Golden Belt finally has a permanent spot to grab a light bite to eat. Blend, a coffee/frozen yogurt shop, opened this weekend during Third Friday. From Blend’s facebook page, they will offer “Counter Culture Coffee, light breakfast and lunch fare sourced locally or prepared in house from local ingredients and frozen yogurt.”

We stopped in Friday night during their opening to sample a coffee and try a yogurt. The space is open and airy, filled with furniture made from salvaged wood from around Durham. All of their disposable cups, utensils and napkins are environmentally friendly. On opening night, Blend was offering pastries from both Daisy Cakes and Loaf in addition to housemade pound cakes and quick breads. No complaints on the caramel latte we sampled made with housemade caramel and Counter Culture coffee.

We also tried the frozen yogurt as well. A new concept in Durham, Yogun Fruz takes blocks of frozen yogurt (low fat vanilla, non fat vanilla or chocolate) and instantly blends it with whatever fruits you select to create a customized flavor. It’s $3.25 for a small blend. We tried a non-fat vanilla blended with strawberries and blueberries. It tasted healthy and dense, we were able to taste the fruit more than the tang of the yogurt. Find out more about the Yogen Fruz concept on their site. Blend’s facebook says they will also serve local ice cream from Homeland Creamery.

Blend will be a nice spot to grab a caffeine hit or a frozen yogurt during art walk events, a maybe less-crowded place to set up the laptop and get some work done or somewhere to pop in for a quick lunch, breakfast or dessert. It’s a nice addition to the Golden Belt complex.

Monday-Friday 7am-7pm and Saturday 9am-3pm
807 East Main Street, Durham, NC 27701

Bull Street Gourmet and Market, a gourmet food market and cafe, recently opened in the now always bustling Hope Valley Square. With Only Burger, Tutti Frutti, Rick’s Diner, Pop’s Backdoor and now Bull Street, I’m starting to envy folks who live on this side of town.

Welcoming and warm, Bull Street Gourmet and Market (an off-shoot of a popular market of the same name in Charleston) has a well-curated small selection of wine, candy, local meats, cheeses, eggs, beer, coffee and other gourmet pantry items. Bull Street is also a cafe offering coffee drinks, fancy teas, baked goods, sandwiches, salads and soups. The sandwiches and salads all hover around the $8 range.

When we stopped in for lunch, we went for the Half and Half – your choice of soup, salad or half sandwich for $8.99. For our salads we chose the Chappy (diced green apple, shaved red onion, toasted walnuts and feta on romaine with lemon poppy seed dressing) and the Drunken (prosciutto, drunken goat cheese and toasted pine nuts with a balsamic reduction). I’m a sucker for drunken goat cheese and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it offered on a salad before. Both were outstanding, fresh and generous with the premium ingredients.

For our sandwiches, we tried the Chicken Salad Sandwich and the Mozz, both were served on fresh ciabatta rolls. Bull Street’s chicken salad is studded with cranberries and almonds and finished with a cranberry mayo. The Mozz is fresh mozzarella, marinated and fresh tomatoes, walnut pesto and balsamic reduction. The chicken salad was really good, but for me the Mozz stole the show; bright with lots of lemon (I’m guessing in the pesto), rich with the balsamic and roasted tomatoes, balanced with the large chunk of fresh mozzarella.

Bull Street’s dedication to local sourcing and emphasis on quality ingredients is admirable. We like that you can stop in for a dozen Latta eggs, a hunk of Goat Lady Dairy cheese and an excellent salad and sandwich. Bull Street also offers a breakfast menu that includes pastries, bagels, housemade sausage and eggs. Their bakery case was full of tempting treats including a variety of cakes and cookies. We resisted this visit, but will be sure to check them out in the future.

Bull Street Gourmet & Market
3710 Shannon Rd.
Monday—Friday 7:30 am—7:30 pm
Saturday—Sunday 9 am—3 pm
919-237-2398

A new bakery opened in downtown Durham at the end of November. Loaf is the storefront from Ron Graff and his wife Jamie, who have set up the stand with the same name at the Durham Farmer’s Market every Saturday for the past few years. We, like most, have regularly stopped by their stand to pick up a bite of one of the five or six loaves they have diced up for sampling and brought home a loaf. We are excited their freshly baked loaves will now be available not just on Saturday mornings.

