WV Gourmet

Last weekend, my accomplice and I travelled to Maryland to visit some friends.  Neither of us had eaten lunch so we had to stop and grab something to eat.  After being on the road for a little while, Megan looked in her GPS for food in the area.  One place sounded sounded very interesting: The Creamy Castle.  We pulled off I-79 just before reaching Flatwoods at Exit 62 (Sutton Exit).

We pull up and find a little ice cream stand type place with park benches out front.  Just what we were hoping for.  After a quick study of the menu, Megan goes with what they called a “walking taco” (I know a Frito pie when I see one and this was a Frito pie) and six chicken wings.  I went with a meatball sub.  My sub was pretty tasty and very filling.  It had a pretty decent tomato sauce that was not too sweet and a good dose of mozzarella cheese, and was served on a steak sandwich bun (I’d be willing to bet it was a Heiner’s bun).  Megan did not share any of her Frito pie, but it looked tasty.  For those who don’t know, a Frito pie is a bag of Fritos with chili, cheese, sour cream, etc scooped in on top of the Fritos.  In other words, a bag of tasty goodness.  I did try one of her wings, they were good and crispy, but not very spicy. 

My meatball sandwich. There would be a picture of the walking taco, but someone hasn't sent it to me.

Of course, if you stop at an ice cream place, you must get ice cream, and that’s what we did for dessert.  I went with a chocolate shake and Megan went with a chocolate shake with peanut butter syrup.  This place made shakes from real ice cream, not soft serve ice cream.  My chocolate shake was very good and just thick enough to be a shake but not so thick, it takes a shop vac to get it through the straw.  Megan’s was very tasty, kind of like a Reese cup.

If you find yourself driving up I-79 and feel the need to pull of the road and get something to eat or have a tasty ice cream based beverage, make sure to put the Creamy Castle on your radar.

Last Friday, the lovely and talented Megan and the lovely and talented me loaded up and headed off to Athens, Ohio to see the greatest band in the world.  Such a trip would not be complete without eating copious amounts of tasty food. 

We started off with a pre-concert trip to Della Zona, a little pizza place which seems to be run and staffed by hippies.  This place has a great deck area (which did not overlook the ghetto) which is where we sat to enjoy the sunshine.  Della Zona serves pizzas made from local ingredients, many organic and/or ethically treated. 

Our server promptly came out and took our orders.  For appetizers we had the marinated olives and the crostini.  The olives were divine, unless you don’t like olives (if you don’t care for olives, you aren’t my kind of people).  There was an assortment of green and black olives (kalamatas, manzanilla, picholine, and aragon), marinated in a somewhat spicy olive oil, served up with a couple slices of toasted french bread from the bakery next door (also owned by the same folks).  The crostini were four slices of that french bread smeared with a delicious olive “pesto” - two were black olive “pesto”, and two were green olive “pesto”.  I use quotes around pesto, because to me this wasn’t so much a pesto, as a tapenade, but whatever you want to call it, it tasted like something handed down by the angels. 

Moving on to our pizzas.  Megan decided to create her own pizza, which included rosemary, artichokes, greens (tasted like kale, perhaps), and smoked gouda pizza.  I went with one of the signature pizzas - the Athena, which had many greek type things - olives, onions, other such goodies.  Both pies were excellent.  The crust was beautiful, crispy, thin (but not too thin) and even a little bit chewy.  In other words, perfect.  One more thing about these pizzas: this place makes their own mozzarella.  In summary, these pizzas made the pies at Lola’s taste like dog poop (and I really like Lola’s pizza, these are just that much better). 

Although our servers dressed rather hippie-ish and worked in a place that sells pizzas made of locally grown, largely organic, ethically treated, etc. pizzas, I’m not so sure they were really hippies.  They may have looked like hippies, but they did not stink of patchouli and body odor. 

After the concert we grabbed burritos from the late night burrito cart, so that we could more fully experience the culinary scene in Athens, Ohio.  This was a damn good late night giant ass burrito.