Beyond

I love Beyond!

I will do my best to describe how good this new restaurant is. First, let me say that I have been there 3 times in the past 7 days. So needless to say during these three trips I tried many different dishes. I'll get to the food in the second, let me start with the decor. Beyond has a very contemporary feel with dark wood furniture and dark stone floors. There are colorful paintings by local artists lining the walls and it balances out the dark of the decor perfectly. It has a very sleek feel without trying too hard. There is a nice sitting area next to the bar with some small couches. The bottom floor includes the bar, sitting area, and some tables. The top floor includes tables, booths, and the wine rack.

All three times I went the service was AMAZING. The staff was very knowledgeable, attentive, and kind. The service flowed quite nicely with the perfect amount of time between courses.

Ok, let's get to the food. I'll break this up into visits so it will be easier to describe :) I'll mention though that instead of bread or bread sticks each table gets a plate of salted edamame which is quite delicious.

Visit 1: Miso Soup, Pork Dumplings, Chicken Lettuce Wraps, and True California Roll. The soup was very good, it's Miso soup so it is what it is. You do get a huge bowl of soup, plenty to split, maybe even between 3 people. The Pork Dumplings were also very good. I got them steamed and they had an amazing texture. I felt the filling could have used a little more seasoning but they were still very good. The True California Roll had a beautiful presentation and the roll itself was delicious! I'm not usually a sushi person but this was excellent. My companion is a sushi person and he loved it! Now to my favorite part of this meal-Chicken Lettuce Wraps! These were AMAZING. I don't know what they put in the chicken mixture but they are to die for. You make them yourselves and they bring you out a long plate that has iceberg lettuce, rice noodles(i think), ground chicken mixture, and a sake-ginger sauce. These are as fun to make as they are delicious. As the menu points out, these wraps are plenty for 2 (as you'll see in my second visit). The chicken wraps were by far my most favorite part of the meal-so simple but so delicious!

Visit 2: If you couldn't tell already, I love the chicken wraps. My best friend and I had reservations in Charlottesville for 7:30 one night last week but we were quite hungry at 4:30. So we decided to head to Beyond for a pre-dinner snack! We only got the Chicken Lettuce Wraps and they were again AMAZING! We ran out of lettuce and our server brought us more ASAP. The wraps are $8 and since we split them it was just the perfect price for a pre-dinner meal.

Visit 3: Harrisonburg had the 'Taste of Downtown' event going on this week so for my third visit I decided to take advantage of this menu. I went with my best friend(don't feel sorry for him, he loves being dragged to restaurants!) and we each took part in the 3-course meal for $25/each. We each got something different for the appetizer, entree, and dessert so we could try as much as possible! The two appetizers we got were the pork riblets(buffalo) with blue cheese and the mini-crab cakes with chipotle siracha cream. The pork riblets were to die for! The perfect amount of heat and spice without being too overpowering. The pork practically fell off the bone. They have the option to get them in terryaki also and I will definitely be trying those next visit. The crab cakes were also delicious! The cream was amazing, a little sweet, which complemented the crab perfectly. The texture was great, the perfect mix of breading and lump crab meat.

For the entrees we got the Coq au Vin and the Kobe Steak with Lobster Mac and Cheese. The Coq Au Vin was very good and it was a huge portion! I needed to add a little salt to it but other than that it was superb. It came with garlic rubbed crostini and had potatoes, carrots, and celery in the dish. The chicken was amazing tenderly and you could taste the red wine without it being too overwhelming. The Kobe steak was very good, it wasn't the finest cut of meat but since it was Kobe beef it was still delicious. It was a small portion but the perfect size. The lobster mac and cheese was ridiculously good! I was hesitant about seafood in my mac and cheese but if you've ever had lobster you know it has a slightly sweet taste and let me tell you, it made that mac and cheese! It was DELICIOUS! It was the perfect amount too, because it was so rich you wouldn't have wanted any more. Accompanying that dish were steamed green beans that were lightly salted and this again was just something that was simple and delicious. They had a great crunch and great fresh flavor.

