The Refinery, Tampa

This past Friday my beau and I went to The Refinery, which is located in the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa. They have been open now for about six months, yet this was my first time. Their whole thing is about offering local and seasonal cuisine, which is a hard thing to do in the middle of summer in Florida, but they are DEFINITELY pulling it off. Also, they basically offer fine dining quality at a tiny fraction of the cost, which is just super cool. They carry a limited selection of wine, but the bottles they do carry were very good (I tried the pinot noir and also some Argentinian wine whose name escapes me) . They have a good draft beer selection consisting of all craft brews as well as a nice bottle selection, both rotating often which reflects the ever changing menu which is rewritten every Thursday. Oh, and they are BYOB.

First Course:
-Crispy Pork Belly (the largest portion I have ever seen on one plate) with braised cabbage and rosemary/chili cashew brittle
-Vichyssoise with a candied leek.
-Roasted beet salad with strawberries, red onion, balsamic, and a bleu cheese whose name was not reveal on the menu.

ALL very good. My man ate the porkbelly, it was his first time. I absolutely love the smell of pork and I love to cook with it as well, despite the fact that I don't eat it. This is a bizarre phenomenon that I have yet to truly understand.

Second Course:
-Roasted Chicken with roasted fingerlings and ratatouille.
-Shrimp & Polenta with sauteed chard in a lemon-tomato broth.

Something I always do when I eat with someone who orders chicken, is touch their chicken to see if the skin is crispy (I try to remember to ask politely before I begin playing with someone else's food). The skin on this chicken was GBD and crispy! Another miracle is that my boyfriend hates summer squash and tomatoes, but he really loved the ratatouille.
As for my shrimp and grits, I really couldn't get over how excited I was to see the shrimp come out with the heads on. This is something that I find hard to come across, because a lot of folks are so afraid of knowing what they are eating. I on the other hand much rather look my food in the eye. There is also a lot of flavor in the head that is lost when the shrimp is cooked without it. Delicious!