Notes on Norfolk
Great vacation destination. approximately 7 and a half hours from NY. Stopped over in DC to eat dinner at Eli's. Service was not so great, but some of the food was good. Deli sandwich was generous. Fries and tenders good. Sizzling Fajita was sizzling, impressive to look at and tasty. Steak was unfortunately overcooked and underseasoned. They have a takeout place next door now. If we had stuck around DC, we would have tried that out. The menu is different (shwarma, burgers, hot dogs falafel...). On to Norfolk. Wonderful city. Many museums in the area, including the Crysler Museum, a hidden gem that is one block from a Residence Inn by Marriott that is used to having Sabbath observing guests. They were very accommodating to us (low floor, offered to help open our door on Shabbos--didn't need that as we have a way of setting up the doors so they don't lock). The Crysler museum has a glass-blowing studio across the street which was running demonstrations all weekend. The kids loved seeing that. The hotel is less than a mile from Bnai Israel shul and Chabad. Pretty neighborhood so it's a nice walk to Shul. The Farm Fresh is also about a mile away and has an excellent kosher section. Raw meat and chicken (expensive, but nice selection--no steaks but boneless ribs which were great barbequed), Mon quisine frozen dinners, pizza bagels, Of Tov breaded dinosaurs and teddy bears, nice selection of Cholov Yisrael cheeses, three small aisles of kosher shelf goods, Zomick's Challahs, much more. Across from the Farm Fresh is a kosher pizza store. What can I say? The service is "out of NY" style at its worst, but the food is very good. Try the deep fried pizza roll. Falafel is excellent (Techina needs a little help), pizza very good--worth the wait ;), fries and ziti good too. Around the corner is the Carolina Cupcakery and a couple of kosher ice cream places. The cupcakery was exciting for us because we watch Cupcake Wars religiously and the owner of this chain has competed twice on the show. Unfortunately, we found the cupcakes somewhat dense and the icing way too sweet and heavy. We tried a few different ones (quite expensive, btw) and found that they all seemed to have a similar taste with different flavoring. The strawberry was the best, although no strawberries were evident in the cupcake. Oh well. It just made us more motivated to start our own business one day. My kids are sure they can do better. We moved on to Virginia Beach which I have written about on here before. Very family friendly. We brought our grill and the raw meat/chicken we got in Norfolk and we ate quite well. Fireworks over the ocean, magicians, jugglers and wonderful beach moments with the family. Great vacation. Stopped in Baltimore on the way up. Tried Cocachino. The waitress was possibly the most rude we have ever encountered. The food wasn't that great. We were disappointed overall. Happy to be home. Looking forward to Got Cholent's pop-up.
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We just stopped at Norfolk on the way back from Virginia Beach, and thought the pizza store was pretty good also, but didn't think the service was that bad.
Being from Baltimore, you could have done better than Cocochino's...not the best place imo (my favorite place is The Knish Shop; a small deli place, with the best deli sandwiches around...oh well, next time)›2 Replies-
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re: cappucino
Yeah, be warned tho, the knish shop isn't the most esthetic, more like an old school deli with sit down area, more haymish, but still great (and sushi's pretty good also)...Accents, which is right across from cocochino's isn't bad, and if you want pizza, that's nicer than Tov's, you can try Mama Leah's (which is in the same strip mall as Goldberg's and Umami's bistro..both pretty good).
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