Ravenswood has a handful of restaurants that you'll find standard, and most small towns: a Mexican restaurant, some fast food, and then there is a bakery that caught my attention.



Taraific Cakes and More serves up lunch specials, as well as classic bakery treats. I was in store to try a little bit of both.



The inside is a bit of a mish-mash of industrial paneling of different styles and wooden chairs - whatever works. It's simple and basic. But the star of the show is the display case full of goodies.



For my main meal, I opted for a chicken salad croissant and a side of pasta salad. I enjoyed my sandwich, which had a sweet mayo base. Good hunks of chicken, but I would've loved more for texture.



The pasta salad was average; I like mine with some tang and heavy-handedness on vinegar.



The sweets I tried - both banana pudding & rice krispy - were spot on, as expected. Like they've been perfected over time to have those classic treat flavors.



Have you been?



Grade: B

Great Wall in Ravenswood is a Chinese restaurant, but they also offer sushi. That means I get to combine a few of my favorites.



I ordered honey chicken, cheese wontons, a shrimp eggroll and a New York roll.



Let's start with that sushi roll, which har spicy crab, cream cheese, shrimp, avocado & masago. But it was swimming in a yum sauce that was just too much. It overtook the mild flavors.



The honey chicken was good and even had some peppers, which I loved for some extra bite. White meat chicken, sweet sauce, crunchy peppers. All good. Eggroll and wontons were both fine. Both would benefit from more filling.



Grade: B

Let's go to Gino's Pizza and Spaghetti House and order a sub. Do you call them subs, hoagies, grinders, heroes, or something else? I usually call them hoagies or subs when they are cold. But then it all changes whenever it's a hot one.



Either way, I wanted to try the Sicilian sandwich at Ravenswood because I had a craving. And it was a decent sandwich - The Sicilian has hot ham, Genoa salami, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, black olives, onions, banana peppers, green peppers, oregano, lettuce and Gino's sub sauce served on an oven baked sub. Here's my beef with hot subs: They usually toast them too much so that the outer layer of bread is just crumbling apart and making a mess when I would much rather have that nice deep bite into a soft bread. So the hot sandwich was not my favorite; I think I would try this as a cold sandwich next time. I did however enjoy the combination of all the different meats cheese and veggies along with the sauce.

Grade: B

Steaming Cup Cafe in Ravenswood is a small coffee shop that packs some personality.



The space has a modern vibe and offers coffee, iced drinks, tea, smoothies, and food.



To start with, I ordered a blended cookies & cream drink.



If you want a milkshake with a little caffeine, this is the way to go. It is sweet and refreshing and comforting all at the same time, while also giving you that little bit of kick. 



The food menu consists of sandwiches, paninis, wraps and muffins. 



I went with a ham and cheddar sandwich, which came with lettuce and mayo.



Pretty straight-forward. All in all, a pretty decent meal. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but nothing bad either. I wouldn't mind stopping back here again and trying some other menu items.



Grade: B

I know it seems like I've been working on this Tudor's tour forever, and that's because I have. Am I tired of Tudor's? Yes, yes I am. But we have to go on. And this day, we visited the Tudor's Biscuit World in Ravenswood, which has a cute modern country exterior with fresh flowers.



The menu is the same, and I've now tried all the biscuits - including each of the different types of ham. So, this one is a shaved ham and cheese. Classic combo. 



It's good, but at this point, I'm allowed to be a bit more picky. I don't want a ton of meat, but I also don't love when it's not full enough that the top biscuit eclipses the bottom biscuit and it's just a big bite of dry biscuit. Not bad; could be better.

Grade: B

During MOV Restaurant Week - Mid-Ohio Valley Restaurant Week - I wanted to make sure I knocked at least one restaurant off my list here.



This restaurant week encompasses restaurants from Ohio to Parkersburg down to Ripley. I wanted to find a West Virginia restaurant, of course, and the only one on the list that I hadn't tried yet was Bogey's BBQ & Grille.



Located on a golf course, this restaurant focuses on BBQ and other homestyle favorites. But for restaurant week, they showed off a few other options.



Appetizers were either fried green tomatoes or pepperoni rolls - of course I went with the latter. They were rolled up like an eggroll and very crisp on the outside with grill marks. They had a ton of oozing cheese, which I love, and a side of marinara.



For my entree, I went with the prime rib. It was served as one thick piece in its own au jus. It was pretty fatty, but when I got bites of meat, it was great.



The two sides I chose were macaroni & cheese and potato salad. Both decent.



And for dessert, I went with fried cheesecake - which was wrapped up and crispy just like the pepperoni rolls. Topped with caramel and whipped cream, you can't really go wrong with this dessert. Creamy cheesecake in a fried exterior. And sweet on sweet on sweet.



Grade: B

The more chocolate, the better. That's my philosophy, anyway.

So, you tell me about a chocolate shop in West Virginia, and I'll show you my plans to make it there at the next available moment.

That's kinda what happened with Sweet Dreams Chocolate in Ravenwsood.


After having read about this chocolatier in the newspaper, I made plans to stop here on my way to the Chocolate Festival in Ripley.

This was my first time going through Ravenswood, I believe, but this small shop was easy to find and there was plenty of street parking on this day.

Walking in through the doors, I first noticed the chocolate melting paint on the walls, dotted by stuffed animals and tons of chocolate treats. The shelves feature creative concoctions like chocolate-covered pretzels, chocolate-covered s'mores, fresh chocolate-dipped strawberries, chocolate-covered potato chips, candy apples, and classic chocolate-covered eggs at Easter time.

Wendy Staats, the owner of Sweet Dreams Chocolate in Ravenswood, has been making chocolate for the annual festival in Ripley since it started 10 years ago... 

All of Staats’ chocolates are purchased from the Amish Country and poured into her individual molds. Items like her chocolate critters, emojis and LEGOs are all hand-painted. 

Staats, who works a day job from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., comes in each night to hand-paint the chocolates — some nights painting little, meticulous details like eyes for hours on end. 

“You get up on Easter morning and think about the kids and the impact you made on them,” she said. “It was my dream to own a chocolate shop. It was my goal to open one when I retired. It’s not every day you get to say you’re living your dreams.” 

Sweet Dreams Chocolate was born out of Staats’ love to bake and her young son’s request for her to make him a chocolate teddy bear sucker one day after daycare. From there, it just took off, she said. 

She started making treats for craft shows and other events, but she always had a dream of opening up her own shop. 

Then, more than six years ago, her time came, and the Sweet Dreams Chocolate store was born. 

Everything from finding the perfect building on Washington Street, to the supplies and decorations necessary just all came together — easily, she said. “God put me in here,” Staats said. “It’s truly a story of God putting me here.” (Charleston Gazzette-Mail)

There were honestly so many amazing choices that I had trouble choosing. So much creativity abounds in this shop. But, ultimately, I settled on a Monster Mallo Cup because I don't think I've ever had a homemade one!