Edo's Squid - Richmond, VA

Road trip time. It was my man-love’s birthday, his favorite band was playing in Richmond and he has had this insatiable appetite for Italian lately. I put out some feelers and decided to give Edo's Squid a try. Pretty crazy name right? There is not a website to be found, not even a Facebook page. I was able to check out reviews on Yelp and Urban Spoon, as well as a few blog posts from other food fans.

The obvious resistance to technology should have been the first clue to how “old school” this joint is. It is a few blocks away from VCU (known for its art students). Walking the streets were the hipsters trying to do their best to “be different” all the while looking like the trendy clones of one another. (Dude I’m getting old.) Same goes for our feather adorned waitress, but she was super helpful in navigating us through the Italian wine list and leading us to pick a bottle from Secco-Bertam. When I say Italian wine list – they weren’t just Italian wines, it was written in Italian – “yo no comprendo!” But the wine was great. Not too dry with great spices.

A friend suggested the fried oysters and arugula salad so we ordered one of each to split. The oysters were the best fried oysters I’ve ever had. They were surrounded with a thick, flavorful breading that physically just looked prettier than your standard run-of-the-mill fried dish.

For my entrée I went with the Italian sausage with white beans and polenta cake. Having attempted to make my own polenta cake a few months back to disastrous results I wanted to check out how it should really be done. It was a great hue of yellow, firm and delicious but I couldn’t even tackle it as it was so big and completely made to look like the ugly step sister after tasting the AMAZING Italian beans. Those suckers were legit. I had an overwhelming portion of sausage that had to be made in house. Mmm so spicy good. I had SO much left over that I served it with breakfast the following morning.

Specials are written on a flip tablet hung on the wall, which is what I ordered from. The printed menu was basically - pick your pasta, penne or spaghetti, and how you’d like that pasta dressed. Here again, huge portions.