THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 1, 1994 TAG: 9408300062
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F7 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: A LA CARTE
SOURCE: DONNA REISS
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
ON A RECENT VISIT to Chapel Hill, N.C., we wandered from Franklin Street, the busy main thoroughfare across from the University of North Carolina campus, to its parallel, Rosemary Street. Within a two-block area, we sampled two extremes of local cuisine, La Rez and Dip's.
One of two Chapel Hill-area restaurants to win 1993 DiRoNa (Distinguished Restaurants of North America) recognition from the National Restaurant Association, La Rez began in the 1970s as La Residence. It was a classical French restaurant at a rural retreat in Chatham County, where the famed Fearington Inn now resides. Since moving to 202 W. Rosemary, the restaurant has eased into classy contemporary cooking and a comfortably upscale, casual mood.
Pastry chef and kitchen manager Jackie Derey, whose home garden contributed the flowers on every table, chatted with us for a while about the restaurant's transitions.
The new Southern cooking of Chapel Hill native Devon Mills infuses the menu, including a four-course chef's choice tasting menu that brought us a salad with four varieties of red and yellow tomatoes with housemade pesto.
A course of quail with blueberry-port sauce on lightly cooked, fresh greens followed, the vegetables gently infused with the richness of the fruit. Roasted Carolina grouper was the main course, a surprisingly large fillet poached with a buttery wine sauce, tinged with lemon juice and lemon zest and garnished with shiitake mushrooms and miniature scallion greens.
Apparently, the chocolate souffle cake is de rigueur, and rightly so. We also enjoyed the homemade brandy-vanilla ice cream beside a dense blueberry poundcake. The tasting menu is $30; a la carte dinners begin at $10 for a pasta dish and average $15. Appetizers, desserts, and wines by the glass average $5. Call for reservations: (919) 967-2506.
The house down the street was very different. Authentic Carolina country cooking is served at Dip's, where Mildred ``Dip'' Council turns local bounty into old-fashioned Southern fare, including fried chicken, fried chitlins, fried catfish, slow-cooked barbecued ribs, fresh greens and cobblers.
Visitors from Ohio and Michigan were introduced here to excellent fresh okra combined with tomatoes, and to green beans slow-cooked with pork. They had their first taste of pork chops smothered in gravy. Delicious homemade pecan pie, sweet potato pie and peach cobbler were a memorable end to an old-fashioned meal at 405 W. Rosemary. Prices are comfortable, too, at a maximum of $10 for dinner with bread and two vegetables. CULINARY ACADEMY AWARD
Frank Farrello was one of 20 chefs recently inducted into the American Academy of Chefs at an award ceremony in San Francisco.
Farrello, who chairs the board of the Tidewater Chef's Association, has had a distinguished culinary career as a certified executive chef, including the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club and the Golden Triangle Hotel (now Howard Johnson's on Monticello Avenue). From the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, he operated Casa Farrello on Baker Road in Virginia Beach. QUICK BITES
``Lighten up,'' say the folks at Rockafeller's, the large restaurant perched on Rudee Inlet at the end of Mediterranean Avenue in Virginia Beach. New to the menu are calorie-conscious dishes with reduced fat and cholesterol. Salmon, tuna, chicken and pasta dishes cost $6.95 to $14.95; some dishes come with steamed vegetables. Call 422-5654. . . . Chili will be hot at Wilma's Chili Parlor, the new venture from Michael Cavish and Anne Ribar of Fellini's. Wilma Stocks, who used to cook at the Judge's Chambers in Norfolk, will be stirring up several styles of chili and Southern favorites such as ribs, chicken and dumplings and fresh vegetables. Wilma's is at 3910 Colley Ave., Norfolk. Call 627-7441. . . . Skipjacks has opened on College Place, in the stately structure that once housed the elegant Le Charlieu and more recently Alibis. Sandwiches (including a fried shrimp po' boy), pastas, chicken and fish dishes and plenty of appetizers are served. A playful mood predominates with a raw bar in the foyer and pool tables in the side room that once was Le Charlieu's bistro. Call 626-3505 for more information. MEMO: If you have restaurant news, send a brief note along with your name and
a daytime phone number to: a la carte, Flavor section, The
Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk,
Va. 23510. by CNB