Faking Dixie

Finding the perfect restaurant/bar to review when on the road isn't always easy.

I'm usually in town for just a day, so picking the right place out of hundreds can be a task.

That process usually involves googling around on the internet or just walking up to the frontdesk clerk at the hotel and asking them if they were in town for just one night and wanted to get a feel for the local scene, what place would they recommend.

But sometimes it's all determined by the restaurant's name.

And during Suit420s recent trip to Virginia Beach -- that's exactly what happened.

While cruising down the road in between business meetings -- and, of course, puffing on a fresh Djarum Super Clove -- I happen to pass what I thought would be the perfect place to review...

... The Dixie Diner.

After all, Suit420 has a specialized Robert E. Lee license plate, multiple confederate flags and a bumper sticker on my car with a picture of the "bars and stars" that reads "This is my red, white and blue."

So Suit420 make a quick uturn -- illegally -- and headed into the parking lot to review The Dixie Diner.

As I pulled into the parking lot, some red flags immediately went up.

The Dixie Diner had a sign advertising Gyros.

Now, this Southerner -- and most Southerners I know -- can't even pronounce the word Gyro correctly.

So that was red flag number 1.

But I decided to still give it a try.

Perhaps there was a large goat-lover population, also known as Greeks, that the business was catering too.

Skeptical, I finished my clove and headed inside to see what The Dixie Diner had to offer.

Walking in the door, my skepticism grew even more.

I was expecting to see a huge potrait of great Virginians like Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson.

Perhaps an old Virginia Flag right next to the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (stars and  bars) on the wall.

Or just some type of decoration that made the brain immediately think "southern."

But that just wasn't the case.


The walls were dull. The atmosphere was dead.

And there weren't hardly any patrons at The Dixie Diner.

And worst of all, The Dixe Diner -- yes, The Dixie Diner -- had a huge Federal Flag on the wall.

What self-respecting Southerner would ever salute the Federal Flag, much less hang one on the wall of their restaurant.


I mean, this flag represents the same savages that invaded Dixie years ago, burning towns, killing dogs, raping women and just unleashing all-out hell on the South.

To me, this Federal Flag on the wall made about as much sense as walking into a Jewish restaurant and finding a large Palestinian or Hamas flag on the wall.

Disappointed, very disappointed, I took a seat at one of the booths.

After all the red flags, I had already told myself that if The Dixie Diner didn't at least have sweet tea, then I was leaving and would review some place else.

Unfortunately, Dixie Diner had sweet tea -- which meant I would stay after all.

There wasn't anything special about the menu.


I decided to go with Cheese Sticks as an appetizer while I figured out what I would eat.

The choices were, again, pretty typical. Various types of sub sandwiches. Chicken sandwiches. Hamburgers. Soups. Salad. Grilled Chicken. Fried Chicken.

You get my drift.

Since I was going with Cheese Sticks, I decided I'd try the most non-usual thing on their menu, which happened to be a "Pizza Burger."

Dixie Diner's Pizza Burger has meat and cheese like a normal burger would.

But the Pizza Burger has mozarella sauce and a special thick cheese on it.

I was also disappointed at the absence of alcohol on the menu -- something else not very Southern like.

The cheese sticks came out first, and they were good.

But who can't make good cheese sticks?


Hell, the cheap frozen ones you can get for a couple bucks at the grocery store are just as good as any other cheese stick.

A few minutes later, my burger arrived.

On first appearance, it looked damn good.


The mozarella cheese was beautifully melted on a nice piece of beef, and the dipping sauce was embedded under the cheese.

Good so far.

But then I took my first bite.

Not so good.

For some reason it just didn't cut it. Sure, I was already disappointed because of The Dixie Diner having Greek food and a Federal Flag on the wall, but that wouldn't change my taste buds.

There was too much sauce under the cheese. All in all, the burger was crappy.

In fact, I didn't even eat it all.


And worst of all was the fact that the cheese sticks and the burger were ridiculously overpriced.

Cheese sticks, a burger, some fries and a sweet tea cost Suit420 a tad over 20 bucks.

I can get a carton of cloves -- shipped straight from Indonesia -- for 10, including shipping and handling.

But without complaint I paid my tab, left my tip and headed out.

