Bocci in Cary

Hands down, Bocci makes the best Chicago-style deep-dish pizza in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area!

You'll need to swing by Hemlock Bluffs park afterward to walk off these calories though.

Maybe not quite as awesome and authentic as you'll find in Chicago, but their pizza will surely satisfy your craving.

Their smallest, the 12", should easily feed 4 hungry people.

We two, however, only made a dent in it tonight:

Bocci has plenty of other excellent Italian dishes, too, but we always order the Chicago pizza since no other restaurants in the area make one. It's easy to order vegetarian here, but to eat purely vegan might be a bit of a challenge.

From the location and ambience, you might think this would be an expensive restaurant, but not so. Bocci is casual, comfortable, and an excellent value-for-the-money no matter how you measure it.

Two thumbs up, as always!

Ruckus Pizza

Simply because it was geographically convenient tonight, we landed at Ruckus Pizza again.

This time, not wanting the usual heavy calzone or pizza, we opted for a big salad and veggie-burger wrap.

The salad was very yummy. The veggie-burger wrap was a little too spicy, but still edible, and the side of pasta salad was very good.

Ruckus has a decent beer selection also...

Overall: not bad for a chain restaurant.

Cafe Carolina and Bakery in Cary

Quick stop for dinner on the way to a quick evening hike in Umstead State Park.

The Caesar salad, veggie panini, and thin-crust spinach artichoke flatbread (pizza) were all tasty. They also have a nice assortment of baked desserts, which are all quite fully-leaded...

Cafe Carolina has a nice atmosphere and is a step up from the usual fast food restaurants.

Day trip to Cedarock & Saxapahaw

Beautiful weather, but we didn't have time to plan any big trip for this weekend. So we did a quick day-trip instead.
Our best-case expected route:

Although we only made it to Saxapahaw General Store and then to Cedarock for some frolf and hiking.

Saxapahaw General Store is an amazing oasis in North Carolina. We bought sandwiches to go (of course, including some bakery desserts).

We ate our picnic at Cedarock Disc Golf Course. The park actually has two frolf courses. "Cedarock" is the first course you'll see, and consists of mostly large, long open fields. A little boring for my tastes, but excellent practice for long drives (if you're working on your professional game).
"Wellspring" is the slightly more hidden course just past the first parking area.

Wellspring is the usual frolf course you'd expect: lots of trees, streams, and hills. Unfortunately, both of these courses were more difficult than what we're used to, so we didn't come anywhere close to par.

There are a number of nice hiking trails in Cedarock Park as well.

And of course, on the drive back home through Chapel Hill, one must eat dinner at the Spotted Dog and shop at Weaver Street Market.

Related useful links:



Cedarock Park map.pdf

Haw River Trail map.pdf

Awaze Ethiopian

Awaze Ethiopian is now open.

They took over the previously closed Ashee Ethiopian restaurant.

They say they have some differences from the previous owner's take on Ethiopian, but those subtleties are beyond my taste range.

Still the same basic good Ethiopian food to me. Slightly spicy, with lots of injera bread. (Ok, their injera might be a little better than the previous style.)

Two thumbs up, if you're in the mood for Ethiopian in Cary.