We love traveling. If
that means a long planned and saved for trip to Europe, a once a year anniversary
jaunt to the Outer Banks or just an impromptu visit to a part of Richmond we’ve
never spent any time in, it’s all appealing to us. While you never get away from phones anymore,
we love that feeling of freedom and unconnectedness that comes from being
GONE. No laundry, no raking, nothing to
look at that says, “You need to deal with this”.
I love spending time with Mr. Kim. I know I talk his ears off. And I’m sure sometimes after an hour or so
alone with me he WISHES they were off. I
am the original Jabberjaws. I can
prattle on about anything. But we DO
enjoy our escapes. We had a lovely
surprise one on Tuesday. Mr. Kim has
been off work for a few days and had really not done anything fun. We just lazed around the house getting a few
things done (NOT taking down any Christmas decorations – they are all still
up). He had oral surgery today and goes
back to work on Tuesday next week, so I wanted him to have some time out of the
house. We discussed a few different
things and he finally decided on some antiquing (yes, I married a man who
enjoys wandering around antique shops – mass envy from all my girlfriends, I
know) in Lakeside. We had a lovely time
poking around the shops, not buying, but searching for some cordial glasses
(our good friends, the Burrs, introduced us to Stone’s Original Ginger wine. It makes a lovely aperitif. We had to borrow appropriate glasses and were
looking for some of our own. Every
pattern we liked had 3, 4 or 5, but not 6.
We want six. So we had a good
time looking.
After the stores closed, at 5pm, we were ready to eat. We’ve been wanting to try a place near there
that I’ve heard good things about – hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, bologna
burgers, nightly dinner specials like spaghetti, meatloaf and BBQ. Just our kind of place. Unfortunately they were closed for their Christmas
holiday. So we just hit Route 301 North,
going nowhere in particular.
It was still light, so the drive was lovely. I am always for taking the state route over
the interstate and the country road over the state route. More jibber-jabber from me (poor Mr. Kim) and
a little desultory conversation about where we might eat. Ashland was mentioned, as was Pope’s Creek
for crabs. But we felt like going
farther than Ashland and it was just too damn cold for crabs. So we settled on Fredericksburg. Specifically The Bavarian Chef in Fredericksburg.
A little backstory: When Mr. Kim was in grad school at UVA,
we discovered The Bavarian Chef on Route 29 in Madison. It was a little steep for grad students, but
was the perfect place for parents to take us to when visiting (insert sly
smile). We all fell madly in love with
this place. Very friendly family running
it, incredibly good German food (can’t say whether it is authentic or not, but
delicious) and HUGE portions. A really
cool thing that they did was to put only the protein portion of your meal on a
plate and then bring a bunch of bowls full of side dishes – very family
style. It’s the kind of place that
induces food comas, but in a good way.
When we ended up back in Richmond, we went back a few times
and loved it still. Mr. Kim’s parents
have gone back over the years – even staying in a hotel so they wouldn’t have
to drive back in a coma (about a one hour drive!). We were very excited to hear that they had
opened a location in Fredericksburg – just an hour north of us and a delightful
place to visit. With one thing and
another, we hadn’t made it there, but Momma and I did meet some family from
Northern Virginia there for a mini-reunion lunch this fall. It is a lovely setting. They’ve put it in the old railroad station:
And the inside is very nice – comfortable and appropriate to
the setting:
Momma and I were happy to find that the food was just as
good as we remembered.
So that’s where we decided to head on Tuesday. It was early, so we got a table by the
fireplace with no trouble and this location has just as nice folks as the
original. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt
so welcome at a restaurant. Our waiter,
Lance, was perfect. Friendly and knowledgeable, but not overly chatty. This is the kind of place that still brings a
real bread basket to the table before you even order:
From 12 o’clock: rye bread, lovely herb butter, tender yeast
roll, tiny pumpernickel roll and caraway bread sticks. Every single piece was perfect.
We started with what is probably my favorite dish on the
planet:
Snails in beer batter Provencal. These are basically snail fritters – crisp and
tender all at once, drenched in garlic butter.
I am a snail freak and will order them if they are on a menu. I’ve probably missed a hundred wonderful
dishes because I can’t pass them up, but I’ve never had anything this
good. They were the only thing on the
table that got finished, I think.
Mr. Kim’s main dish was Jager Schnitzel:
Prime veal medallions covered with a blend of mushrooms,
bacon and fresh cream. It doesn’t look
terribly appetizing, but it was delicious.
I loved my bite, after I shooed all those pesky fungal things away.
I had sauerbraten with a sweet and sour raisin sauce:
I know that it looks like a plate of baked beans, but those
are plumped up raisins and FOUR enormous slices of meat. Wonderful and still delicious heated up the
next day (very important for me). Here
are the sides that I mentioned (a table of two gets FOUR choices):
Creamed corn, potato dumplings, green beans with tomatoes
and red cabbage. I have no idea how they
manage to have such incredible corn in January.
The beans are either fresh or house canned and the red cabbage is the
only one I’ve ever tasted that was better than mine. When we got back, I put the leftovers in two
of those meal-sized plastic divided dishes:
See what I mean? It’s
Friday and I still haven’t finished them!
After dinner, we drove around the neighborhood that
surrounds the train station. It’s a
beautiful old town area, with gorgeous old houses and cool shops and antique
stores. Many of the homes and businesses
were still decorated for Christmas, so it was especially lovely. In fact, it was so lovely that we decided on
the spot to forgo our usual Outer Banks anniversary trip and go to
Fredericksburg instead with our celebratory dinner at The Bavarian Chef and a
good wander around for a couple of days.
Plenty of history for Mr. Kim and lots of architectural eye-candy for
both of us!
It truly was a stolen day and we had a wonderful time. And we are always up for a return visit, so
anyone who wants to go there sometime, just ask and you’ll have enthusiastic
dinner partners!
