Weekend Foodie Warriors – Take 63! *Richmond, VA*
Hello hello, again, Foodie Friends 🙂 Hope you’ve had a great weekend! For this travel edition of Foodie Adventures, we’re taking you on our weekend trip to Richmond, VA for a wedding we attended, along with fun, food, and sights along the way. Read on for more on how we explored RVA!
Settling in 💜
Richmond, VA
We’re super excited to be doing more travel blogs again! This one, dedicated to Richmond, Virginia, about 6 hours to our north, all started as part of a trip to go visit our good friends and celebrate them getting married! 💑💍
As much as the weather was ridiculously hot, it was such a gorgeous and intimate backyard ceremony, with no more than 30 to 40 people. The catering was awesomely on point, and I loved getting to speak with the lead caterer, who was able to make some non-dairy food for me for appetizers, dinner, and dessert, in what was a very dairy-heavy menu. I was really grateful for that. Of course, we drove up a day early so that we could enjoy our time and explore the city, starting with dinner after we arrived at our Airbnb.
“APOP”, or “A Place of Peace”, was absolutely adorable. It was a one-bedroom bungalow with a miniature kitchen, washer and dryer, a bed, TV, and a full-sized bathroom. The best part of this little oasis, besides how close it was to everything, was definitely the full-sized screened-in porch. This came complete with its own mascot, JD the orange tabby cat, who was very happy to hang with us outside, or crawl in our laps for some cuddles. We would definitely stay there again in our travels, we love using Airbnb’s and talking with the owners and people that host them. Check out the link here for where we stayed, tell them Pimento & Prose sent you (we don’t get anything from these links, we simply loved our stay)!
Dinner on the Town
Native Plate, Downtown Richmond, VA
I found our dinner spot on the way to Richmond, from a Google Maps suggestion actually. I started noticing that the more we log and review the places and restaurants that we’ve been to on Google, the more it’s starting to figure out what new restaurants in new cities that we haven’t been to would be a match for something that we might want to visit.
Our dinner restaurant, Native Plate, was an 85% match and the menu looked fantastic, so we decided to check it out. A short trip into downtown later, and we arrived just before the dinner rush around 6 pm. The coolest thing about this place, that we found out from talking to our awesome bartender, Caleb, was that it had only been open for about a month!
The decor was super awesome and reminded me almost of an Ashville vibe. I could absolutely see this restaurant being transplanted back and fitting right into somewhere like Asheville or maybe west Greenville.
This restaurant had an Asian menu and pulled from various cuisines and countries for its dishes. We started off with a very uniquely sauced set of wings, which were served Vietnamese style with garlic, ginger, and scallions, along with fish sauce in the marinade. This gave them a really sweet and yet also savory and funky flavor. The wings were super crispy and the frizzled onions and garlic really helped to cut through some of the funk. We ate every wing, so definitely good and pretty unique and interesting as a starter.
Next, we had the pork gyoza dumplings, which are more Japanese style as they are pan-fried on both sides, this was served with a soy sauce and more little scallions and frizzled onions.
After that, we decided to round out our meal with duck Bao buns, served with carrot slaw, julienned veggies, and hoisin sauce. Absolutely loved the homemade chips that they came with, which had a sweet and spicy seasoning on top. Our bartender Caleb also recommended our brunch spot that we were able to go to on Saturday before we left.
We definitely enjoyed getting to hang out with him (and the beta fish next to us at the bar), and definitely recommend stopping by and showing them some love! Check out my Instagram video below of one of the cool tiki drinks they made at the bar too that gets set on fire!!
Breakfast in RVA
Dairy Bar Diner, Richmond, VA
On the way to Caleb’s initial breakfast spot he reccomended, we passed by this place called The Dairy Bar Restaurant, which just screamed old-fashioned diner to me. We couldn’t make it into the first place since the wait was too long, so I told Jamie to whip the car around and we ended up going here instead.
It absolutely looks like a very classic Diner, with bench seat chairs, old movie and TV memorabilia on the walls, an ice cream counter, and logos from the initial diner & restaurant called “The Curles Neck Place”.
I had a breakfast dish called “The Mayor”, which was two eggs over medium, 2 strips of bacon, an everything bagel, and hash browns on the side, which I of course combined together into a beautiful egg sandwich. Their hash browns are really unique, as they almost tasted like a cross between hash browns and mashed potatoes? It had the consistency and crunch of the hash browns but also the softness of mashed potatoes, and it almost reminded me of sour cream and onion! You could definitely taste the garlic and the onions along with some sour cream in the seasonings of the hash browns.
Jamie couldn’t decide what to have on the breakfast menu. So he actually decided to go more savory for brunch and got a fried chicken sandwich with an egg on top and hash browns on the side. This was the day of the wedding so we ended up eating breakfast late at about 10 and having this tide us over until the wedding at 3.
Brunch & Exploring the Arts District!
Bar Solita, Richmond, VA
The next day, we decided to explore Richmond a little more before brunch, finding ourselves in the arts district outside of our second recommended brunch spot from Caleb, called Bar Solita. There were definitely some cool murals, buildings, and art galleries to be seen up and down the street.
A cool mural from the arts district in downtown Richmond, VA. 
This awesome milk bottle shaped building from the arts district in downtown Richmond, VA. 
A cool theatre in the arts district in downtown Richmond, VA. 
A view of galleries in the arts district in downtown Richmond, VA. The outside of Bar Solita in Richmond, VA. 
The arts district outside of Bar Solita, overlooking the Quirk Hotel.
Bar Solita is known for its great mixed drinks and Mexican food, but we were definitely here for brunch! While they had some great breakfast burritos, tacos, and Chimichangas on the menu, my eye was caught by some of their awesome-sounding breakfast pizzas, omelets, and their shareable wings, which we started with.
These were honey and Harissa dusted Wings, double fried and super crispy. Loved these, could have used a plate twice this size, as we were splitting it between Max, Jamie, and myself.
They had really great coffee as well, it was a fairly strong roast, but you could tell that it was a smaller batch of coffee, which was nice. Reminded me of coffee we make at home when we grind beans as opposed to more commercialized larger batch coffee.
Jamie went with a fried chicken sandwich on a biscuit, dusted in hot honey with some delicious hash browns.
Max got the Mediterranean omelette, with the same hash browns and fruit. The Omelette was stuffed with feta, peppers and spinach and dusted with za’atar seasoning.
I got something a little different, a basil pesto pizza with ricotta, roasted butternut squash, red onions, shredded Brussel sprouts, and toasted & spiced pumpkin seeds! It was super well-balanced and all of the flavors really melded well together, there wasn’t really anything that stood out or got lost. I did have to pick a lot of the cheese off or Jamie ate it but it was absolutely delicious and we had it for breakfast the next day warmed up.
I loved the decor in here as well, the murals and colors on the walls were super pretty and the restaurant definitely didn’t look as big on the outside as it actually was on the inside. They have plenty of space for big groups, entertaining, and all different types of seating with gorgeous natural light. I honestly did not correct the photos that I took in the restaurant at all because the lighting was so great (I didn’t need to)!
There are definitely some places we didn’t make it to this time that we would love to travel to next time, and having friends that live in the area definitely gives us a good excuse to come back. All in all, it was a very relaxing and fun weekend, and I’m looking forward to more mini-vacations like this in the future.
So how was your weekend, Foodie Friends? What’s the next city we need to review? Sound out in the comments below to let us know your suggestions of what dishes to make or places we should visit next. As always, feel free to like, comment, & share 🤗
