Foodwire

Tiger Mountain Thirst Parlour opens on Broadway

A new bar, owned and operated by Jamie Hepler and Sean Bickford, has opened at 103 Broadway. As if Tiger Mountain Thirst Parlour isn’t enough of a mouthful, the bar’s outgoing message also adds “Mirror-ball Sanctuary” to the moniker. The bar serves a small but solid selection of liquor, with an expanded drink menu coming soon, featuring “traditional old-school” cocktails, Hepler says. Beer and wine are also available.

Since the bar opened on June 13, Hepler reports that Tiger Mountain has seen mainly “good crowds and nice people.” On Fridays, Tiger Mountain hosts a “’60s soul garage” dance night. And what of the supposed mirror balls? That’s actually for real. “I’ve got this mirror-ball obsession,” Hepler says. “We’re not actively doing anything with it yet, but we will.”

Stay tuned, folks. Tiger Mountain opens every day at 3 p.m. Check the Facebook page for more details.

Fox News on Asheville’s food scene

Judson Berger of Fox News visited Asheville recently, praising our food scene (sort of — he said it’s "budding") and calling Chai Pani a major highlight of the trip ("a niche restaurant that specializes in Indian street food — in Western North Carolina, so go figure," he says). Go figure, indeed.

According to Fox, Asheville has great breweries (several, even, says Berger!), frog jam in spades (that’s a jam made of figs, raspberries, oranges and ginger, for the uninitiated — we can’t say we’d heard of it), but no good cocktails, apparently (we hope that you’ve enjoyed this week’s food feature).

We're also quirky and have a drum circle, by-the-by. Oh, and do yourself a favor: Don't skip the River Arts District. Even though the "row of run-down-looking studios seems unimpressive," it's totally fine. Once the artists throw open their doors doors to visitors, "the street becomes a gallery."

The RAD, says Berger, is "home to Wedge Brewing Company.” It’s also where Berger and company had two of their best meals — at 12 Bones Smokehouse and White Duck Taco Shop. Unsurprisingly, Berger makes no mention of the President's partiality to 12 Bones, but he does say that it’s “only a matter of time before White Duck gets the Guy Fieri ‘triple-D’ treatment." All right then. Cucina 24, Tupelo Honey and many more are mentioned — see the whole article at http://avl.mx/gn).

This week in sad

Palmyra Bistro in south Asheville has closed, but the Middle Eastern/Mediterranean restaurant is still catering. Visit the restaurant’s Facebook page for more information.