Hi,

I’ll start with our very good news. The publisher of House and Home magazine called last week and said that the magazine had been soliciting its’ readers for the past several months for the “Best Restaurant Dish” on the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula. He went on to say that not only had our Shrimp & Grits won in a landslide, but that Good Eats Cafe had four other dishes in the top ten. Yahoo. They’re coming to take pictures tomorrow with the article to appear in the Sept/Oct issue. Our thanks to all who took the time to vote for us.

Tonight is Date Night. On the menu will  be a grilled peach salad, as well as grilled chicken with portabella sauce, “minute” steaks and the soft shell crab risotto.

Starting tomorrow we will be serving a

Fresh Tomato Soup with Lemon

Soft Shell Crabs with Lime Butter Sauce

and a dish we haven’t done for a few years,

Turbans of Salmon stuffed with Crab Imperial.

Rather than cut the salmon fillets in portions width-wise, we cut them the length of the side. These long ribbons are  marinated, then upon receiving an order, we twist them into a coil. The center of the coil is filled with crab imperial and then the whole thing is broiled. One of the most impressive looking dishes and delish. I have been fielding opinions about crab imperial this summer; we haven’t featured it since CrabPot Stickers went on the menu, so here is your chance to compare imperials to imperials.

Friday night features half-price bottles of wine. We have swapped out our less expensive Pinot Noir for one we consider better and it is available for half on Fridays. Saturday remains a delightful night to dine, Sunday brings a brunch at 10am, if you’re looking more for lunch we do have sandwiches and Shrimp & Grits on this menu and then for Sunday dinner we will continue our month-long birthday celebration by offering a 20% discount on your entire check.

Thanks again for your support (and votes) and

We hope to see you.

Well we just get through one spell of beastly hot and here comes another. Please review the lessons from last week, then join me as we sing, “Summertime, when the livin’ is easy.”  On a much more serious note, Good Eats is now cool no matter the outside temp. It took a couple 100 degree days to get it all together, but we’re there. And in the meantime, while it’s up in the 90’s we’ll continue running the two cold soups, Cucumber with Dill and Watermelon Gazpacho (which now has a following, ha).

Good menu for Date Night tonight, Risotto with Soft Shell Crab, Grilled Minute Steaks, Pork with Cuban BBQ Sauce and just-caught Spanish Mackerel done like in Hawaii, a style called Poke (po-kay), which is a cross between a fruit salsa and a teriyaki sauce.

Specials starting tomorrow will be

Flounder topped with Buttered Backfin Crabmeat

&

Soft Shell Crabs with Lime Butter Sauce

Friday features half-price bottles of wine, Saturday is a grand night to dine, and Sunday we do brunch from 10am – 2pm, then back open for dinner from 5 – 7:30.
We thank you and thank you for your patronage last week when it was so hot and

We hope to see you.

This week we will instruct in how to beat the heat, … ,  just a few simple rules.

1. Don’t cook at home. This is just plain good common sense; our kitchen is already hot, why heat up yours?

2. Look ahead to the end of the journey, blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. It’s cooler already.

3. Start your meal with a cold soup. We’ll have 2 of them all week, tonight Chilled Tomato with Basil Vinaigrette and Chilled Cucumber with Dill, starting Friday we will again have Cucumber with Dill as well as Watermelon Gazpacho, which you have never had before in your whole life.

4. The salads at Good Eats are always crisp and refreshing.

5. Our Soft-shell Crabs with Lime Butter Sauce will take your mind off anything. Ditto the Flounder topped with Buttered Backfin Crabmeat. As will the Summer Fruit Salsa that will be served with the Grilled Pork Loin.

6. Our white wines are always chilled and delicious. On Fridays they are especially appealing as bottles of wine are half-price. Have you tried the La Cana Albarino from Spain yet. Raves with our Chesapeake seafood.

7. Nothing like real strawberry and blueberry preserves with toast during brunch. (10am – 2pm)

8. Foods from hot climates are naturals in the summer. Check out the Soft Shell Crab Tacos we are featuring tonight for Date Night.

That ends this post. Should you need assistance with any other of life’s little bumps, feel free to inquire; we have thousands upon thousands of recipes.

Yours truly with tongue-in-cheek, and

We hope to see you.

Good news. At long last our fish purveyor has relented. For the past month, this local company has been shipping upwards of 7,000 pounds of the 25-35 pound rockfish a day out of the Bay area, to New York, Boston, Atlanta and D.C. where these fish command top dollar. These are magnificent fish and I always want to serve them when they are available, but the money they command in the big cities is way more than our price structure can afford. But I try. I call each week and ask the price. I’ve bought from this company for 18 years so they know our deal. After a couple weeks of this I start trying to guilt them, “it’s such a shame that this wonderful ingredient comes from right here but no one gets to eat it because its shipped out immediately.” They say, “Steve it’s like oil (another grrr, huh?), the market sets the price. But I keep working them and working them and then yesterday they relented. So this week-end I am proud to present to all of you Rockfish topped with Buttered Backfin Crabmeat.

More good news for a large contingent of you, the soup this week is the Mo’ Bettah Kale Greens Pot Liquor Soup, the perfect bracer for this still cold at night early March weather.

Even more good news : the Key Lime Pie is back on the dessert menu. Who loves ya, huh?

Tonight is Prime Rib Night, Friday features half-price bottles of wine and

We hope to see you.

And then this was it, he said wistfully, as the enormity of what this season was for Good Eats suddenly and unexpectedly rushed into his heart and brain.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all so much; you are my community and I treasure your support.

We are open tonight and tomorrow, and then Saturday will be our last night of 2010 until New Years Eve.

Our soup tonight will be the big hit of this fall, the

Mo’ Bettah Kale Greens Pot-liquor Soup.

Friday and Saturday we will be offering

Curried White Sweet Potato Soup with Feta and Cilantro.

Our specials this week are:

Broiled Flounder topped with Sauteed Spinach, Country Ham and Oysters

Grilled Tuna with an Orange Dipping Sauce
(another big hit! )

Roast Pork Loin with Apricot Compote and Melted Gouda Cheese

Tonight is Prime Rib Night, Friday features half-priced bottles of wine, and Saturday is last chance night..

All of us at Good Eats thank you again for your support this whole season and

We hope to see you.