August 10, 2012

While in North Carolina with our friend Vinny for the 2012 “Festival of Cheese” at the American Cheese Society’s Conference and Competition, we visited 7 top-rated Barbecue eateries in the eastern part of the state, in and around Raleigh.

Below are the places we tried and our notes on each:

The Pit
328 West Davie St. at Harrington
Raleigh, NC 27601
http://www.thepit-raleigh.com/
(919) 890-4500
Our Rating: A+
Cooking Method: Whole hog, pit-cooked
Pulled pork was so flavorful without any sauce! Sauces: vinegar based and tomato molasses; Delicious NC stew called Brunswick Stew; Vinny loved the collard greens; Bacon and spinach bruschetta!
$11.99 pulled pork, $2.50 cup of Brunswick stew, $7.59 bacon bruschetta

 August 10, 2012

On Saturday, August 4th, we attended the “Festival of Cheese” at the 2012 American Cheese Society’s Conference and Competition held in Raleigh, NC. This year’s festival, which is open to the public who purchased a $55 ticket for the 2.5-hour event, featured more than 1,700 cheeses from throughout North America. Vendors also presented a wide array of gourmet foods, wine, and beer.

Having attended last year’s festival in Montreal, we knew what to expect: an overwhelming collection of cheese organized into more than 100 categories from Fresh Unripened Cheese made from cow’s milk to Washed Rind Cheese aged more than 90 days.

Our plan of attack was to sample as many of the blue ribbon winners as we could, but we always end up sampling even the non-winners in categories we most love.