6-3-05 Sharktrip

Well, we headed to Banner Elk, NC from Louisville. Dan started out the first leg until we stopped for lunch at Smokey Joe's. Pretty good bbq, that we happened to catch on all you can eat pulled pork/sliced pork day. So... We had a lot. Of course they had 4 sauces to pick from and I had to make a combo of two which turned out pretty good. Also had some pretty good corn nuggets. I would go back there. I wasn't expecting a sit down restaurant when I saw the place form the outside, but it was pretty quick.

I tools over the second leg and took us into Banner Elk. I do have to say that the drive was fairly uneventful. Unfortunately we didn't see Greg Schickel in his beautiful black GTS on the road this year on the way down. And I want to throw out a side note and say that Greg is one of the nicest guys I've met from all this and it would have been cool to line up again. Anyway, it just seemed like we would see him after hooking up with him randomly on the highway for the last two years. As it was we didn't see one 928 all the way down.
A lot of traffic keeping us closer to honest than I would normally be. And one out of the way pit stop when we took a wrong turn, flipped around and made a quick bio break. Just might have met up if we hadn't stopped. I had one more opportunity to miss a ramp but we caught it in time. No harm no foul. The big thing though... we made it to Banner Elk safely and with no issues other than a small vibration in the wheels that starts around 85.

So, one fun thing about coming into town for the first time, is when you hit the hotel and see all the 928's and people milling about just taking over the parking lot. Those sure are pretty cars. Saw Greg, said we missed him by 10 minutes.
We checked in, making sure we got rooms that had wireless high-speed internet access, brought our stuff up and then we milled about the pool of sharks until dark.
At that point everyone was headed over to Nick's for food and drinking. On the drive up there, much to our surprise we saw a Crabby Bill's restaurant about a half mile up the road from the hotel. Of course that got us thinking seafood and whether or not it really was the same chain we enjoyed while we were down in Florida. Anyway, went over to Nick's and they were pretty packed. Got to say hi to Jeannie but there was a crowd waiting to sit so we just decided to head out and back to try on Crabby Bill's for size.
So, for those that have read our previous posts know how much we liked the Oysters Rockefeller at CB's. Imagine my utter disappointment when they didn't have it on the menu. Instead they had Cleveland Oysters, which said they were baked with parmesan and butter. Sounded... o.k. but NOT what I had in mind. So I asked Nikki our waitress about it and she said she would ask the manager if he could make them. She came back and said that the manager was from Florida and that he would make them for us. She asked how many and I told her if there were less than a dozen on a plate to bring two orders. I wanted them in a bad way. Well they came out the looked really good. Not QUITE oysters rock but a close facsimile. And with bacon on top... Oh yeah... They were really good. And IMHO, bacon tastes better on just about everything so nice bonus.
The manager came out to see how we liked it and told us he was Crabby Bill's nephew sent out to get this restaurant going. So that was cool that he made it for us. A little while later one of the other managers brought us a sample of the Cleveland Oysters, which, while good were definitely no comparison.
Nikki told us the grouper was brought in fresh that day so I opted off of my original thought and went with the blackened grouper. It was delicious. So, of course after we had stuffed ourselves Nikki comes over and throws down the gauntlet with key lime or fresh coconut cream pie. Well, despite the carbo-coma coming upon us we decided to go for the coconut cream. Nikki had said it was made fresh from the Mountain House (Betty) just up the road in Boone. Well... let me tell you... that had to be THE best coconut cream I ever tasted. It was Fantastic. Definitely not oversweet and a meringue topping with toasted coconut on top. Man, it was good eating.

After that, I was going to come back and write my review... and promptly succumbed to the sugar over-load and passed out at my computer.

Sorry it's a little late,
Mike