Super G Mart is an international bazaar for local foodies

By Billy Ingram
Photographs by Sam Froelich

In the past 50 years, our city has undergone a culinary transformation, from an international food desert to a genuine hub for haute cuisine from every corner of the globe. Laotian, Vietnamese, African, Egyptian, Thai, Yemeni, Indian, Tex-Mex — Greensboro has a global, palate-pleasing smorgasbord.

Imagine how difficult it would be sourcing all the myriad exotic ingredients those diverse ethnic undertakings require were it not for Super G Mart, located on West Market west of Spring Garden. If you haven’t experienced this cultural mashup, you must. Wandering among its stalls is like opening a Russian nesting doll; the deeper you dive the more there is to discover.

Stare wide-eyed at towering aisles stacked with 20 varieties of Udon noodles, hundreds of aromatic spices, Japanese green teas and coffees, Vietnamese meatballs, Korean dried licorice, Indian curry paste, juices and extracts from just about every conceivable fruit and vegetable. Plus, this great big grocery superstore boasts a full-service meat and fish market, alongside a produce selection that features an encyclopedic array of fruits and vegetables — cranberry beans, aloe vera leaves, green coconuts, kumquats, whole tropical jackfruit, seven pears of assorted origins, a dozen cultivars of bananas, vivid red and green habaneros, and a vast array of indigenous roots. Everything you never knew someone, somewhere needed, all under one roof.

In the meat section, recognizable drumsticks, steaks, chops and other traditional cuts of meat are on display alongside tails, feet, belly meat, shanks, jowls, not to mention a variety of gizzards, intestines, stomach, liver. Multi-pound packs of fatback will keep that Fry Baby you borrowed from the neighbor bubbling for months. Look for conveniently cubed goat heads, pig ears, beef lips, black-skinned chickens dressed for healthful chicken soup, ox and turkey tails (turkeys have tails?!?), and pre-packed chicken feet. Even if you’re no wannabe Top Chef, this is a one-stop shop for ancient incantations, spells, and curses.

Over in the seafood market, squid, catfish, kingfish, red drum, black sea bass, yellow croaker, and pink snapper lay upon a bed of chipped ice. Seasonally you can buy live tilapia, lobsters and blue crabs. There’s also salmon heads for fans of fish-head curry. One caveat, these fishmongers are sometimes overwhelmed meeting the requests of demanding customers. You’ll want to be patient and jostle for your place in line. Plus, the best way to see the store is by slowly browsing, because it’s difficult to take in everything on the first visit.

A favorite of caterers and fine dining chefs for years, Super G is a well-oiled operation, requiring constant restocking and inventory control due to the sheer number of neatly arranged products they carry. The place is a maze of shelves and alcoves stocked deep with canned whelk and baby conch, rice vinegars, dried mushrooms, ginger powders, crated duck eggs. . .  there’s an entire refrigerated case reserved for European breads and cheeses. 

Know what else you’ll find? Almost anything else you’d look for at a standard grocery store; Dole fruit cups, Peter Pan peanut butter, Southern Pride pimento loaf, grape Juicy Juice, Lucky Charms.

And prices lower than a snake’s belly which, surprisingly, I didn’t find in the coolers.

At the entrance to Super G is a colorful European-style marketplace with mom-and-pop fashion, knick-knack, and jewelry boutiques, professional services, and my favorite the Used Shoe Store, where you can literally walk in someone else’s moccasins.

On the way home, you might want to stop off for some Vietnamese coffee at the Asian Kitchen, a funky fresh eatery just inside Super G’s front door. Vietnamese Pho is their specialty but I’m especially fond of the beef in peanut sauce. For dessert, Suman rice cakes are a Filipino treat, sweet sticky rice cooked in coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves, steamed then sprinkled with sugar. Or maybe you want to wash it all down with a Honeydew Tea, one of many refreshing flavors Asian Kitchen brews.

Super G anchors the FantaCity International Mall where families from far-away nations gather daily to create culinary experiences unlike any other. Perhaps I’m over-romanticizing, but I believe an intimacy is established, consciously or not, when folks prepare meals from handed-down recipes.

