There's a beautiful restaurant nestled in the woods of Charles Town that logs every single meal they ever make.

The Redbook Restaurant at Hillbrook Inn & Spa serves just one prix fixe meal per evening in three time settings: 6 p.m., 7 p.m., or 8 p.m. There is a four-course menu for the first seating, and the latter two have an additional course, bringing it up to five total.

Since it was just me, and a little cheaper, I went for the early dinner with the four courses.

Once I made my way through this very sweet property, with trees lining the roads, a little creek and a life-size chess board, I parked my car and walked inside.

The building is lovely. It has character, beautiful decorations and a classic elegance.

Soon, I learned that I was the only diner that evening for the 6 p.m. meal. Imagine my surprise when I was literally the only person in the restaurant. Me, my server, and the chef. That's it.

But, it was nice to receive such personalized attention.

Once I was seated, I saw what I would be having that evening. They do update the menu daily on the website, but I hadn't had a chance to see what I would be having until I saw the printed menu at my table.

If you're adventurous, this is a fun surprise. If you're more cautious, not having any flexibility or options could be cumbersome. But, I was thrilled by the experience.

For my first bite, I was offered a piece of bread and some butter. Always nice to have a nice, warm crusty piece of bread.


Then, we moved to the first course, which was a root vegetable salad with beets, carrot, orange and all kinds of tasty goodies. Yummy!


The second course was a roasted red pepper soup, which was so rich and creamy - and the aforementioned bread was prefect with it.

The third course was a slow-cooked ribeye, tomato and basil polenta and a demi glace. This steak was perfectly cooked, the creamed polenta was savory, the demi glace sweet. Perfect mix of textures and flavors. This is my idea of a well-balanced dish.

And, for dessert, poached peaches and a salted caramel ice cream (heaven). It's almost like they tailored this meal for me.

That is actually a cool thing, because they write down every meal they serve in these red books so that if you dine with them again, you are certain to not ever receive the same meal again. They rarely repeat meals and instead draw on seasonal and local ingredients.

The whole concept to me is very cool, especially as someone who likes to document all those experiences and such. So, it's really cool to have everything they've ever done in a notebook.

So, I kept myself entertained while dining, flipping through all the previous meals.

Get ready, y'all. It's steakhouse time. I put on my nicest pair of black pants for this outing to Charles Town to dine at the Final Cut Steakhouse. This steakhouse, located at Hollywood Casino, is not totally unfamiliar to me. Their folks once shipped me some of their sauces in order for me to try them out and to get the word out (why do some of my old blog posts show photos rotated? ugh).

I reached out to my friend Brandon, who lives in DC. Charles Town is just about 1.5 hours from him, so he graciously accepted my offer to meet up for dinner.


After parking (East Gate!) in the parking garage - which is free - we headed to the main floor in search of steak. What I didn't think about is how smoky the entire casino would be on the way to the actual restaurant. Blechhhh.

The steakhouse itself is lovely inside. It's dark, suave ... as classy as a casino steakhouse can be, I suppose.


For starters, we had a basket of bread that was fairly unremarkable. We chatted for a bit while making our final menu selections.

Then, in a sort of perfectly timed dance that carried throughout the night, our entrees came out. I ordered an 8 oz. filet mignon with a side of steak sauce ($3). It comes a la carte, so we also ordered a side of truffle mac & cheese.

The steak is charred on the outside, and it was definitely overdone. The outside was well-done, and once I got to the middle, I was able to see just a tiny bit of pink. It was quite tender, and the flavor was decent, as well.

The side of mac & cheese was impressive. The noodles were these short tubes that were covered in a creamy cheese sauce, breadcrumbs and truffles. All in this adorable steel pot. This dish has a very earthy taste - which I love! But it is different.

And, as a small sweet bite, we were served some dark chocolates. Not a fan. So, overall thoughts. Well, I liked my steak - even if it was overdone (at a steakhouse?!), and I liked the macaroni and cheese. Did I like it $62ish worth? Meh. I've had better steaks - that come with sides. So, the restaurant seemed a little extra money hungry considering all sides and sauces were extra. A lovely time with a good friend? Yes. A delicious meal? A good one, at least.


Grade: B

It's rare that I let an ice ream parlor go unnoticed. So, as I was exploring Charles Town, Skipper's Downtown Dips & Deli made itself apparent. 

Quite a few deli items are available - sandwiches, soups, salads - but I'm all about that ice cream. Bout that ice cream. Bout that ice cream (no deli).

I ordered a waffle cone with a caramel fudge ice cream. And while the ice cream was nice and sweet and smooth, I wasn't loving the little dense bricks of fudge mixed in. Didn't love those a ton. But, you can't really go wrong with ice cream, as evidenced by 75 percent of my blog posts. A cute shop with lots of options for both lunch and dessert, so if you're taking a stroll downtown, be sure to pop in and check it out.


Grade: B

The Mediterranean Cafe in Charles Town is known amongst the locals for having good food. It boasts fresh, quality ingredients for dishes influenced by Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Lebanon and Morocco.

When I visited this restaurant, it was pretty busy. They seated me in the back at a small one-person (two if you're stretching it) table. It was actually quite cozy, and I could take in some of the really unique wall art and decorations back in my secluded corner.

Before I even ordered, they brought out a nice little sampler platter with hummus, pita, feta, and shirazi salad. What a way to start a lunch! The hummus was quite tasty, and I loved have the bit of acid in the shirazi salad to balance everything out. Love, love, love this.

The lunch menu has lots of great items: lots of salads and kabobs. For my order, I went with the Kabob Chengeh, which is lamb. While some bits were a little chewy or fatty texture wise, for the most part, the lamb was very good - especially paired with the cucumber sauce and a nice sweet bite of onion and tomato. Yes, yes and more yes.

Grade: A

While passing through Charles Town, I stopped for a lunch. Dish, a new American bistro, features salads, burgers, chicken sandwiches, flatbreads, and more on its menu. Its dinner menu also seems pretty fabulous.

I was seated at a small table; the interior of this restaurant is a bit upscale with a kinda artsy touch. I ordered the "Mountain State Brewing Company Beer-Battered Fish + Chips," which came with traditional tartar sauce and malt vinegar.

The fish, while it had a good flavor, was cooked a bit too long. The breading completely separated from the fish, which nearly disintegrated when I stuck my fork in it. Fortunately, the breading was tasty, and the fish was good, too. Just a minute or two less, and it'd be nearly perfect.





Grade: B

I first heard of Bloomery SweetShine earlier this year when they decided to close their doors in response to state regulations that they claim made the business unprofitable. Legislation was introduced to help minimize the problems they were experiencing, and they opened back up shortly thereafter.


Since I was in the area, I swung (is swung a word?) by for a tasting. We arrived as a party was finishing up, so we took a quick tour of the greenhouse beforehand and saw the lemons growing. Then, as it started to rain, we went inside to begin our tasting. One straggler stayed back from the crowd and, shall we say, she probably had a bit too much limoncello.



Bloomery Plantation Distillery produces Bloomery SweetShine, which is a line of fruit cordials. After the owners took a trip to Italy in October 2010, they were on the search for the best limoncello in America. That quickly translated into a mission to make their own. They bought land for the distillery, started growing lemons and raspberries from their own farm and produced limoncello, with more than 20 international awards. The SweetShines also include a chocolate raspberry, a peach shine, their proprietary raspberry lemon and a cremma lemma.

Our bartender - or "fun"tender as they say - was fun, he showed us some great drinks we could make with the various limoncellos, and I ended up leaving with a raspberry limoncello. They're all quite tasty, and they all mix well to make even better drinks. What's your favorite?