Mike and I love to spend quality time with each other, and if food is involved then that is even better. We typically love to do early morning coffee dates on Saturdays while most folks are still sleeping in and catching up on their beauty rest.  Lately, though, most of our "dates" have consisted of less-than-ideal-not-romantic-anyway-you-look-at-it places. Take the lunch over the habitat for humanity blitz build, for instance. We had fun working on the houses together, and the lunch was fine as far as working lunches go, but we were really too tired to consider that a date.  Besides, quality time date food should be on a bit better scale than boxed sub sandwiches!

This past Saturday Mike and I decided to leave and everyone and everything alone and finally catch up some quality time together! We had errands to run in New Bern and so we made it a morning of visiting shops we hadn't been in before and walking around town. We also found a new favorite restaurant in the process!!

MJ's Raw Bar and Grille is located on Middle Street, just a few blocks southeast of Tryon Palace Historic Sites and Gardens. The food is fresh, prepared from scratch daily, and cooked to order! Can you say delicious?!

Mike had the grilled salmon with green beans and garlic mashed potatoes. This is the first time in MANY years Mike has tried a salmon dish. His grandmother made him eat salmon cakes made from canned salmon when he was a child and he has forever hated salmon since. He decided on Saturday to go ahead and try the salmon at MJ's and he was pleasantly surprised! I think I may actually be able to serve something other than tilapia at our house now!!

I had a salad with half of a yachtman sandwich and a bowl of crab bisque. The yachtman sandwich consists of turkey with cucumbers, red onions, and a creamy goat cheese and basil spread on toasted wheat-berry bread. I could have had the typical everyday club sandwich but I really wanted to try something different. The yachtman was different and delicious! I loved the combination of the cucumber and red onion with the goat cheese...very yummy. The crab bisque was smooth and everything you'd expect from a homemade dish. It definitely didn't disappoint!

Then there were the desserts... Oh.My!! Troy, our server, who did an EXCELLENT job, by the way, brought out this silver platter FULL of to-die-for desserts. What I really loved about MJ's was that they took quaint and good home-cooking, and still made it elegant by putting the desserts on a silver tray. The little details like that ALWAYS make things better!

I really wanted to try the chocolate bomb in the center of the tray but I decided I probably didn't need it, especially considering I already felt full to the max AND I wanted to walk back to where the van was parked rather than roll to it...LOL.

Mike loves cheesecake and so it wasn't really a huge surprise for me when he chose the Passion Fruit Cheesecake...

and, since I knew I would be writing a blog post about our experience, and purely to give an accurate view of the dessert tray, forced myself to choose the Key Lime Pie (made from Jill's -- the J, in MJ's -- special recipe)...

To be quite honest, I wanted to lick all the yummy green sauce off the plate! I promise you that I controlled myself. We were in public after-all. But just barely. I love Key Lime Pie and I don't get it often enough. Mike wanted to take a whole Passion Fruit Cheesecake home. Like I said, the desserts were TO-DIE-FOR!!

Overall, Mike and I were thoroughly impressed with the quality of MJ's food and service and we will definitely be going back. The prices were very reasonable (and I'd even go so far as to say I thought the prices were on the low range for food that good). If I had to make a complaint, the only thing would be the presentation of the rolls with our dinner. There were only two of us so the container was more silly (and empty looking) than cutesy...put the dinner rolls on a small silver tray like you do the desserts and it would be all perfection! I'm sure it probably seems like a really silly complaint but I'm all about honesty. I figure if I'm gonna admit to you I wanted to lick the plate cause it was so good, then I'm gonna be honest about the roll bucket, too

If you are a local follower of my blog, or if you are traveling to New Bern, North Carolina anytime soon, please consider giving MJ's a try. Currently they have a coupon listed on their website (http://www.mjsrawbar.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=37) for 1/2 off an appetizer with the purchase of two entrées. Make sure you print it off before you leave the house!! You can also follow them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Bern-NC/MJs-Raw-Bar-Grille/134725401999

Do you have favorite restaurants in your town? What are things that have made you return to a restaurant? What are big turn-offs for you? Feel free to share in the comments.

In Christ,

Sallie