Tampopo Ramen & Hibachi is Greensboro’s first honest-to-goodness Japanese noodle shop. Ramen-ya actually, a store primarily serving ramen with a few other options to bulk out the menu. Their sumptuous broths are prepared over the course of several hours, in the traditional style. Reflecting Sun Ja Lim’s passion, she of Sushi Republic fame, I can attest to Tampopo’s delectable authenticity, noodles and hearty ingredients.

Tongues are not only delighted but wagging about Sana’a’s home-style Middle Eastern entrees, savory kabob platters, lamb mandi, chicken tawook, fish salta, vegetarian specialties and freshly baked saluf. Judging from friends’ and published rave reviews, this newly opened corner space is nothing short of sensational. Stroll around FantaCity and you’ll also find Chinese, Korean, and Kimchi-to-go restaurants.

I doubt old-timers weaving ladies’ lingerie on this spot for decades beginning in 1950 would recognize FantaCity as Guilford Mills’ first permanent finishing plant. In the early 2000s, that brick albatross was transformed into this international shopping center but, unlike Cotton Mill Square in the ’80s, they did so without regard to preserving the original architectural integrity.

Just as well, fitting actually. FantaCity thrives on gritty optimism, no need for unnecessary hindrances from the extinction. Within these walls a palatable entrepreneurial spirit manifests itself around every corner, hard-working individuals engaged in the pursuit of that exalted All-American dream. Providing the public with an experience like no other.  OH

Peaches

are what she wanted in the end

said they reminded her of South

Carolina that summer she was

fifteen, living  with her Auntie

Josephine in a white clapboard

house at the end of a dirt road. 

They’d pick cotton during the day,

eat peaches for lunch, her fingers

sticky the rest of the afternoon. 

There was a boy who worked the farm,

Jerri, who kissed her one July afternoon

and then never returned to work.

There were thunderstorms, she said

so quick and fierce, all you could do

was lay in the fields and let the rain

wash your dirty face, your hair,

pray you didn’t get struck by lightning.

And dogs would appear, follow behind

you for an hour or two  then disappear. 

Her aunt would walk out into the field

with a wicker basket of peaches, smiling,

saying take two, take three and she took

all she could stomach. In this nursing

home, now, I don’t have anything to give her

except my time, my ears for her stories, so

on my next visit I bring her a peach and while

she can no longer chew it, still she lifts it

to her nose, smells the sweetness beneath

the surface, rubs it against her cheek,

a scene so private I have to look away.

— Steve Cushman

In the Ganem family, hospitality is the language of love

By Nancy Oakley   •   Photographs by Amy Freeman

Lisa Ganem animatedly recalls the moment she and her husband, Sam, knew they’d found the perfect house in which to spend their twilight years. “We’d been looking, looking, looking,” she says. “I showed him this house, and he said, ‘This is it. I can tell by the smile on your face.’” The humble ranch house on a quiet street in the middle of Irving Park was the kind of place anyone would overlook driving by it — anyone except the bright-eyed and imaginative Lisa, who had redone a similar rancher when she and Sam and their three children lived in Salisbury years ago.

“I didn’t have the vision,” Sam Ganem allows, admitting that he couldn’t see beyond the dwelling’s age, with its small rooms, cork floor, knotty-pine kitchen and overgrown shrubs. But where he saw darkness, Lisa saw light. “She just goes, ‘Oh, this is great! We could do this, and this and this,’” Sam remembers fondly.  “And I said, ‘OK, fine. Just give me an outdoor kitchen.’”

