Terrapin: Wait a Minute, This Place Doesn’t Smell Like Cigarettes (Virginia Beach, VA)

You may have read before, I’m no fan of the beach.   Beaches are always so sandy.  Wow, that was profound of me.  Pearls of wisdom in this post.  I think I’ve been to maybe two beaches I didn’t hate.  The shore at Virginia Beach is not one of these two beaches.  I found out I hate this beach after taking a trip there recently.  Richmond is about 90 minutes away from the coast so Chicken Hen and I figured we should take a long weekend.  When we went to book the trip, we just picked an average place on the shore.  Little did I know that all of these hotels are horrible.  Well, that’s not fair.  The hotels are adequate.  The people that stay in these hotels, however, are disgusting. For two nights, we were subjected to screaming, shouting, arguing, loud laughing, at absolutely all hours of the night.  At one point, at around 3am, someone from another room decided to have a smoke on the outdoor hallway. However, instead of delaying their existing conversation, they chose to prop their room door open and shout at each other from 100 feet away.  The people in this room weren’t even arguing.  They just wanted to continue chatting, past several different people’s hotel room doors.  I was about to swing my door open and let them have it, until I remembered I’m far too cowardly to do that.

Most of the days at the beach were spent avoiding obnoxious families or gangs of rowdy youngsters.  The beach is so friggin crowded. I did go into the water briefly, but quickly got out when I tasted the brownish green ocean.  Around the shore, there are a number of restaurants catering to the “relax at the beach” crowd.  All of these places were horrible.  They were extremely overpriced bars with terrible greasy slop that tasted frozen then deep fried.  Even the higher end places were only slightly better, even then still trying for that “margaritaville” vibe bullshit.  I was about to give up hope of a good meal when I got wind of a place called Terrapin.  I actually assumed it would be bad, keeping on par with everywhere around it, but I decided to go there anyway because I LIKE TURTLES. I’m glad I did.

Terrapin is about two miles from the shore.  Still near board shops and motels, the outside is very unassuming.  Other than a little turtle sign, its in a strip mall that you would otherwise completely miss.  Once you go inside however, you can tell the place is all class.  They went for a dark intimate set up, and it works here.  The place is small, maybe twenty tables with a six seat bar near the front.  There is also an outdoor patio area with additional tables.  The server we had was polite and friendly, which was nice considering we looked like crap from being at the beach all day.

The menu is top notch.  They had Contemporary American cuisine with added classy twists.  We went for the reasonably priced 4 course tasting menu. The first course offered a seasonal soup or a variety of fresh salads. The second course offered a mushroom stack, risotto, truffle mac & cheese and a foie gras salad. We ordered the truffle mac & cheese and foie gras salad.  Both of these were amazing, and both perfectly portioned.  The truffle mac & cheese I could have eaten by the bucket full, but they mercifully give you just enough to have a great taste.  The foie gras salad was crisp and flavorful.  The dressing was certainly house made and the meat moist and delicious.  The entrees continued the classed up traditional theme, with fried chicken, seared duck breast, and local caught rockfish. The duck was some of the tenderest I think I’ve ever tasted, with not a bit of fat that so easily ruins duck dishes.  The fried chicken was also flawlessly executed.  Light breading with a satisfying crunch, while having an incredibly juicy chicken center.  The rock fish was very fresh and flavorful. My mouth is watering just thinking about these dishes.  After stuffing my face, the smaller portioned desserts weren’t a problem at all.  They had probably four different choices.  The sorbet sampler was refreshing, and the berry cobbler was amazing.

I heard somewhere that the menu changes seasonly, so by the time you go there everything could be different.  Don’t worry though, a changing menu is assuredly a sign of a confident chef that still enjoys what they do.  I don’t care for Virginia Beach, at least near the touristy parts.  Its crowded and annoying and you feel dirty just walking around.  With that being said, shortly after going here, friends asked Chicken Hen and I if we wanted to join them for a day at the beach.  My first reaction was that I would rather die, but remembering Terrapins, I told them “Sure! I know just the place for dinner…”