Fairfax City Restaurant Week 2018: Hamrock's Restaurant Lunch

As Fairfax City Restaurant Week continued I used the opportunity to go to one of the restaurants in Fairfax I've been avoiding forever, Hamrock's Restaurant. I took my lunch break and hit up this old house in Fairfax converted to restaurant and tried out their RW selection:

I arrived soon after the restaurant opened and was actually stuffed into a corner. The restaurant is basically a living room of an old house, so I got it, and by the end of my solo lunch the whole restaurant had basically filled up.

They started me off with some "bread" which is actually dessert...a small blueberry muffin thing that didn't really have a taste, and then some sweet cornbread.

One of the things that happens with me at a restaurant is I drink a lot of water...like A LOT. And I love ICE. I hate it when waiters try to stop by your table less by giving you water without ice. The waiter here did not do this. He was very good at refilling the ice cold water...about 10 times.

So after I drank a gallon of water, my first course and the reason I chose Hamrock's over all the other Restaurant Week Choices was brought out to the table. Brussel Sprouts!

The sprouts were extra crispy and charred, which is one of the ways I like them. There was some jalepeno cheese on top and it was the perfect amount, not much at all but a good addition. The menu mentioned pork belly was involved although I didn't notice...the look wasn't as appetizing as the food. This was so good.

Next up was the main course...I went with the crabcakes because I really love how they do them at fancy restaurants. However when the food came out I was a little bit surprised.

I was expecting to get the smallest lump of crabcake ever. After all it was a fancy restaurant. Instead I received a giant crab cake!  I'm kind of a picky eater though, especially with sauce (see photo). This was the type of plate my dad would love, I think I'm apparently more of a crabcake snob than I thought.

The meal also came with some potatoes au gratin which were like iHop hash browns (which isn't a bad thing) and some fried zucchini which I didn't eat because I'm not into zucchini. There were also 2 little pieces of cold-ish broccoli at the top, I think just to fill out the plate and add color.


Finally it was time for dessert. I'm a very basic dessert guy, so I went with homemade vanilla ice cream. It was good, but could have used some hot fudge.

Overall, I had a nice lunch. he Brussel Sprouts were amazing though and I can't stop thinking about them. I will have to return to pair up a new main course with them. Until then, time to try out an equally fancy spot, the Wine House for dinner.