Feats (and Feasts) of Strength with the Ghost Pepper

I have come to dub this the Demonwing.

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photos of Jeff Skrenes/Hawkman contributed.

We all have our little quirks.  For instance, Ed Kohler over at the Deets has his obsession with the presentation of hotel toilet paper at various locales.  In a way that's more connected than one might initially think, my fixation happens to be with the hottest pepper on the planet, the ghost pepper.  (Although I've heard that the Trinidad scorpion pepper is both hotter and has a more badass name, I've yet to encounter one available for consumption.)

In the top photo, fellow former NoMi resident, poet, and blogger Bryan Thao Worra and I shared several orders of ghost pepper wings at the Lowry Cafe as part of his going away party.  For the first time, I actually SENT THE WINGS BACK because even though they were spiced with these peppers, they simply weren't hot enough for a Laotian, a Latino dude, and a white boy with taste buds of steel.  That may not have been the wisest move, because later...

Lowry Cafe Has the Ghost Pepper!

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photos of Hawkman taken by Ann Loyd of Local D'Lish.

I've got to hand it to my NoMi neighbors.  In the midst of the tornado cleanup, NoMi Passenger had the roof torn off of her house.  Yet I still got a text from her telling me that the Lowry Cafe has ghost peppers they can put on chicken wings.  Here she is, no roof on her home, and she's looking out for my taste buds.

So after getting roped into a press conference at 26th and Broadway, I moseyed on over to Lowry Cafe.  This would also be the first time I tried the Rogue beer they have available.

The photo might not make this entirely clear, but they serve their beer in a chilled glass.  "Beer should always be served in a chilled glass or frosty mug" is one of my most deeply-held nonreligious, apolitical beliefs.  Well done, Lowry Cafe.  Well done.

Now let's get to those chicken wings...

Hawkman at the Lowry Cafe

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

The Johnny Northside blog already extensively covered the Lowry Cafe opening, but I finally made my way down there twice over the last week or so.  My first trip there was a birthday present from a friend who insisted I try the mushroom and Swiss burger.  Having already proclaimed Good Sports as having the best burgers in NoMi, I needed to see how Lowry's burger stacked up to the competition.

I have to say that...

Avenue Eatery Grand Opening

 Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

Although the Avenue Eatery has been operating for a little while now, Wednesday marked the official grand opening.  I stopped by to see what they had to offer, but first went to The Lowry Cafe by mistake.  Somehow I got it in my head that The Lowry Cafe was opening instead.  But this is a good problem to have; two new sit-down cafes that serve healthy food are opening in NoMi within short periods of each other.  Like many grand openings along Broadway, the Avenue Eatery event was attended by a veritable who's who of NoMi.  Neighborhood board members, residents, and people who work over north crowded into (and sometimes out of) the coffee shop to welcome a new business into the community.

NoMi photographer Pat Carney was on hand to document the event, and surely he got better photos than I'll post here.  A link to his photo album will be added when that's online.

I had to struggle to make my way over to the counter in order to buy some cheesecake (which, by the way, was fabulous) because...