The day we dropped by, Loaf had various baked goods including croissants, muffins, cookies, pies and of course loaves of bread. We chose a large multi-grain loaf for $4. It was a lovely, sturdy large whole grain loaf that stayed fresh a few days after we sliced it. It was great torn off in big hunks and eaten with soup.

Still very much newly opened and a work in progress, many of Loaf’s shelves were still bare. Also Loaf’s hours aren’t set in stone yet, we were told they’d tentatively be open 7am-7pm Monday-Saturday.

111 W. Parrish St.

Somewhat surprisingly, it has been pretty hard to find a decent doughnut in Durham other than occasionally at the Berenbaum’s bake stand at the farmer’s market. But that changed last month when Monuts Donuts, the doughnut bike, hit the streets. The donut bike is the brainchild of Lindsay Moriarty, who is bringing her passion for doughnuts to Durham.

Monuts offers a variety of classic glazed, cake and frosted yeast doughnuts in a variety of flavors, which seem to change almost as often as the bike makes an appearance around town. We caught up with Monuts during the Art Walk last weekend, set up inside the Scrap Exchange without their bike. They had apple streusel, apple almond and old fashioned pumpkin doughnuts on the menu. A doughnut costs $1.50 and a dozen cost $12.50. Based on a recommendation, we went the streusel. It’s hard to beat a fresh doughnut. Monuts apple streusel was crispy with streusel topping on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside and satisfyingly sweet with hints of cinnamon and fresh apples.

Right now Monuts is at the Durham farmer’s market every Saturday morning and you can find them elsewhere around town by following them on twitter. In addition to catching the bike, you can preorder doughnuts and Monuts will deliver anywhere in the Triangle on any day of the week. Monuts is a pretty cool addition to Durham’s mobile food scene and we look forward to trying more of their offerings.

Monuts Donuts

Note: Sorry for shoddy pics, it’s really tough to pause to take pictures when holding a fresh doughnut.

Café Prost, a German pretzel truck based out of Wake Forest, made its first (I think) Durham appearance this past weekend.

The menu was really simple – salted, un-salted or cheese pretzels. Salted and un-salted are $2.50 or 2 for $4, cheddar $3.00 or 2 for $5. We ordered two salted.

Truth be told, I’m a sucker for German-style pretzels – I can’t resist stopping at Guglhupf, I will go out of my way to go to Milltown in Carrboro for their pretzels (also from Guglhupf) and beer cheese and I even love the not-great soft pretzels and yellow mustard served at every sporting event. But Café Prost pretzels – still steaming, caramel brown, speckled with just enough sea salt, crisp on the outside and fluffy soft on the inside – just may have been the best I’ve ever had. Café Prost does offer classic yellow or spicy brown mustard for dipping, but really these pretzels don’t need either.

Parked outside of Fullsteam, Café Prost pretzels would be excellent paired with Fullsteam’s El Toro, Rocket Science, Southern Lager or well, pretty much anything else on tap. The guy manning the window assured us Café Prost would be making many more Durham appearances, but if you can’t wait they are at the Wake Forest Farmer’s Market every Saturday from 8am-12pm.

Follow them on twitter @cafeprost
Café Prost

Not much needs to be said about the new Daisy Cakes storefront other than, not surprisingly – it is awesome. We’ve already sung the praises of the Daisy Cakes airstream back in August of 2008 and are excited to have a more regular spot to get our sugar fix. The new space with its white-washed walls and high ceiling is bright, warm and welcoming.

What is surprising about Durham’s new cupcake shop are the savory eats. In addition to the case filled with unreal looking cupcakes, whoopie pies, pies, cookies (maple bacon) and more – Daisy Cakes also has a solid lunch menu of sandwiches, soups and quiches. The sandwiches are all less than $8 and Daisy Cakes is sourcing locally and organically. Their eggs are from Latta, dairy is from Homeland, coffee is Counter Culture and their meats are from Farmhand Foods.

When we stopped in for lunch, I was able to try their ham sandwich (city ham, mustard fruit chutney, and fontina). The sandwich was large, piled with ham that was offset nicely with tangy mustard fruit chutney. It came on a fresh seemingly housemade ciabatta roll and with a small salad tossed in a lemon vinaigrette. Their soup of the day was a cream of spinach, which was creamy yet light and topped with croutons.

