Our reservations were at 5:45pm. We arrived about 15 minutes early and were seated right away. We sat downstairs in a room that was at the very end of the tavern. I believe the kitchen was directly behind us, but they did a great job of hiding that from us (except when people like me do a little bit of snooping). There was not much decor in the room we were in except for the candle on our table, which was lit. In fact, there were no electric lights, so had the sun set, I think we would have had a wonderful dinner by candlelight. But, in August at 5:45pm, there is still plenty of sunlight. The building did have A/C, which was nice... it was so hot and humid outside that after walking around all day our clothes just seemed damp. Since they use the older style panes of glass in the windows, there was condensation on the outside due to the high humidity. That was a neat effect on the windows.
We did not start our meal with an appetizer. I'll be honest, I don't remember what Darryl had for dinner, so I'm not going to write about that. I enjoyed the Barnyard Chicken. It was a half chicken that was roasted with herbs and served with a Madeira sauce over tavern potatoes and vegetable of the day. The vegetable was yellow and green squash. My chicken was perfect! I am a fan of dark meat over the white meat, so I started with the leg and thigh. The skin was crisp and had the flavor of thyme, rosemary, and garlic. There was also a spicy kick to it, but I'm not sure which pepper it was. Did not taste like black peppercorn, more like a cayenne. It did have salt and black pepper as well. You could taste the seasoning in the meat as well, and the meat was perfectly moist. The Madeira sauce was very good. It was not quite as thick as a gravy, so it did not have a heavy overbearing presence. It was there as a background flavor that worked nicely. You could pick up hints of onion and carrot in the sauce.
As I'm sure I've said before, I'm not a big veggie fan. Admittedly, I only had a few bites of the squash, just enough to see that they were nice and soft and well flavored with salt and pepper. The simple flavors let the taste of the vegetable shine through. I did enjoy the few bites I took.
My potatoes seemed to be the only problem. I don't think they were fully cooked. They were small red potatoes that had been cut into wedges and then roasted with simple flavoring of salt, pepper and oil or butter. The Madeira sauce was poured over them as well. They still had a bit of a crunch to them. They were still edible and did still taste good. I did not complain or send my dish back. Darryl had the same potatoes and his were done perfectly.
You can't go to a nice place like this without having dessert. I had the Whipped Chocolate Pudding. It was wonderful. It was more like a mouse the way it was whipped until light and fluffy. The whipped cream on top was a perfect balance to the more semi-sweet chocolate underneath. I think I also picked up a hint of cinnamon in the pudding as well. There is a special sipping chocolate (hot chocolate) that was served in the reproduction of the colonial coffeehouse... it had a similar taste. I should have purchased the mix while I was there and perhaps I could describe the taste better. It was not as sweet as the hot chocolate we drink today. I rather enjoyed it!
Since this is a historic attraction, in a tourist destination, you can expect to pay tourist prices. Dinner was quite pricey. My main course was $25.50 (not including tip or tax). I'll let you know what I spend to recreate it in my Part II post. Overall I did not mind spending the money on the meal. The money goes back into Colonial Williamsburg and their ongoing efforts of presenting history.
I would go back to this restaurant again. In fact, I did. Actually, we had lunch there earlier that day. I had a really great turkey, swiss and bacon sandwich (hold the lettuce and tomato please) that came with fried tavern potatoes (that were perfectly cooked). It was a fresh turkey breast, so I will work on recreating that meal again soon. And I'll tell you about the meal at that time.
I just realized that I did not talk about the two entertainers that came through while we had dinner. There was a musician that was playing a flute. His songs were great, with a fast tempo. He also told us stories of his character, a Scottish soldier hired by the Continental Army to help translate for other Scottish soldiers helping fight for America's independence. The second character was a mail carier. He was asking if we had any mail he could take up to Philly, PA... and he went by route through Fredericksburg. I did ask him if he could deliver Darryl as far as Fredericksburg, but he said he would not take him. Only livestock. :)
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