Richmond Rave: Stella's

Like the Richmond Symphony post, I've been saving up this one for a while.

Stella's is a Richmond Institution - the current iteration, let's just call it Stella's 3.0, opened last June to much fanfare. A Greek restaurant helmed by an authentic Greek grandmother - Stella Dikos - the food at Stella's is simply to die for. For a little bit of background information about Stella Dikos and the history of the restaurant, check out this Richmond.com article.

My first venture to Stella's was with some co-workers for lunch. Having grown up in a small town in Maryland with no Greek food to speak of, I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. Sure, I'd eaten a fast-food style gyro in my time and even tried some grape leaves (which I found to be disgusting), but I wasn't in to Greek food. Goaded on by my co-workers, I joined them last summer for lunch. It was a fateful day which resulted in me falling in love with Stella's... which is both a bad thing (for my wallet and waistline) and a good thing (Tzatziki sauce - where have you been all my life?).

Since then, I've been back quite a few times including a completely decadent outing with BFF and her husband when they visited us for a weekend in November.

My most recent visit was this past Friday with my dear Work Wife. Work Wife and I shared an office at the Richmond Symphony in which our desks faced each other, so we literally looked at each for 8 hours a day. Luckily, this close proximity led to a loving Work Spouse relationship and not a hate-based Work Enemy. WW left the Symphony in February 2010 (I soldiered on for another year), but we remain close.

If you're going to go to Stella's for dinner, my #1 piece of advice is to make reservations - far in advance. This place is hopping every single night, and the wait can be extremely long (an hour +) if you don't have a reservation. Thank goodness grandma Stella is tech savvy - you can make your reservation pain free at http://www.opentable.com/. There are no lunch time reservations (except for parties of 6 or more), so arrive just before Noon if you can to get immediate seating.

I find the restaurant itself to be modern yet cozy and comfortable at the same time. It is not a tiny restaurant, but not overly large either. When there are a lot of people during the dinner hour, you are elbow to elbow with your neighbors and it can get loud, but this somehow adds to the ambiance instead of detracting.

When I arrived at 11:45, I had beaten the lunch rush and things were still quiet. I took advantage of the relative sparsity of the crowd and took took some photos.

The bar is a great option for lunch and during Happy Hour (Meze Ora). The cool marble top juxtaposed with the warm, earthy clay pots is just what I'm talking about when I say the place is modern but cozy. The Greek cross motif is a nice touch too.

I'm in love with the beautiful pressed tin ceiling in the dining room. I have always been a sucker for tin ceilings, and the bright polished one at Stella's is just lovely.

But my most favorite thing about Stella's setting is the family-style table that dominates the restaurant. I was glowing with delight as the host sat me at the far end of that table. There is just something so European and friendly about sitting family-style. 

While I waited I checked out the menu even though I knew exactly what I was getting: a Chicken Souvlaki Pita with fried potatoes. I had been anticipating this meal for a full two weeks.

The lunch menu contains the usual suspects: soups, salads and sandwiches. But at Stella's there is a bonus - the Meze (small plates) and Comfort sections. The Meze selection is particularly extensive, with twelve options to choose from including the delicious Keftedes (4 giant homemade beef meatballs), traditional Hummus & Tabouli served with pita, and the absolutely divine Dolmades (Grape Leaves stuffed with rice and herbs).

Remember how I said I hated grape leaves? For months, every time we talked about Stella's in the office, my boss would say "Have you had the grape leaves? You've GOT to try the grape leaves, I'm telling you!" I resisted, recalling my earlier soggy experience with grape leaves. Finally, when BFF and her husband joined Husband and I at Stella's for our evening of decadence, we got an order of grape leaves. And I absolutely loved them. There is nothing mushy about these. They are savory and firm, stuffed with a delicious concoction of rice and herbs. I absolutely insist that should you go to Stella's, you must  get them whether you think  you like grape leaves or not.

Sadly, WW and I did not get any grape leaves last Friday. WW had the day off, so she ordered (quite appropriately) a glass of Stella Artois.

