Storie Street Grille, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

We — Nancy and I and Liza, Michael, Ella ,and Lily — separately rolled into Blowing Rock late in mid-afternoon and checked into our unit at Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock. I’m jumping ahead a few meals here.) We stayed there last year. Shortly after we returned we all talked and Nancy reserved the very same condominium for this year. Then she canceled our reservation at the Ritz Club in Vail. We enjoyed it that much.

Once we’d unpacked and Liza and Michael had picked up some essentials, the six of us went to dinner at Storie Street Grille. They have a great location, right on Main Street at number 1167, and it’s one of the places we wanted to try last year but didn’t get to. Storie Street has two sections, the dining room, where we sat, and the Sidecar Grille. We didn’t go in the Sidecar, but I did get a glass of vino verde that was on the Sidecar menu. I hadn’t had any vino verde in probably 30 years. I enjoyed it, and it’s good to know you can order from both menus. We all were hungry, so let’s get right to the food.

Nancy ordered a BLT Salad with blackened shrimp.

As the name suggests, it includes bacon, lettuce, and tomato, and also a particularly pretty pile of pink pickled onions. Nancy loved them. Indeed, she loved the whole salad. Bacon, lettuce and tomato is a winning concept. The picked onions took it beyond the ordinary, and some blue cheese balanced the onions. It was a fine salad. “This is delicious!” was Nancy’s reaction.

Liza chose the SSG Salad, and she too added blackened shrimp.

The greens were graced with gorgonzola, candied pecans, red onion, mandarin oranges, all tied together with a sherry dijon dressing. That’s a lot of different favors and textures, and again everything clicked.Storie Street knows salads.

Michael and I both ordered the Shrimp and Grits.

This was a fine version. The menu described it as ” sauteed shrimp, pancetta, sweet peppers, tomato, scallion, pesto & white wine cream sauce, NC heirloom grits.” It wasn’t as spicy at some versions, with pancetta instead of andouille, for example, but lardons added essential richness and the flavors of the sauce were well integrated. The grits were great, real mountain grits, and this dish was a pleasure.

The big news, though, was that Ella and Lily had a culinary breakthrough. They ordered pasta with marinara sauce instead of butter. Yes! And they ate it happily, Ella with interruptions for jokes,

and I finally got a photo of Lily when she wasn’t making silly faces for the camera.

They are wonderful girls, the sweetest anywhere. What a joy they are!

It was a grand evening all around. Our server did a fine job. Alas, her name doesn’t appear on the electronic receipt and over the years I’ve intuited that asking attractive young women for their names is less than wise. There are a lot of places to eat in Blowing Rock, and this is one to try.

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