A Birthday Dinner for a Wonderful Husband

Today is my husband Topher's birthday (yay!), and last night we celebrated with our friends Randy & Kim at Stove restaurant in Portsmouth.

One thing I like about their menu: most of their dishes come in both small and large portion sizes. So, if you can't decide between two dishes, you can order one as an appetizer and one as your entrée. Which is exactly what Topher and I did last night.

What We Ate:

• artisan cheese plate: Syd's Neo-Pimento, Farmstead Fresh goat cheese (Virginia), Gorgonzola (Italy), and Bellavitano Black Pepper served with bread & house relish
• my appetizer: the "Stove-o-tarian," a mix of local, in-season vegetables including Brussels sprouts and several different squashes, topped with a fried onion ring
• Topher's appetizer: "visiting greens" salad - "different lettuces from the farms with our visiting cheese tossed with a mustard vinaigrette"
• my entrée: rockfish topped with cabbage and rutabagas - I love rockfish, but I mainly ordered this dish for the rutabagas, and they didn't disappoint
• Topher's entrée: Hereford strip steak topped with brie and "lardo," served with Brussels sprouts and smoked tomatoes
• for dessert: country apple tart - the crust on this was amazing: so light, flaky, and buttery!
• to drink: Trinitas Old Vine Petite Sirah

Randy & Kim have been to Stove at least half a dozen times, and Randy always orders the "Pork-o-rama" - "local darden farm’s pork sausage, my smoochie bear ham & black pig pork belly on visiting potato sauté with cured lardo and stove-b-que sauce."

Well, last night after our meal, chef Syd Meers came out and sat & talked with us for a while, and he ended up giving Randy and Topher the recipe for his "stove-b-que" sauce. It must have 2 dozen ingredients in it! Fresh herbs & spices, peppers, bacon, ketchup, molasses, apple cider vinegar - the list just went on and on. I know the guys are going to want to try to make it sometime, but grocery shopping for all the ingredients is going to be a genuine scavenger hunt.

Birthday Dinner at Tautog's

My good friends Heather & Ally have birthdays only four days apart this week, so we celebrated together yesterday in Virginia Beach. The three of us laid by the pool for a couple of hours and read, then met up with our husbands for dinner at Tautog's.

Housed in the wood-shingled Winston Cottage just a block from the oceanfront boardwalk, Tautog's has a cozy atmosphere – a cute screen porch out front, lots of dark wood décor inside, and a friendly, laid back wait staff.

The regular menu includes standard "seafood at the beach" fare: crab cake sandwich, salmon salad, cornmeal-coated oven-fried catfish, tilapia au gratin with asparagus, and Mid-Atlantic pasta (penne tossed with shrimp, artichokes, zucchini, and portabella mushrooms in marinara sauce). Last night the specials looked amazing, so we decided to go with those.

They also have a pretty decent wine list, including quite a few from California (Seghesio, Frog's Leap, Hendry, Honig, Cakebread, and Chateau St. Jean). Topher chose a bottle of Nautilus for the table – a nice crisp, citrus-y New Zealand sauvignon blanc that went well with the fish.

The Appetizers:

• Spinach artichoke dip, served with corn chips – much better than the average dip! Made with cream cheese and large leaves of spinach
• A dozen steamed shrimp, served with butter & cocktail sauce
• She-crab soup – Ally's favorite that she generously let us taste – rich & creamy!

The Entrées:

• Topher: Pepper-seared mahi, served over pasta with homemade spicy red sauce, topped with chopped fresh herbs & lemon butter
• Ally, Heather, & Reid: Oven-baked salmon, served over Kahlua sweet potato hash and sautéed green beans, topped with saffron hollandaise
• Me & Seth: Oven-baked tilefish, served over buttermilk mashers and cauliflower infused with smoked apple wood bacon and parmesan, topped with Old Bay beurre blanc

The Dessert:

• Key lime pie

The Scoop:
Tautog's Restaurant at Winston's Cottage is located at 205 23rd Street, Virginia Beach, VA 23451. Their hours are Sun-W 5:30pm-12am, R-Sat 5:30pm-2am. Reservations (recommended) are available by calling 757-422-0081.

Three notes about my entrée:

1. I had never had tilefish before, so the guys enjoyed using their Blackberrys and iPhones to educate me on the spot: tilefish is a mild, firm white fish similar to flounder or tilapia. While delicious, it's not recommended for pregnant or nursing moms, due to concerns about its mercury content.
2. I feel that cauliflower is an overlooked and often neglected vegetable, kind of like the forgotten stepsister of broccoli. I appreciate a chef that can bring out its subtle flavors. :)
3. As the photo below attests, my entire dinner plate was white!

Belated Birthday Dinner at Press 626

This past Monday evening, my girlfriends Ally & Heather took me out to dinner for my birthday. As we were savoring olive tapenade on toast points and sipping Meritage, Heather suggested that I should blog about the fun places that I eat.

Now I'm not a food critic, or a foodie, or even a good cook. My husband, however, is a great cook (I'm so blessed!), and wherever we go, he finds the best restaurants. It started when I lived in DC for three months during our engagement and continued with our honeymoon in California wine country last spring. On all our trips now, I plan the "activities" and he plans the meals.

So I've decided to give the blog idea a try. I'll post about the restaurants we visit, the delicious meals we eat, and the things that I learn about food along the way (I've got a LOT to learn -- I'm pathetic in the kitchen!). I might even throw in a few recipes, or some of the amazing meals that my husband makes at home.

I'll start with the birthday dinner I mentioned before, at Press 626 in Norfolk, VA. This is one of my favorite spots in Ghent. I've eaten here 4-5 times already, and I'll definitely go back. If you're looking for the perfect classy/casual girls' night out in Hampton Roads, this is the place. And Monday is Ladies' Night, too!

What I ate:

• A trio of spreads (oven-roasted red pepper cheese spread, lemon & garlic hummus, and sun-dried tomato & olive tapenade) with toast points -- the tapenade is my favorite

• Gruyere cream angel hair pasta with shrimp, local asparagus, portabella mushrooms & fresh herbs -- a little rich towards the end, but very yummy! And the asparagus wasn't overcooked.

• Rock and Vine (Meritage) Three Ranches '06 (North Coast, California) -- wines by the glass are half off for ladies on Mondays, and I'm obsessed with Meritage right now!

• Champagne cupcake with blueberry filling & lemon cream icing -- free for my birthday :)

The Scoop:

Press 626 (www.press626.com) is located at 626 W. Olney Road, Norfolk, VA 23507. Their hours are M-F 11am-11pm, Sat 5-11pm, and Sun Brunch 10:30am-2:30pm. Reservations are available by calling 757-282-6234.

In future posts: highlights from weekend getaways in Philadelphia, Chicago, & New York City, plus the best (and most expensive) meal I've ever eaten!