lots of hype. food and service teeter on the edge.. my list was made at the beginning of my two weeks of classes at fort lee. i was going to try and hit all of the major food network featured restaurants in richmond. dot's back inn was the final place on my list and i knew i could only go to it on my drive out of town back west because this place isn't open during dinner.
this place seems a lot more wore down and mismatched than i would have imagined, but i simply put it off as part of the appeal for this place. i had a very pessimistic friend when it comes to food or new restaurants in general. he was nitpicking the whole meal the whole time from the amount of time the service was taking (yes it was slow, and got slower as the place filled up and the meal went on) to the taste of the food. he got a falaffel sandwich and claimed that he never heard of falaffel as anything more than a type of jewish bread. this is true, but what kind of person thinks of a bread when they hear of falaffel? so he immediately threw out the falaffel and ate a bare naked sandwich. weird.
however, my black and bleu ny steak sandwich was a mix of confusing in my mouth. the steak didn't taste like it was new york steak because it was way too chewy and tough, but it was so thin that this didn't require a lot of chewing necessarily. the bleu cheese part was a very creamy spread that was very liberally spread all over the sandwich. this was okay with me because there was nothing in the way of condiments on this sandwich that would've added much needed lubricity to the meat and bread. my sandwich, i concluded, was excellent and i will try to recreate it at home.
in the end, i believe this place really is agreatplace (and kind of off the map) because my friend ordered some deep fried cheesecake and it looked amazing (and he ate it all very fast, so i can't tell you how it was except "gone")
i will say that dot's is agreatplace, but i almost need another try to really cement that idea. but i urge you to try it.