Social Media Supper Club - 5/25

Our next gathering will be a bit more informal without a ticketing system. We’re meeting for food and drink at the new Relish Cafe and Bar at 5625 Creedmoor Rd in North Raleigh. View the menu, it includes mac and cheese skillets in a few different varieties, grilled cheese, and other tasty-looking Southern comfort foods.

We have 7 RSVP’d so far. Tweet @demandycom to RSVP or shoot an email to demandy @ gmail.com.

Relish Cafe and Bar
7 PM, Wednesday May 25th

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Dos Perros Mexican Brunch

This is a bit late getting posted. 

For our last outing on 3/17, the Supper Club magically transformed into the Social Media Brunch Club. We attended the always yummy Dos Perros. It was nice to new faces like Tori and familiar alike, although it was a bit disorentiating to be meeting in the middle of the day instead of evening. 

Food was mostly enjoyed, there were some hits and some misses. Judging by comments it sounds like it was just okay for the most part. Didn’t hear anyone raving or hating on their dish. One thing to note for anyone headed to the Two Dogs for brunch, our menu was very limited compared to what’s posted on their site. We had maybe half of the brunch menu to select from. 

The drinks were good as always, Bloody Marys, Green Marys (with tomatillos), and Mango Cayenne Margaritas were enjoyed by many of us. 

The chef made some churros especially for our group (earlier we were told they ran out). These sugary sticks placated foodie grumblings for a bit. Speaking for myself, it was an uninspired outing at one of my favorite restaurants in Durham.

Afterwards, we went looking for some treats at Durham’s finest sweetshops only to find they were all closed. Boo! :D

See all the SMSC pics on Flickr

BC

Thai Palace: Great Group, Great Dinner

At 20 people, we had our largest group ever for the Supper Club this time around. Since our group was so big, we also had a private room, a first for the Supper Club, too. 

After making our introductions, we got down to the business of Thai food. Appetizers were generally a hit, with the Curry Puffs carrying the opening course. Entrees ran the gamut, and it seems like the general consensus was they were good if not anything special. There was a dinner failure or two, but service was top notch. They handled the orders very quick and from what I heard there wasn’t any mixups even though we all did individual checks. 

The highlight of the night was all the SMSCers. Everyone had a great time and had fun talking and sharing a meal. 

Check out the Flickr Set for more pics. 

This time we had SMSCers tweet their reviews. 

Thanks to everyone who came out. We all had a great time and we’re looking forward to next month. If you have a good brunch recommendation, we’d love to hear it. 

-BC

We Want Your Tweets

We’re nine days away from the fifth outing for the Social Media Supper Club and we’re essentially sold out! There’s one ticket left for the waiting list. How exciting! We can’t wait to see new faces and old friends alike. 

We want to do something a bit different this time around. We want to hear from you. Our resident foodie bloggers, Becca (@thegourmez) and Amanda (@demandycom) have been holding down the restaurant reviews since we started. Now it’s your turn. 

We’d love to see your tweet review of the restaurant. Did you love it? Not so much? Throw down your best review in 140 characters or less. We’ll post the reviews up on the site along with pictures from the night. 

As always, if you have a question you can send me a message through Twitter - @BCwritr or you can send them to Becca, @thegourmez and Amanda, @demandycom too. 

See you there! 

Quick Details

Where: Thai Palace - 1206 Raleigh Rd., Chapel Hill

When: March 23rd @ 7:30 pm 

SMSC #3 Report: Mawa’s Taste of Africa

Mawa’s Taste of Africa
152 Morrisville Square Way
Morrisville
Entrees: $12—$18
Website

The third outing of the Social Media Supper Club took place at Mawa’s Taste of Africa, in Morrisville, at demandycom’s suggestion. We had a small group this time around, but it was lovely, as always, to see demandycom (Mandy), bengfarrell (my fine husband, Ben), dawnacrawford (Dawn), apiciusapprenti (Rocio), and BCwritr (Brian).

Per the front of the menu, MAWA stands for My Authentic West African, but it doesn’t take long to learn that Mawa is also the name of the chef of this far-ranging restaurant—she will undoubtedly stop by your table between orders to make sure you are loving her food. The rest of the restaurant staff are just as pleasant and more than willing to make sure we had everything we could want and were satisfied. It doesn’t take much more than eating Mawa’s great food for that to be the case.

The dim lighting could stand to be softened, but otherwise, the interior of Mawa’s is attractive and welcoming. The walls are orange with African masks hung on them. Murals of African animals and baobab trees adorned the overhang and back wall.

Blurry Rocio and Mandy, unaware of the charging elephants above them.

Brian and Dawn in front of the baobab mural and some rattan screens that hid a traditional African eating area.

We ordered a number of tasty drinks. I had the iced Moroccan mint tea. Mint teas are always refreshing, but this one was too close of a relation to southern sweet tea for my taste buds—in other words, I’d like it unsweetened. From two small sips, I’d say the mango juice and the bissap hibiscus fruit punch were also pretty good.

A flat bread round started us out. The crispy bottom of the bread was fabulously, especially with the char on it. The dipping sauce piled in the middle—a yoghurt or sour cream with a little bit of carrots, lots of dill, and garlic—-was just plain awesome.

