A Soulful night

Last night we went to one of my favorite Charlotte restaurants and what I think is the best tapas restaurant in the area.  Soul Gastrolounge is a pretty new addition to the Plaza Midwood area and because the restaurant is small and doesn’t take reservations, we had to wait a little over an hour for our party of nine to be seated.  It probably didn’t help us that we were such a large party also.

The first thing we always order is the sashimi tuna taco.  Three come to a plate, but these went to fast.  I had one and a half of them.

If you remember, I attempted to make my own version here.  My version was good, but I used wasabi mayo instead of Sriracha mayo and I didn’t use fried shells, just toasted corn tortillas.

The white mean dip and missing pita points – this got eaten up pretty quickly before I was able to get a proper photo.  I had one pita point with the dip.

The babaganoush is my favorite of all of their dips, and there are many to choose from.  I had two scoops of this.

The sliders were very delicious and peppery.  I had half of one.

I order oysters a lot at good seafood restaurants, but rarely order them fried.  One of these was quite a treat.  Sorry for the blurry photo.

My handsome husband-to-be enjoying a fried oyster.

This fried cheese was my least favorite thing of the night.  I had a tiny sliver just to taste it.  It was extremely salty and just not my thing.

This grilled cheese panini didn’t arrive looking like this.  Brad started hacking at it with his knife before I could stop him.  When sharing food, you can’t really ask people to stop and let you photograph, especially when they’re hungry.

The whole group was snuggly tucked in around a large coffee table which made for very “intimate”dining.  Josie and I share the couch.  I didn’t take any photos of the other people because I’m not sure how they feel about being on my blog and I didn’t really want to ask.

The last thing to come out was Josie’s sushi.  I had half of a white fish Nigiri (unpictured) and one and half of these beauties: the crunchy roll.

There was also wine and beer here as well as our next stop.  Thomas Street Tavern, which is only a block away from Soul is a favorite hang out in our circle of friends.  I had a Tuscan blend and then later a Cabernet Sauvignon when our waiter told us they were out of my original order.

Somehow we ended back at home at 11 pm and I gratefully got in a whole eight hours of sleep.  It was wonderful!

Ingredients
Directions