DISCOVERING ASHEVILLE
I apparently can’t eat and photograph at the same time. Usually photography consumes me but when food is put in front of me I flip out and forget all about photography. So the photographs of the two Asheville restaurants I discovered today were taken from their websites.
For lunch Susie invited me to join her at Dil Bar, a new Indian restaurant in Asheville, right beside her sister restaurant, Mehfil. When we first moved to Asheville in 1965 there were no Indian restaurants in town. Now there are nine or ten, I’ve lost count. The lure at Dil Bar is are two Indian dishes which I don’t think you can get at any other Indian restaurant in town. One is the puffed up fried bread called puri which has to be served freshly cooked and so can’t be on a lunchtime buffet and the other is the South Indian dosa, a rolled up crepe like wafer thin roll stuffed with potato cooked in various ways. Both were delicious and a little expensive. The decor of the restaurant is authentically Indian without being gaudy, which Indian restaurants sometimes are and the music video was also authentically Indian.
And then for supper my son, Tom and his wife, Kathy, invited me to Hillman Beer, a brewery/restaurant with plenty of outdoor seating where we had a burger/beer special for $15. It was a very pleasant evening.
And both of the restaurants reminded me that Asheville is a very special place and that my desire to escape next Tuesday to Essaouria means that I am leaving a place that is just as special, but one that I am used to, behind.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 