The group ordered an appetizer sampler for $10. It included fatayas (minced beef pies), neemes (a spring roll cousin with shrimp), crispy sweet plantains, accara (black-eyed-pea hush puppies), and shrimp beignets.

Mandy and Rocio showing their appetizer appreciation.

I loved the accara—they were similar to falafel, but somewhat spongy in texture due to the combination of smashed up beans and cornmeal. The tomato-onion sauce served with them was delicious and somewhat spicy. The fatayas were pretty good, housing lightly seasoned ground beef in a tasty pastry crust. Neemes are a heavier version of a spring roll, not my favorite of the bunch with its chewy texture but interesting, nonetheless. The plantains and shrimp beignets were delicious. Dawn was sticking to a vegan diet, and without even asking, they surprised her with vegan appetizers on a small plate since she couldn’t partake in the large sampler.

The entrees covered a range of African dishes, with the country of origin listed by the name of each. I opted for the tiga deggeh, a dish from Mali with chicken, squash, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage in a peanut sauce. I think that vegetable combination was typical of most of the dishes.

It was a moderately heavy sauce, and to my pleasure, the peanut didn’t overwhelm the other spices in the dish. The chicken was sliced thinly and cooked well, and it all went quite well with the fufu, one of the side options along with couscous and rice. It’s typically a paste made with mashed root vegetables—plantains and cassava in this case—and it’s fairly flavorless with a doughy, gummy consistency that worked quite well in conjunction with the sauce.

Ben was pleased with his curried goat and vegetable dish.

It wasn’t as good as the South African goat dish he had in the Camden Loch Market in London, but it’ll certainly do if you don’t have time for a quick, trans-Atlantic flight.

The vegan platter looked quite appealing, loaded up with a variety of goodies including falafel, hummus, pita tips, plantains, tabouleh, and grape leaves. I also admired the pile of couscous on Brian’s chicken curry ganar plate.

Rocio thought her lamb wat—-an Ethiopia platter with a red pepper sauce for the meat, lentils, and two side vegetables—-was delightful. The spice heat was too much for Mandy in her chicken version of the same dish.

I thought the lentils were delicious, as was the injera bread served with the meal—best I’ve had, even compared with the couple of Ethiopian restaurants I’ve tried. I’d describe the heat level as medium, but you can specify hotter or milder if you’d like.

We all looked forward to dessert, and I’d heard great things about the mbourou fass, so most of us ended up ordering it.

It gets best presentation of the evening, in my opinion. Thin slices of brioche were battered and fried, then ice cream sandwiched between them. All was then piled on top of a plantain caramel sauce. It was pretty darn tasty, with a fluffier texture than I expected. Make sure you let some of the ice cream soak into the brioche.

The beignets de pommes was a copious portion, as you can see.

Each apple wedge was breaded and fried then doused with a healthy portion of cinnamon and powdered sugar. Dawn thought they were delicious.

My favorite dessert, however, was Ben’s chacry.

You take the millet couscous and dip it into the sweet yogurt and cream sauce. Oh my, I could have swum in that cream sauce. Delicious with some cardamom and citrus at least, but there may have been any number of tasty ingredients making it a delight. I’m not sure anyone else was quite as impressed, but hey, more chacry for me.

We all agreed that Mawa’s is a place worth trying every item on the menu, so we’ll be back. I’m especially eyeing the Senegalese yassa tilapia cooked in a citrus and onion sauce. The atmosphere could use a little polish, but the hearty welcome and food adventure will more than make up for it. If you’re feeling a bit less adventurous, they also offer pizzas with a variety of African-inspired toppings.

Reviewed 1.20.11.

Stay tuned for when we announce our 4th location and date!

Social Media Supper Club the Third: Mawa’s Taste of Africa

The holidays are over, but that’s no reason not to celebrate good food with friends! We are headed to Mawa’s Taste of Africa in Morrisville this time around. Mawa’s offers food from all over the continent: Ethiopian, Senegalese, South African, Kenyan … the list goes on. It sounds as though their signature bread pudding dish is to die for.

The details? 1/20 at 7 pm. RSVP at eventbrite here. We are aiming for 20 people and will cut off reservations on 1/18 so we can give the restaurant a definite count. Can’t wait to see you again or meet you if this is your first time!

Next #SMSC: Blue Corn Cafe UPDATED!

The next meeting of the Supper Club socialites will be on 11/4 11/12 @ 7 pm. This time the bites + more are coming from south of the border courtesy of Blue Corn Cafe. 

If you’re interested in RSVPing, just leave us a comment with your Twitter @name and you’re in.

Since we have a bigger group, we need to have a final count by 11/11 so we can give Blue Corn a heads up. We’d love to see you out there. 

First Supper Club Went Awesome

We had a wonderful time at David’s Dumpling & Noodle Bar. Huge thanks to everyone who came out. 

Some pics from the night…

Noodles and More Noodles: Inaugural SM Supper Club:

Luckily for us David Mao, former chef at the always delicious Duck and Dumpling, got bored with retirement and started his new venture, David’s Dumpling and Noodle Bar. Come join us for some drinks, slurping, and chat. 

Yum Yum. That’s all I have to say. 

Date & Time: Sept 30th @ 7 p.m. 

The invite is here! Go to smsc.eventbrite.com to sign up.