On the Road Eats - Black Cat Burrito

With summer winding down, I decided I needed to take one last mini-vacation. What better place to escape the hullabaloo of life in the Triangle than to head a couple hours west to the Great Smoky Mountains? Our primary stop was Boone, NC, home of Appalachian State University and a town near the Blue Ridge Parkway. From the parkway, you can find trails of all difficulty levels as well as local artisan shops. In the next few posts, I will be detailing the not-to-be-missed fooderies that we found.


One of the staple restaurants in town is Black Cat Burrito, which is a misnomer since they do not serve black cat meat and their burritos are not your typical Tex-Mex creations. The MO of this eatery seems to be stuffing tortillas with everything but the usual beans, ground beef and cheese.


For starters, we had to try their tortilla chips with a selection of dips. The Everything Sampler includes queso, guacamole and one of the salsas (we tried mild). The chips are cut thickly and nicely crunchy, helping them to resist sogginess when dipped into any of the three wells packed with great flavors. I included a my drink in this shot because Black Cat has an unknown Fanta flavor on tap - ginger ale. I find most ginger ale to be hit or miss, but this one was more balanced than most. With less bite and a bit more sweetness than other ginger ales, this one is probably the best one I've ever had. It was hard not to fill up on these munchies, but we did managed to save room for the main course.


We, of course, ordered burritos (you don't go to a place with "burrito" in the title without ordering some). In the background is Don't Be a Jerk featuring chicken, pineapple, jicama, and the house jerk sauce. While spicy, it also had a bit of sweetness from the pineapple to round out all the flavors. In the foreground of the picture, you can see the White Trash BBQ burrito with BBQ sauce, chicken, and slaw. While not as spicy as the jerk burrito, the white trash had all the competing elements of a great meal - sweet and lightly spicy, soft and crunchy. These burritos are also the kind you eat with a fork and knife and could easily be made into two meals, that is if you like to be "responsible" with your eating or something like that.