Tag Archives: Biltmore Estate

Posana Restaurant – Ashville, N.C.


Yes – I know – I’m bouncing around in location – I actually ate at the Posana on June 15, 2013 – and only got around to reviewing it today – because missing this one was not an option!

Located right opposite the downtown city park, the Posana is a beautiful restaurant owned and operated by Peter Pollay, a graduate of the CIA (culinary Institute of America). Since this is my daughter’s alma-mater – I’m always intrigued to see what other graduates are up to – and this seemed a great opportunity – prices weren’t crazy, the restaurant looked lovely – and the ‘100% Gluten Free’ advertising slogan said – modern cuisine to me.

Without reservations – on a Saturday night – we were going to have to wait – but just 10 minutes. Hardly a problem. The hostess suggested we sit at the bar – so we decided to see if the bartender could make a Caipirinha – the Brazilian National cocktail that my sister is enamoured of. Yes – he could – and he had no problems giving me a glass of 1/2 white wine, 1/2 soda water. Great. We add lettuce wraps as an appetizer – and sit down to wait. Curiously – our table is ready before our appetizer – and the hostess requests that we settle with the bar before she escorts us to our table.

I’m a bit surprised by this request – I don’t think there are more than a dozen tables – how can they not figure out how to move a bill from the bar to the table. But never mind, we pay up – go to the table – and only once there get our appetizer of lettuce cups with chicken and veggies. Not quite as good as PF Chang’s version and definitely a lot less food – but good just the same.

This slows down the ordering process a bit – with the net effect that getting our dinner gets delayed – and we will end up taking over 2.5 hours to eat. Why is this a problem? We’re an hour away from ‘home’, and that means a long drive in the dark with deer. Oh well – Be Calm and Carry On I suppose.

I order fish, which eventually is served as a tiny, but yummy portion. My sister gets a chicken dish – also consumed with delight. The Posana advertises itself as 100% Gluten free and Organic – I guess that explains the size of the portions.

Two points of critique – I had ordered soda water at the bar, after asking the price and being told it was free since they were ‘making’ it themselves. I repeat the order at the table, and when the bill arrives – am disappointed that they charged $2 for it. Hey – $2 for a 1/2 of a glass of soda water? Sorry – I’m not impressed. To the waiter’s credit – when I question it, it is removed from the bill. Nice response, but just a little late.

My other complaint – and I’ve made this before – the chef comes out of the kitchen and is chatting with the people at the table right next to us. Would it be too much to ask for him to at least turn around and smile in our direction? Guess so. Moral – Chefs – if you walk into the dining room – say hi to every table – regardless of how difficult it feels. Your guests will appreciate it more than you can imagine. And yes – we do notice if you ignore us!

Bottom line on the Posana – beautiful restaurant, delightful if tiny portions, and great location. B+ from this reviewer.

Posana on Urbanspoon

Posana Cafe on Foodio54

Biltmore Day 2 – Better than Day 1 – how cool is that?


Today is Saturday – Father’s Day – and we’ve been warned. The one lane road that goes from the ticket booth to the Biltmore (about 5 miles long) – can take up to 45 minutes – it gets that crowded. So show up early – or else.

So early it will be. We manage to get up, get breakfast, take 2 mile ‘fast walk’, shower, do laundry, and still leave the condo by 9:05. Not bad – our target had been 9:00. So congrats sister team!

Naturally – we are there so early – it’s no problem to do the drive (lovely – a different vista with every snake-like turn of the road – a stream here, a pond there, a bamboo forest here, a hardwood forest there. Ormsted (landscaper of Biltmore, Central Park – and Mount Royal in Montreal) was no fool. This is awesome landscaping. We hazard a guess as to the number of gardeners – naturally – we’re off – it’s actually 55. Which honestly – feels low given the size of the gardens and the year-round nature of their care. Guess they have a tight scheduled. Today the Rose Garden, tomorrow the Azalea, then we mow some lawn.

Our specialized tour today is the Architecture tour – but first we check out the indoor pool, the pictures of the construction (George V knew this was going to be amazing – so he has before and after pictures – hard to believe it was that barren before. Such vision), the kitchen (again), and the laundry rooms. So cool.

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For the architecture tour – our lovely hostess starts with a down and dirty history – this is where we learn that Cornelia actually deserted her family when times got tough, leaving her husband and kids (and grand kids) to maintain the house. Then we walk up 250 stairs to the roof – and visit the attic, pat some of the gargoyles, and take pictures of what our hostess refers to as fantasies (and Wikipedia calls ‘grotesques’). The difference? Gargoyles – gargle. When the water goes thru them, they make a noise – hence the name. Fantasies don’t allow the water thru – they are just for fun. Check out the pictures (bit X rated – sorry)

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On this tour – it’s not so much what we see as what we hear that is cool. Our hostess shares tons of tidbits – and that makes it really fun.

Lunch today is shared sandwiches from the bakery. I have to say that the food options are outstanding – they really do a good job. Later I learn from my daughter – a graduate of Culinary Institute of America – that lots of the interns come here – and the ability shines thru. They have their ‘food’ act together!

