Helicopters, chainsaws and the occasional songbird. It had been weeks since Helene, but those are the sounds I best remembered after the winds quieted and the trees stopped crashing. The Lovely Princess Gwen and I were having dinner at one of the area’s newest restaurants, THE HIGHLANDS RESERVE, which was going to be the sister eatery of THE HIGHLANDS in Chimney Rock; which sadly washed away with so many other sites in that village. The fact that this restaurant was a ready replacement was, I hope, both a financial and poetic blessing.
Gwen and I sat with cocktails and enjoyed our view of the fourth hole of the Apple Valley Golf Course, a site where I’d endured many more miserable moments than the current one, and perused the menu which is excellent and reminiscent of the original HIGHLANDS in Lake Lure, which was the first restaurant I reviewed for this paper a couple years ago. Ah, time flies when you’re married to royalty.
The Princess chose the salmon, and I opted for the shrimp tacos, both of which we enjoyed, although our choices ranged from prime rib to an elk chop (yes, I said elk), and there was a nice selection of appetizers including ahi tuna, baked brie and something called duck fat fries.
The HIGHLANDS RESERVE is located at 143 Whitney Drive in Lake Lure, right behind and below the gas station/mini-mart; which is a very rural sounding description of the locale, but it’s well worth finding. You may remember the place from an earlier iteration when it was a funky, occasionally good restaurant/bar filled with license plates, animal heads and signs with pithy sayings such as “I was thinking I drink too much, so I quit thinking”. This newer version is an improvement in décor and, presumably, humor. It’s open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, and is a very nice place where Gwen and I enjoyed our food as well as the quiet; no helicopters, no chainsaws, just the occasional songbird.
When not eating, k.c. Friese wrote for a number of television shows and authored the novel STATE OF DISARRAY, which is available on Amazon. Got a suggestion for a restaurant review? E-mail editor@mountainbreeze.online.
