Thursday, March 31, 2011

Dining at Darbster

Who: VN Managing Editor Elizabeth Castoria
What: Refueling between tanning sessions in Florida
Where: Darbster, West Palm Beach, Fla.
When: February 27, 2011
Why: To try a restaurant I've read so much about!

The Scoop: I recently had the very good fortune of attending the engagement party of one Stephanie Katcher. Yes, she's of the Joshua and Joelle Katchers, which means that I not only got the chance to celebrate her engagement (congrats Stephanie and Brad!), but got to see two good friends and meet their phenomenal parents, Michael and Cindy. Oh, and did I mention that all this family fun took place in Florida, aka a place where they have warm sun and beaches and pools and lawns and other places to sun yourself like a lizard, which is my absolute favorite thing in the world?!

Two cute Katchers: Stephanie, the bride-to-be, and Joshua

The trip was spectacular, to say the least, and not least of it was our evening at Darbster. After Joelle's review (read it here), I'd been dying to try this East Coast gem, and we headed there with all possible haste. From the review, I knew I needed to try the Palm Cakes (faux crab cakes made with hearts of palm) and sliders, both of which were totally delicious. As can sometimes happen when I visit a new restaurant, I might have gotten a teeny bit over-excited, and ordered just about everything on the menu. All in all, the four people of our party tried the mac and cheese, sliders, palm cakes, miso soup, kale salad, tempeh Reuben, Chick'n Parmesan, chocolate mousse, and an insane s'mores cheesecake. Hey! It takes a lot of energy to soak up sun!

The signature palm cakes

The food was great, and we even got to meet the executive chef, Seth, and owners Allan and Ellen. All three were really lovely; we couldn't have asked for better hosts. We did learn from Seth that we'd missed brunch that morning, about which we were all pretty bummed. The bright side? Now we have one more reason to head back to sunny Florida!

2 comments:

laura! said...

oh i want to go here VERY BADLY. now i will stare at those crab cakes for the rest of the day and get no work done.

Mary Martin said...

I live about 20 minutes north and go almost weekly for the Palm Cake caesar for brunch. The only problem with the palm cake is that it prevents you from experimenting with the other fabulous items on the menu because it's perhaps the most delicious food item on the planet. Yes, it's that good. The trick is to go with other people and have them order something else so you can try other options.