My name is Melanie and I’m a Southern girl transplanted to a bustling West Coast world. I was born and raised in Raleigh, NC and sweet tea, ACC basketball fever and oso-good-artery-clogging food runs through my blood.
After I graduated college, I started my first job and hopped coasts, moving to San Francisco, CA with my now-husband and on-call taste-tester, Martin. Life out here has been great fun, we’ve met amazing people and seen amazing places I might never have seen if I hadn’t left my roots behind. We’ve also eaten a lot of different kinds of delicious food out here, but not much beats a Bojangles biscuit, Eastern NC barbecue (those who know, know there’s nothing else like it in the world!) and a nice batch of fried okra.
I’m always up for meeting new people and trying new things, so feel free to email me at yay.email [at] gmail [dot] com if you think there’s something I’m missing out on or if you’re a North Carolina ex-pat who wants to commiserate over the loss of 10pm Goodberrys runs and sweet tea done right.
pPod's Kitchen 
Ok…You MUST tell me WHERE to EAT here in NC!!!!! OMG, A NATIVE??? I can’t tell you how grateful I would be if you would write me back and share. It was so interesting for me to read your comment at the Dine and Dish website because you are having the exact same experience in many ways, but you’re right…on the opposite coast.
I was so excited to move here last year. Thought I would find these wonderful *southern* restaurants and antique stores…little boutiques to buy special smocked dresses for those long summer days on our porch drinking mint julips….under the magnolia trees….(getting the picture?) Lol…. What I found were a LOT of mosquitos and a suburb filled with *Yankees* who have ALL been tranfered here by IBM, or some other such tech company. Even they complain at the lack of “community” and the “disconnectedness” here of people and place so no one feels *home*. I think you were right on the money when you mentioned that the Research Triangle ruined the place. I am not even a native but I can see it. I see it in the far off look in people’s eyes that says “The weather is much nicer than Connecticut, my husband / wife was transfered here, but I have no one here and I’m miserable”. It’s sad really and I feel sorry for all the natives that your home has been hijacked.
The other big problem I have here is that I am an artist. I went to college in LA, and I worked as an Art Director for a major studio in Los Angeles in the entertainment industry for many years. Hollywood, for all the bad press, is actually an “artists’ town”. The whole engine that runs the economy there is propelled by writers, deesigners, musicians, costume designers, artists…. So to say I feel like I am a fish with no water is an understatement. I had an enormous community of artists there, and here…everyone on my block works for IBM. They are ALL VERY “tech”/ science minded. I am sure you will have a million wonderful options for you if you ever decide to move back!
I tried and was excited to get involved with the artists community here, but when I called Artspace, they asked what kind of work I’d done and I told them, they totally brushed me off and told me I shouldn’t bother. It was very discouraging. Gave me all the reasons why I have very little hope of ever being accepted into their program there.
The other problem I have is that there seems to be nothing to *do* here. In CA, there was SO much to DO. Here, I can’t find anything beyond going to Target or the grocery store. I grew up surfing everyday and drawing or painting on the beach or sailing as a teenager. When I ask the teens here what they do for fun, they say that some people spend their time in the Walmart parking lot??
My husband is a true Native of San Francisco. He was born and raised there, as were several generations before him. He is a Dyed in the Wool SF guy. Everytime we visit, we can’t walk 2 blocks without him running into 400 people he knows and grew up with. That built in community…His brother is a Fire (Batallion) Chief there who knows EVERYONE. Just the mention of his name anywhere and people start to laugh because they know him. The Jesuit school he went to, the MANY restuarants he worked at. His grandfather owned a Hotel downtown and his Uncle a bar on Montgomery. So his / our roots go way back there. It’s home.
My parents moved from NY to San Diego when I was 3, and they felt the same disconnectedness we feel here for 35 years in San Diego. I always say that Raleigh reminds me of San Diego 30 years ago. I am convinced it’s all connected to the people, and our memories of *place*.
I was always really up on moving and experiencing new places, but I think the older you get (I’m 40), the harder it gets to walk away from a lifetime of memories and people and start all over again. I want to go back to LA and have MY raviolis at Palermo’s, where I’ve been eating since college and where, like *Cheers* for God’s sake, everyone knows our name!
I would be forever FOREVER grateful for ANY ideas you would have for us. Coming from San Francisco with more 5 start restaurants than anywhere else in the world….I have had a REALLY hard time finding good food here. Everytime someone gives me a suggestion, it’s some filthy dive in a strip mall with canned food. I KNOW this can’t be it….there have GOT to be the special places we don’t know about.
I am sure you already have a plethora of good restaurants to eat at in the City, but if you would like some suggestions, I too will be happy to share our little special spots.
Start with “Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Shop” in North Beach at Columbus and Union. Order the sausage foccaccia sandwhich, an italian soda, and biscotti and coffee afterwards. That is our version of your craving for Bojangles biscuits! OH, what I’d give for one of those sandwhiches right now!! U-Lees potstickers. Fior di Italia. The Hyde Street Bistro. Venticello’s on Washington. One Market.
Thank you so much in advance if you would be kind enought to reply! : )
MH
Oh…P.S…You are 1,00000% right about the housing market there in CA. The reason we moved to Raleigh is because my husband’s company closed down his division in SoCal, but because they really liked him they moved him up to SF….thought this would be a great *favor* for us because our family is up there. Obviously didn’t think about the fact that we’d be moving from a home with a huge yard to a 1 bedroom apt. with 2 kids and a dog. Not really an option for us. So, we picked up and left…cold turkey. That’s another long story…about the company that hired him and then after we moved and bought a house, emailed him to tell him “Thanks but we’ve decided to go with another candidate”. It’s been a difficult year for many, many reasons.
Well, we lived in a 1,000 sq. foot post war crackerbox bungalow in Ventura County that we had spent 7 years gutting. Oh, it was beautiful when we were finished…tucked in the Santa Monica mountains just on the other side of Malibu, but it was old (NOT in the good charming way) and it was TINY TINY.
When I called the realtor in SF (who had babysat for my husband 45 years ago and knows us well) and asked her what our house would go for in the Bay Area (NOT in the City of course..that would be hopeless), she told me $1.3 – 1.5 Million dollars!!! CHOKE.
My husband went to an Ivy League college and law school, and has 25 years in Finance, but there was NO WAY we were EVER going to be able to even touch a $1.5 million dollar mortgage. Nor would we want to frankly. The real estate market started to implode there the week we were in escrow, so somehow, we got out by the skin of our teeth.
That said…you are right….the homes in Raleigh are not to be believed. I thought I’d stepped into a fairy tale. They are gorgeous. We were able to buy a 4,000 sq. ft. brick colonial here. Cost per square foot for what the houses in CA were selling for by us, this house would cost $2.3 million in CA. Hopeless, for us anyway. The moldings and craftsmanship are SO amazing and don’t even really exist in CA.
A friend of mine in CA told me before I left….”You know in commercials or on TV or movies when you see those gorgeous neighborhoods with the Colonial houses, dormer windows, large lawns and giant trees….and you wonder “Where in the Hell is that place???” ?….It’s Raleigh”. She was right. It’s *is* beautiful.