This is a blog of my five-week exploration of culinary experiences in North Carolina. Baaswell Sheep is accompanying me and offering his own commentary on the trip, although he refuses to go into any place that serves lamb chops.
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I love little family run restaurants that look like they've been around for half a century or more, and this one fit the bill perfectly. It was so small that there was no place to wait inside, so you wait out on the patio until they can seat you. We got here at nearly two o'clock on a Friday, expecting they would be well past their lunch rush, but we still had to wait about ten minutes due to a full dining room. My companion got the catfish special and said the fish was delicious, while I ate on the fries and coleslaw and found them both to be nicely done, and the iced tea was near perfect, too. The only problem was that it was so filling that once again we had no room for dessert, which may be just as well, as we were completely torn between the key lime pie and the lemon pie.
Downtown Franklin, N.C.
We'd been through this town a number of times over the years on the way to or from the Cherokee area, but all too often we were passing through after five o'clock, when everything in small towns tends to close. So, it was an interesting change of pace to come through at a time when we could check out the local businesses. Franklin is a pretty active town with few if any vacant storefronts downtown, and we found a couple of local arts and crafts stores as well as a huge antique mall on two and a half floors of a building. Being a rather hot day, we found it easy to decide to visit the Scottish Tartan Museum, especially since my companion's last visit had been twenty-five years ago – why, I hadn't even been born yet back then! It's really as much a museum about Scottish history, and for just $5, it's a good deal. When five o'clock hit, we enjoyed an iced tea in a general store coffee shop operating out of an old bank building (that's a pretty off-the-wall combination). Regardless, the tea was good and refreshing, and they had a lovely lounge for us to sit in and rest our feet and hooves. The pictures below in order show the Scottish Tartan Museum, an 1860's cabin someone preserved on the edge of downtown, and a genuine still-operating Radio Shack dealer: I'd heard there were a few left, but this is the first one I've come across. Unfortunately, they were closed for the day, so I didn't get to go in and look around.
Wild Goose Chase, Nantahala, N.C.
So, my companion asked this fellow in an outdoor supply shop about local trails and was told that the Appalachian Trail goes through not that far from Franklin: about fourteen miles to the west. He took down some notes and after our refreshing iced tea, we set off to look for the spot and do a little trail hiking. Well, the first eight miles or so were typical outskirts of town. Then, we climbed slowly up a mountain, seeing rental cabins and winding roadway. We reached what seemed to be the top, but there were no signs about the Appalachian Trail anywhere, and no indication of any place to park. So, we kept going and soon realized we were going back down again. My companion stopped and tried to pull up some maps, but there was no cell service out there, of course. Since time was not a big issue, he kept going to see what we'd find, knowing that the road was supposed to go out to Nantahala Lake, and sure enough we ended up there. It's a big, beautiful lake, as seen in the main post picture, but being a resort lake, there really was no place to stop and do anything. We turned around and went back, looking more closely on the top of the mountain and still came up blank on the trail, so we returned to town. Tonight I pulled up some maps online and found that we were definitely in the right place: there's just zero signage, which is pretty darn annoying IMHO.
Dinner in Hotel, Franklin, N.C.
Having had a long day, and having that grocery store next to the hotel, we just got some food there and ate in the room again. I know, we're supposed to be sampling local cuisines, but it's late in the trip and my companion wants to be a little more thrifty now. But, he's promised a nice big meal tomorrow when we go up to Sylva and Dillsboro.
Please note that all restaurant and product names are used simply for referential purposes and links provided as a courtesy. Reviews are the sole opinions of the reviewer: no restaurant has paid to be listed here, and no restaurant is being explicitly endorsed. In other words, go out there, try them all, and form your own opinions!
I love little family run restaurants that look like they've been around for half a century or more, and this one fit the bill perfectly. It was so small that there was no place to wait inside, so you wait out on the patio until they can seat you. We got here at nearly two o'clock on a Friday, expecting they would be well past their lunch rush, but we still had to wait about ten minutes due to a full dining room. My companion got the catfish special and said the fish was delicious, while I ate on the fries and coleslaw and found them both to be nicely done, and the iced tea was near perfect, too. The only problem was that it was so filling that once again we had no room for dessert, which may be just as well, as we were completely torn between the key lime pie and the lemon pie.
