Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream brings its well-loved food and hangout formula from Forest Hill to the Fan this summer, taking over the World Cup on Morris Street as a second location.
Note to North Siders: We left out Hermitage Grill in a recent column about the increasing number of dining options in the neighborhood. A reader reminds us that the appeal of the joint is in its straight-ahead food, whether burgers and barbecue or the more eclectic offerings at brunch and dinner.
It takes a particular stamina to enter cooking contests, because there’s lots of trial and error in perfecting a prize-worthy recipe.
But there’s one cook in Richmond who truly knows her way around the contest circuit, and that’s Beth Royals, just named a finalist in the Crisco Country Favorites Cook-Off for her Coffee Toffee Tart.
Twelve home cooks will prepare their recipes in a final live event at the Country Music Association Music Festival in Nashville in June. The grand-prize winner receives a $10,000 kitchen makeover and trip to the CMA Awards.
Royals has won a kitchen makeover before, and was a finalist in the Pillsbury Bake-Off, among other competitions. She says she’s excited to be among the finalists again, even though she liked her original title on the dessert: Coffee Toffee Achy Breaky Tart, which the contest judges shortened, perhaps to appease a certain mullet-headed star.
No one wants to be traumatized at dinner, but a recent evening at The Track turned a bit weird for a Style reader. Here’s what she wrote about the experience:
“I need to know if I’m over-reacting. (My husband thinks so.) We went to The Track with five other people (our first time there). The food and service were very good. The place was full. Another party in the middle of the restaurant had eight people. The whole restaurant started to take on that Saturday night buzz in which everyone is enjoying good food, good drink and good company, when suddenly a female customer in the corner stood up and started yelling.
“We all thought she had some happy announcement like an engagement or a birthday. Instead, she starts to yell that it’s too loud and singles out the party of eight as the culprit. There was dead silence for a moment and people quietly began to talk. I would say in about 20 minutes the din returned to its previous decibel, which, yes, was pretty loud.
“The episode really shook me up; I had a hard time enjoying myself after that. The crowd at The Track was not a young one; in fact, the average age was upwards of 50. The person who shouted was probably in her 30s. My husband and I have eaten at many, many restaurants and have never seen such a display.
“Am I crazy for letting this annoy me?
“Thanks, Terri
“P.S. If you use this as a column, no last name please. I have now become afraid of fellow diners.” S
