This should be the final installment of our Richmond, Virginia trip (but Bobby informs me it won’t be, because we did stop in Charlottesville, VA on the way home). For those of you just joining us, my husband, Bobby and I took a whirlwind road trip to Richmond so that we could visit the set of Mercy Street, a PBS/Lone Wolf Media medical drama that centers around the Civil War. Bobby was interviewing Dr. Tony Tizzano for The Daily Record. I went just to cross it off of my bucket list.
The night before we visited the set, we enjoyed a meal at Sine with the good doctor. Then he headed back to the hotel and Bobby and I headed out to find some dessert and explore a little bit more. (We had done some exploring earlier in the day, which you can check out here.) We started by walking a few blocks away from the hotel (a Residence Inn by Marriott) towards the Canal Walk. We were detoured a little by a man who said he was hungry. Bobby hardly ever gives money when approached like that, but instead offers to go and buy a meal for the requestor. At first the man seemed like he would take Bobby up on the offer, but half way up the street, he changed his mind and left us to “enjoy your evening.” So we turned back around and walked to the Canal Walk.
May I make a suggestion to you for your visit to Richmond? You really should plan ahead and know the hours of operation when visiting sites. Apparently on a Monday night, the Canal Walk closes down at 7. It was deserted. So we took a few pictures and then resumed our search for dessert.
We made it back to Carey Street, where our hotel was located as well as the restaurant we had dinner. We decided to try up the hill as it looked like there were potentially other establishments open at the 9:00 hour. (Bobby had suggested we drive somewhere for dessert, but it didn’t make sense to me, as there had to be something “just up the street.”)
We ended up walking a couple of blocks to Sam Miller’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar. The place was pretty quiet, remember it was a Monday night. We asked the bartender, Lindsay, if they served desserts there. She gave us the dessert menu, which included Nightingale’s Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches. Nightingale is a locally made homemade ice cream brand. Bobby selected the Key Lime Ice Cream sandwich. The sandwich part was made of a type of graham cracker with the key lime ice cream between them. Bobby loved the sweet tartness of the ice cream between the crunchy sweet cookies.
I chose the “Death by Chocolate.” (I know, huge surprise.) This ice cream sandwich came with a really rich double chocolate chip ice cream, nestled between two thick chocolate cookies, which was covered by a hard shell of chocolate ganache. The only complaint I have about the the sandwich was that it wasn’t easy to eat. I didn’t feel I could pick it up and eat it with my fingers (Sam Miller’s just isn’t that type of restaurant). Yet it wasn’t that easy to eat with a fork either. Don’t worry, I figured it out and enjoyed every morsel.
After we left there we were heading back to the hotel when we saw the sign for City Dogs. Both Bobby and I were pretty full, but he convinced me that we had to go in and try them out. So we did.
City Dogs is a casual restaurant with the cook (Chris) working the grill where you can see him and the server/bartender (Josh) handling all of the customers. Again it was well after 9:00, so it wasn’t crazy busy, but there was a steady stream of customers. I decided to go with the Cincinnati Dog, which is served with chili and cheese, just like they would do at any Cincinnati chili place. I will say I like the actual Cincinnati chili better, but if you never had it, you’d be quite pleased with City Dogs offering. Bobby selected the Richmond Original. The hot dog is served with chili, mustard and onions, but Bobby had them keep the onions off. He really enjoyed the chili with its thirteen different peppers. This was a different chili than what was on my hot dog.
Finally, we were done, completely stuffed and ready for a good night’s sleep. We walked the block or so back to the hotel, pleased that though we might not have seen much of Richmond, we certainly had tasted plenty of different types of food available. And we enjoyed every bite.
