I haven’t posted in awhile, but after eating at this restaurant a couple nights ago with great friends I knew I had to post about The Pit. The Pit is located in downtown Raleigh on East Davie Street in an old looking building. Once you step in side, you are greeted by the distinct, strong aroma of barbecuing meats.  The decor is upscale, with white lights decorating the dining room and bar area. The pit master, Ed Mitchell, has been on the Food Network and has many other accolades. The menu is mostly typical bbq fare, with brisket, ribs, pulled pork and chicken. Great drink menu with different Bourbon choices along with a unique beer selection.

The Raleigh-ite – The appetizers we ordered were out of this world and I would definitely recommend them:  Mini PBLTs (Pimento cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomato biscuits) and Barbecue fries. I ordered the double plate with Carolina Ribs, Eastern Style Pork, creamed corn and broccoli and cauliflower casserole. The Carolina Ribs were delicious (although definitely fattier than typical baby back ribs) and the creamed corn was probably the best I’ve ever had. However, the broccoli and cauliflower casserole lacked flavor, and the Eastern style pork was a little too spicy for  me. We ordered the Banana Pudding and Apple Pie for dessert. The Banana Pudding was insane (bananas, pudding and marshmallow)  , and while I didn’t try the Apple Pie the rest of the table raved about it.

Barbecue Fries

Mini PBLTs

We ordered: 1 20 oz beer, 1 10 oz beer, 1 Triple Meat plate, 1 Double Meat Plate, 1 Dessert , 1 Appetizer. Total : $76

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2. Carolina Ale House Restaurant Review
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Another way to save money is by signing up for Swagbucks and using it as your search toolbar on your browser. You can sign up for swagbucks HERE.  Basically, you earn a couple of swagbucks a day, based on how much you use the toolbar for your search. Then you can redeem the swagbucks for giftcards. One of my favorite ways to use swagbucks is to redeem them for restaurant.com giftcards. At the end of the month, gift certificates on restaurant.com usually go on sale with a special code (which I will post on eat2winraleigh) and you can use your FREE giftcard from swagbucks to purchase them!

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1. How do we afford to eat out all the time?

Coming in the next couple weeks, I’m going to write several posts about how we use money saving websites, coupons and gift cards to make eating out less expensive/more affordable. I am constantly looking for ways to save money without sacrificing standard of living. I read lots of money saving blogs to get ideas, and try to go to restaurants when they are having specials.

First piece of advice: Sign up for Upromise. Upromise is supposed to be a website to help you save money for college or for your children’s college tuition. However, you don’t have to use the money that you save towards education. The money will be collected in an account for you and you can request a check be mailed to you. There are several ways to save with Upromise: restaurants, coupons in grocery stores and shopping online. When you link your credit cards to Upromise and then eat at restaurants in your area that are Upromise partners, they credit a % of your bill to your Upromise account. When you link your frequent buyer cards for grocery stores (VIC, MVP) to your Upromise account, when you buy certain products a small amount of money is deposited in your account. Also, if you install the Upromise toolbar onto your web browser, when you shop online a % of the sale is kicked back into your Upromise account.

Some of the Upromise Partner Restaurants in the Raleigh area include (not a comprehensive list):

Sono

Mura

Cameron Bar & Grill

Connolly’s Irish Pub

I enjoy each of these 4 places and there are many more on the list. Some of the percentages that you save are very worth it (up to 8%!!) So make sure you sign up for your Upromise account! It’s completely free, you just have to make sure to say no to the different college savings products they try to sell you.

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3. Scenario

Mambo Italiano is located in Apex on West Williams Street in the old Cinelli’s space.

We haven’t eaten a full meal here so we can’t do a full review, but we stopped in to Mambo Italiano this weekend since we are constantly searching for good Italian food like you can get in NY. The owners are a couple from Long Island. Mambo Italiano has a family style menu and we ordered a couple of appetizers to bring with us to our friends’ house on Saturday night. We ordered the cold antipasto appetizer, the hot antipasto appetizer and the fried zucchini. The hot antipasto appetizer has eggplant rolletini, baked clams and stuffed mushrooms (wouldn’t recommend the clams but the other 2 were good). So anyways, Mambo Italiano might be somewhere to try for NY Italian food, we will make a visit for dinner and update the review!

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So, we keep a running list of restaurants we want to try in Raleigh. Here is what I think the top 10 list of restaurants to try should be, please comment if you have any input! Which restaurants shouldn’t be on the list and what restaurants should be on the list and aren’t. 

10. J. Betskis (downtown Raleigh)

9. Margaux’s (North Raleigh)

8. Cafe Luna  (downtown Raleigh)

7. 18 Seaboard (downtown Raleigh)

6.  Jibarra (downtown Raleigh)

5. the Pit (downtown Raleigh)

4. Bonne Soire (Chapel Hill)

3. Magnolia Grill (Durham)

2. Tangerine Cafe (Cary)

1. Fins (downtown Raleigh)

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$ you can wear your hat – avg entree < $10

$$ bring the family – avg entree $10-$20

$$$ impress your honE – avg entree >$20

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Hi. We are Dan and Jessica and we work as stock traders. Dan recently moved to Raleigh from New York for Jessica; Jessica has lived in Raleigh her entire life. We started this blog because we have started a mission to find the best restaurants in Raleigh. Before moving here, Dan believed that NY had the best food and he claims that he “requires” the best of each type of food.

Last Saturday we were searching online for the best Chinese in Raleigh and realized that there was no consistent review website to rely on–and so we started a mission! Our goal is to objectively evaluate restaurants based on service, atmosphere, the food, and the risk/reward for your money. We will strive to evaluate at least one new Raleigh/Durham/Cary/Chapel Hill restaurant a week. Please leave us feedback with suggestions, or if you agree/disagree with our evaluation! We hope that either Raleigh natives, or new transplants will find this website helpful for finding the best restaurants in the area. Hope you enjoy!

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