queen of leftovers

In my top three requirements for choosing a place to live or visit is: colorful food options.  Excuses to eat out.  Trying new things.  Getting fat unnecessarily.  All of it is good.

I demanded Lyd take us to Nine Mile after seeing her Instagram months earlier.  Niel and I both got the Cool Runnings (the names of the dishes are so Asheville).  It was kind of like three separate components (and rice) all supporting the chicken.  Beans and chicken (there was kind of an odd taste going on that wasn't my favorite), salsa and chicken (spicy and sweet), cheese and chicken (creamy and savory) with rice and chicken as a palate cleanser in between.  I don't have to tell you that there definitely wasn't enough chicken to be eating it that way.
The entire menu was filled with buzz words - Cool Runnings just happened to have a bunch strung together in one line:
blackened. check.
mushrooms. yes.
smokey. ooo.
gouda. mmm.
chipotle. mmm.
And I just saw a bunch more buzz words while revisiting the menu.  I would like to go back now.

Managed to represent all the countries at Doc Cheys, post hike.  Lyd with China, Lisa with Singapore, Niel with Thailand, and I got bibimbap for Korea.  I usually avoid ordering this if it doesn't come in a hot stone bowl, but I wanted all the veggies.  And I needed a rice dish because they provide furikake seasoning at the tables.  Shit's an easy way to eat your way through like six bowls of white rice without realizing.  Which reminds me, I need to find an Asian grocer around here.
Anyways, I'm usually skeptical of Asian restaurants that don't have a specific national theme (how can you offer bibimbap, pad thai, singapore noodles, AND sichuan stir fry that are all authentic and tasty?), but it was good.  I was satisfied.  And the lightly fried tofu cubes were my favorite part.

Our fancy meal of the weekend was at Rezaz, where we had the peppiest waitress in the land, who was very enthusiastic about the strawberry lemonade cocktail and made a passion fruit concoction for Jamie.  The pictures of the food were such eye candy, I definitely fell for it.  And then I felt bad when Niel only got three little raviolis but it's okay because he got leftovers.  Lyd and Jaime got the signature seafood paella (excuse the poorly taken photo), and I would've been all over that if I hadn't seen fried haloumi.

Isn't it so pretty?

With fresh tomatoes, eggplant, dolmades, and pita.  Ugh, yum.

You bring souvenirs home; I bring leftovers.

This isn't ethnic, but I've never come across siamese pretzels in all my years of eating family-size bags of pretzels in no more than two sittings, so I guess you could say it's somewhat foreign.