Shame on you Steiny's

I went to Steinhilbers last night with a group of friends to celebrate Virginia Beach’s restaurant week. Many of whom experienced it for the first time. The last time I was at Steiny’s I took a giant leap forward, last night I took two giant leaps back.

I’ve said it before; Restaurant Weeks are a great time for a restaurant to showcase its goods to new comers in an effort to win them back for repeat business. I took last night’s performance as a weak attempt for Steiny’s to simply make as much bank it could off of the week rather than thinking of the long term benefits of putting its best plate forward. Therefore you will see no photos in this post as I left completely uninspired.

Steiny’s presented a four course menu for right at $30. Honestly, the first course options were the most impressive on the entire menu and my choice was my favorite of my meal. I chose the crawfish etouffee which was really tasty and would have been awesome if it had been served to me while it was still hot, or even warm. The presentation was also completely unimaginative. It looked like slop on a plate. Boo.

Second course was a simple salad, yawn. For my entrée I chose the pork which here again lacked imagination, presentation and the proper temperature. My pork tenderloin was overcooked which made it dry and the over salted sauce did nothing to help it. The rest of the entrée options were prime rib (yawn), a flounder dish (couldn’t we have had a better seafood option) and the third dish must have been so overwhelmingly vanilla that I have completely forgotten. (Note: I went back to look and the forgotten dish was Steiny's "famous" shrimp. Ironic?) I understand the need to maintain a price point but come on, if Steiny’s wants this week to be a success they need to get a wider variety of Crayola’s to play with. 

For dessert I had the tapioca option which was pudding with vanilla ice cream, strawberries and whipped cream. It was actually good but compared to the rest of the meal they only had up to go.

I still love Restaurant Week and I am looking forward to my next adventure next week in Norfolk, and I will still head back to Steinhilbers at some point – but man, I’d love to shake the management with a solid “What were you thinking?”