I recall hearing 1,345 times during orientation week that Durham was a great place to live.
Bill Bell, Durham’s mayor, even came to East Campus to try to convince us. It did not work. We frosh had a conception of Durham that parents, friends and new roommates had infused in us with their concerned looks and leading questions. Durham, we concluded, must be a pretty disgusting place. Now where were those free T-shirts?
Nearly four years later, I know that line of thinking is long extinct among people who actually live in Durham, not just “live.”
Many of my fellow seniors who have written for these pages have also taken time to live in Durham, too. They have captured photos of its people and places; they have written about its shortcomings and successes; they have enjoyed its theater, sports and music. I have experienced this splendid metropolis through its culinary delights.
That I live so close to East Campus (and Papa John’s) is bittersweet. Yes, I hear you all stumble back from not-so-Devines as you herd your buddies back to your dorm. But I also get to fantasize about what it would be like to have my current brain as a freshman.
Oh, the food I would have eaten.
It is not a secret. I obviously, brazenly and reliably have a relationship with the food I eat. It has to do with the taste, sure. Please don’t serve me a pickled bagel with coffee-flavored cream cheese. But eating in a restaurant has also become a way for me to connect with the community, to share intimate moments with friends, to experience the real world, to appreciate those who can cook and to try new or unexpected things.
Often, people ask me, or tell others to ask me, where to eat in Durham. I consider their trust a high compliment. It might take me a day to mull my endorsement over, but I’ll be damned if I don’t have the best recommendations in town. If you, too, want to get to know Durham as well as you know the menu at the Dillo, I present for your consideration this too-short list.
1. Dame’s Chicken & Waffles. This Main Street restaurant is owned in part by Damion “Dame” Moore. In addition to introducing his “almost-world-famous” deep fried chicken and fluffy waffle combo to the Bull City, he recently gave me a bumper magnet for my car and asked me to bring my parents by the shop. Dame’s is not even close to famous for serving a quick meal, so consider this your new Sunday brunch spot. The people around you will be black and Asian and white and Hispanic, a regrettably rare sight around Durham’s dining scene. Dame’s is where you go to remind yourself of the diversity of this place.
2. Klausie’s Pizza. We all got lucky with this one. Mike Stenke, owner of the silver pizza truck, is from Raleigh. However, he’s in Durham so much that it just has to count. I think the Detroit-style slices he slings for a few bucks are best plain, but they’re also great with pepperoni or diced veggies. (Detroit style: baked medium-well-done in a square pan, with slightly burned cheese cascading over the edge and a greasy, crunchy deep crust.) It is the best pizza in the disgracefully pizza-deprived Triangle. Stenke knows this, and will tell you, a lot. Public policy majors might receive a bonus discussion about how the City of Raleigh is stalling food truck legislation and harassing his truck with ethically shady tactics. Klausie’s is where you go to appreciate the fruits of Durham’s liberal tendencies.
3. Bull City Burger and Brewery. This Saturday, I ate at Seth Gross’ new burger joint twice. One of my burgers featured house-made pimento cheese and pickled okra. Barely a month old, this Parrish Street restaurant—which brews its own beer, grinds its own beef and bakes its own buns—is uniquely Durham in a city whose restaurants all tend to scream Durham. The number you receive when you order at the counter is a year with an accompanying blurb about local history at that time. Its beers are all named after people and places in Durham. BCBB is where you go to gain an appreciation for what is around you and what came before it.
So how could I convince anonymous readers or freshman-year me that Durham, N.C., is something to be drunk straight, not sipped from a mile-long, blue-and-white straw? Maybe Mayor Bell had it in him all along.
On April 14, 2011, about two weeks after BCBB opened, Mayor Bell came by and chugged the brewery’s first public offering. Pale ale, I believe.
“It’s good,” Bell said, smiling widely.
Yes, Mayor Bell, it is good. Eat and drink this city up, friends.
Alex Klein is a Trinity senior. He is a contributing writer for Towerview magazine, former online editor and former editor for new media. He also thinks these local spots are great: Allen & Son, Crook’s Corner, Dain’s Place, Dos Perros, Elaine’s, Farmhand Foods, Fishmonger’s, Foster’s, Four Square, Fullsteam Brewery, James Joyce Irish Pub, King’s Sandwich Shop, Ninth Street Bakery, Nosh, Mami Nora’s, Old Havana Sandwich Shop, Panciuto, Parker and Otis, Pauly Dogs, Plate & Pitchfork, Refectory at Duke Law, Revolution, Rue Cler, Sam’s Quik Shop, Sandwhich, Scratch Bakeshop, Taqueria La Vaquita, The Federal, Toast, Tobacco Road Sports Cafe, Torero’s, Twisted Noodles, Vin Rouge, Watts Grocery and Wine Authorities.
Editor's note: This column was first published May 2nd, 2011.
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