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.

Celebrating Local & Regional Food

It seems that August is the month for celebrating local & regional food, both here in Virginia and across the country.

This week (August 1-7) is National Farmers' Market Week, and the Suffolk Farmers' Market is celebrating today 10am-1pm with live banjo music, a rug weaving demonstration, special discounts and food samples, and a farm animal petting zoo.

The Virginia Dept of Agriculture & Consumer Services is sponsoring a Farmers' Market Photo Contest: "Submit your favorite digital photograph taken at a Virginia farmers' market between July 8, 2010 and August 18, 2010. The winners will receive a Virginia Grown/Virginia's Finest prize package worth $100 each."

So if you head out to the farmers' market today, don't forget to bring your camera!

Next week (August 8-14) is Farm to Feast Week, and 11 restaurants in the Hampton Roads area - including Stove, Tautog's, Todd Jurich's Bistro, the Boot, and Croc's Eco Bistro - will be offering 3-course meals that feature local meat, fish, wine, cheese, & produce for $20/$30.

And finally, the American Farmland Trust is sponsoring the America's Favorite Farmers' Markets contest - vote online now for your favorite market!

For some ideas on what to do with all the yummy produce you pick up at the market, check out this post from Whole Foods.

If you're on Twitter, you might like to follow ...

@VirginiaGrown

@BuyLocalHR

@saveourfood (from Richmond, VA)

@VAWineEvent

Note: Photo at top was found online here.

"A Strange but Beautiful Place"

Last week Randy & Kim invited me & Topher to join them and our friends Mike & Jane one night for dinner at a hole-in-the-wall eatery in Portsmouth: Stove, the restaurant. The whole evening was a bizarre, delicious experience.

Randy had mentioned Stove before, but we'd never eaten there or heard anyone else mention it. So I did a little online research and discovered that 1) Stove is located near the Midtown Tunnel, not in cute, quaint Old Towne Portsmouth, and 2) parts of their website are weird, which led me to believe that the owner/chef Syd Meers is also a little strange. But the menu looked pretty good, and the restaurant had received favorable reviews on Yelp and Urbanspoon, so I was hopeful.

On this particular evening, the Lord decided to bless Hampton Roads with all the rain that He'd been withholding all summer long. Just as we left Randy & Kim's house it began to pour, and the deluge continued all the way to Portsmouth.

Crazy thunder & lightning, driving sheets of rain, downed trees, flooded streets - it was a mess! The drive took almost twice as long as usual because everyone was traveling at half speed with their caution lights flashing. When we finally arrived at the restaurant, we had to take off our shoes and wade through the street to even get to the front door!

Once inside the real fun began: the mint green walls were covered with mounted animal heads and Syd's original artwork - "wacky" is the word that comes to mind. We were seated in orange mesh chairs and served drinks in curved glasses. The spelling on the menu is, um, creative (Itlay, really?), and is accompanied by a "foodtionary" explaining unfamiliar terms on the menu such as "lardo," "holy trinity," and "smoochie bear ham."

I was immediately excited by the extensive cheese list, as well as the chef's apparent obsession with pork and bacon (judging by the number of dishes listing one or both as ingredients). I was torn between several dishes, and this is exactly how they were described on the menu -- I mean, how could I make up this stuff?

• "real big gulf coast brown shrimp b-4 bp (hehe) - pan sauté of jumbo shrimp with tomato, shiitake and scallions with a pimento cheese pancake and grilled pork belly bacon"
• "u-10 diver scallop: seared big scallop on creamed corn and smoochie bear ham with a stone ground grits timbale and peppered lemon crème fraiche" - Randy ordered this as an appetizer, so I got to taste a bite: the scallops were just a tad undercooked, i.e. perfect, not rubbery at all, slightly seared on the outside and translucent in the middle

I ended up choosing one of the specials: "the visiting fish - i look for the just out of water fish my guy bruce gets me and I then will put together a nice dish for you, we’ll inform u of the evenings dish." Sounded good to me!

Not only was the food fantastic, but the service was great as well. Randy & Kim are regulars, so they knew our waitress. She had a great sense of humor, perfect timing, and confident recommendations. She brought clean silverware for every course and periodically cleaned the table with a crumb brush.

We didn't feel rushed, so the six of us just took our time and enjoyed the conversation and fellowship. (Never mind that it was a weeknight, and we all had to get up for work the next day.) Three hours later as we were getting into Randy's car to head home, Topher mused, "That's a strange but beautiful place." I couldn't have said it better myself.

