Travels in the near abroad, part 1

A couple of weekends ago I got roped into a trip to Concord Mills Mall by The Mrs. As we meandered around, and I began to loose interest, my attention turned to the important things in life. This, as is always the case, meant lunch. I decided to completely dismiss all of the chain crap in the general vicinity right off the bat. This lead me to my phone, and the Urbanspoon App. With a couple of tweaks, and a few rolls of the dials, I landed on Emma's Carolina Cuisine and Spirits in downtown Concord. I have only visited downtown Concord a couple of times before and had never really had the chance to explore. So when The Mrs. was finally done shopping I explained my plan. With no resistance we headed toward Emma's. We got into town and parked, then made our way up to the restaurant making notes of what to check out when we were done. Number one on the list was what we thought was a Cuban Bakery, more on that in a second. We found our way to the restaurant and had a seat. The decor has a bit of a local "Fridays" feel with chotchkies and local newspaper clippings on the walls. The servers are all southern women who talk to everyone as if they were a regular and, judging from the conversations, most were. I had a fairly good fried pork sandwich with sweet potato fries. While The Mrs. went for the Ruben also accompanied with sweet potato fries. The fries were great. I inquired about the spirits in the name and was pointed to the bar hiding in another corner of the restaurant. I was sad that, that was all it was, but not near as sad as I was when I saw the bar while paying our tab. It's not very often you see a bar with nothing displayed, in what I will admit was a nice little bar, but Aristocrat products and a bottle of Tia Maria. It was a little disconcerting.

The first stop after Emmas was the Cuban bakery, which turned out to be a full fledged restaurant; Havana Carolina. Damn the luck. It is a cute little place with a few tables and all the feel of anything you would find back home. Most amazingly was the inclusion of a Mamey smoothie on the menu. We ordered one and then saw Cuban bread to go and topped it all off a couple of croquettes for the road. How could we resist?

Last stop in Concord was Lil' Roberts Place, a bar with a beer store in the front window. It was not earth shattering but a nice selection for a little place. I picked up a bottle of Mad Rivers barleywine and a Duck Rabbit wee heavy.

I'm not sure how often we will be making the trip to Concord but it made for a nice day and if we do make it back, there will definitely be a stop at Havana Carolina.