Get Taste of Duck on Outer Banks Restaurant Tours [Photo Gallery]
After taking the Corolla Tour (watch our video here) with Outer Banks Restaurant Tours last summer, I was really excited to check out the Duck Walking Tour this year.
We arrived at 10:40am that morning and met up with Terry Bell, the owner and our hostess for the day.
Our first stop was at Coastal Cantina and we were greeted right away by the owner, Scott Foster. He showed us around to the outside bar area with a beautiful view of the sound. We were seated at umbrella-shaded tables and were served a frozen margarita-type cocktail that was delicious and very refreshing on the hot summer day. Scott shared some of his family’s restaurant business history as we sipped our drinks and we got to taste a few of his tasty signature dips with tortilla chips. It was a great way to start off the Duck Walking Tour!
After we finished, we had a little bit of a walk right through the town of Duck, which I had actually never done before. It was nice to stroll by and see all of the different shops in the village for once instead of my normal driving through on my way to and from work in the past.
Our second stop was the newly opened Outer Banks Olive Oil Company, which was deeply nestled in the shady Scarborough Faire shopping area. This place was very interesting to me because I’ve never been or seen anywhere else like it. The store manager, Angel Doebler and her assistant Hazel, served up some ice cold water with a splash of taste added and made us a salad tossed with their favorite flavor combination of Balsamic and Olive Oil.
Angel was full of information and gave us lots of tips on how to mix their products together to enhance certain tastes in food. After that, she turned us loose to taste and mix samples of the countless different flavored oils and balsamics they had to offer, which I thought was pretty fun.
Next, we headed over to the Outer Banks Popcorn Shoppe where we sampled all 20 or so flavors of their gourmet popcorn. All of the varieties were pretty impressive. They have just about every kind of popcorn you can think of from regular Butter to Bacon N’ Cheese, Old Bay, Cinnamon Red Hot, Watermelon and S’mores flavors, just to name a few.
If you’re looking for a unique gift for someone, they have an Exclusive OBX tin that can be filled with whatever kind of popcorn you’d like and they can also ship it worldwide for you. Their walls are lined with tons of other different gift tins, so it would be easy to find a suitable design for just about anybody.
Our fourth stop was at Duck Donuts, another place I had never been to before. Marissa DiGiglio is the manager of the four Duck Donuts locations that her family owns here on the Outer Banks. Marissa gave us a brief history of how Duck Donuts was born and then took us to where you can watch your donut being fried.
As soon as it’s done, the staff is there to put whatever kind of topping on you’d like on your fresh, piping hot donut. I quickly realized how it was that their Duck Donuts family business grew so fast. I’m not into sweets too much, but that donut (topped with hot fudge) was awesome!
The fifth stop was Tommy’s Gourmet Market, which was full of fresh seafood, vegetables, wines, teas, cheeses, and much more. We had a wine sampling and spoke with a couple of special guests who were there to display and sample their own “NC Products” creations. Lucinda Hudgins, owner, showed us around her market and told us a little bit of her family’s business story.
I learned a lot from listening to Lucinda talk about how their products were different than you’d find in a regular grocery store, especially about the seafood. Tommy’s Gourmet Market prides themselves on their fresh, unprocessed foods and do their best to promote as many North Carolina products as they can to help support our local economy, which is great for all of us.
Our sixth and final stop of the day was Red Sky Café. We were served some white wine as Chef Tony talked about Red Sky Café and showed us a copy of the recently released healthy recipe book called Tastefully Fit that was written by Red Sky Café owner, Chef Wes Stepp. Then Chef Tony started cooking for us and made a very rich, thick creamy pasta filled with vegetables and topped with grilled chicken. He told us most of the dishes Red Sky Café offers have a “Southern twist on things”.
The dish Chef Tony prepared for us was excellent and definitely not like anything else I’ve ever tasted before. The only thing that made me a little sad was that I was so full and completely stuffed from our other Duck Walking Tour stops that I wasn’t able to finish all of my plate because it was such an amazing dish.
It was a really fun way to spend the day and I enjoyed learning about so many new things and visiting all of these places I had never been to before. I never would’ve found any of the Duck Walking Tour stops on my own, and I’ve been living in the Outer Banks for 15 years.
I would highly recommend Outer Banks Restaurant Tours to anyone, local or visiting, who wants to experience something different and wonderful. It’s definitely worth the money and Terry does a fantastic job planning her tours. Hopefully, we’ll get to see her again soon for another one of the tasty Outer Banks Restaurant Tours she has to offer!
Check out more images from the Duck Walking Tour in our photo gallery below, and then click here to book your own Outer Banks restaurant tour today!
(click an image to enlarge)
50014: There is no such photoset.
______________________________