Sadly, I had to refrain from any libations. Stella's has an excellent wine list (including $10 caraffe specials) and a very cool selection of authentic Greek beers, in addition to the ever-popluar and oh-so-fitting Stella Artois. The waiter told us their Stella is always particularly good because they go through it so fast the kegs are always fresh.

After much waffling on the part of WW, who couldn't decide what she wanted, we placed our orders. Our food arrived within 15 minutes and boy did it look delicious:

Chicken Souvlaki Pita ($9)

WW's lunch: Black Kale Salad ($9)

For $9, you get a very good amount of food. We both struggled to finish our respective meals, but powered through like the soliders we are:

I had a little help with the fried potatoes.

My souvlaki was wonderful, if not a little bit messy (as you can see from the above). Once you pick up the pita, you can't put it down again without everything falling apart. The best part of the pita is the homemade tzatziki sauce. Sometimes tzatziki is too bland for me or has too much cucumber, but Stella's is perfect: zingy and cool at the same time.

By the time we had finished, the restaurant was completely packed and we had gained quite a few friends at our table:

All in all, Stella's is, I think, my favorite restaurant in Richmond. When an out-of-town guest comes, my first suggestion for dinner is Stella's. Birthday dinner? Stella's. Mother's Day? Stella's. A lunch date? Stella's.

Do I sound like a broken record yet?

The lowdown:

• Parking is plentiful - there is a small lot behind the restaurant, accessible via the alley, and plenty of street spots.
• Make reservations for dinner (at least two weeks in advance if possible) and arrive a little bit early for lunch if you need to be seated immediately.
• Can be budget friendly (my lunch on Friday was $9 not including tip) or budget busting (I believe we spent well over $200 for the night of extravagence in November, but that included caraffe(s) of wine, multiple appetizers, dinner entrees, and desserts for 4). But it will be worth every penny, I assure you. 
• Grape leaves are a must.
• Try out the family-style table if you are daring enough.
• Service is excellent but sometimes on the slow side. If you need a quick lunch, you generally won't find it here.
• Stella's is a perfect example of one of my reasons to run - I wouldn't be able to enjoy this delicious but definitely not diet-friendly food if I didn't earn those extra calories through some running.

Reasons to Run: No Shortcuts

This is all over every news outlet this morning, so I'm sure you all have probably heard that Skechers is paying a $40 million settlement over claims made about its Shape-Up, Tone-Up and Resistance Runner shoes. Everyone who bought a pair will be able to get their money back if they want to.

My first reaction to this news is a big "DUH." Come on now, if you were silly enough to believe that a goofy looking shoe could really tone and strengthen your muscles and lead to weight loss and better cardiovascular health, I don't think you deserve to get your money back. You ever heard the old adage, "If it's too good to be true then it probably is"? Take it to heart, folks.

Also, the fact that Kim Kardashian was shilling the things should've made you think twice.

This girl will do anything for a buck - including

selling you shoes that are bogus!

Unfortunately, a lot of people (including people I know) bought them anyway, looking for an easy out. This got me to thinking about how our instant-gratification society has really creeped into everything in our lives including, of course, the healthy living/fitness/weight loss arenas.

I myself am terribly impatient. While I stand upstairs waiting for my lunch to heat up, 2 minutes and 30 seconds feels like an eternity. If someone doesn't email me back within a half hour, I get annoyed. Heck, my mantra for running is "the faster you run the faster you're done." You get the point.

But the thing about it is, when it comes to health, weight loss and fitness, I have learned that there are no shortcuts. Although I was never obese, I did flirt with the 145 pound mark, giving me a 26.6 BMI (overweight for my height of 5'2"), for a few years. I remember sitting in the car crying after a shopping trip with my mom in the 10th grade when I had to buy a pair of size 10 jeans in the Junior's department at JC Penney.



11th grade (yep, that's BFF)



Senior prom

For most of my adult life, I have hovered right at 135 pounds. I never thought I was "fat" but I did want to lose about 10 pounds and made half hearted efforts at working out. And by half hearted I mean I would go do an elliptical trainer for 30 minutes two times a week and call it exercise. My diet didn't help much either - when I was in college and graduate school my staple meal was Velvetta Shells and Cheese and chicken tenders. When I met Jason in 2006 I was the smallest I had been in a while - 132 pounds or thereabout. 

