As far as notoriety in the world of seafood restaurants goes, Skilligalee doesn’t make many waves outside the realm of having a name I can’t pronounce correctly on a consistent basis. 

You would have thought I was raised in a diner. Anytime my father was left in charge of dinner, we had breakfast or meatloaf. Maybe that’s why I get the occasional, uncontrollable urge for omelets and blocklike meat when the dinner hour nears. 

What a difference two years, three chefs and a few interior upgrades can make. At the end of 2006, when I first wrote about Zed Café, the oddly placed, organically focused restaurant in Lakeside, my biggest complaint was that lowered lighting and votive candles couldn’t turn this chic, daytime café into a high-end dinner destination.

I wish I had studied Rivers Ridge’s logo a little more carefully before plunking down quite a bit of cash on two meals I’d rather forget. If I had, maybe I would have been warned of this new western Henrico County eatery’s bipolar personality.

Maybe I’ve been watching too many marathons of “A Christmas Story,“ but for some reason, I’ve been craving Chinese food.  But not the “Hey, let’s grab some takeout containers and set up shop on the couch” type of Chinese food you can get from any brightly lighted, picture-menu-ed establishment.