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that sure is true you can't find a good Italian Rest. down here even the pizza is not the same as New York, we really MISS that ! Maybe someday they'll catch on LOL
Well, one thing I keep hearing is that there are not many good Italian restaurants. It seems everytime you turn around in my area, there is another highly rated Italian restaurant opening up. Everybody loves them (not just Italians). How come I don't hear that in the Triangle area? I know there are some, but up here they dominate! What a shame.
You know I think they are probably here but harder to find. I'm from NJ originally and I was just thinking yesterday that I constantly ate Italian food, it was pretty much what we did all the time. There are so many transplants that I am sure there are little mom and pop places, maybe just not as well known. Half of NJ has moved to Cary so there MUST be some!
There actually is good pizza - pizza truck at the fairgrounds (which I read here is from Veneros in Clayton), Randy's - Durham/RTP, and absolutely killer pizza in Hillsborough - Vinny's Italian Grill (which is actually a chain but they just got it right).
I cannot find cavatelli and broccoli, though - am going to have to make it myself.
Also - if you search on yelp.com you can get reviews/recommendations - it's great!
I beg to differ, but pizza is *not* nearly the same as NY, CT pizza. For the most part, all the pizza is good up north. Here in the RTP area, folks tend to settle on one place and learn to be happy with it. The variation is vastly different.
I agree with your comment on italian places. Good ones really aren't as frequently opening down here. The nice thing is that there seems to be much more of a mix of restaurants down here....indian, thai, middle eastern, french, japanese, chinese, 'southern' barbecue, hamburger joints, seafood...the list can go on and on! There is all sorts of stuff - chain, non-chain - you name it.
RE: Italian though...there are a couple of places that we frequent....Nina's Ristorante on Lead Mine close to Baileywick Rd in N. Raleigh is really very good. But it is not a 'family restaurant - it is a 'date night' restaurant. Bella Italia off of Durant road is a family italian restaurant worthy of frequenting often. Folks talk about Milton's all the time and we eat there on occasion, but again - it is nothing like the quality of great italian food you are talking about. Not to knock them since they are a fav of lots of folks and we eat there too...the biggest draw is the lunch b/c dear Mom likes buffets. I settle and eat there with her! But give me Nina's or Bella Italia here in North Raleigh anyday. There are also some really nice date night Italian downtown Raleigh. oohh. I almost forgot vivace at north hills - also nice for lunch with girlfriends and co-workers. So they are there -- you can get your fix! Now keep in mind, we have lived here for 10 years now...it is quite possible I am forgetting how good the NY, CT, PA italian really is and have learned to settle too!! hahhaha. Come on down, try them out and let us know!
As we are considering a move to the Triangle (NW Cary or Chapel Hill area) from the NY (Westchester county), we are wondering how people who have moved there with small children feel about the move. Are you happy you did it? Is your quality of life really better? What are you likes and dislikes? How are you adjusting to the different culture? I hear a lot of positives, but I also hear a lot of people say, "It's just different" and they don't really explain what that means. I am a working mom, and I wonder how different (if there is much) the corporate world is there? I also hear from some people that they like calling Northerners "Yankees", which, I would think, would make you feel unwelcome.
Thanks in advance for your input here.
Quite honestly, unless you move into a more rural area or perhaps inside the beltline, you are more likely to run into transplants such as yourself..
I'm originally from Eastchester...then, in order to buy a house, moved up to Dutchess. The one thing I miss, besides the local NY sports and the natural beauty of the Hudson Valley, is not having family run diners all over the place. If you're from the north, you know what i'm talking about.
I'm originally from Eastchester...then, in order to buy a house, moved up to Dutchess. The one thing I miss, besides the local NY sports and the natural beauty of the Hudson Valley, is not having family run diners all over the place. If you're from the north, you know what i'm talking about.
OMG!! I SOOOO miss diners (and good bagels, chinese and indian food --but we still get Indian Summer-with WAY fewer winter car-dig outs! lol (still...the bacon burgers with slaw...sigh) Kathy
Well, one thing I keep hearing is that there are not many good Italian restaurants. It seems everytime you turn around in my area, there is another highly rated Italian restaurant opening up. Everybody loves them (not just Italians). How come I don't hear that in the Triangle area? I know there are some, but up here they dominate! What a shame.
I hope you will realize that you simply cannot expect to have EVERYTHING you did up there when you move to somewhere else; different reginos of the country have different things, and that means there WILL be sacrifices when you leave one area for another. That's one of the biggest ways many transplants (especially Northeasterners, it seems, or maybe they're just more outspoken about it) set themselves up for disappointment. There is a lot to be found here that's not there, as well--you might weigh which area has more of what works for you, before considering moving, but you should never expect to move here (or anywhere) just to turn it into exactly where you left--that tendency to always compare and complain about what from "up north" is not here is exactly how some transplants have earned something of a cold shoulder from some in this area.
And "Yankee" most of the time is simply a descriptor for Northerners, not necessairly "loaded" as a negative thing (many Northerners themselves start to use it after being here awhile, in a friendly way. There is a longstanding joke that Cary is an acronym for "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees", used tongue-in-cheek by Southerners and Northerners alike, for instance). But if you hear it with a certain "tone", it is probably being meant in a derogatory way--probably talking about the loud types who move here and then complain about what's not just like where they chose to move away from
"Yankees" are simply Northerners, a neutral term.
