Virgina is for lovers? Maybe. On Sunday, Virginia was for famished people. Ask your wife – when women are hungry, they are HUNGRY and not afraid to be curt about it. We drove through the state today on our way to the National Bike Summit. If we’re on a long drive, and it’s between 12 and 2, the task falls to me (as the non-driver) to Yelp and UrbanSpoon my way to a good restaurant. By the time Steve mentions food, we’re usually both pretty hungry, which doesn’t do much for inter-marital relationships.
Restaurants are a crap-shoot on Sundays. Most are closed and those that are open are shi-tay (worse case scenario: baked potato at Wendy’s). I swear, a miracle came upon us this Sunday, as we approached Staunton, Va.: Zynodoa. I have never been happier to be in a high-quality, local restaurant as I was today. It reminded me of The Kitchen in Boulder — a chalkboard listing the local meat, fish and produce purveyors; large windows and a small but focused menu.
We were starving, thinking we’d have to ingest crap food to stay awake and totally not expecting any restaurant of our standard to be open. Then we found ourselves in a sunny booth window, waiting for our local Virginia fare.
I don’t drink coffee, I rely on fruit juice in the morning and eat a steady supply of fruit and veggies to keep me perked during the day. The past few days, I’ve had plenty of fine food, but not enough bright food and I got crabby and tired. I needed bright foods. Zynodoa was a godsend: bibb lettuce/kale/beet salad. This was followed by my favorite kind of entree, a creative vegetarian main dish: sauteed oyster mushrooms with a potato turnip puree and garlic crostini. I don’t care what you call it, I appreciate good food, it makes me happy. Someone put thought into this food, and that’s my kind of meal and exactly what I needed.
Again, a small miracle.
