Visited 10/28/16 for a late snack
What a great find to finish off our tour of the South. Once again, my wife was searching Yelp regarding where we should eat in Roanoke, where we were stopping for the night.
It was kind of late for us (8:30pm) and the place did have a pretty full house, but we were shown a table right away.
Since it was kinda late for us (we like to eat early, more like 5 - 6pm) we opted to get a few appetizers and share a meal, We chose their cheese board, duck liver pate and a bowl of mussels. One of the chefs (at least he was in chef garb) delivered the goodies to us and explained the different cheeses to us. This was a very nice touch, but since I lost the hearing in my left ear and the place was very loud, I didn't really hear his descriptions of the cheeses. But... it's the thought that counts, right? But do take note that this excellent restaurant is a bit loud. Your conversation will probably include a lot of "WHAT?"
Anyway, all the cheeses (served with caramelized onions, sliced pickled red peppers and some nice sliced french baguette. The duck pate also came with the caramelized onions, sliced, pickled red peppers the sliced french baguette and some pickles.
This has to be one of my favorite meals. I mean I could eat this anytime... with a nice glass of malbec or pinot noir... Yum. Not the healthiest meal I grant you, but so very satisfying.
We wolfed down that all the cheeses, pate and bread and the mussels... served with some garlicky cristinis in a nice light buttery broth. Excellent.
Everything was so good we decided we had to try one more dish and went with the mushrooms and gnocchi. This was served in an excellent Swiss chard pesto. This pesto was really rather good and I'm not a big fan of Swiss chard, which is kind of ironic because my heritage is Swiss. But I do make pesto at home... but the 'normal' kind with basil. I really was surprised how much I liked this pesto. I'm going to have try this at home soon.
Everyone in this place was very friendly and helpful. Our waitress, rather than grabbing the 'empty' bowl from the mussels (still with a lot of broth) asked if we would like some more cristini... which we said yes to. That was a first. I've never been asked that after finishing off mussels.
Roanoke seems to be a really great little city. We did drive around a bit and are thinking we might take a ride down here to see more of this city. I'm just hoping Lucky will be open (and not on vacation)