Norfolk Restaurant Week - Byrd & Baldwin

A meal has to be good when you are so excited about the food in your mouth that you actually bit your own tongue. Yes, that was me and today the tenderness of my delicate mouth muscle is a constant reminder of the delicious piece of beef that was served to me last night at Byrd & Baldwin Brothers Steakhouse for Norfolk Restaurant Week.

I love going out to eat with people and taking them to new places and introducing them to new things. In contrast I also like going to new places and being introduced to new things. Last night was an anniversary-type celebration of having being introduced to Byrd & Baldwin and Malbec a few years ago and now passing the torch and sharing the love as I shared both with first timers.

This place just feels good. It is dimly lit with hardwood floors encased in this beautiful old building in downtown Norfolk. I’d love to clear the tables and set that place to host and cater a party. Mmm, can you imagine? I can already see the black and white photographs capturing the evening.

For Restaurant Week they pulled together an impressive array of options for the $30 menu. My first course was the Caesar salad, a traditional chop house salad with their Caesar dressing. I’ve come to be a Caesar snob and this one didn’t disappoint. My entrée was the center cut six-ounce Filet Mignon with mashed potatoes and broccoli. They also had a few seafood options but really? How can I come to a steakhouse and get a fish? The filet was soft and tender and simply and ever so tastily melted in my mouth. I was asked who has the better “steak” Byrd & Baldwin or Ruth’s Chris. Tough question and at that point I couldn’t answer (bad memory after a few glasses of wine). Would love to know your thoughts if you’ve experienced both. I will say that the sides at Ruth’s Chris outshine those at Byrd & Baldwin. The sides that accompanied my filet seemed to be an after- thought, especially the broccoli which was just uninspired and made me want to squeal like a child trying to escape the greens my mom was forcing me to eat (for my own good). The finishing touch was the classic burnt egg custard with fresh seasonal fruit (which were strawberries and are they really in season?), Vanilla Bean Crème Brulee – and yes, it was good.

Overall it was a great way to end “I love food month” and the restaurant week celebration.

I've been twisted - Twisted Sister Cupcakes

Cupcakes are hot. It seems like they are the “it” food to this generation as fondue was to those in the 60s. Cupcake shops seem to be sprouting up all over Hampton Roads and at this point you may have heard about Twisted Sister Cupcakes. They are in the news and all over social media platforms posting and tweeting their mobile locations and their creative flavors of their fresh baked goodies.

Yes, mobile locations. They bring the sweet treats to you and one of the most exciting parts of starting my new job last week was knowing they make regular stops at my office. It was high priority for me last week to visit and sample my first (followed by second and third) Twisted Sister Cupcake. First one was coffee inspired and my least favorite. The second was the one I think they call the Pink Diva (see photo) and my favorite. I also picked up the Elvis referenced cupcake that had banana, peanut butter icing with chocolate drizzle with a piece of bacon atop. After picking off the bacon (not in my sweats please) this one was pretty good as well.

This week I was equally excited to see the spotted truck but for different reasons. My twitter feed yesterday told me that they would be carrying coveted concert tickets that are sold out everywhere else. Not only do they bring tasty treats but they have coupled my love of food with my love of music by selling Norva tickets out of the van. Seeing that our location would be the second stop I knew for sure I’d be good to go. Whom, whom. No dice.

So I was pouting and protesting the calorie bombs. How surprised was I when I co-worker walks in with a box offering me a Butterfinger cupcake so I cave. It’s not their fault I waited to the last minute and the sweet little mound of buttery confection made it easy to move on.

One Fish. Two Fish. Wish I Got the Fish.

I first sat down to eat and was welcomed with a roaring laugh after asking my dining partners if they weren’t drinking. At that point I knew I was in for a good evening if not for the company alone. They had been waiting on my arrival for at least ten minutes yet there was only water sitting in front of them. Seemed like a reasonable question to me. Alas, two glasses of Chardonnay came with my arrival of (wait for it) a Malbec.

Ah, Virginia Beach Restaurant Week. I had big plans for the week but what I found was the later I waited the harder it was to get reservations to the places I wanted to eat. I was unable to get seating at either Salacia or Terrapin that would work for my or my dining companions schedule so my week of out-to-eat indulgence was limited to just this one night.

The evening’s meal was being brought to us by One Fish Two Fish, nicely tucked away in Long Bay Point Marina on the inlet waters off of Shore Drive. I love this place for the location alone. It is exceptionally nice in the summer when you can watch the sun go down. You can pretty much get a good view from any area of the restaurant (not the bar area) but if it is nice outside go for deck seating. Of course since it is winter it is way too cold for that and it is dark early anyways. (Boo, just another two reasons why summer rocks.)

