THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9412300084
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DONNA REISS, RESTAURANT CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
To compile its list of favorites, Flavor selected four residents of Hampton Roads who dine out several times a week. Here's more about them, and their dining experiences:
Tammy Jaxtheimer, director of admissions, Johnson & Wales University in Norfolk.
Jaxtheimer was an enthusiastic member of last year's panel, a gourmet cook whose job keeps her in touch with restaurant trends.
A former Johnson & Wales student, she started her culinary career at 13, busing tables at Captain Kidd in Virginia Beach. She worked in several restaurants, graduated from Virginia Tech and earned a culinary degree at Johnson & Wales.
With her husband, Mark, a crane engineer at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Jaxtheimer dines out about twice a week, trying new restaurants and revisiting old favorites.
The T-Bird Cafe at the Thunderbird Motel in Virginia Beach, for example, is a long way from her Chesapeake home but draws her back for its casual comfort with an ocean view. There she can count on ``no-nonsense food with a no-nonsense price,'' she says.
When Monroe Duncan transformed Norfolk's Piranha: An Eating Frenzy into Monroe's, Jaxtheimer visited, was delighted, and decided Ocean View was not too far to go.
The Jaxtheimers occasionally travel out of town for a fine dinner. The Frog and the Redneck in Richmond and the Blue Point Bar and Grill in Duck, N.C., are ``always worth the drive,'' Jaxtheimer says.
Consistency and value matter most to Jaxtheimer. That's why the Dumbwaiter in Norfolk and Le Chambord Bistro and Rotisserie in Virginia Beach appeal. ``We can order a couple of medium courses and a glass of wine or a full dinner,'' she says of the upscale-casual restaurants.
For intimate evenings, Crackers in Norfolk is a favorite because it's ``cozy and quaint,'' she says. ``The treatment is that of a dinner guest in someone's private home.''
Aubrey Escoffery, a part-time private-practice psychologist and full-time assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs at Elizabeth City State University.
Escoffery grew up with good food. His was no peanut-butter-and-jelly childhood. His grandmother cooked fine meals for families in New Haven, Conn., introducing young Aubrey to British and Continental cuisines.
In the cosmopolitan community surrounding Yale University, he ate Italian, Polish, French, German and Jewish dishes. His mother, he recalls, made plum puddings.
When Escoffery moved to the South, he suffered culinary culture shock but eventually learned to appreciate barbecue and down-home cooking, he says. As a result, his favorites include both the elegant Le Chambord in Virginia Beach and the casual Harry's Famous Barbecue in Norfolk.
Mama's Home-Cooked Bread Pudding makes Harry's Famous worth a visit, Escoffery says.
His wife and dining partner, Bertha Escoffery, teaches at Norfolk State University, so both are too busy to cook. They live in Chesapeake and like to eat out several times a week.
The dance music and ocean view from the top of the New Cavalier, as well as ``outstanding'' seafood and beef dishes, make Orion's Roof the Escofferys' first choice for a romantic evening.
They'll even hit the road for their favorite foods; in Nags Head, the Penguin Isle at milepost 16 is a must, Escoffery says.
Sam Martinette, a Norfolk native and restaurant columnist for the Compass, a community news section of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star.
Martinette's weekly ``On the Town'' column keeps readers informed about restaurants.
Martinette contributes an insider's view; he worked in and managed local restaurants beginning in his teens.
Martinette grew up with good food. He recalls Sundays when his Italian father's relatives congregated in the kitchen to talk and eat for hours, starting with lunch and continuing though dinner.
Martinette still likes Italian food. He compliments Pasta e Pani in Virginia Beach for ``great Italian food prepared by a great chef and his family.''
But variety is the spice of his choices, which include the Southwestern chic of the Coyote Cafe in Virginia Beach, and baba ganoosh, the distinctive eggplant and tahini spread of Middle Eastern cuisine, as prepared at Norfolk's Tabouli.
Martinette's wife, Julie, is his regular dining companion, adding her own excellent cooking and experience with European food to their repertoire. A nurse at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Julie Martinette waitressed while in nursing school. Her years in Germany influenced the couple's appreciation for the unpretentious Bavarian Inn in Norfolk, where the food is ``hearty and filling,'' Martinette says. There, weiner schnitzel and spaetzle with red cabbage is a favorite.
Donna Reiss, an English instructor at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach, and Flavor restaurant critic since 1981.
As restaurant critic and occasional feature writer for Flavor, I enjoy surveying the constants and the changes in the local restaurant scene.
I compile and describe the Flavor's Favorites panel survey results, recognizing that we are lucky to have so many good restaurants - that four people could name 29 favorites. Had we had the option of naming more than 10 restaurants each, our list would have swelled considerably. by CNB