What We Ate:

• artisan cheese plate: Buttermilk Bleu, Green Hill Camembert, Bellavitano Black Pepper, and Syd's Neo-Pimento, served with house relish & chips - don't roll your eyes: this was the best pimento cheese Topher or I have ever tasted!


• salad: crisp hearts of romaine lettuce and baby lettuce, watermelon radish & our visiting cheese tossed with a mustard vinaigrette


• my entree: sauté sockeye salmon on a pan roast of mixed summer squash, topped with Vidalia onions and shrimp in a cherry tomato pinot reduction - being a Georgia girl, I was excited about the sweet onions from Vidalia, GA; the salmon was cooked perfectly, too - just a little underdone


• Topher's entree: "the ‘pork o rama’ bbq - local darden farm’s pork sausage, my smoochie bear ham & black pig pork belly on warm visiting potato salad with lardo and stove-b-que sauce" - Topher gave me a taste of the pork belly, and it was delicious! He also said the barbecue sauce was really well done.


• dessert: out of the oven - fresh peach "petite cobbler" sprinkled with smoked sea salt and topped with fresh whipped cream - not too big, just enough to have a taste of something salty-sweet at the end of the meal

The Scoop:
Stove, the restaurant is located at 2622 Detroit Avenue, Portsmouth, VA 23707. They're open for dinner T-R 5-9pm (with an early bird special 5-6:30pm) and F-Sat 5-10pm, and for brunch on the 1st Sun of every month 11am-3pm. Reservations can be made only by phone: (757)397-0900. Find them on Facebook. And check out their Farm to Feast Week, August 8-14!

Note: The pictures above are from Stove's website.

A Speakeasy in Old Towne Portsmouth

This week I checked two places off my summer "to-dine" list, and I can happily report that I enjoyed both.

On Tuesday evening, I met my friend Stacy in Old Towne Portsmouth for dinner at Still. This place definitely gives off a 1930's speakeasy vibe: You enter at a street-level door located on a side street with almost no signage and then immediately walk down a half flight of stairs to the dimly lit bar and lounge, which features leather arm chairs, low tables, and exposed brick walls. The only windows are small ones near the ceiling. All dishes are served in small, tapas-sized portions, and the cocktail menu is extensive.

What We Ate:

• House bread with bacon jalapeno cheddar butter
• Fresh spinach salad with poached egg, bacon, and tangy tomato dressing
• Panko encrusted oysters with New Orleans remoulade
• Spicy chicken vindaloo over saffron rice, with mango chutney & naan bread - definitely has a kick!
• Shrimp and andouille sausage tossed with penne in a spicy tomato cream sauce
• "Melt in your mouth" bread pudding with whiskey hard sauce - amazing! the bread was much lighter than a typical bread pudding, so the dish overall wasn't as heavy
• To drink: a vodka martini with a lemon twist (me) and a whiskey sour (Stacy)

We also considered the arugula salad with roasted pears, the curry chick peas, the sauteed gnocchi, and the glazed pork over polenta, and we almost ordered a second dessert: peach blackberry cobbler. I'll definitely be back to Still!

The Scoop:

Still Worldly Eclectic Tapas is located at 450 Court Street (at the corner of Queen St.), Portsmouth, VA 23704. Find them on Facebook.

Note: The image above is from the Still website.

My Summer "To Dine" List

This summer I have a "to dine" (rather than a "to do") list. Here are a few places in Hampton Roads that I want to try:

• 465 Fish - a seafood restaurant in downtown Norfolk with a great reputation (we have a gift card from my Aunt Kay & Uncle David -- thanks so much!)
• Still - an allegedly chic tapas spot in Portsmouth (girls' night out, anyone?)
• The Chef's Kitchen - a restaurant in Williamsburg set up stadium-style, so you can watch the chefs prepare your meal and learn as you go (another gift card from my Aunt Kay & Uncle David - thanks!)
• Todd Jurich's Bistro - we went for restaurant week in February and were slightly underwhelmed (the food was good, but not great), but we have a gift certificate, and I'm looking forward to giving it another chance
• Amici's Pizza Cafe - a Suffolk favorite; I've been there only once, with some girlfriends; the food was good, but the service was less than impressive (our supposed 20-minute wait for a table turned into a 45-minute wait; once seated, we waited another 20 minutes for the waitress to even take our order); I'm hoping Topher & I will have a better experience next time

Here's to happy summer eating!