As a gastroenterologist for Eagle Physicians, his days are “filled with all sorts of commotion,” as they are for Lisa, owner of Certicode, a company that collects, analyzes and reports diagnosis and treatment data on cancer patients, and offers accreditation support to cancer programs, with the goal of improving patient care. “Cooking is relaxing,” says Sam, explaining that his interest in it developed in childhood. Coming from a large Lebanese family, he’d watch his aunts and uncles putter around the kitchen. “I’d pick up ideas here and there, put them in things I would like to do,” he says. After he and Lisa met (in the ER of the hospital in her small hometown in Tennessee, where she was working as a med-tech), cooking became a shared pastime. “We loved to cook,” says Lisa. “It was our calming thing.” They explained as much to each of his aunts, “the one that made the best tabbouleh, the one that made the best grape leaves, and we wrote down the recipes and learned to make them,” Lisa recalls. “And now it’s a big thing at Christmastime — his birthday’s on Christmas Eve — and we make a big Lebanese feast.”

With Sam working and her staying at home to rear three small children — Paige, John and Frances — Lisa had assumed the family’s culinary responsibilities. In 2004, after 10 years in Salisbury, they began looking for larger environs — but not too large — and moved to Greensboro, settling into a shaded house on Dover Road. As the kids grew older, Sam started firing up the oven again, branching out beyond the Lebanese delicacies he grew up with. Italian, Mexican and Asian fare became part of his repertoire. “I’ll go into a restaurant and say, ‘This is good.’ And I’ll talk to the waiter and I’ll say, ‘What’s in this? And they’ll kind of tell me what’s in it. And I’ll go, “I can make this,” he says with quiet certitude. A trip to New Orleans might result in a gumbo once he’s back home. “He thinks about things,” Lisa says admiringly, adding that Sam, also a musician who played guitar for a rock band in his teenage years, has the same remarkable ability to strum any tune he hears.

And then, of course, there’s grilling, which he’s so fond of — and which necessitated that outdoor kitchen in their new abode that Lisa dubbed “The Nest” after they bought it in the fall of 2016.

“I knew what it could be,” she says. “It could never be grand, it could never be palatial.” But it could easily become a home. So Lisa enlisted the help of local designer and draftsman Jim Weisman, whom she describes as “a joy” to work with. Over a six-month period, she says, “We went back and forth, back and forth” until they agreed on a plan that would open up those dark nooks and crannies and small rooms that Sam had found so off-putting. By mid-April of 2017, builder Kevin Otey and his crew broke ground and began the transformation that would last another six months.

They added a small front porch with narrow, rectangular columns, and dormers, encased in copper, which help shed water and give the house more definition, as do the bronze gutters.

Inside, a new front door, molding and millwork, such as the graceful curvilinear design on the dining room ceiling and the partially coffered den ceiling, lend an elegant touch to the more open spaces, thanks in part to widened doorways to the dining room, den and former living room. Now Lisa’s office, it overlooks the front yard, owing to a large picture window (a friend’s suggestion) that replaced what had been a blank wall flanked by two standard-size windows. “You can just sit in here and do your thing,” Lisa says, adding that the leafy view — and visiting squirrels outside — is a favorite of their three cats: Yanna, a Craigslist find, Parker, so-named because the Ganems rescued him from a parking deck, and Fillip, an orange striped fellow, whose name derives from the Chick-fil-A parking lot where Lisa and Sam found him half-frozen.

And who wouldn’t want to hang out here, among the soft palette of cream and grays? Particularly striking is a statement wall covered in grasscloth, behind the office bookshelves, a suggestion of interior designer Lauren Tilley. “My builder and I were like, ‘grasscloth, are you kidding me?!’” Lisa says of the material that is seeing a sudden resurgence since its heyday in the 1950s. But she concedes, “It really did set off those walls.”

The cream-colored walls create a sense of airiness throughout the rest of the house, which now has a seamless flow: a new hallway separates the living area from the master; in a finished attic, Sam can retreat among framed Beatles album covers, books and memorabilia from his rock band days; while extra bedrooms can accommodate visiting family members. There are no plans as yet for the finished basement, but with its newly whitewashed brick hearth, the work of the appropriately named Nathan Wainscott, the room holds the promise of a space for relaxing or merrymaking.

