Virginia Beach

I actually started writing this blog awhile ago, but guess what? I got sick again! The doc finally gave me some meds so hopefully I will get better and be able to keep up with my blog.

Instead of blogging day by day I figured I would just write one long blog about the food on our trip. Unfortunately, since it was a RELAXING vacation I didn’t cook, like I had planned on and I didn’t take many pictures. Anyway, I will admit that the reason I didn’t end up cooking is that Domenick ended up sitting on the beach with our cooler and just relaxing with a few brews all day, so I just plain didn’t have the energy that it requires to cook after drinking and laying out all day.

Snacks:

One thing about the beach is that everyone loves to snack there. So we had carrots, which I cut into sticks, some crackers, tortilla chips, pretzels, and nuts. I made some salsa and it was delicious!

Salsa

4-6 plum tomatoes
½ of a small sweet green pepper
¼ medium red onion
½ jalapeno
1 clove of garlic
A handful of chopped cilantro
½ of fresh squeezed lemon
1 fresh squeezed lime
S & P to taste

This is wonderful as a light snack on the beach and salsa and tortilla chips are pretty healthy for you. I really like blue corn tortilla chips.

Breakfast:

Every morning for breakfast we would have fresh fruit. We bought strawberries, bananas, raspberries, and pineapple! They were all amazing. I love starting my day out with fruit; it just makes me feel light and healthy. I also had organic chunky PB with ezekial English muffins for me and Domenick had Thomas mini cinnamon raisin bagels.

We only ate out one morning at Pocahontas Pancakes. I had some sort of veggie egg wrap it was good, but there were too many eggs for me. Next time I would just get the veggies. The potatoes they served along side were very good. Dom had his usual a bagel breakfast sandwich with bacon, egg, and cheese.

Lunch:

For lunch we normally ate leftovers. One day I did make a cucumber tomato salad. I brought salt, pepper, evoo, and herbs and spices from home so that helped a lot! We also had cheese and crackers and salami for Dom.

Dinner

As most of you know I am a pescetarian so I still eat seafood. I do not prepare seafood, but I will eat it when it is the only option on the menu or when I’m on vacation. At the end of the week I was feeling a little gross and bloated from eating too much seafood so I went back to a veg diet.

The first night we got there we just wanted pizza so we could watch the Lost season finale so we ordered in. We got the pizza from Pi-zzeria. The one good thing is that they deliver directly to your hotel room. Domenick got chicken and bacon, while I got pepper and onion. It was pretty expensive and it tasted like cardboard. Dom swears he liked it but I thought it was gross and I would NEVER recommend it. There are plenty of other good pizza places around there including North End Pizza, which was also right across the street, but we didn’t see it that night. We did check it out for lunch one day and it was so much better. They do not accept credit at North End though so make sure you have cash on hand.

On Monday night we checked out CP Shuckers. It was recommended by our concierge for a sports bar with good food so we could watch the flyers. We had some steamed clams, which were really good and then dom got hot wings which they finished on the grill. Let me tell you they smelled AMAZING!!! If you eat meat get these! I got the house salad and a side of hush puppies for my dinner and both were really good especially for bar food.

One of the best places we visited was Lubo Wine Bar. The reason it was our fav was that Tuesdays are $5 flight nights. You get 3 good sized tastings of wine for 5 bucks! You can’t beat that, especially on vacation! The best wine of the night hands down was from a local VA winery and it was Chocolate wine. I’m not an expert by any means but it was probably the best thing I’ve ever drank in my entire life, wine or otherwise! It was to die for and I am about to beat myself over the head for not buying a bottle. They have a pretty veg friendly menu including pizza’s made using a portabella mushroom cap as the crust, but we had there AMAZING sherry crab dip for an app. It was probably one of the best crab dips I’ve ever had. For dinner I just had the house salad which came with portabellas on it! Yumm! Dom had some chicken lettuce wraps which he said were good but a little spicy for him.

Next we ate at Catch 31 and it was alright, the VA beach oysters were really good, and Dom said his filet and lobster was good but I didn’t like my entrée witch was some mixed plate of broiled seafood. I guess the shrimp and scallops were good, but the crab cake was HORRIBLE and the fish was alright! Oh and the veg they served it with was the best part. I would have been happier with that, to tell you the truth. It was UBER expensive so I recommend going somewhere else.

Since we were in VA we tried to find a place for all you can eat blue crab. We met some people down there that recommended a place to us but we ran into them in the lobby and they told us the place was no longer there. Apparently there are no more all you can eat blue crab places in VA beach! Boo! We were really bummed, so our kind concierge recommended an awesome place to get crab cakes called Beachcomber. Domenick and I both got crab cakes. He didn’t think 2 were enough for him so I got 2 as well. Anyway, they come with 2 sides or a head of broccoli with hollandaise sauce. Domenick got them with mashed potatoes and gravy and coleslaw. He said the mashed potatoes were good but they had meat gravy on them so I didn’t try them. The coleslaw was very good. I got the head of broccoli; it was perfectly steamed so I didn’t use the sauce. The crab cakes were close to the best crab cakes I’ve ever had if not the best. There was NO filler! It was all crabmeat and at a decent price. If you are anywhere around VA beach and you like crab cakes go here! I ended up taking home a crab cake and some broccoli but it made for a great lunch the next day.

I was planning on making pasta on Friday but Domenick and I decided to kill a bottle of Prosecco and do shots of patron café in the morning so that killed that idea. Once again we headed to the concierge in search of good Italian. He recommended Isle of Capri, which is oceanfront which was wonderful. We got the Caesar salad for 2. It was prepared in front of us, out of real ingredients, which I believe is a lost art. For those of you that know me I don’t really like Caesar, but I knew Domenick wanted it so I decided to be a good wife and get it with him. It was AMAZING and so fresh. I would definitely go there again just for this salad. The only problem was that it filled us up quite a bit so we ended up taking a large part of our dinner home. I ended up getting the pasta primavera but with the red sauce. It was pretty good, but mine is better! Domenick got the chicken picatta and he said it was good.

Finally for our last night we wanted to check out Abbey Road, mainly because they have 101 international beers. I had a wild blueberry wheat from the good old US of A and a black beer from brazil. They were both good, but the blueberry won out in my book. Dom had a raspberry wheat and then stuck to miller light. For apps we got beer battered onion rings and fries. Here’s a tip for people who are vegetarians but used to like wings, get wing sauce with your battered onion rings and you won’t miss a thing! For dinner Domenick had a lb of king crab legs, since he’d been craving crab. They looked good, but I didn’t want anymore seafood at that point so I had veg chili, which was more of a soup than a chili in my book and my veg chili kicks its butt! I also had a house salad, I have to be completely honest here, the lettuce was wilted and gross and the dressing was horrible. I think they are better at bar food, but I will be back, but mainly for the beer.

Overall it was a wonderful and relaxing vacation. Hopefully we will be back to VA beach, but next time I would like to cook!