It’s been an honor serving as your food writer in Hampton Roads. Here’s what I’ll miss most.

Three years ago, I got in a dusty Buick and drove four days from my home state of Oregon to cover food for The Virginian-Pilot. I’ll admit I didn’t necessarily know quite what to expect when I got here. I passed craggy mountains and deserts and swamps and coal mines on the way, but when I reached the Virginia state line, all I saw was a welcoming green canopy of trees.

By the time I found myself looking out in awe on the vast expanses of water while crossing the endless bridges of Hampton Roads, I already knew: This place would be home.

It has been.

In the strange parlance of farewells, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to write about the food of Hampton Roads. I have loved the chance to eat and write about homegrown Virginia barbecue and seafood and Southern fare, the burgeoning international food scene of a military town in which everyone seems to come from somewhere else, and the nowhere-but-here dishes like Mexican white sauce and yock and Filipino pepperoni bread.

But as of last Friday, I’m taking my leave from The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press for some new horizons. I’ll be writing about the food and culture of the Atlantic region for the USA Today Network, from a base of Philadelphia and South Jersey.

I’m bad at goodbyes, so I’ll leave you with something I’m much better at: an utterly incomplete accounting of the foods and drinks I’ll miss most in Hampton Roads and Virginia.

Also, as a parting word from someone whose job took him routinely all over the region: Traffic here is nowhere near as bad as everyone seems to say it is. The bridges are a cruelly rigged lottery game in the afternoon, but otherwise it’s kinda fine. Drive all over. Eat well.

Here’s some of what I’ll miss the most.