Daisy Cakes changes their offerings daily and is a great spot for lunch. But be forewarned – when stopping in just for lunch, it’s really hard to resist the stacks of cupcakes and sweet offerings. The only bad thing about Daisy Cake’s new store front is their somewhat limited hours – we were hoping for late night cupcakes. They are open 7:30am to 5:30pm Tuesday-Friday and 7:30am-3:30pm on Saturdays.

Daisy Cakes
401 Foster Street, Suite A.

There’s a new cupcake joint in town – Honey of a Handcake – and it’s driving around town in a bright pink van. Specializing in cupcakes, Honey of a Handcake also sells bundt cakes, whoopie pies and cookies. The really friendly owner/baker said she has mostly done catering/corporate events in the past but recently decided to make the leap onto four wheels.

We spotted Honey of a Handcake out at Golden Belt during Third Friday festivities and, per the owner’s advice, tried a classic nilla vanilla cupcake. It was vanilla butter cake with buttercream frosting. She also offers more interesting flavors like coconut strawberry, pink lemonade, ebony and ivory, chocolate snowball and more. Her cupcakes are large and cost $2.25.

The vanilla reminded me of childhood birthday cakes. It was a classic moist, fluffy yellow cake topped with just the right amount of buttercream icing. Since Daisy Cakes rarely makes night appearances, it’s nice to have another solid cupcake choice on the roads in Durham.

Honey of a Handcake (@honeyhandcake) on Twitter

With contributions from MEZ

Stepping into Dulce Cafe, the newest restaurant in Sutton Station on Fayetteville Road, makes you feel like you’re sitting in your Nana’s living room. The intimate space has large comfy chairs, a lavish chandelier and other regal ornamentation, green tea lights on the tables and the bar, fresh lilies and orchids, mahogany wood, brushed metal, large windows with classically braided curtain ties, green walls with goldenrod accents, coffee table books, and a running water fountain–all seemingly put in place to create ‘la dulce vida‘ for diners who find themselves in Southpoint wanting French press, espresso drinks, or in-house made pastries and gelato.

While there, Carlos, the owner who is from Columbia, offered to make a custom sandwich for me–a mozzarella, pimento cheese, and tomato panini (on ciabatta). All sandwiches come with chips or a salad and I chose the salad. For dessert, I had an alfajore–a South American shortbread cookie stuffed with dulce de leche.  My sandwich was a little messy, but super flavorful. The bread held up to the filling, the pimento cheese had great spice and surprisingly went well with the gooey mozzarella and soft tomato. I forgot to ask for my dressing on the side, but the salad was lightly dressed, allowing the rich flavors of the summer vegetables to shine. And the alfajore was like edible silk. It literally melted in my mouth with each bite and provided the perfect sweet treat for what was admittedly my second lunch.

Although I went to Dulce Cafe during their soft opening, I will say that their service was impeccable. Upon entering, I was offered samples of gelato, brioche, and coffee cake. And throughout my solo dining experience, the staff engaged me with conversation and smiles. Perhaps it was the great service, delicious food with clean flavors, use of local ingredients, free wireless, or songs from the Black Orpheus soundtrack playing faintly in the background, but Dulce Cafe is definitely on my list to try again.

Mez also enjoyed her time at Dulce and says: I loved the zippy yellow and green coloring of the place, and the seating area with cozy lounge chairs and a chandelier right when you walk in the door may become prime weekend real estate for me when in need of a dessert! Can’t wait to try one of those, but I focused on food this trip, choosing the chicken salad sandwich on rye. It was a light, tasty rye and the chicken salad was great—small dice with a dressing that could have used some more herbs to punch up the flavor just a tad. Offering a mixed salad instead of chips as a side is welcomed by me, especially since their house dressing was delicious. I think it was a creamy raspberry vinaigrette.

