sawing more ribeyes. Yes, I said saw.

Oh the menu. Everything looked amazing. I was torn between many items. But I worked with the server and made some excellent choices. While I was eating, I was thinking about coming back the next night to try some other dishes. It almost happened. And well, it really should have. No matter how obvious it would have been that I was just there the night before.

Some complimentary bread. All of this bread is made in-house. The focaccia is baked with lavender and sprinkled with sea salt. The other bread is sourdough. The butter was dreamy and creamy. See those hunks of butter behind the wheat grass? I was that close to the ingredients!

I started with the carrot soup with citrus lump crab and crouton. Now I’m weird about carrots. I like raw carrots, I like carrot juice, but I dislike cooked carrots. During the discussion with the server, she told me it was made with cooked carrots and carrot juice. But she encouraged me to go for it. So I did. And I liked it! It definitely did have a somewhat cooked carrot taste, but I still liked it. And the crab? Amazing. And the crouton? Amazing as well!Everything about this worked. It was a perfect starter.

I was torn between ordering the fish or the scallops. The server agreed that it was a tough decision. But she said I should go with the scallops, and am I glad I did! There were three large fresh seared scallops. These just melted in my mouth! See the brown drizzle on the plate? That was bacon jus. Yeah, it was baconrrific! The orange drizzle was a pomegranate xyz. Also quite amazing. The veggies included thin strips of carrot and daikon and adorable half turnips, perfectly pan-fried. I just can’t even describe how perfectly everything went together. Everything just worked! And I savored every perfect bite.

Onto dessert! I’m usually a creme brulee nut, and they did have it on the menu. But I decided to go outside of the norm, and get this upside down apple cake. The server recommended it and said it’s definitely the most out there dessert on the menu. There was an apple cake, along with a scoop of salted caramel ice cream. The ice cream is homemade! Garnished with a slice of dried apple and edible pulled sugar. Unbelievable! As was the entire meal and experience. It is really hard to believe that I had a meal of such caliber here, in the middle of nowhere. This is an amazing restaurant. It would be amazing in a big city, like NYC or San Francisco. Kinston, NC is one lucky small town!