This week I have been in Raleigh, NC teaching a Programming with C# course. I stayed at the Oakwood Inn Bed & Breakfast in downtown Raleigh.
If you can afford the $100+ price tag I would highly recommend these accommodations. A hotel on the belt-line of Raleigh costs around $96 but if you consider that in addition you still have to pay the cost of an Internet connection and breakfast the price at the bed and breakfast is comparable. Breakfast is superb and is certainly vastly superior to the "free" continental breakfast or even the $10 breakfast provided by the local hotel chains. Given my bourjwar (spell?) tastes I would go as far as to describe the breakfasts and elegant. I stayed in the Pell room, which included a bathroom on suite and a fireplace (which was of little use given the outside temperatures and humidity.)
My dinner restaurants were as follows:
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518 West: An Italian restaurant. I was not particularly impressed with this place. The food was OK but not great.
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42nd Street Oyster Bar: Certainly better than 518 West and a lot more crowded to. Food was flavorful and unique. This was my first time at an Oyster bar and I enjoyed the experience.
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Second Empire: Excellent... Prices were higher (into the 20s for an entrée) but the atmosphere was great. The restaurant is split into find dinning upstairs and a tavern downstairs. However, the "tavern" was still a fine dinning experience when compared with the previous two restaurants and was plenty elegant for my after-work-without-my-wife needs.
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Bloomsbury Bistro: Probably not on par with the upstairs of Second Empire but certainly competitive with the "tavern." The rabbit dish was OK but I also got to taste Danny's salmon and that was fantastic. It reminded me of a Thai curry type of flavor. Very good. Desert was great too.
3:40:50 PM
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