Anchoring the house is the den and indoor kitchen, where, flanking a vented fireplace, are a set of bookshelves and a built-in aquarium, a “bucket list” feature for Lisa. “The cabinet guy — he’d never done this before — he was like a deer in the headlights,” she says, as colorful angelfish, platys and goldfish, among others, glide through the backlit tank filled with greenery. With help from Triad Reef Critters, which had seen freestanding aquariums before, they found a builder with a template that would accommodate the tank and all its accouterments.

It’s a complement to the sea green and cream colors of the den, from the sofa and recovered recliners to the exposed wood chairs, which Lisa “adores,” in part because they were gifts from Sam’s mother when she moved to Abbotswood. Almost everything in the house is bestowed with meaning: the portraits of their children in the dining room, its chandelier (another cast-off from Sam’s mother), its table, a piece by the now-defunct custom furniture makers Councill Craftsmen in Denton. “They don’t make the hardwood anymore,” Lisa says wistfully. Her sparkle returns when pointing out a piece of artwork in the den, an abstract of pink and bluish green and cream by local painter, Amy Gordon. “She had just had a show at Tyler White [O’Brien],” Lisa explains, “And they called [her] and said, ‘Lisa just wants one of your pieces.’ And she said, ‘Well I’m wiped out, but I’ve done a couple of things in blue, so I’ll just bring ’em over.’” Lisa and Sam were astounded when they saw the painting, titled The Clearing, not only for its hues, so similar to the ones they favored, but also because it seemed destined for the empty wall by the new hallway leading to the master . . . especially when they discovered the artist’s subtle written message in the canvas: “Making space for new memories.”

It’s the perfect companion to the Zen-like aquarium, the soft candles and orchids scattered about. Nearby is a framed print of a dictionary definition of “nest” which reads: ‘noun. 1. A snug, comfortable or cozy residence or situation; a retreat, or place of habitual resort.” Lisa laughs at the popularity of the print among visiting guests who ask where she acquired it. “TJ Maxx?” she suggests, with a shrug.

If coziness is synonymous with the concept of a nest, it is essential to any kitchen. And certainly, the indoor kitchen, with its spacious granite-topped island and crisp cream cabinets, bookended by a laundry room and mudroom, is just that. But the true pièce de résistance is the outdoor kitchen that Sam requested and the adjacent patio, overlooking the backyard, the focus of which is a saltwater pool.

Originally, the backyard consisted of grass, trees and a profusion of boxwoods that the house’s previous owner had acquired from Mount Vernon. There had been a sunroom in the den area, (now extended to a wall of windows), but otherwise, no direct access to the yard. The back of the house simply dropped off from a fairly high level. But now? A spacious patio with table and chairs leads to steps flanked by wrought-iron railing (a nod to the original wrought-iron work, the only adornment in the front of the house) and terraced landscaping. “It was definitely a vision that Jim Weisman thought over,” Lisa says. “I wanted to get in that yard. It was so high up, I just wanted to get down there.”

They cleared out the boxwoods, leaving enough, along with some camellias and hollies, to line the periphery of the yard, the center of which is taken up with the pool. “I love it, love it,” Lisa enthuses. “It’s so calming. It has fountains you can turn on. All kinds of uplighting, landscape lighting so it’s nice at night.” Even the next-door neighbors are appreciative of the view.

And certainly, of the aromas of steaks, burgers and Sam’s specialties, lamb chops and honey-lime chicken, wafting from his impressive stainless-steel grill. He especially appreciates a flat surface designated for searing meat, (essential to successful grilling, to seal in the flavors) and a feature for inserting a spit, for roasting. And he is never without his digital thermometer, another must-have. “Some people have those fancy thermometers where they put the probe in, and they can see [the temperature] on their telephone,” Sam notes. “That’s a bunch of baloney! I just watch ’em, because that’s part of the fun, too. Watching them. Have a sip of wine. Put the thermometer in and say, ‘Yeah. It’s ready.’ Great satisfaction.” Beside the grill is a mini-refrigerator and griddle where, he says, “I can do a couple of pounds of bacon, pancakes.” When he isn’t cooking breakfast, he’s out on the patio most mornings, according to Lisa. “The sky is orange and the sun just comes in beautifully. He’ll come out here with his coffee. It’s like his quiet moment when the sun comes up.”

