Saturday, July 17, 2010

Eating Out - Stuzzi and Acacia


happy
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo
The boy and I spent a day of eating out. We had read multiple Stuzzi posts online so we figured we would check it out for lunch. On a Friday it was busy, but not crazy, good mix of people, several families with kids, couples, larger groups... a good mix like I said. We checked out the oven and ordered the oven roasted olives, and the calamari fritti from the appetizer menu, a roasted pepper and anchovies salad and a carnivori pizza all for both of us to share.
I only got a picture of the pizza

stuzzi pizza

the pizza was very good, (as many have pointed out the pies get a bit moist in the center, apparently from cooling on the plate, ours had a little puddle of water in the plate. But I think this added to the contrast of the charred bottom crust) We both loved the calamari, the salad was excellent colorful and tasty as were the olives, that when baked in the oven take on a more luxurious texture. Certainly will go back.

Stuzzi Pizzeria on Urbanspoon

I swung the boy into The Belmont Butchery and we bought some foie gras for another time. Satisfied we returned home did some reading, played some video games and headed off to dinner. I wanted to hit a nice place, somewhat in defense of fine dining (Just messing with you RVAfoodie)
We chose Acacia, one I've never been and many proclaim it as one of the best restaurants in Richmond.
We showed up around 7:30 without a reservation and decided to sit at the bar rather than wait for a table. The boy hid from the paparazzi.

laughing

We ordered two appetizers, pork belly with mushrooms on seaweed

pork belly

and the beef tongue

beef tongue

Both where very good, but it is hard to compete with the pork belly fatty and unctuous the tongue tasty but understated.
For our main course we both went with crab, I had the soft shell crab

soft shell crab

and the boy had the crab cakes, which were served with a bacon cream sauce and some of the best polenta I have ever tasted.

crab cakes

We decided to finish out the night with dessert, he had the almond cake pastry

almond cake

I had the chocalate ganache, but was more impressed with passion fruit panacota accompaniment

passion fruit panacotta

We had such a great time, yes we spent a lot of money but the food was excellent and the company better. We where treated well which isn't always the case when one dines with a kid and we laughed and talked into the night.


Acacia Mid-town on Urbanspoon

3 comments:

pjpink said...

How wonderful. Acacia is one of our favorite places and we prefer to eat at the bar. And it's great your little guy likes a variety of interesting and great food!

BaconGrease said...

Thanks pjpink, the boy is an adventurous eater, but definitely not little anymore, the real adventure is having a teenager!

veron said...

Drooling over the pork belly and beef tongue. Two of my favorite things in the world to eat!