Welcome My Friends,
Well we've come to the last post of the year, possibly, actually may finish with a Thrifty Geek Library New Years Eve Wrap-Up post, but don't hold me to it! We had a good holiday this year, except a minor issue of our truck battery dying and making us all late, but it was still good. I hope everyone's holiday was well.
I'm going to back up to five days before Christmas, due to my therapy appointment, Amber and I decided to go and hang out in Asheville that day afterwards. This was my first official in person visit since the start of the pandemic. It was okay, not bad, not stellar, and the usual getting a little annoyed with my therapist. After my session we headed out in search of lunch and ways to wash off therapy.
Fangirl has been wanting to go to this Ramen Bar on Haywood Street for a while, well Tuesday was the day we finally went. It was a lovely restaurant, the waiter was good about coming to check on us, and I like there was a window where you could see the food being prepared. I guess it's because of the book I've been writing about a restaurant, but I've been finding being able to see into the kitchen a cool thing. The menu was on the place mats, and filled with a nice selection of ramen and tapas. We started with appetizers of Takoyaki balls, which we were happy to see offered.
For the uninitiated we also call them octopus balls. They are these deep fried balls that have chopped octopus in it, and these also contain seaweed powder and brown rice flour, their capped off with bonito flakes. These came out nice and hot. These large balls had some great flavors to savor, I savored them so much I was eating the left over bonito flakes because it was so good. I will say those flakes are hard to pick up with chopsticks, to think I use to pick up M&M's with ease with chopsticks.
For our main course we each got a ramen bowl Fangirl went tithe the Itto Seafood Ramen:
This dish contains their original broth, fresh ramen, grilled shrimp, fish cakes, crab stick, scallions, and a seasoned boiled egg.
I went with the Itto Deluxe Ramen, because I'm so deluxe. *laughs*
This delectable bowl has the same broth, noodles, scallions and egg like the previous dish, but this one contains black garlic oil in the broth, chashu pork, and bamboo shoots. This was so delicious, best ramen I've had. You have to keep in mind the only ramen I've had before this was the little packets you find in grocery stores, which is good, but this was epic. This was also my first time having bamboo shoost, they were so good, they really absorb those glorious flavors.
Now they do offer forks for the chopstick challenged, but I wanted to give eating noodles a go despite being given a fork. I managed to splatter my shirt, which had the upside of me smelling like my awesome lunch, downside I was hungry all day. Luckily this broth makes two servings, and we had some take out for later, this still tasted great reheated for my supper, I just got to remember next time to leave some pork and some more bamboo shoots so I can have a fuller experience with my second meal.
Retail Therapy and Detours
Down the road from Itto's was Morgan's Comics, which you know we love them here. So I made a few purchases here. One was the Wonder Woman: Come Back to Me Comic.
I've yet to read it since I was caught up in the holiday and all. My second find is one I've been trying to find for a few months since I noticed they had a stack of Magic the Gathering single cards for sale.
Now I don't know much about what are good cards or rare, except maybe Black Lotus, is that even right, but the reason I searched months through this stack wasn't for the rarity, it was the artist. This card was done by Pete Venters, who is the husband of the Lady of the Manners of the Gothic Charm School. I love this blog and follow her on Tumblr and Instagram. I'm not Goth, but I have Gothy Tendencies. I don't know if there's a title for what I am in the Goth community, but some of my interests align with Goth interests. I've been looking through these cards a little at the time searching for it and I have been victorious!
So from there we decided to hit up Comic Envy, though the journey wasn't so smooth getting there. Fangirl missed the exit and then thought she was on the right street to get to Merrimon Avenue, this lead us to a lot of side streets and neighborhoods in and around Downtown Asheville. Upside I saw some sides of Asheville I don't often see, like one person's yard that had an archway filled with wind chimes, I also discovered the location of Chicken Alley.
It's a haunted alley with amazing murals including this chicken one by artist Molly Musk. I'd always been drawn to it's art that I'd see online, but on the local news one Halloween they had a segment about the ghost, which you can read about in the above link. This made it even more interesting.
We eventually made it to Comic Envy and perused the store. I didn't find any comic offerings to tempt me, but I did internally squee over the Grogu figures and this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Gift Box with apron and cookbook inside.
We then invaded the Asheville Mall where we ogled the the fandom things at Hot Topic and Box Lunch while their scanners went wonky. Fangirl had a blow to her wallet. She's been really getting into One Piece an she saw a large Luffy plushie at Hot Topic that she bought, then a grab bag themed around the show. Upon opening the bag she found a smaller plushie that was practically like the bigger one, if she'd only known.
After that we hit up one of the local Asian Markets, so Fangirl could stock up on her snack food. I think I need to save a little money to get me some snacks, I love Pocky and Red Bean Moochi, it'd be nice to have in addition to my regular snacks. We then went to the big Goodwill in Asheville. I made a couple holiday purchases there.
I heard from some customers there was the possibilty of snow that night, I had planned on getting the rest of my Christmas when I was going out shopping with my Granny the next day, but if it snowed, a bunch of Christmas wouldn't happen. So I had Fangirl take me to Dollar Tree and I finished my holiday shopping.
After a slight traffic issue, I enjoyed looking at what Holiday lights I could since we didn't get to go looking this year, I even had her drive through one of my favorite areas.
All in all it was a fun preChristmas outing. Sadly it was the first domino that killed my sleep which made the next few days rough mental health wise, but I got through the crazy moments.
Well there's another venture posted. I hope this final week of 2022 treats you well, it's been a rough year for me, but it's had it's good moments. I hopefully will see you all back here New Years Eve! Have fun, eat much, God bless.
*Thrifty Geek*
