While browsing through some of the recent entries here at Carpe Durham, I noticed that we’ve experienced a serious taco drought lately!   So I set out to cure this problem with a trip to Toledo Carniceria & Taqueria (2223 East NC Highway 54 # F)  in the Park Terrace plaza.

The menu at Toledo offers typical taqueria fare – tacos, gorditas, tortas, quesadillas, burritos, etc. A hand written note taped to the bottom of the menu board informed me that the weekend’s special was menudo and pozole. I was excited to …

So someone else wrote about Halgo over a year ago, but thanks to a recommendation from a friend I finally checked it out for lunch today.
This cute Polish market has a freezer case full of 10 types of pierogies – the blueberry and sweet potato caught my eye – and a sign out front invites visitors in, reading “Polish Perogi – You can’t love’m unless you try ‘em.”

But today we were there for the hot kielbasa and kraut sandwiches. You do have to call ahead for these, but …

HV Bottle Shop doesn’t look like much and the name doesn’t really make sense (as in Hope Valley), but further investigation reveals a much needed spot for more casual wine drinking and two very helpful owners.  Thomas and Drew have been around the block for a while (having worked at Nana’s and Foursquare(?) or the like) before opening their welcoming bottleshop in Woodcroft Plaza.
All of the Carpe Durham squad has been there by now and the results are officially tallied: it’s a great place.  They have a handy-dandy wine dispenser for …

As a new dad who’s on baby duty from 4-8am I often find myself hungry before the chickens are up. It’d be easy to write about all the great late-night eats (Honey’s, Waffle House, Cosmic until 4am), but not so when it comes to breakfast before six. Here are my favorites:
-Wimpy’s on Hillsborough: where else can you get a fatback biscuit?
-Biscuitville on Club: my normal routine is to wait for the wall street journal (which arrives around 4:55), then walk two blocks and bug them to let me in. When …

I have been feeling very sorry for myself lately, so I decided to take a break from sitting in front of my computer not studying to go out for some tacos while not studying.  La Superior  (3325 North Roxoboro) provided a perfect diversion–it’s like a Latin American market nested inside a Latin American grocery store.  It has an almost carnival atmosphere that I knew would put me in a better mood.
            
Juice Bar      
     
Taqueria
We could have gone grocery shopping in Superior’s full-service grocery and butcher shop, but the goal of today’s trip was to …

Halgo (4520 S. Alston Ave) is a quite cute Polish grocery store and flower shop. They have rows of Polish snacks and candy, kielbasa and other meats, cheeses, crazy juices, pickled fish, a freezer full of frozen pierogies (12 kinds), cabbage rolls, soups (borscht), and generally lots of things I have never seen before (not being Polish or from a big city). Apparently next week they will start to serve up the pierogies hot, but today we fried some up at my house and they were awesome with …

The Durham Farmer’s Market is one of my favorite Saturday traditions (other than brunch at Piedmont/Watts).    I try to make it out to the market every weekend, but I also like to sleep in on Saturday, and the market only runs until noon, so that’s not always successful.  I happened not to get much sleep today, so I made it out!  I picked some sweet curry goat cheese from Celebrity Dairy, a box of Dolly Mama chocolate truffles, a fresh bouquet of narcissus and tulips, a dozen fresh eggs from …

The Durham Farmers Market (at the Pavilion in Central Park, 501 Foster St) starts summer hours (8am-noon Saturdays) tomorrow. Apparently Amy Tornquist (Watts Grocery chef) will be cooking there starting at 9:30am. Durham’s local hipster marching band Scene of the Crime Rovers is supposed to play at 11am. They’re kind of fun even if you are one of our non-hipster readers.
UPDATE: I use “hipster” broadly and non-derogatorily.  I actually might be a hipster myself (not speaking for the rest of Carpe Durham).

Parker & Otis just got a shipment of bacon-related goods that caused me to go on a shopping spree. It includes lunch boxes, band-aids, and wrapping paper, among other things, and apparently they will shortly be getting in some placemats.
They also regularly have fancy chocolate with bacon bits in it. SO GOOD. If you’ve never tried it, the chocolate/savory combination is amazing.

As much as I love living in North Durham, there are many times when it is a pain. This is particularly true when it comes time to food shop, considering almost every option north of 85 is old and decrepit. The arrival of a new Harris Teeter on north Guess Rd is anxiously awaited. Luckily, we have Compare Foods, which is an awesome international supermarket. Their prices are the lowest I have found in the area, and they have tons of stuff you will not find anywhere else. More importantly, …