It has been a crazy week when it comes to Mother Nature! First she shakes Virginia with a 5.8 earthquake on Tuesday, canceling nursing school for a week and breaking an ice wine glass in my house. (OK, we also had a picture fall off the wall in a spare bedroom, a candle in the guest bathroom had to be fished out of the toilet, and a bunch of games for the Wii were scattered throughout the living room). Thursday night, Fredericksburg is hit with a "freak storm" with high winds, heavy rain, and lots of lightning. It was during Thursday's storm we were able to see the physical damage to the house from the earthquake, both back doors were leaking water. Luckily it just took some caulking to fix. Friday was calm, but Saturday ushered in Irene, a category 1 hurricane with wind gusts of up to 40mph and about 4 inches of rain. I think I would say that Thursday night was a little worse than all day Saturday.
My restaurant adventures began on Thursday. We had guests that arrived during our storm. Afterwords we decided to go out to eat. The storm knocked out power to a great deal of the City of Fredericksburg, but found TGI Friday's to be open. I decided to go with my normal chicken fingers and fries. Nothing exciting, and a meal I cook regularly (using a really cool recipe from Bisquick). I will not be writing about this one.
Saturday, we decided to brave the rain and went to the Spotsylvania Towne Center to see the new bookstore, Charming Charlies and Le Gourmet Chef. While there we stopped at the pretzel place for a quick snack, and then to A&W for a hot dog and cheese curds. I'll admit... I'm the one who wanted the cheese curds. We got the hot dog just so we could say "We chased down a dog in a hurricane!" OK, long story... guess you had to be there.
Saturday evening, we decided to take our guests to Capital Ale House in Downtown Fredericksburg. This is definitely one of my favorite places to go downtown. They have approximately 65 beers on tap and an additional 300 in bottles. You can find something for everything. The staff is very knowledgeable about the beers and can recommend one or a few for you. You can also get samples for $.25 each. The food is also amazing! I have not had a bad meal there yet.
So, I said this is one of my favorites... admittedly, my visit on Saturday was my second of the week. We were there Wednesday night with some other guests. Wednesday I had a great lamb burger with brie cheese and Dijon mustard, served on a croissant, with the baby spinach held (one day I may be brave enough to actually start eating those pesky green things). The lamb burger was well seasoned with rosemary and perhaps some thyme. The rosemary was very strong, and sorta overpowered most of the other flavors. I've had this burger before and it was amazing every other time I've had it. It comes with a side of frites and a flavored mayo for dipping.
On Saturday, we ordered an appetizer of the frites with the four flavors of mayo: garlic, dill (my favorite), chipotle, and regular. It was raining pretty good outside, and the wind was blowing pretty strong as well... I would say sustained winds in the upper 20mph. The power went out. Our meals were not quite ready yet, but the kitchen could not continue to cook because the vents were not working. The manager was really great about it and gave us a Bavarian pretzel with three different cheeses, two sausages, grapes, and a mustard dipping sauce, all free of charge. The cheeses were a yellow cheddar, smoked Gouda, and a mild Swiss. The sausage were two types of polish sausage, the fresh and the smoked. Under the circumstances, it was a great meal. Oh... and not that I got my main meal, but being true to my challenge, I ordered the Cheddar Beer soup. I would really like to try to make this at home, but I really would like to try some at a restaurant first. I was also saving room for dessert... the chocolate cake with ice cream is the best!
On Sunday, the weather was perfect! Beautiful blue skies, comfortable temperatures and a bit breezy. We decided to head out to Potomac Point Winery, in Stafford County, VA. The power was out there, but the tasting bar was still open and the Bistro was serving a limited menu. We decided to have lunch there. Darryl and I split a cheese platter (with a dill Havarti, brie, and muenster), pita bread, preserved cherries and olives. It went very well with the bottle of wine we got for the table, the La Belle Vie. As we were finishing our meal, the power returned, so we were able to get a tour of the winery.
Besides the lamb burger, I will probably not be making these meals and blogging about it. If you've been to my parties, you've experienced similar cheese platters. I've also served the chicken fingers at a few parties.
If you would like to visit Capital Ale House or Potomac Point Winery, please visit their websites: Capital Ale House and Potomac Point Winery.
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