Finally – we are hitting the gardens. And they are spectacular. It’s hard to explain why acres and acres of grounds should be so special – but it’s the variety and the twists and turns that makes this place so cool. You literally never know what will be around the next corner. Could be a stone wall, a fountain, the Italian gardens with their highly structured layout, the huge glassed in Conservatories, the Bass Pond for boating, or the Spring Garden – a riotously joyful explosion of flower and plant. We spend way too long, and way too much money in the garden shop. In my defense – it was probably the best garden shop I’ve ever been in, and finally drag ourselves back to the car. We still plan to visit Ashville!

But before Ashville – we must stop at Antler Hill Village and Winery. This is the home of the Inn at Biltmore – a monster of a ‘Hotel’ that towers above the ‘village’ with it’s collection of shops, an exhibit on the Vanderbilt’s, a maze, a kid’s Land Rover Course (you know you want to drive a midget Land Rover over rock bridges and obstacles don’t you), the farm, the barn, the kitchen garden, and the miniature winery. We’re not impressed with the winery – they don’t even grow their own grapes – but the rest is cute if way over priced. Maybe we’d feel differently if we’d had kids – but the off-key singing of the musician on stage was extremely off-putting.

So now it’s on to Ashville. Cute town, cute shops, great little ‘art’ market, and my favorite – the Mast General Store. Dinner, drive home (avoiding all deer), and bed time. Tomorrow is check out and leave. So much fun, so quickly done.

Ashville, N.C. – Cute as the proverbial Button


What makes travel fun for me is the element of surprise – will this hotel/guesthouse/resort live up to expectations, will I find a yummy restaurant (or two), will the museum be worth visiting, will there be fun stores to shop at, is the location going to be beautiful, will it rain?

So many variables – so many chances for things to wrong – or to go right.

Good news – Lake Lure and Ashville, N.C. exceeded even my high expectations. After a rough start – check out my ‘why, oh why’ blog on travel – I finally arrived in the rolling hills and startlingly jagged stone cliffs of Western North Carolina. And how about this for a ‘I didn’t know that’ – The Last of the Mohicans and The Hunger Games were filmed right here!

But I wasn’t here to see movie sets – I was here for a ‘sister’s’ retreat. Our idea – spend time getting to know each other – without the distractions of husbands, kids, jobs. My middle sister picked me up at the Ashville Airport (tiny – truly tiny. You know it’s small when it cost $5 to park for over 2 hours), and headed out to our home for the weekend, and RCI resort called Wyndham Resort at Fairfield Mountains.

On the map – the resort is just 30 miles from Ashville – but the GPS said our ETA was an hour and a half. We soon found out why as we wound our way passed glorious scenery on a 2 lane winding road that changed elevation often enough to have us clearing our ears and allowed for a max speed of 20 mph. We drove past Chimney Rock State Park – with its gloriously huge waterfall cascading down from a rock face hundreds of feet above us. This Park is the setting for the movie – “Last of the Mohicans” – and to honor that – they were showing the film on Saturday night. For free. Got to love the price point.

Eventually we arrived at our destination – good job iphone and Telenav to discover that you needed a code for the lock box. Yikes. Good thing the guest arriving right behind us had that code – or we would have definitely been stranded. RCI – you have to give resorts the email of incoming guests. And resorts – if you don’t have the email for a guest – make an effort to get it! The good news – when we reported the ‘almost’ problem the next morning, the extremely pleasant receptionist apologized profusely – and reported the problem to her team. Nice handling of that – Wyndham people.

But all turned out OK (It wouldn’t be an adventure if nothing went wrong). We got our key, found a map explaining where our unit could be found in this huge resort, and made our way to our palace for the weekend. It was a palace at the mid-of-the road level – but the king sized bed was super comfy, and the view of the mountains from our window was awe-inspiring. My sister who loves to walk found lots of places to get exercise, and for me – hey, the coffee was great.

Dinner that night was at Larkins on the Lake – We loved it – but if you want to know why – you’ll have to check out my detailed review.

We’d decided that despite all the really neat stuff to do around Lake Lure and the Resort – including kayaking, a beach, a swimming pool, bike paths, hiking paths, etc, what we really wanted to do was to check out the Biltmore Estate – the home of George, Edith, and Cornelia Vanderbilt. (Again – want more details – that’s in another blog!)

GPS to the rescue again as we navigate our way back to Ashville by a different, and much less windy route past Bat Cave (didn’t spot Batman though).

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On Saturday – we opt to return to the Biltmore – that place is huge, and we felt we needed to see more stuff! But that afternoon – we finally manage to make it into Ashville. What a completely cute town. The shops were adorable, they had a wonderful arts and crafts market with lots of beautiful things to touch (I love the feel of wood), and my favorite – the Mast General Store.

If you are in Western North Carolina – and I’m not exactly sure why you would go there unless you were visiting the Biltmore Estate – you must go to this store. I loved it! They had everything. It was hard to decide what I just had to buy – and thus I wound up with a cast iron Bacon press in the form of a pig.

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Trust me – going thru security leaving Ashville was a hoot with that in my luggage. After they looked at it – everyone wanted to know if I even knew what to do with it. Hey – it’s my husband’s Father’s Day Present – he loves to press the Bacon!

Bottom line – Ashville has tons of stuff to do and see – lots of neat restaurants, including the Posana, the general store, cute art shops, and a young vibe that totally took us by surprise.

Go and have fun. But don’t forget the reason for your visit – in our case – the Biltmore and getting some much-needed Sister time.

Missions accomplished I’d say

Signing off – The soup lady.