Thursday, August 27, 2009
Foster's eatery not all sports
TOM ANGLEBERGER
Special to Th e Roanoke Times Bud Foster's Restaurant in Blacksburg is nice enough for a business lunch, but still comfy enough to take the kids.
Tom Angleberger knows what he likes. So we've asked him to eat at NRV restaurants and write about them. If you have a restaurant to recommend,
e-mail him. Tom Angleberger
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Bud Foster's Restaurant has a good thing going. It's called the Lunch Pail Menu.
Now apparently Bud Foster the person has something to do with football. And something to do with lunch pails. And apparently all 10 million Hokie fans know all about this.
His restaurant took this idea and ran with it. The result: a home run.
Every day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., the restaurant serves lunch versions of many of the supper dishes for $5.99. That's a real good deal for good food. Add a 99 cent salad to some items and it's an even better deal. (But the deal is a little less good when you add $2 for an iced tea.)
These lunch pail dishes aren't things you'd find in a real lunch pail, either. There are choices such as shrimp and mushrooms on linguine, chicken cordon bleu, jambalaya, a half-pound hamburger, a portobello mushroom sandwich, even a little steak.
Sadly, I was a little too late in the season to get the item that caught my eye: linguine with fried zucchini. Our waiter -- an exceptional waiter, by the way -- suggested I try the vegetable medley with linguine instead.
Not the sort of thing I'd usually try, but I went for it and quite enjoyed it. I might have enjoyed it even more if I had let the waiter talk me into the Alfredo sauce.
On the non-Lunch Pail menu, the prices and portion sizes go up. There are also a few extra choices, including a 12-ounce Hawaiian rib-eye and sesame-crusted ahi tuna with Szechuan peppers. You might expect a place that serves sesame crusted ahi tuna to be pretentious. Or you might expect a place named after a football coach to be a sports bar. Bud Foster's is neither.
It's a great-looking place, with funky colors, abstract art and jazz on the stereo. Nice enough for a business lunch, but still comfy enough for me to take my youngest son. (Yes, of course he got the chicken tenders and they were delicious.)
Bottom line: Bud Foster's classy restaurant scores with an affordable lunch menu.