Otherwise, the outdoor area is a gathering place for family and entertaining. A mere month after the Ganems moved into The Nest last October, they hosted their annual oyster roast, a tradition started by some friends who used to frequent the oyster bar at Green’s Supper Club every Thanksgiving. “We had three bushels of oysters; had ’em raw, cooked, steamed. Brunswick stew,” says Sam. “Everybody was out here in their coats,” Lisa chimes in. No matter. Just bring out the portable heater to keep guests warm. “Definitely my love language and one of his love languages is hospitality,” she reflects. Since the oyster roast, the Ganems have hosted a gathering at Easter, a bridal shower and family dinner of Indian kabobs for eldest child Paige. As a newly minted medical school grad, she’ll follow in Dad’s footsteps by pursuing a path in internal medicine, and with husband-to-be, Mark Aderholdt, will settle in Greenville, S.C. Son John starts law school in Tennessee in the fall and the youngest, Frances, will return to Chapel Hill. There will be more dinners and parties, and reasons to celebrate — the Christmas feast and Sam’s birthday, for one. “We’re really close,” says Lisa. “The kids — we wanted a place they wanted to come to.” For now, she and Sam enjoy the company of Yanna, curled up on one the sea-green recliners in the den, Parker, who’s likely retreated to the basement, and a sleepy, contended Fillip, who stretches the rug in the den. Far from empty, The Nest, for all who live here, is decidedly best.   OH

Nancy Oakley is the senior editor of O.Henry

The Cheapskate’s Guide to Cheap Steaks

By David Claude Bailey

Let’s just get this out of the way. I am an expert on steaks, having served a weekly apprenticeship that spanned almost two decades at the University of Steakology in Reidsville. In my youth, grill master extraordinaire Claude Colonelue Bailey presided over a smoking-hot seminar every single Saturday night. Sometimes he lectured on the uses and benefits of fresh garlic, A-1 sauce and even homemade rubs, but his lessons always employed lots of salt and ground pepper and a Weber that almost glowed under its burden of white-hot charcoal. I have eaten, by my scientific calculations, more than 4,000 T-bones, sirloins, filet mignons, porterhouses, New York strips and other delectable cuts of beef in my lifetime. I’m a glutton for homework.

His teaching assistant, my mother, turned out the extraordinary complements to our weekly lessons. She always peeled and hand-cut potatoes and double fried them. She’d pre-rub her salad bowl with cloves of garlic, and we’d usually have hand-beaten biscuits or, on special occasions, her cloverleaf rolls.

Inevitably after Dad remarked about how God is great, God is good, and had thanked Him for our food, mother would say, as if we hadn’t heard it a thousand times, “You could drive all the way to Greensboro and not get a steak dinner this good.”

My sister, Betty, and I would roll our eyes. And then, almost ritually, before the meal was over, Dad would wonder aloud why anyone would pay for a steak in a restaurant when you could cook a better steak at home. More sibling eye-rolling ensued.

Since then, I was fortunate to have been a restaurant critic for more than a decade and have tried steaks in dozens of restaurants, some of them Prime, aged steaks, seared at 800 degrees. Let me say that I certainly appreciate the difference between USDA, aged Prime meat and what’s available in the grocery store and at most restaurants. But being someone of Scots-Irish ancestry, it has always been with the utmost reluctance that I readily cough up $50-plus for a T-Bone steak. Especially, if I’m not on expense account.

So I have always been on the lookout for what I call The Cheapskate’s Cheap Steaks. Believe me, they’re out there, though I’ve wrestled with many gristly and fat pieces of meat to find them, at the best and the worst of restaurants. In fact, I’ve learned Dad’s lesson: At most restaurants, you’re better off ordering something other than steak.