2006

After we got engaged, like any new bride-to-be, I immediately put myself on a "Bridal Workout Plan." I joined the Y in Richmond and went 3 or 4 days a week. I did 45 minutes of elliptical. I did yoga. I stopped drinking soda. But I kept eating Velveeta, McDonald's, and cake.

I did not lose a pound...

I still looked good on our wedding day (2008)

...until I started running (unfortunately for me, AFTER our wedding). And even when I did start, the pounds did not melt off. Over the past 2 years I have lost 12 pounds... and run hundreds of miles. I also have changed my diet substantially, cutting out snacks, the majority of fast food, soda, and eating more vegetables.

April 2012

This photo would have NEVER happened before.
April 2012

Am I some paragon of health and nutrition? Hell no. You all know of my obsession with cake. And french fries. And wine. As I alluded to in one of my very first entries, I run because I like to eat, and I like to be thin. I like the size that I am now and the way that I feel. I don't want to feel guilty about eating cupcakes, so I run. It works for me.

I'm just trying to share what I've experienced and what I've learned for myself. And in my experience, if you want to lose weight and get fit, a pair of magic shoes isn't going to do it. Neither is a pill, or a 500 calorie-every-other-day-diet, or drinking shakes for breakfast, or even gastric bypass (yep, that wears off after a while too).

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you have to change your lifestyle.

FOREVER.

I have watched countless people that I know lose weight through some fad diet or exercise plan only to regain the weight when they got tired of whatever method they were using. No matter what you say, chances are you will get tired of drinking a shake for breakfast and lunch every day of your life. Or not eating carbs... ever. It just doesn't work.

But when you slowly but surely incorporate healthier foods and exercise into your everyday life, before you know it, you will be there. And you won't really have to think about it anymore. In fact, if you try to eat stuffed crust Pizza Hut pizza, your body will rebel and you will never do it again (trust me on this one... it's not pretty). You will wonder how you ever drank an entire can of Coke on your own (I had a can-a-day habit throughout high school, college, and grad school. Now I can barely finish one!). If you don't go exercise, you will feel like crap.

Does it suck at first? Hell yes. To get off my can-a-day Coke habit, I gave it up for Lent one year. By Easter, I would've given my left arm for a can of Coke. When I first started to run, I could barely run one mile on the treadmill with the speed set to 5.5 MPH without feeling like I was going to fall over from exhaustion. But you will get through it and then it won't be a diet. It will just be life.

There is no instant gratification. But it is worth it. 

And now I'm going to eat a cupcake.

Return to the Mat

I skipped out on yoga for two whole months - from February 28 to May 1. I won't even bother with a list of excuses because there are no good excuses. Well... there is one good excuse which is after I fell on Monument Avenue I had a huge open wound on my hand and it would have been impossible to even do plank or down dog, so therefore it was pointless to go to class.

But anyhow, since May 1 I have gone to Vinyasa yoga at the Y every Tuesday night. As loathe as I am to give up one of my running evenings to yoga, it is becoming more and more apparent to me how important cross training is to my run game. When I am doing yoga I feel better all around. I become more aware of my posture, am less tense, more flexible, and feel stronger and more toned.

Last night, our instructor mixed things up a bit with some poses that we had not done in a long time and with some new flow sequences. A few of my favorites:

Inclined Plane. Super challenging to keep your hips up.
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Intense Bound Side Angle - which I actually managed to bind!
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King Dancer. I think I managed to get to this point...
but of course I'm probably wrong.
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Tree pose. Just an old favorite.
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By the end of class I was so tired that I pretty much fell asleep in savasana. I did not want to move. That means it was a good class.

And then I undid all of that good work by eating a Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich for dinner. At least I got a baked potato instead of fries as a side. And water instead of Coke! That took a lot of will power.

But then we got some bad news on the homefront, so I ate a piece of cake. A big piece of cake with a lot of icing.

Oh well. Back to run tonight... and there is no more cake, so it will be more difficult to sabotage myself.