On the way out, I couldn't help but stare at the Federal Flag hanging on the wall.

Rating: Wouldn't wear the shirt if they paid me to.

The (Crabcake) Situation on the Jersey Shore

The Surfrider Restaurant
Virginia Beach, Virginia

Ok, I know Virginia Beach isn't really located in New Jersey.

Big deal.

MTV's hit TV show The Jersey Shore is located in Miami this year.  And the reality show stars are New Yorkers -- not New Jerseyans.

So what about REAL New Jerseyans?

They're the extremely drunk people on the Virginia Beach boardwalk every summer from about Memorial Day to Labor Day.

In fact, it's this influx of New Jerseyans that many believe led the local authorities to have bicycle cops hand out $10 tickets for saying bad words.

After all, at $10 per four letter word, that works out to roughly $500 per paragraph from the pockets of the average mid-Atlantic tourist!

Of course, weaving your way through the throng of cops on wheels and drunken New Jerseyans can make finding a place to eat a little difficult in place like the Virginia Beach oceanfront.

Like other tourist traps, often all the food you'll find is lame and the prices are high because everyone knows tourists aren't going to leave the strip.

So I headed just off the strip by a block or two to the Surfrider Restaurant.

Even at mid-day, the Surfrider was almost empty.

There were a couple of folks in the rather stylish separate bar area, but the only other table was a middle-aged couple having a "couple" of drinks with an 80-year old woman who was pounding bottled Budweisers.

My guess is the old woman was definitely on vacation.

Either that or she was still celebrating the end of prohibition.

The decor was pretty much what you would expect.  There were lots of fish replicas on the walls.

Looking at the menu, the prices weren't terrible.  Most of the options were seafood, but they had a decent selection of other items for land-lubbers.

They didn't have the beer selection listed, but I'd be surprised if there were good microbrews.

Going in, I had imagined ordering a nice plate of either fried shrimp or oysters, but I settled on the "world famous" crabcake sandwich with fries and a sweet tea to drink.

"We only have unsweet."

@#$#@$#@!!!!

Traveling as a I do, I'm certainly used to hearing that waitstaff is too lazy to mix sugar and tea together in other parts of the country.

As more and more Americans are moving into the South and contributing to it's lame-ification, I'm even used to hearing that occasionally below the Mason-Dixon line.

But come on.  This is SEAFOOD.

I'm pretty sure the main reason God created seafood was so folks could eat it while drinking sweet tea.


I bit the bullet and ordered unsweet and just sweetened it at my my table.

Or I tried to.

Despite my incessant stirring, I ended up just hopelessly watching the sugar crystals sink slowly to the bottom of my glass and stay there -- refusing to flavor my beverage all the while -- like sugar ALWAYS does when you mix it with tea cold.

Not a good start, Surfrider.

When the waitress brought my food out, I examined the broiled crabcake.

One tell-tale sign of broiled or fried crabcake is that if they have any radioactive orange tint or deep mustard hue, they aren't fresh.  They've been sitting around while.

Not this one.  It was fresh.  I could also tell it didn't have much filler.  Nice.

I took a bite expecting good, and I got it.  The biggest surprise was the quality of the bun.

Suit 757 has talked much about "Structural Burger Integrity," but the truth is, "Structural Crabcake Integrity" -- or SCI -- is every bit as important.

Despite the moist quality of the crabcake, the whole thing held together like a charm.

The only complaint about the crabcake was it was a tad on the bland side.  This is an easy mistake to make for a cook.

Crabmeat absorbs outside flavor incredibly easily, so if you make any sort of slight error with the Old Bay, it could ruin it.

I added a touch of Tabasco and a little salt.

The star of the show however were the fries.  They were awesome and came out brown and crispy -- like a 60-year old New Jerseyan.

 

The only way you get fries to look like this is to cook them for an extended period of time in grease that hasn't been changed in a few days.  

They were perfect and stayed crispy throughout the whole meal.

Surfrider wasn't perfect.

There was the absence of sweet tea, and despite the overwhelming waitress to customer ratio, the service was very slow.

But it wasn't too @#$#@ bad, all in all.  Especially for a place near the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.

Rating:  Would Wear the Shirt if it Were Free