I started my three-course dinner ($27.11) with the Baked Oyster Rockefeller. These were well done and looked great perched on the half shell with the beautiful greenery of spinach. My next choice was the Lobster and Crab Stuffed Crepes with savory tarragon cream and Parmesan gratinee. I guess it tasted good but I was honestly disappointed. Perhaps it was because it was too heavy. The crepes were thicker than I think they should have been. As much as I love lobster and crab I would have liked to have seen some sort of vegetable incorporated into the dish. Maybe some asparagus running through or something? I don’t know, I’m not a chef – I just know the dish left me uninspired. I ended the meal with the Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie with vanilla bean ice cream and Cordillera chocolate sauce. I really don’t think there is a way possible to go bad with that combination. It was tasty. Period.

If you decide to hit One Fish Two Fish for the week please get the Black Pepper Seared Salmon with pancetta, chanterelles, orecchiette pasta, and sage cream and let me know how it is. I have a suspicion that if one of us had ordered it that night I would have been out ordered. (We all got the exact same thing from start to finish for the exception of the wine.)

Overall it was a great night. Restaurant Week was the excuse to bring three people together who hadn’t seen each other in months. Virginia Beach Restaurant Association does a great job in pulling this event together, promoting the menus online and encouraging people to get out and dine. Giving the public the opportunity to try a new establishment, taste new dishes and spend some time in the original social networking platform.

Ashley's Ice Cream via Bill's Seafood and Ice Cream Shop

Ice cream isn’t top of mind when you think about holiday treats, but for the O’Neal clan who were together in Connecticut for Christmas that is exactly what we went for. Pretty easy when you are trying to make my adorable four-year old niece and one-year old nephew happy.

After lunch at Bill’s Seafood (a place I will liken to our own Chick’s Oyster Bar for the exception that characters at Bill’s are saltier than the party crew at Chick’s) we walked over to Bill’s Ice Cream Shop to enjoy a scoop before they close till the spring.

There were a ton of flavors. Usually I go straight for the chocolate and peanut butter combination (which they had and I sampled and it was GOOD) but I saw something else on the menu that caught my attention – coffee ice cream with Oreo cookies, two of my vices in one heavenly scoop. Done. I’ve been craving this little treat since then and I usually am not amped on ice cream in the winter months. The velvety texture of the coffee ice cream interspersed with the chocolaty heaven of an Oreo cookie was yum!

We learned that Bill’s serves Ashley’s Ice Cream which is home-made locally in Connecticut. I was hoping to find through the website that I could order some more of this yum-yum and have it shipped to my house but their website is operating from the 80s with many sections “under construction” which I presume has been like that for years (tsk tsk).

My other lesson on this particular outing is that grandparents have no boundaries when it comes to their grandchildren. My sister-in-law wisely requested the kid’s ice cream in a bowl only to have the request over ridden by my mother who asked for it in a cone. Please see photo for reference why this was such a horrible idea.

Good times. Good treats. And a nice little memory of our Christmas Eve day on the shores of Connecticut.

January = I Love Food Month

I’m not a fan of the cold weather and January is generally just a month to get through as I inch closer to the warm weather, summer and the beach. However, for us food lovers Virginia Beach and Norfolk give us their individual restaurant weeks to help us get through the month. Therefore I have unofficially deemed January as “I Love Food Month.”

Virginia Beach is first up to serve their plates with their week starting on January 9 through 16. I have to give love to 501 City Grill (cause of the super-hot wait staff). Venture here with my recommendation of the prime cut petite filet mignon with pinot noir and crimini mushroom sauce with honey whipped sweet potatoes. One of my favorite things on the menu. Follow that up with the rum raisin bread pudding (made in-house) and you will leave pleased, I promise. However, the beauty of restaurant week is to sample new places. I discovered and feel in love with Terrapin through last year’s restaurant week. This year I am headed to The Cellars. I’ve heard great things about this place and I cannot wait to check it out.

Norfolk ends the month of food love with their week beginning January 23 through 30. Not to show any favoritism to my home town but the Virginia Beach website is far better than the Norfolk one for checking out the menu options. It is a toss-up for me at this point. Todd Jurich’s (I could really go for some more of that pumpkin and crab soup that I recently sampled at the Hampton Roads Magazine party) or Byrd & Baldwin? If you want to sway me leave a comment and I will let you all pick the Norfolk location for me.

Check back to read about my experiences and get out there and have some of your own. Enjoy the month of food love!