According to the Yellow Pages, there are 78 Mexican restaurants in and around Asheville, making tacos and tortas far more prevalent than pizza in Buncombe County. El Guadalajara Photos by Jonathan Welch But with so many restaurants to choose from, a startling number of eaters still end up at the very same places, confining their […]

• The Prospect
• Roman's
• Avery Creek Bistro
• Horizons
• Mother and Son Bistro

Is it spring yet? While the official start of the season is still a few weeks off, if you plan to celebrate its arrival with just-plucked greens, now's the time to subscribe to a community supported agriculture (CSA) plan. Local farmers are busily registering members, who will receive weekly boxes of fresh cabbages, cucumbers, potatoes, […]

• Luella's Bar-B-Que
• Francine Delany New School
• Upstate Chili Cookoff
• ASAP
• Kathmandu Cafe

If there's anything small-business advisors find as scary as undercapitalization, it's choosing the wrong partner. "Partners present the opportunity for turmoil," counsel the authors of Small Business for Dummies (Wiley, 2008) before outlining nightmare partnership scenarios in which entrepreneurs found themselves friendless, broke and in court. Photos by Jonathan Welch While business schools types generally […]

• Haiti Relief
• Caminos Southwestern Grille
• Short Street Cakes
• Truffle Festival
• Maple Syrup Festival

• Modesto
• Black Mountain Chocolate
• Bistro 1896
• Madison Co. Tailgate Market
• Mayfel's
• Lou's Grub Shack

• Tupelo Honey
• Blue Water Seafood
• Sugar Momma's
• Curras Nuevo Cuisine
• Martin's

Next weekend's Super Bowl may mark the end of the NFL season, but it's also the start of the year's richest spectating period. February, usually a dud month for sports fans, is enlivened this time around by the Winter Olympics. And the day after the Olympic torch is extinguished, March — better known as the […]

Tres Hundertmark insists there's nothing inherently difficult about prying oysters from their shells. "It's really just a matter of pushing the point of the knife as far as you can," Hundertmark, executive chef at The Lobster Trap, explains. Unsuccessful shuckers, he says, are usually felled by uncooperative tools, such as screwdrivers, paring knives and dull […]

• Highland Brewing Company
• Stovetrotters
• Blue Ridge BBQ Festival
• Asheville Independent Restaurant Association

• Kathmandu Cafe
• The Cellar Door
• Savoy

As its name suggests, Sazerac owes a heavy debt to New Orleans. But unlike so many north-of-NOLA restaurants that try to convey a Cajun-Creole vibe, the eatery isn't festooned in purple and gold, and there aren't any Mardi Gras masks or Abita beer signs tacked to the walls. Sazerac's far too sophisticated for that sort […]

Good, affordable organic food can be hard to find in Asheville. A case in point: Roots Café, the extension of a highly successful sauce and dressing wholesaler, is tucked into a back corner of the River Arts District at an off-the-beaten-path address. Photo by Jonathan Welch "Honestly, people finding us has been the hardest part […]

• Artisan Catering And Deli
• The Blackbird
• Iannucci's Pizzeria &Amp; Italian Restaurant
• Marco's Trattoria
• Terra Summer Cooking Class

For restaurant owners, 2009 was a challenging year. So perhaps it's too soon to offer up a platitude that's actually true: It was supposed to be worse. Cash-strapped restaurateurs are unlikely to take much comfort in knowing they could have skirted even closer to failure, but the Asheville area's remarkable survival rate was a boon […]

Standard Pizza Co.: Jim Coleman, who recently opened a New York-style pizza joint on Haywood Road, insists there's "nothing too fancy" about his pies. But, if pressed, Coleman will talk about an available topping that's anything but standard. "We do put bananas on pizza," Coleman says. "That's kind of weird." Photo by Jonathan Welch Coleman […]

• Mayfel's
• Hickory Tavern
• Amie's Deelishus Gluten-Free Goodies
• Grove Corner Market

Editor's note: This is the second part of Raskin's two-part story on her first turkey hunt. See last week's Xpress for part one. Dowler warned me there was a good chance I wouldn't get a turkey. The difficulties of turkey hunting are compounded in the South, where thick forests compromise visibility and birds have been […]

• Asheville Food Tours
• City Bakery