What a delightful day!!! Our friends Bill and Jennifer were gifted a FOOD TOUR for 4, and invited us along. What is a Food Tour you ask? It's a walking tour around areas of Richmond that cater to foodies. You get the history of the areas, the stories behind the restaurants and samples of some of their best recipes. Well we chose Church Hill, but there are many other choices. We also chose a perfect weather day. It was warm in Richmond, but breezy enough to make it quite pleasant. The tours are run by Real Richmond http://realrichmondva.com/ and ours began at the park across from St John's Episcopal Church in Church Hill. Because our first restaurant is so small and busy, we had a picnic of sorts in the park with Proper Pie http://properpieco.com/ . Our Tour guide, Nicole (fabulous) filled us with historical facts about the area, stories about the rich life downtown these days, and yummy food from 6 different restaurants. We were offered tastes from 6 different Proper Pies that she had just picked up. I chose a vegan "steak" pie which was surprisingly meaty tasting and unctuous. Chris had the pork pie with with savory chunks of pork and gravy with spices, but the real star of both was the crust! Buttery and flaky and melt in your mouth!
Next we walked the streets until we reached the WPA Bakery. http://wpasouthside.com/ Here we sampled lemon coconut macaroons and caneles. The macaroons were light and fluffy with a strong citrus flavor. A perfect light dessert. Very sweet, but what would expect from a macaroon. They were lovely. The caneles are caramelized crepe batter. This was new to me. They are gluten free which is a plus for our family, but I admit they were not my favorite. Others in the group loved them! The great thing about WPA is that they ALWAYS have at least one gluten free vegan option!!! Many fun choices! On a bit of a sugar rush we wandered more of the Church Hill area learning as we walked. We landed at Nile Ethiopian Restaurant. http://nilerva.com/ A small family owned place. The owner told us the story of her son who was on the Ethiopian Ski team at the Olympics! So amazing!!! There we tasted siga wat, misir wat, and buticha. All were served over injera, a fermented Ethiopian flatbread. Siga wat is small bits of beef cooked in a berbere stew. Misir wat is red lentils with the same berbere spices and buticha is garbanzo bean paste similar to hummus. All were wonderfully spiced. I like spicy and this was perfect. Enough to enhance the flavor of the food and compliment all of the subtleties and make your lips sing, but not so much that you cry or sweat! The berbere spice blend is so perfect that I bought a jar of it. Prepare to eat something cooked in that spice combination next time you're at my house! It was all so good that once I ran out of injera I was picking up lentils and bean paste with my fingers and licking them. I'm not proud! Ahhh.. now on to Sub Rosa Bakery. http://www.subrosabakery.com/ How do we live in this city and not know about all of these places? Sub Rosa is an organic wood fired bakery that strives to use locally sourced ingredients. We walked out back after we ate, and saw the big wood pile and were told that if you are there on a day when the owner is working you can get a tour of the bakery/oven space. Our treats at Sub Rosa were a beautiful light rye bread, crusty on the outside and delicate on the inside. We were given a pungent bowl of extra virgin olive oil for dipping which was a perfect match. We also tasted roasted red pepper, pesto, and cheese in puff pastry. Beautiful with the red peppers being the star. A very strong flavor against the buttery dough. Interesting and yummy. Finally, all of our favorite, an amazing cherry pistachio sweet roll. This wasn't just any sweet roll. No dripping spread of white sugary glaze. No layers and layers of honey laden goo. Just a luscious roll with tart cherries and dusted with toasted pistachios. Sweet, but not too sweet. Savory but not too savory. The perfect marriage of both! Bill took 2 of them home for tomorrow's breakfast! Yes, we were stuffed. Yes I felt the food coma coming on. Yet, we forged ahead to Union Market. https://unionmarketrva.com/ This is a nice combination market, cafe, bar and all of them work. Fun different choices in the market. A bar that appears to be just the right size for a cocktail at the end of the day, and a small restaurant of casual inside seating with fun outside tables as well. Our choices here were a tarragon chicken salad sandwich and a canellini bean salad. The sandwich was as traditional as it was unique. Tender chicken mixed with plum jam, crispy chicken skin and avocado served on a bun. The crispy chicken skin added just the right "bacony" salty, textury flavor. It was sweet from the jam and had a lovely scent from the tarragon. A beautiful sandwich. The bean salad was less exciting but perfectly yummy. Smooth white beans with herbs, onion, and artichokes. Really nice. We shopped a little after we ate and left with a couple of interesting jerkys and a can of chipotle peppers. (our Kroger does not carry them) Onward. At this point we can barely walk but if I had slipped into food heaven, it would have been worth it. Last stop, Alamo BBQ. http://alamobbq.com/ Small outside counter with an awning and outside seating. They didn't know we were coming so were not quite ready. No worries we sat and talked and compared notes on all of the food we'd eaten. While we waited Bill grabbed a couple of local beers. Smart Mouth out of Norfolk, a light pleasant beer, perfect for a summer day, and Fair Winds IPA out of Lorton. Chris is not usually an IPA fan but it was pretty smooth and it felt good after all that walking and went well with the upcoming barbecue. When the food came we were not disappointed. They served us Texas Caviar, which I've had many times. This one was light with very little sauce or dressing. It just let the beans and vegetables shine. Perfect. We had a jalapeno mac and cheese. Very creamy with a light touch of the pepper. Nice if you don't like spicy... but I do and using jalapeno in the name made me think I was going to be slapped by my mama. Finally the star. The barbecue was just plain smokey. Beautifully smokey. Wonderfully smokey and tender and yummy with a sweet slaw over the top. What a perfect ending to the day. We could barely eat it but yet we kept going. It was that good! To summarize: The tour was worth it. Try it sometime for a special occasion. From our 6 places I'll return for the gluten free options at WPA, ALL of the Ethiopian, The cherry pistachio roll, and so much barbecue!!! Maybe the other places too. They were all good. Don't quote me but I believe the tickets for the tours are $60. Well worth it. Have fun!!!
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