Pork belly wraps. Click to enlarge.

We recently spent some time at Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg.  It seems like a great place for a golf, couples, spa, or family getaway.  The resort has several restaurants, five pools (one has a slide and pop-jet fountain and one is an indoor lap pool), tennis, racquetball, volley ball, basketball, 45 holes of championship golf, a full service spa, and a summer concert series (which is open to the public). There are nearly 30 wineries in the county (Loudoun) and many are nearby. The resort also scheduled activities scheduled to occupy a family or just the kids.

Seafood boil.

We had a 50 minute massage, listened to a live band in the evening, and stayed over one night, but let’s concentrate on the food.

The same management team handles all the the resort’s restaurants and catering, so quality is kept consistent.  Also, you will notice that much of the items on the menus are house-made (including the charcuterie), so staff members gain a great skill set. Plus, Lansdowne uses farms (usually local, but at times elsewhere in the U.S.) that produce top quality products.

Cheese Plate.

We had lunch at Pub 46 at the Golf Club at Lansdowne Resort (which is private for members of the Golf Club and guests).  The menu consists of sandwiches and light fare.  The red bean soup and the salmon were very good, but they also made us spectacular (but off-menu) pork belly wraps. I do know from watching food-related reality TV that it isn’t easy to get the texture of pork belly right, and Pub 46 not only nailed it, but also added a great sweet and sour sauce.

We had a tasting of some wonderful local wines and cheeses (and later, dinner) at On The Potomac (their upscale restaurant).  The cheeses were from local farms such as Fields of Athenry and Cherry Glen and were paired with house-made condiments such as roasted, and tomato chutney.   Wines from Tarara Winery, Sunset Hills Vineyard, and Corcoran Vineyards were poured.

Lansdowne can recommend local wineries for you to tour, since they have a relationship with many of them. They offered to set up winery tours for us, but we were on a tight schedule (involving many hours of eating).

House-made charcuterie.

Dinner at On The Potomac was spectacular.  Some standouts were:

• House-Made Potato Gnocchi (with tomatoes, corn, fresh basil pesto, and shaved Cherry Glen crottin)

• House-Made Charcuterie (especially the “ham” of Maple Leaf Farms duck, and hickory smoked Passmore Ranch sturgeon on a potato cake)

• 

  Lobster ravioli.

  Northern Neck Style Seafood Boil included grilled Passmore Ranch sturgeon and is the best seafood dish I’ve had lately. There is apparently something to be said for people who know what they are farm-raising a less oily variety of sturgeon.

• Lobster Ravioli (topped with Laughing Bird shrimp and a big piece of lobster)

• Smores Cake

• House-Made Ice Cream (especially lemon basil, but all the flavors we tried were good)

-JAY

Disclaimer:  I know something to this effect is stated in our “About” section, but (as sometimes happens), we received freebies.  That said, my words are my own.

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