Eating out in Asheville, NC: Brunch at Curate

I'm back from a long fun weekend in Asheville, North Carolina. The weather was spectacular, my hotel was gorgeous, and I did a lot of eating, relaxing and walking around. When I started researching what to do in Asheville, I turned to three sources:

1) my Twitter friends
2) Eat Write Retreat: they are gathering in Asheville next month, and I was able to use multiple recommendations from their itinerary
3) Southern Living Magazine's story on Asheville

Sunday to me means brunch. I slept in, watched a bit of Sunday morning television, and then made my way to Curate. I made sure to get to the restaurant right before it opened since I did not have a reservation: and even if you just have one person in your party, you are never guaranteed a seat. I was hungry, and I was ready for a fun drink to start my first full day in Asheville.

I was offered a seat at the bar or at one of the tables by the window. I chose the window table: this way I could do some people watching, and I'd also have great light for the photographs. Luckily, the brunch menu was short and sweet, and it took me only a few minutes to decide what to order. Ok, who am I kidding? I've looked at the menu several days before and knew exactly what I'd be ordering.

Did you know that in Asheville they can't serve alcohol till noon? I had to wait thirty minutes before taking a sip of the Grapefruit Mimosa (fresh grapefruit juice with a lemon air served tableside with Cava). This was definitely worth the wait: I would say this was one of the best mimosas I've ever had. The drink was bubbly, sweet, pretty strong and playful because of the lemon air. It made me almost reconsider my after brunch plans: something like this requires a nap!

For food, I decided to try pisto manchego con huevo: egg 63 served with olive oil potato puree, and roasted tomato, onion, eggplant, red and green pepper.

Do you know what egg 63 is? Turns out, it's the perfect way to poach an egg: in 63 degrees Celsius water for an hour! Luckily, I did not have to wait an hour for my dish. When the plate arrived, I thought: hmm, this is a pretty small portion. But I decided not to order another dish unless I was still hungry. Plus, the waiter also brought a few slices of bread with olive oil, and I was planning on having dessert later that day.

This egg was indeed perfect. Check out how the egg yolk oozed out as soon as I poked at it with a fork! The mashed potatoes were smooth and rich, but not in an overwhelming way. And what's not to like about eggplant and peppers?

At the end, I decided this was enough to keep me going until my next food adventure. Come back to check out what that was :) Yes, I like to keep you on your toes.