I flew into Raleigh with a drive ahead of me to Greenville and wanted to grab a bite before getting…read moreon the road. Carol's Kitchen kept coming up as one of the better options in the area, so I made the detour. What I didn't expect was that "tucked away" would mean tucked into a commercial business building, the kind of place you'd expect to find an insurance adjuster's waiting room, not lunch. Walking in, the only other person there was someone waiting on a to-go order. My first thought was that I'd made a mistake. The space felt sterile, stale, more office park than kitchen.
I was wrong.
Minutes from closing and not planning to come back through town, I asked the counter what people order. Buffalo chicken wrap, they said. I added a kolache -- they had an everything bacon version that caught my eye -- and a side of bacon potato salad. The order came out in brown to-go containers, and I walked back to the car bracing for disappointment.
The kolache was a revelation. I'm not a connoisseur, I couldn't grade one against the platonic ideal, but if this is what they can be, then kolaches deserve a much wider audience. That pastry alone is reason enough to come back. The buffalo chicken wrap was right behind it: hearty, full flavored, well-balanced, in a tortilla with just enough toast to give it some structure. The potato salad looked, at first, like it was skimping on quantity, barely more than a dallop, but by the time I'd worked through the kolache and half of the wrap, I was full and grateful that half the wrap was still in the bag for later. My only real regret is that the leftovers won't taste the same when they're not at temperature.
4.6 stars, what not a solid five you ask?
Here's where Carol's Kitchen breaks my brain a little. The food is warm, charming, careful -- the kind of meal that wants to be eaten slowly, at a table, with a conversation going. It's a country welcome. But the room is the opposite of that. It's a 30 Rock situation: Kenneth Parcell got dropped into a corporate office building and started cooking lunch for the suits. The food keeps trying to invite you to stay; the building keeps trying to push you back out to your car. The two are wildly out of sync.
Service was on par with what you'd expect from a grab-and-go counter, helpful, not warm, doing the job. Nothing to complain about, but nothing matching what the food is reaching for, either.
What I keep coming back to is that Carol's Kitchen deserves a different room. A table-service space with a slower pace, somewhere a community could build around what this kitchen is putting out. As it stands, the concept of the spot and the concept of the food are at odds, and the food is the one losing the argument. Still, if someone suggested going back later the same day, I wouldn't hesitate. I'd just be sad about the room again.