Dessert! We got the fried banana and the chocolate trio. The fried banana was good, had walnuts and a vanilla gelato with it. It was one of the better friend bananas I've had, not greasy or anything-but I'm not sure I would get it again. The chocolate trio however-WOW. The trio included a bittersweet chocolate mousse, white chocolate brownie bites, and a coffee-chocolate tart. OMG my descriptions could not do these three things justice. They were all VERY rich but since they were little tasting sizes they were perfect! The mousse was my favorite and the white chocolate brownies my friend's favorite.

To sum it all up-I will be visiting many many times in the future. I am so happy to have a place like this in Harrisonburg now! You can go in for tapas or a whole meal. The prices are great, and it is an amazing restaurant and its not trying too hard. My only con would be the drink prices-a little pricey for me :(

They also have a patio that is open when the weather is cooperating, I can't wait to sit out there and eat Chicken Lettuce Wraps this summer!

Pennybackers

One word: disappointing. I am a HUGE fan of the sandwich. There are few things better in this world than a really good sandwich. Just ask my best friend, I always wish for a "really good sandwich" and he says "well of course you want a good one, no one wants a mediocre sandwich." But when I say really good sandwich I don't mean bells and whistle, compotes, fancy cheeses, etc. I mean a simple sandwich made well. So back to the topic at hand, Pennybackers, in downtown Harrisonburg. They opened about a month ago and boy was I hopeful. I was looking forward to a great sandwich place because I feel Harrisonburg is missing that. I did not get a great sandwich place. I got an overpriced, blah sandwich, with some weird tater tots and some campbell's soup with chunks of cheese.

Let's start with the soup. I ordered the roasted red pepper and gouda soup, I believe that was the correct name. What I got was a crock about 2/3 full of some semi-hot soup with chunks of cheese in it. The soup tasted more like campbell's creamy tomato than roasted red pepper and the chunks of cheese just made the texture odd. The cheese wasn't really melted because the soup wasn't that hot but it also wasn't cold and firm-just bizarre.

Moving on to the main dishes. I will talk about mine and my best friend who accompanied me on my quest for a really good sandwich. I got the Honey Turkey Reuben. It was ok, and I mean ok. The rye was a little too overpowering for the sandwich and it was kind of a flat grilled mess. The turkey, coleslaw, cheese and dressing all kind of blended together and I couldn't really taste the separate things, just a gooey mess. It wasn't a horrible sandwich but it wasn't good either. My friend got The Italian. Again, had one very overpowering component, and this time it took the form of the balsamic vinaigrette. The meats and cheese were ok, positioned oddly on the sandwich, and the lettuce and tomato were too much to be really "italian." The bread was nothing to write home about, a roll probably bought at Kroger.....but anyway.

All sandwiches are served with "Ott Tots." I normally love tater tots, they take me back to my elementary school days in the cafeteria when I didn't have a care in the world. So even though my sandwich was sub-par I was optimistic about its companion because how can you mess up frozen tater tots? And that is my question to Pennybackers-How can you mess up frozen tater tots!? These things were just weird! Obviously I know tater tots are minced/chopped/whatever and then compacted back in to a tot shape, but when you bite into one everything has somewhat become whole again. Pennybacker's Ott Tots were bizarre because when you bit in to them you could feel each individual minced potato part that made up the tot! Weird! They should be called "Odd Tots" (excuse the lame joke, I get my corniness from my father)

So all in all Pennybackers gets a big thumbs down. For 2 sandwiches, 1 bowl of soup, 2 sodas, tax, and tip, I paid almost $30 for a Tuesday night mediocre dinner out. To me, that is ridiculous and depressing. I will not be visiting Pennybackers anytime soon, if they are still open in a year maybe I'll give them another shot, but if you can't make a good sandwich at a sandwich shop......well I don't know what to say.