Sister city: Asheville 2025

Another sister-city in the books! Every once in awhile my sister Leah and I decide to meet up in a city, hang out and eat a lot of great food. We've done this with semi-consistency since 2013. We've gone to Kansas City, Raleigh, Wichita, Sarasota and Atlanta. Sure, some of these sister cities were just places where we happened to live and the other came to visit. But it totally counts. And now we add Asheville to the list.

Leah and I met up in western North Carolina a few weekends ago. Levent and I actually drove down together. (He was meeting up with his bff Jason who lives in the area). We dropped Levent off and then I picked up Leah from the airport and then headed into Asheville. One of the main reasons we wanted to go back to Asheville after our parents moved away a few years ago was to support some of our favorite businesses who were impacted by Hurricane Helene last fall. So this was maybe a pretty capitalist vacation. But, we were able to support one of our favorite places that is still bouncing back after the devastation that hit the area last September. And that felt pretty important to us. Plus, we love Asheville. It is a very hip little pocket of North Carolina. (It's nice that my parents now live in Harrisonburg so that I can see them and my sister's family in one visit. But, I really miss them living in North Carolina. It was a my favorite place to visit).

On Friday night, once we got settled into our Airbnb in the South Slope, we walked to Chai Pani's new location (only a couple of blocks away!). I love Chai Pani dearly because their food is so good, but also because we had our rehearsal dinner there during our wedding weekend. So it will always be a special place for me. However, even if it wasn't, Chai Pani was by far the best food we ate all weekend. It was incredible. I would go back just to eat at Chai Pani. 

Nimbu Pani (A NA salty lime drink)

Summer bounty uttapam (veggie pancake) and Malai paneer tikka

Aloo tikki chaat (potato fritters)

We ended the evening by going to Sunshine Sammies for ice cream sandwiches (which was another favorite place we frequented when Mom and Dad lived in Asheville. We did, however, learn that our beloved Ultimate Ice Cream is no more. (The owners retired). So that's a bummer). I had the "tea time" which was Earl Grey ice cream with a cardamon snickerdoodle. The cookie was so good; I want to make it at home sometime.

While we were waiting in line for our ice cream, we were standing behind a massive group of what seemed like middle school girls. They kept sending videos to someone when all of them would learn towards the camera and say "SO CUUUUUUTEEE). So of course, Leah and I said that for the rest of the weekend too. SO CUUUUUUTE!

Saturday was our busiest day. We work up and went to Early Girl for breakfast, another one of our favorite Asheville haunts. This was the place where we realized that tourism in Asheville was not back 100%. We did not have to wait for a table at all. In fact, there were a lot open. To be fair, they had expanded so there were more tables to begin with, but still. We were very surprised we didn't have to wait at all to have breakfast on a Saturday.

Spinach potato cakes with tomato gravy. Yum. (Leah and I split like everything we had on this trip, which was a very smart choice for our stomachs)

Afterwards, we stopped at a new-to-us coffee shop/flower shop called Pollen that was near our Airbnb (to get a matcha (for me) of course). The following hours were spent shopping at all our favorite places which all happened to start with the letter M. Malaprops Books, Moonlight Makers, Mountain Merch and Minx. We followed our hardcore shopping excursion with a quick snack at Jerusalem Garden Cafe. Afterwards we headed back to the Airbnb for a rest. By this point, we had walked over 10,000 steps so far and it was barely mid afternoon. (We purposely chose an Airbnb that was walkable to downtown, which was so fun).

After our rest, we hopped back downtown to have happy hour at our favorite bar, Antidote, which serves our favorite gin from The Chemist distillery, which is right next door. At this point, it did feel like the tourists were back because there were large groups of bros walking around.

In the evening (after another pit stop at the Airbnb while it rained), we headed to Shindig on the Green, which is a bluegrass event that happens on Saturday evenings in downtown Asheville in the summer. It was rainy lightly when we were there; so we really didn't stay too long. But we did enjoy a few groups, including a group of cloggers who were fun to watch. (Is clogging the whitest thing you can do? Yeah maybe). We pretty quickly decided to go to dinner at Red Ginger, which is a dim sum and tapas place that honestly was kind of disappointing. (This was a real bummer because I went there several years ago with my parents and we really enjoyed it then). We made a pit stop at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge before heading back to Shindig for a brief moment and then back to the Airbnb home.

On Sunday, we headed down to the River Arts District to get coffee/matcha from what was once my favorite coffee place in Asheville, Summit Coffee. They lost their building during the hurricane and now just have a coffee truck, at least for now. We walked around a bit, but ended up sitting and finishing our coffee near the truck and a "treasured tree." Afterwards, we got breakfast at a new-to-us place called All Day Darling, which is maybe the best name for a breakfast place ever. The food was really good too.

The truck was on mystery street, which we found to be hilarious

In the afternoon, we mostly watched the Wimbledon Men's tennis final, but did make a quick outing to a co-op and bought some food for the evening. We finished the tennis match and then went back out for happy hour. This time we went to a cidery called Urban orchard that was basically empty. It was nice cider though.

Our grand finale in Asheville was another visit to the Montford Park Players, which is Asheville's Shakespeare in the Park. We saw a Midsummer Night's Dream, which I've seen a million times (and was even in a Eureka College production when I was in 5th grade. I played a nonspeaking fairy. It was so fun). We ate delicious snacks and enjoyed a humid, but beautiful night. (It had literally poured like an hour before the play. But thankfully it didn't rain on us at all while we were there).

Our snack's theme was pimento cheese lol

The next morning, I dropped Leah off at the airport and then headed down to Hendersonville to pick up Levent. Then we headed home. It was a lovely trip (although my stomach was happy to be home). I always appreciate the times Leah and I get to hang out and this was no exception. So cheers to Asheville! May the hurricane recovery continue!