Dashi
Dashi is a ramen shop and izakaya in downtown Durham. It is opening in early-January. I was lucky enough to go to a tasting a few weeks ago and the ramen in very good. Definitely not the instant soup stuff a lot of places around here try to pass off!
DashiRamen.com
Blue Kudzu Sake Company
A fellow JETAA told me about this place they checked out while in Asheville a couple months ago. A real live sake brewery in the mountains of NC. Between this place and the wasabi farm out there it's starting to turn into Little Japan.
BlueKudzuSake.com