"Yankees" (knowing glance, eyebrow askew) are Northerners who moved here and are condescending toward local people/ways and complain about anything that's not like it was "up nawth".
It may be hard to discern, but there's a definite difference.
I grew up in Westchester, and lived in Westchester, Rockland, and Fairfield counties before moving
here 9 years ago.
We don't have an overabundance of Italian restaurants in the Triangle because up until 20 years ago there weren't many Italians here to open them.
One of the toughest transitions we had to make was in the area of food shopping and restaurants. We can get most of what we want in a grocery store, but we have to shop a little more frequently and a little more piecemeal. Restaurants are a little different-there are fewer mom and pop places and more chains.
We can talk all day long about restaurants and grocery stores but in the end you can work around all of that if you choose to.
When we decided to move here from there, we were ready. We were open to the idea of changing our lives. We didn't like living in the NY suburbs anymore. Why? Well-a lot of reasons. What it came down to in the end was we were sick of the way we were forced to live on what we considered to be as much income as we were ever going to earn. We weren't willing to live in a crappy little house and pay exorbitant taxes just so we could say we lived in X or Y town. We weren't willing to move to Dutchess or to far northern Fairfield county just to live in a house that sucked less, and then have to suck up the 90 minute commute. We were sick of rush hour on 287 being never-ending even on the weekends. Frankly, we thought that living there sucked. You may not feel that way, and that's fine, but we did.
I end up back in Westchester a few weekends per year for business and family obligations. Now I drive down Central Avenue or the Post Road and it makes me want to get back home to North Carolina. I do not miss living there AT ALL. I could NEVER go back, for more reasons than I could possibly list. I have friends, family, and business associates who don't understand how I could ever have left and I can't really articulate it without running the risk of making them mad, so I just smile when they try to talk me into coming back. The amazing thing is that after 9 years all of the same people put me thru the same wringer every time I see them.
I have said this before but it bears repeating. You need to take a brutally honest look at how much of your identity and sense of self is tied to your current geography. If you move here and you are not going to let go of your past you will be the Yankee that people here have a low level of tolerance for. Don't come here and be the person that says "that's not the way we do it back home" or "when is there going to be a Wegman's/Stew Leonard's/Turco's around here?" If you move here, THIS IS YOUR HOME. Take all of the New York crap off of your car and make an effort to make it work. If you have ANY hesitations about your ability to do that, you are not ready to relocate.
Where we come from is who we are-the scents, tastes of youth; the threads that create the quilts of our lives. Relocating is not about abandoning who we are (esp. to blend in or gain the "approval" of random others). We relocate for myriad reasons, but it is all about ADDING squares, not burning the quilt. This "snooty" black Westchester gal (with pearls and piercings), who lived in The City for 15 years before relocating to Boston; Maryland; Alabama and now, North Carolina--will ALWAYS be NYer. I'll never drawl, I hate ocra, will always drink CAWFEE, miss the french fries at the spot on 79th/Broadway; early Saturday mornings at the farmers market at Union Square; and the scones at that bakery on 7th Ave in Park Slope. I know exactly where they are, don't expect to find them here--But food IS comfort--especially so when creating a new "home" in new place. We search for the familiar, just as one watches the shoreline disappear as a ship cruises into open sea-then, we set our sights on a new shoreline and the unknown adventures that await. As for the tolerance levels of others? well, that is an issue for therapists.
Where we come from is who we are-the scents, tastes of youth; the threads that create the quilts of our lives. Relocating is not about abandoning who we are (esp. to blend in or gain the "approval" of random others). We relocate for myriad reasons, but it is all about ADDING squares, not burning the quilt. This "snooty" black Westchester gal (with pearls and piercings), who lived in The City for 15 years before relocating to Boston; Maryland; Alabama and now, North Carolina--will ALWAYS be NYer. I'll never drawl, I hate ocra, will always drink CAWFEE, miss the french fries at the spot on 79th/Broadway; early Saturday mornings at the farmers market at Union Square; and the scones at that bakery on 7th Ave in Park Slope. I know exactly where they are, don't expect to find them here--But food IS comfort--especially so when creating a new "home" in new place. We search for the familiar, just as one watches the shoreline disappear as a ship cruises into open sea-then, we set our sights on a new shoreline and the unknown adventures that await. As for the tolerance levels of others? well, that is an issue for therapists.
I think everyone understands what you're saying here. There's nothing wrong with missing familiar things. What does create friction is when people relocate to a new area and gripe (audibly and frequently) about how it doesn't have all the stuff their former hometown had.
Well, no ****. You're in a new place. Adapt.
The new place probably has quite a few things your hometown did NOT have.
This really is a universal comment, btw. I've relocated before. I'm a native of this area, but once spent a couple of years in the suburbs of Chicago.
I missed soft rolls. Restaurants only had hard rolls. It was weird.
Even fast food tasted different. Gravies seemed to be somewhat sweet. Which was bizarre.
Eventually, I embraced the things that area had that weren't typical here in the Triangle, but I always knew I wanted to come back here. And I did.
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