Charlottesville, VA

Last weekend Michael and I took a mini-vacation to the area around Charlottesville, VA to celebrate our ninth wedding anniversary while my parents watched the girls. This is the second year that we've gone to the Charlottesville region, and we feel like we've barely begun to explore all that there is to see and do, and especially all of the great places there are to go out to eat.

Each year for our anniversary we like to go out to one really fancy restaurant and have a wonderfully decadent meal including salad, main dish, wine, and dessert. Last year we enjoyed the food and atmosphere at L'etoile in downtown Charlottesville. This year we went to the Joshua Wilton House in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This restaurant is the best one we've gone to in quite some time. All of the food tasted great and the atmosphere of the restaurant was lovely. For Michael's main course he ordered his usual favorite, a filet mignon, which came with rosemary-garlic roasted potatoes, pan-roasted broccoli and a port wine reduction sauce. I was feeling adventurous and wanted to try something new, so I asked for the grilled duck breast with sweet potato puree, bacon-roasted asparagus, and a Pinot Noir fresh cherry glaze. Wow, was it good. We decided to complete the meal with a creme brulee for Michael and a mint chocolate pudding cake with raspberry sauce for me. The mint flavor was such a great addition that I want to try to replicate it at home by adding some mint extract to my current hot fudge pudding cake recipe.

Last year for our other dinner out Michael and I went to a Thai restaurant. There are several Thai restaurants in the Charlottesville area, so perhaps the next time we visit we'll try a different one. This year we went to an Indian restaurant, which was also quite good. And I just discovered another Indian restaurant in Charlottesville, so maybe we'll go there sometime, too.

The best surprise of the weekend was the Rise Pizza Works restaurant, which makes pizzas with gluten-free crusts, in addition to white and whole wheat crusts. Michael and I both liked our pizzas so much when we went there for lunch on Saturday that we went back on Sunday for more.