11th Street Taphouse, Virginia Beach, Virginia

On a hot evening in late June, Cary and I ventured out to Virginia Becah to try the 11th Street Taphouse.  For the amount of money we paid it was not a good experience.  If we were to forget the amount of money we paid and just consider the quality of food it was also not a good experience.  The wait staff was meek and timid and the chairs were flimsy.  Even the drinks were watered down.

Cary ordered the sliders with fries.  I think that I've had better sliders reheated from the freezer, and the fries were nothing special.  I ordered the catch of the day, flounder.  The flounder came with a starch and a vegetable.  The starch was brown rice, which I'm confident was Uncle Ben's or a cheaper non brand-name wild rice, and the vegetable was corn on the cob.  Corn is also a starch.  So I got two starches.  I don't particularly care that I got two starches but I do smirk when a restaurant claims one thing and presents another, my guess is because they don't know the difference.  The flounder came out tasting more like fish jerky than fresh catch o'the day.  I don't recal how boring and un-rememberable the two starched were.

I am glad that Cary and I were able to have a date night on the beach.  We've also discovered a restaraunt that we don't ever need to go back to.

Cary prior to falling asleep eating 30 dollar sliders.

Maybe the lemons were the vegetable, or the mayonaise?  Fish jerky is in the top right hand corner of the plate.  Maybe the only good thing about the restaurant was the pleasantly shaped plates.

A.W. Shucks

A recent trip to A.W. Shucks off of 22nd Street in Ghent resulted in a wonderful meal, which has come to be the norm at this particular restaurant.  Cary ordered and received the flounder with sides of mashed potatoes and brocolli.  A very healthy option for my beautiful wife.  I ordered the soft shell crab with sides of coleslaw and hush puppies.  I have never had fired soft shell crab before and was not sure how I was going to handle eating the guts of this crab.  It was actually very easy.  It helps that the crabs are covered in frying batter, and the crab guts were likely saturated in oil, thus enhancing the natural flavor of crab guts into fried crab guts.  Fried anything is always better. The coleslaw was plain old coleslaw and the hush puppies were great, coinciding with my expectation from A.W. Shucks.

This is an easy restaurant to go out to because of our repeated and continued success at quality meals when dining at A.W. Shucks.  Sometimes the wait is a little long, and during this encounter the waitress mixed up bills, increasing our wait time by about 10 minutes.  Regardless, we will be back here soon enough.

EURASIA

Cary, Tina, Eric, and I went to Eurasia in Virginia Beach.  This was the first time Cary and I had been to the restaurant, located in an unassuming strip mall off of Laskin Road.  The food and the wait staff was excellent.  For my appetizer I had beef carpacio (first beef carpacio experience for me),  it came with a truffled egg salad cube and salad greens.  My favorite part was the carpacio, not an offensive flavor and a unique texture.  Cary even tried one mouthful.  She had sashemi over fried avocado.  The sashemi tasted like sashemi we could get anywhere, but I've never had fried avocado.  The fried avocado was great.  For my entree I had the catch of the day, grouper, with oysters Rockefeller.  I had no idea of what oysters Rockefeller was, so I figured I would give it a shot.  The oysters were prepared fried, which according to Wikipedia, is not oysters Rockefeller.  The flounder was great, and the mashed potatoes the fish were served on top of were also great.  Cary had the shrimp and grits.  Good overall, I liked the grits portion, the shrimp were just plain on shrimp.  Nothing special. 

Overall it was great, we had the opportunity to try some food that had never eaten before.

http://www.eurasiavb.com/

Green Onion

Cary and I, and a couple of her friends, visited Green Onion for dinner last evening.  It was Wednesday and that means all you can eat mussels in a garlic butter sauce.  Cary had one portion, the fried it was served with were a little on the hard side and the garlic butter sauce was a little watered down from previous versions we have eaten.

I had a pear, blue cheese, chicken, and candied pecan salad.  I have never had that menu option at Green Onion before and enjoyed every bit of the salad.  The chicken served on top was enough to make it a meal, nothing special about it though.  The greatness of this salad was the combination of asian pears, blue cheese, and candied pecans.  I would definitely eat that again.

Omar's Carriage House

This small restaurant, in the Freemason part of downtown Norfolk, is a wonderful food adventure that Cary and I have missed for the 4 years or so that we've been living in Norfolk.  From the outside it's not very impressive, or big, and once seated in some flimsy chairs with thin bedcovers I was ready to be underwhelmed.  Fortunately, the food was great, and as a plus we went on Monday night which is also "Morrocan Night."  We each got an appetizer, hummus and a the salad made of tomatos, mozzarella cheese, basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegear.  Forget the name but it was good!  Cary got a potato encrusted flounder and I had the grilled vegetables and steak over Morrocan couscous.  Both were great and portion sizes were large enough I could not eat all of the food.