Late-night tacos, vineyard dining, ASAP Farm Tour, more: What to know
ASHEVILLE - A new menu rolls out with late-night bites and drinks; three wine-and-dine experiences not to miss; and a popular annual series returns with new farm destinations and family-friendly adventures.
Taco (Late) Night
The next taco night doesn’t have to be at the conventional dinner hours.
Taco Boy has extended its West Asheville dining room hours to service those nighttime cravings.
Taco Boy, at 521 Haywood Road, is now offering a late-night food menu from 9-11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 10 p.m.-midnight Friday and Saturday.
The full beverage menu ― which offers fresh-squeezed craft cocktails and margaritas, tequila flights, beer, wine and more ― will be available during these times, as well.
The abbreviated late-night food menu will feature individual meals and shareable plates, plus a new “Adult Happy Meal” combo.
Menu highlights
Crispy corn chicken Taquitos.
Nachos with the option to add chicken tinga, carne asada, or carnitas.
Mexican Street Corn dressed with chili-lime mayo and cotija cheese.
Traditional Mexican Street Tacos made with carne asada, chicken tinga, carnitas and tempura avocado.
Cinnamon sugar churros.
The Adult Happy Meal comes with two tacos, a beer, a tequila shot and a surprise.
The Charleston-based restaurant has continued to deliver more meals, deals and perks with more on the way.
Cut out the wait: West Asheville’s Taco Boy is now accepting reservations through Resy for lunch, dinner and brunch service.
Plus, keep an eye out for Taco Boy’s second Asheville location, slated to open later this year.
For more, visit tacoboy.net/location/west-asheville/.
Vittles at the vineyard
Red Fiddle Vittles, a catering service and gourmet food market in Asheville, will host a dining experience accenting local, seasonal ingredients.
Vintners Dinner at Stone Ashe Vineyard will be at 6:30 p.m. on July 29 at 736 Green Mountain Road in Hendersonville.
“Late summer is a super fun time to make food in Appalachia,” Erica Beneke, chef and co-owner of Red Fiddle Vittles, said in an email. “So many bright, fresh flavors to work with. This wine dinner as well as our convenient take-home dinners are delicious and unique reflections of the special place we live."
The event will feature live music by Ryan O'Keefe and Halli Anderson, barrel tastings, small bites and a three-course meal with wine pairings.
Menu highlights include a red snapper and watermelon crudo and goat cheese and summer tomato crostini appetizers. The seated dinner will offer each and prosciutto salad, grilled bison tenderloin served with locally-forage chanterelle mushrooms, and, for dessert, a summer pavlova.
Stone Ashe has hand-selected wine pairings from its collection of Bordeaux-based grape varieties, made with sustainable and biodynamic farming practices.
Other farm partners’ products that will be on the table include floral arrangements provided by Bloom WNC; produce sourced from Maypop Farm in Arden, Mystic Roots Farm in Marion and R Farm in Weaverville; as well as local bison from Carolina Bison in Leicester and locally-foraged mushrooms from Wild Goods, Beneke said.
The cost is $175 per person. Purchase online at redfiddlevittles.com.
The special dining event is a part of an ongoing collaboration of the two local, family-owned businesses. Red Fiddle Vittles provides small bites for Stone Ashe’s tasting room menu.
"We appreciate our partnership with Stone Ashe very much. They focus on many of the things we do as a company: quality, sustainability, and integrity in sourcing,” Matt Farr, chef and co-owner of Red Fiddle Vittles, said in an email. “With aligned values, great things can happen and we're so proud of how Red Fiddle Vittles and Stone Ashe Vineyard have grown together to produce this beautiful evening of great, local food and wine."
For more, visit redfiddlevittles.com and stoneashevineyards.com.
More dining experiences:
Avenue M and Contrast Wines will collaborate for French Wine Dinner, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. July 20 at Avenue M, 791 Merrimon Ave. The menu will feature five courses paired with five wines. The cost is $120. To reserve a seat, call 828-350-8181.
Marked Tree Vineyard will host local chef Graham Overal for a special dinner at 7 p.m. July 26 at its downtown tasting room, 14 Aston St. The four-course meal will be paired with four wines. The cost is $155 per person, which includes gratuity for the team. Purchase tickets online at markedtreevineyard.com/tastings. To make accommodations for dietary restrictions, email niel@markedtreevineyard.com.
Farms and goats galore
The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project’s annual Farm Tour series invites guests to experience a different side of Western North Carolina’s great outdoors.
This year, the weekend-long event will be from noon-5 p.m. Sept. 23-24.
More than 20 agritourism destinations – all within an hour of Asheville -- are on the map spanning Barnardsville, Fairview, Henderson, Leicester and McDowell counties.
For returning farm tourists, there are nine new participants on this year’s roster.
Each stop will offer unique experiences and show the diversity of the region’s bountiful farming industry, including its vegetables, livestock, orchards and homesteads.
Guided and self-guided tours will be offered at select stops. Several farms will offer Spanish-language tours.
Plus, there will be plenty of opportunities to view demonstrations, interact with farm animals, sample local food, and stock up on fruit and flowers at u-pick sites.
ASAP deems the event appropriate for all ages and abilities.
One pass admits one carload of visitors and permits entry to all participating farms on both event days.
Advance passes are $35 and may be purchased at asapconnections.org/farmtour. Passes may be sold on the weekend of the tour, pending availability, and will cost $45.
View the list of farms and learn more about ASAP’s mission “to help local farms thrive, link farmers to markets and supporters, and build healthy communities through connections to local food,” visit asapconnections.org.
Food news you may have missed:
2023 National Gingerbread House Competition seeking entrants. Take a look at past winners here.
In the fire: How Asheville chefs learn to thrive under pressure at A-B Tech. Read the story here.
An Asheville brewery is to close, operating with limited capacity in the final weeks. Read his farewell message here.
Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow her on Twitter/Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Taco Boy's 'Adult Happy Meal,' vineyard dining, more Asheville events