• One of the best Filipino dining scenes in the country. But especially: Chicken adobo from the Maymar on Maple Avenue in Norfolk. Lumpia and lechon kawali and kare-kare at Only at Renee’s in Virginia Beach. Those impossibly good veggie lumpia at Susan’s Kitchenette. Kain tayo Filipino brunch at Nouvelle in Norfolk. Dinuguan nachos at Alkaline. Pepperoni bread at Glory’s. Pandesal anything from Angie’s Bakery.
• She-crab soup from Mannino’s. She-crab soup in general.
• The Norfolk hot dog, with chili and mustard and onion, as still delivered by places with names like Doug’s and Lulu’s and Kevin’s.
• The impossible comfort of the constantly renamed neo-Monte Cristo sandwich at Syd’s Fishpig Cafe. Deeply personal renditions of ancient mid-Atlantic foods from shad roe to puppy drum.
• Yams at District in Portsmouth. Cornbread at Charlotte’s Cafeteria and Mango Mangeaux in Hampton. Mac ’n’ cheese at Hampton’s Got Fish? Good collards almost everywhere you want them.
• The carnitas and barbacoa at Los Cuates in Virginia Beach. The aguachile at El Korita in Suffolk. The al pastor and tripas and carne asada and drenched ahogado sandwiches and occasional weekend pozole at Chorizo in Norfolk.
• And God help me, I will miss white sauce.
• That unique marriage of bakehouse, doughnut shop, natural wine bar and casual Caribbean-Middle-Eastern restaurant that is found maybe only at the Pink Dinghy in Virginia Beach.
• Dear Lord, scallops. Crab gets most of the attention, but the hulking and delicate U10 sea scallops routinely served in Hampton Roads restaurants make scallops served in most of the country seem foolish.
• But also, crabs. Specifically, getting my hands dirty with a dozen Old Bay-blanketed jimmies on the patio at the Dockside in Virginia Beach.
• Cocktails on docks in general. Pebbled-ice crushes, happy hour margs and daiquiris — every silly party drink people have ever made fun of, made noble by the sun glinting off the ocean or the Bay.
• Fish hot pots and rustic Shandong dumplings at Chef Lu in Poquoson. Cumin lamb and chili-oil wontons and wood-ear mushroom plates at Judy’s Sichuan. Note-perfect salt-and-pepper seafood and salted-fish and eggplant pots, plus my favorite local soup dumplings, at Guangdong Taste. Fresh-made noodles at Noodle Man. Checking in at the Yock Nook to see whatever homestyle delights chef Greg Shia has cooking.
• Chesapeake Bay oysters — Lynnhavens and Ruby Salts and White Stones — delivered in great abundance and variety and freshness at The Atlantic in Virginia Beach, or Casa Pearl in Williamsburg. Actually good dollar oysters at Fuller’s Raw Bar in Hampton, or the Big Easy in Norfolk.
• Surprisingly great Indian food. Around Military Circle there’s the spicy and lemony gongura chicken at Swagath Plaza, the beauteous chaat-house fare at Tamarind, and the fiery meat and rice of Biryani Hub. In Williamsburg, there’s the delicacy and balance of Amiraj.
• Virginia pork barbecue. Tangy Chowan County-style pork at Southside BBQ in Chesapeake. Virginia-style pork butt barbecue from Malbon Brothers or their friends at Pungo Boys in Virginia Beach. Distinctive, intense, delicious N.C.-style ’cue from the Pitt County Smokehouse food truck. Eat-your-heart-out spicy pork from a Tidewater local at P-Town in Portsmouth. Sweet-spicy smoked pork belly from the Old City BBQ truck on the Peninsula. Also, the Texas brisket trinity of Dave’s, Bar-Q and Redwood.
• Road trips for still more terrific barbecue: The inventive and herb-crusted Virginia ’cue at the BBQ Exchange in Gordonsville. The wonderfully wild experiments at Ace Biscuit and Barbecue in Charlottesville. Smoked chicken in tangy tomato-based sauce at Carter’s Pigpen Bar-B-Que in Mechanicsville. Shenandoah Valley chicken at churches early in the morning. Some of the best buttery firehouse chicken you’ll ever find at Old Colony Smokehouse in Edenton, North Carolina.
• Thickburgers from Salmich’s. Smashburgers from LeGrand Kitchen. O.G. bacon-mixed burgers with admirable purity of vision at the Team Fat Kid food truck.
• Waiting in impossibly long lines at Island Jerk Hut in Chesapeake for thick-barked and spicy Jamaican-jerk pork ribs. Not regretting it for a moment.
• Peeking in on the menu at LeGrand Kitchen or Codex in Norfolk, at Harper’s Table in Suffolk or Terrapin in Virginia Beach or Fin in Newport News, and seeing the freshest Tidewater produce that just came out of the ground — reflected back to me in a form I didn’t expect.
• A good ol’ Virginia tomato sandwich. The simple way at home, with beefsteak and Duke’s and salt and pepper. Or the fancy way at Commune restaurant, with heirloom Cherokee Purples from Cromwell’s Produce.
• Pungo strawberries.
• Big, crunch-packed Virginia peanuts.
• Ghanaian fried chicken at Yendidi in Norfolk. Dominican fried chicken at Tambora in Yorktown. Korean fried chicken at Chick N Roll in Portsmouth. Any version of fried chicken served at My Mama’s Kitchen in Norfolk — whether Buffalo Soldier wings or the mighty Drip sandwich.
• Virginia country ham in all its salty splendor, whether from Edwards Virginia Smokehouse or on biscuits at the little country stores that make Virginia feel like itself: Darden’s or Adam’s or Calhoun’s.
• The unbeatable Malaysian roti and satay and wok-fried noodles at Penang Town in Virginia Beach.
• Chef Roshi Karki’s brothy, hearty-spiced Nepali momo dumplings at Chulo restaurant in Norfolk.
• Balanced and inventive cocktails as good as you’ll find them anywhere in the country, from the stacked bar crew at Crudo Nudo in Norfolk. Doubling down on this at the Model Citizen cocktail pop-up there, the last Sunday of each month.
• Learning new experimental hops at every visit to Commonwealth Brewing. The new, velvety-soft Belgian beers at Reaver Beach’s Norfolk location. Accomplished hazies and beautiful experiments in lager at The Veil. The coffee cream ale at the new Coastal Fermentory. Good Vienna lagers all over Virginia. And pretty much everything at Benchtop.
• Waffles at Gourmet Burger Bistro. Breakfast liege waffle sandwiches at Mea Culpa Cafe. The region’s best cinnamon toast at Cafe Blanca. Singular Turkish brunches on Sundays at Grandiflora Wine Garden.
• Taking out-of-town visitors for crab cakes and Eastern Shore oysters and the catch of the day at Blue Seafood and Spirits in Virginia Beach, when they want to try food that could exist only on the Chesapeake Bay.
• Soft-shell Virginia blue crabs forever: milk-flour-fried, each first full moon of May. There’s nothing quite like them anywhere else in the world.

Matthew Korfhage