Earlier this week I attended a conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee for my job. This was very exciting to me for several reasons: I don’t get to travel much for my job, I had never been to Chattanooga, I got to fly! (I haven’t flown in 12 years) and my friend Sandra lives there now.
Monday night I was able to hang out with my friend Sandra. She used to live in Charlotte and now she is getting her Masters at the University of Tennessee. I walked a mile from my hotel to meet her at The Yellow Deli for dinner.
The Yellow Deli opened in the 70’s and they now have a few other restaurants in the states, as well as one in Canada. This place is so adorable and the food was really fresh. They serve salads, sandwiches on homemade bread, homemade desserts, a variety of juice, mate, natural sodas, and they even have root beer on tap.
Sandra and I both had the Yellow Submarine.
The spread of the week was addicting. I’m not sure what it was, but it tasted like hummus blended with pesto.
The inside is really cute too. It looks like a big tree house.
On the bottom of our ticket, it said “We serve the fruit of the spirit…ask us how.” According to their website, they serve God. Sandra says the rumor is that they are a cult, but everyone keeps coming back because the food is good!
After dinner, we grabbed a cupcake from Chattanooga Cupcakes.
Sandra had the red velvet and I had the cinnamon. Check out the load of icing on these babies!!
That was seriously enough icing for four cupcakes at least. The cupcakes were tasty, but needless to say, we did not eat all of the icing.
Sandra showed me a glass bridge, which I planned to walk across, but then chickened out. Despite being excited to fly on a plane, I could not do the bridge….I think because the sides were open. I realize that sounds crazy.
While walking around downtown, I saw a Moon Pie store and suddenly the random Moon Pie I received in my conference bag earlier made sense.
According to moonpie.com, The Moon Pie was born in 1917 by the Chattanooga Bakery. Their goal was to make a filling snack for coal miners. They asked how big and one of the miners held his hand up to the moon and said “about that big”. And so the moon pie was born.
Honestly, I’ve never been a big fan of the Moon Pie, but I ate the one in my bag.
Are you a Moon Pie fan?
P.S. All photos were from my iphone.
How ’bout them apples? I saw a couple walk out of the courthouse that had just gotten married and I realized how tempting it would be to throw out our wedding plans and just to the same. We did not though. We will patiently wait and spend gobs of money in the meantime.
It was so adorable inside. They had a lot of old, vintage, baking and kitchen things all around.
We got the old-fashioned cupcakes. They were delicious. I think I’ve said this before, but really, you can’t ever go wrong with buttercream icing.
Everyone was really nice. I guess they get paid to be nice or better yet, I guess we are paying them to be nice?? Anyhow, every single person we passed by greeted us and wished us a happy stay.
We started out with a cheese & fruit plate and BBQ chicken sliders. The cheese and fruit plate was typical; how can you go wrong with cheese and fruit? The BBQ sliders were only okay. We also had their special house drink, a Pink Lady. It tasted like pink lemonade.
Our main entrees were perfect. I had the sweet potato ravioli with oyster mushrooms, drizzled with a pecan cream sauce. I ate every last bite, along with a side of fried green tomatoes. The tomatoes had a very peppery breading which I liked.
Vee had a very manly fried pork chop with mac & cheese and mashed potatoes. It was probably the most tender pork chop I’ve ever tasted.
And they found out it was my birthday. They asked if we were ready for dessert and Vee and I said no thanks because we were just way to stuffed for anything else. So they brought us the check and cleared off our table. Then a waiter brought over a candle and placed it at the edge of our table and placed a spoon in front of each of us. Vee and I were exchanging glances of “what’s going on, I’m so fulllllll,” and then they brought out this:
I have to say, the whole candle thing was really dramatic and also romantic.
Thanks for a great birthday Vee!
The inside wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised to find such a relaxed and eclectic space. They encourage you to write on the walls by the way.
It was the bomb. That soft chewy bagel totally hit the spot.
I also want to point out that Vee sat in a haunted chair.
Happy Bageling y’all!
You get the picture.
and taking yoga photos of this gal:
Topped with a cream cheese drizzle, this obviously didn’t need maple syrup. It was soft and fluffy on the inside with a crispness on the outside. It was AH-Mazing! I ate three triangles and a couple of pieces of fruit. I was so full. An awesome Gingerbread Latte also found its way into my belly.
This place has Smores Waffles too. Can you imagine?!
I had the Sir Charles
I was impatient and didn’t let the cake cool enough before trying to dump it on the cake plate.
I let the rest of the cake in the pan cool and then placed it where it belonged. Nothing a little frosting can’t fix.
This frosting is absolutely to die for. This recipe also comes from the 
Charlie had obviously been plotting to get more frosting. The next day he used his mind powers to make me drop the rest of the cake on the floor. I hadn’t secured the cake top properly when I went to pick it up. Charlie happily mopped the floor for 30 minutes.
Cupcake Jane 