However, over my years in Greensboro, I’ve found some notable exceptions to Dad’s rule. But it’s not just any steak that I’m after. To be a good cheapskate’s cheap steak, the meal should be a special experience. I’m always looking for a complete steak dinner — the meat, French fries, a fresh garden salad and a first-rate serving of bread. Plus, the ambiance of the place, in combination with the food, ought to provide more than the sum of the parts. What I’ve tried to do here is spotlight steaks and venues that are, above all else, places that present extraordinary cuts of beef, seared to perfection, in an ambiance that provides, for at least an hour or so, something you simply can’t reproduce at home. And all this at a price not a lot more than it costs me to grill a steak at home, just as my dad did. 

Café Europa

200 N. Davie St., (336) 389-1010, facebook.com/europagso

The Meat of the Matter (How the steak, itself, rates) hhh (3 out of five stars). 6-ounce sirloin steak-&-frites, “lunch-sized (available at supper on request). Grilled — tender, juicy and not overly seasoned — Europa’s steak is a tad thin, though this is in the tradition of steaks I’ve had abroad. Larger 8-ounce “dinner” steak available for $18.

The Tab (For a steak dinner  — with the price per ounce of steak calculated based on the total tab)  $13 ($2.17 per ounce of steak). Served without bread or salad — steak & frites means just that.

Ambiance, service and measure of difference This lively, downtown brasserie has a stylish, Continental interior, featuring distinctive hardwood paneling. The vibe is urbane, almost clubby with attentive service. It’s hard to choose between the bustling bar and the popular patio. Measure of difference: Hippest spot in town to eat steak & frites.

Sides and Extras The fries are cut as shoestrings and best eaten before they cool. I enjoyed the cabernet butter, but ask for it on the side so it doesn’t overpower the steak. A salad is $2.50 extra, and I think Europa’s Caesar is well worth the price.

The Bottom Line With intimate corners and booths, plus sidewalk dining, Europa’s Continental “chic” nicely complements its reasonably priced and hearty fare — prepared with élan. And I highly recommend the mussels.

Lucky 32

1421 Westover Terrace, (336) 370-0707, lucky32.com

The Meat of the Matter hhhhh (5 out of five stars). 10-ounce, Black Angus salt-and-pepper ribeye available at lunch only. I found this easily the best “cheap” steak in terms of taste, preparation and quality. Unlike some other ribeyes, the meat was marbled and rich, with excellent texture.

The Tab $16 ($1.60 per ounce of steak). Served with bread and one side. No salad.

Ambiance, service and measure of difference My advice? Eat in the bar with its rich, hardwood accents and intimate, high-back tufted booths. It’s, at the same time, both atmospheric and airy. I’ve always found the service attentive and obliging. Measure of difference: For us, Lucky 32 rates as a special-occasion destination.

Sides and Extras The Texas Pete-fried onions atop the steak were a fun addition. And I could almost make a meal off Lucky’s excellent bread. The fries are hand-cut, double-fried and first-rate. I, however, find it hard to resist Lucky’s collards, sassy and tangled with side meat. Salad is $3.25 extra.

The Bottom Line Lucky 32 is always like an old friend to me, welcoming, cozy and totally predictable. Yes, the lunch-priced ribeye costs a couple bucks more than other steaks, but the total package of food, service and ambiance is hard to beat.

Oakcrest Family Restaurant

2435 Battleground Ave., (336) 288-7585,
oakcrestfamilyrestaurant.com

The Meat of the Matter hhh (3 out of five stars). Two 5-ounce ribeyes. It’s hard to imagine getting more meat for your money. Marinated, liberally seasoned with garlic and griddled, here’s a classic, cafe steak — in fact, two of them for the price of one.

The Tab $9.99  ($1.11 per ounce of steak). Served with Texas toast, salad and fries.

Ambiance, service and measure of difference I love Oakcrest’s emphasis on family dining. Don’t expect fawning service, white tablecloths or atmospheric flourishes. Instead, look for a spanking clean, well-lit interior that screams  ’50s diner chic, with pine booths, retro furnishings. Come twice and your waitress will know you by name. Measure of difference: Incredible bang for the buck.

Sides and Extras The service is family-friendly and the servings are humongous. And I’m a total sap for the garlicky, griddled Texas toast. Ask for the house-made Greek dressing atop the large iceberg-based salad. I found the rough-cut, skin-on fries, though probably frozen, some of the best in town.  

