Do or Do Not. There Is no Try.

Neither Brugger nor I feel any great affinity for Valentine's Day, but we do enjoy it as an annual opportunity for a night out that we probably wouldn't bother with otherwise. I know, really romantic, right? This isn't to say we haven't had some superb Valentine's outings in years past; we certainly have, such as at GIA and Imperial Koi in Greensboro, The Celtic Fringe in Reidsville, The Third Bay in Martinsville, and many others. (We've had our share of miserable ones as well, such as in 2020, when a seriously impaired young man—who has since died, evidently of a drug overdose—smashed into my car.) We opted to stay local last night, so we made reservations at TAD Tavern here, which has been around for a couple of years, and we've visited it on a few prior occasions.

 

I cannot tell you how much we want to love TAD Tavern. It's one of the few reasonably upscale restaurants in town, the atmosphere in the place is lovely, and we've had good food there. Unfortunately, on every one of our visits, we've had issues ranging from serious staffing shortages, unavailable menu and drink items, and an only sporadically manned bar. We pretty much expected not to have a zippy dinner last night because it was quite crowded, but sadly, all three of the above issues raised their ugly heads, which really took some of the zip out of our experience.

 

It took 30 minutes after being seated to get a couple of glasses of water, 45 minutes after ordering to receive our bar drinks (they did not even have the fixings—gin & vermouth—to make a martini), and 90 minutes to get food (we'd kept our order simple, realizing it might be a very long night—chicken tenders for both of us). I know the servers were trying hard, but they were hopelessly inadequate to handle the crowd. Since TAD Tavern promoted the hell out of their Valentine's night dinner, we'd really hoped that the place would finally come through with flying colors. Alas.

All that said, the food was very good, and this experience beat the hell out of having your car smashed for Valentine's Day. Still, given the fact that after a couple of years, the issues we've dealt with in the past have not improved (quite the contrary), I can't help but fear that TAD Tavern will be unable to fulfill their promise of becoming a top-notch restaurant. Trust me, I want to be proven wrong, and we may yet give them one more chance. I know they're trying, but as a certain Jedi knight once said, "Do or do not. There is no try."

 

Cmon, guys—let's DO. 

Two-Thirds of 666

Well, another revolution around the sun completed—66 of them now. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, all that good stuff. I may not be quite the energetic, daft young fellow I was yesterday, but I'm doing all right. Ms. B. had surgery earlier this week, so I've been playing almost-nurse maid for a couple of days, but she's doing as well as can be expected, and she felt up to going out for dinner tonight (though not up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Chateau Morrisette, which was our first choice prior to knowing her surgery schedule.

But I jump ahead. I woke up right about sun-up, buried by the usual furry suspects, though I lay in bed for another hour or so. Once up and about, I decided to head down toward Reidsville for some traditional birthday geocaching. There were 17 mostly park & grab caches awaiting my presence, so I knocked them out and got back home at lunchtime, so I treated myself to a grilled cheese sandwich. Hopefully, all that cheesy, buttery goodness won't subtract a year from the life clock. Lord knows I haven't eaten all that healthily since the first of the year. But I've been walking my ass off daily; as of now, my 365-day average daily number of steps is 8,890 (4.03 miles per day).

 

So, for dinner, we went to TAD Tavern, Martinsville's most upscale restaurant (which I hope is doing okay because there wasn't much of a crowd tonight). I had a fantastic bison steak, with martini, and Kim had a brussels sprout salad with chicken and a Chardonnay. Then we came home and spent the usual late evening watching TV together (Godzilla vs. Destroyah and Dexter: Original Sin).

 

Ms. B. gave me a Godzilla figure as a present. Any birthday with Godzilla is a lovely birthday. Hopefully, we'll all make it till next year and there will be more Godzilla. Peace out.

Foodz, Booze, Brewz, and Such

Martinsville isn't a very large town, and we don't have but so many local dining and drinking options, though Brugger and I do our best to support several exceptional establishments in town. Third Bay Café, right up the street from us, is owned by an old high school buddy of mine, and it remains one of our favorite go-to restaurants anywhere. Their big ol' cheeseburger is easily the best in town; Brugger often gets a "burger salad"—one of their excellent house salads topped by a burger! Third Bay's dinner menu isn't all that extensive, but everything on it is consistently excellent.

At a recent gathering of friends, Kimberly and I met a nice couple named Scott and Jamie, so we got together with them last weekend at what was, for me, a new discovery. Scuffle Hill Brewing, in nearby Collinsville, has been around for a pretty good while, but we'd never visited it before. The several brews I tried were all excellent, and they carry wine from Hamlet Vineyards, a very good local winery in  Fieldale, a short distance up the road. After Scuffle Hill, we had dinner at Yamato Japanese Restaurant, one of a couple of decent Asian restaurants in town. They feature a hibachi area with some exceptionally agile teppanyaki chefs, but we prefer their sushi bar; the dead fish is always superb.

Renewal Brewing in Uptown Martinsville has become one of our favorite destinations. They have several excellent brews and hard seltzer concoctions. It's located in the basement of one of the old buildings in town, and we find its speakeasy decor perfect for our tastes. The owner also runs Mountain Valley Brewing, out in the scenic boonies around Axton, not too far out of Martinsville. We've only been there once, but revisiting it is on our near-future schedule.

Our most upscale dining option can be found at TAD Tavern, Uptown. It's relatively new, and based on our first experience there a few ago, I give it top marks. You may walk out of the place speaking consoling reassurances to your wallet, but the food, service, and atmosphere could not be better. High marks all around!

Anyway, this is my shout-out to some of our favorite local spots. This is far from exhaustive, and several more deserve accolades, so I'll yak about them in a future entry. For now, g'day.