Dulce Cafe

5836 Fayetteville Road

Suite 106

Durham, NC 27713

919-797-0497

There are cookies. And then there are COOKIES. And then there are COOKIES with a conscience. Kukia’s Cookies, owned by Durhamite Kifu Faruq, are a different kind of cookie—different in all the right ways. Infused with lavender essence, Kukia’s Chocolate Chip Lavender Cookies (with or without pecans) have a concentrated, wholesome flavor and almost seem to melt stress away with each bite. A testament to the culinary lavender that laces each batch, once you go Kukia’s, you’ll never eat another chocolate chip cookie again.

More than a cookie company, Kukia’s Cookies is a mission to synthesize one woman’s passion for making organic and delicious food accessible to the masses and her dedication to a sustainable lifestyle. The way I see it, Kukia’s Cookies is best represented by two old adages. The cookies are made with 100% organic ingredients, hormone-free dairy, and local, farm fresh eggs because, after all, “You are what you eat.” Kukia’s Cookies also donates to local non-profits, such as Green Space Initiatives, an organization that opens access to naturally grown food in communities of color—after all, “I am, because we are.”

Charged by convictions for food justice and satisfied taste buds, Kukia’s Cookies is an admirable company that is undoubtedly going to blow up in our lovely foodie town in no time. Most importantly though, the cookies are chewy-fragrant-chocolatey-lip-smackin’ good—just like grandma used to make. (Just in case you were wondering, Kukia is a blend of two words, Kuia and Kuku which mean grandmother in Maori and the Mapunzugun languages). At present, Kukia’s Cookies can be ordered online at kifu@kukiascookies.com. They are $15 a dozen (which comes out to be $1.25 per cookie, less expensive than any non-organic cookie you can buy in any bakery or coffee shop in the area). Orders can be picked up each Saturday in the old Durham Bull’s Stadium Parking Lot.

Kukia’s Cookies

kifu@kukiascookies.com

www.kukiascookies.com

with contributions from TIF

Wandering into the Cookery’s open house last week, I stumbled across a tasty display of baked goods.

Berenbaum’s, the sign said, and I soon found out from this little bakery stand’s owner, is usually set up somewhere near the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays, though he may be taking up space on the same stretch of asphalt at the Cookery once in a while, too.

Ari, the owner, bakes his goods out of the 9th Street Bakery, where he used to work. He’s operating on a pay-what-you-want premise, counting on the customers to decide what they think his goods are worth. If the offerings this evening are typical of his offerings,

I think they are worth a fair bit! Yes, there are prices on that blackboard, no doubt to help the clueless folks like me make a decision on what to pay. As TIF explained, “Berenbaum’s Bakery is a sliding scale food concept providing fresh baked goods at a price that Ari Berenbaum, founder and owner of the bakery, hopes everyone can afford. Each week, Ari is stationed at the Durham’s Farmers Market providing baked treats from bread to cookies to Durhamites who are often confused by the concept of a sliding scale. In some ways, his concept feeds the stomach as well as the mind, as he drops knowledge about social dynamics in Durham and other communities in the process of being ‘developed.’ Ari brings awareness to such dynamics, not by judging folks or beating them over the head with them. His subtle, yet undeniably powerful approach, in my humble opinion, is delicately direct–and I love it.”

At the open house, Berenbaum’s sold out in just over an hour, despite the event being a two-hour soiree. While a super-crowded food truck round-up wasn’t the best place for deep conversation on economic principles,you can get plenty of that on his blog.

I tried a little sample of the cheddar biscuits—large, fluffy, and cheddary, of course. I also took home a piece of the Irish Soda bread.

This reminded me less of other soda bread I’ve had and more of what I’d call the American version of a scone, though with wheat flour rather than white. I thought it fantastic, especially the sweet crunch of the outside shell and the tasty raisins. TIF’s opinion was “The Irish soda bread was hearty, not too sweet, and sprinkled with plump raisins.” She also tried the chocolate chip cookies,

which she found “buttery and tender–just like a chocolate chip cookie should be.”

Berenbaum’s has also offered other unusual-round-these-parts goods like hamentashen in the past. He sounds like a baker/experimenter, so I’m sure you’ll find unique items at the bakery stand when you happen upon it. If you’d rather not just wander until you find it, and you live in Watts-Hillandale or Old West Durham, you can get a pound of Berenbaum’s baked goods delivered by bike every Saturday morning. Head here for more details.

Berenbaum’s Bakery Stand
Somewhere near the Farmer’s Market
Saturday Mornings