The Bottom Line Unless I’m missing it, this is one of the best meat-and-potato deals in town. And sometimes a no-frills, expedient diner experience is just what you’re looking for.

Tripps Restaurant

1605 Highwoods Blvd., (336) 292-0226,
trippsrestaurants.com

The Meat of the Matter hhhh (4 out of five stars). 7-ounce, center-cut “petite” sirloin. Lightly seasoned and nicely seared with grill marks on the exterior, yet rare on the interior.

The Tab $14.79 ($2.11 per ounce of steak). Served with bread, fries, steamed zucchini and a salad.

Ambiance, service and measure of difference With an inviting steakhouse/fern-bar décor, accented with hardwood and exposed brick, I like Tripps for its inviting, casually-elegant ambiance that feels nothing like a chain. Measure of difference: Here’s the total steak-dinner package — bread, salad, fries, vegetable and the steak itself — at an almost unbelievable price.

Sides and Extras Our meal started with a small, freshly baked loaf of bread, a nice way to begin the dining experience. The fries came sizzling hot, and the salad was fresh and generous, with almonds, bacon and garlicky croquettes. The combination was, all around, a notch above what I expect from a chain — or from anyone else for the price.

The Bottom Line Steaks are a specialty at Tripps, a Greensboro-based chain, but it was the entire experience that combined to deliver exceptional value — polite service, generous sides, a decent selection of wine and beer, plus a grilled sirloin thick enough to still be rare.

The Pavilion Restaurant

2010 West Vandalia Road, (336) 852-1272,
pavilionrestaurant.com

The Meat of the Matter hhhh (4 out of five stars). 5-ounce Petite Sirloin. In spite of the really low price, this was an outstanding steak, thick and juicy, well-seasoned and perfectly cooked rare, as ordered. No, it’s not a huge cut, but excellent, as are Pavilion’s other steak offerings.

The Tab $12.95 ($2.59 per ounce of steak). Served with Texas toast, fries and salad.

Ambiance, service and measure of difference I love the vintage, fine-dining décor of this venerable eatery, with its exposed brick walls, frosted-and-cut-glass panels between booths and découpaged tables featuring magazine covers from yesteryear. Measure of difference: Pavilion’s food is carefully prepared and, above all else, value-priced — in a setting that bespeaks a tradition of fine dining.

Sides and Extras The service is attentive, friendly and personable. The generous iceberg salad was fresh — the dressing, homemade. The crunchy, lightly battered fries came sizzling. And I inhaled my two slices of buttery, Texas toast.

The Bottom Line Going to The Pavilion is like stepping back into a more gracious and leisurely era. It is definitely an institution. But it’s kept pace with the times and, in my opinion, is one of Greensboro’s best- kept fine-dining secrets.

Chez Anne

My house, by invitation only — and don’t hold your breath.

The Meat of the Matter hhhhhhh (seven out of five stars). 8-ounce, Angus top sirloin from Harris Teeter VIC-priced. Grilled rare to perfection on a Weber by a Kansas City Certified Barbecue Judge — me! Dusted with asada seasoning.

The Tab $10 ($1.25 per ounce). With Chef Anne’s pommes Lyonnaise, a salad featuring home-grown mesclun, along with her handmade, buttery biscuits, here’s a meal that’s hard to beat.

Ambiance, service and measure of difference Farmhouse shabby décor, complemented by eclectic furnishings, mismatched tableware but incredible, tableside service from the chef herself, Chez Anne is my favorite venue. Al fresco dining available. Staggering selection of beer, wine and single-malt Scotch. Measure of difference: No need for a designated driver.

Sides and Extras An incredible meal, cooked to order with the one added ingredient no one else can deliver — true love. I will definitely be eating here again.

The Bottom Line My dad was right. The best value on a steak dinner is the one you cook yourself, provided you have an excellent sous chef who will accept as a tip — and the highest compliment of her culinary skill — a hug and a kiss.  OH