I think I feel compelled to make tacos with bacon shells at least once in my life…
Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
Baco (rhymes with “taco”)
Friday, November 13th, 2009Garnett’s Cafe, Visually Speaking
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Went back to Garnett’s Cafe today, and finally got to take some pictures with good light.
Garnett’s Cafe
Saturday, October 17th, 2009Sure, I’ll add to the growing pile of reviews for Garnett’s Cafe (http://www.garnettscafe.com/ – the site doesn’t work just yet, so hit up RVANews for the deets).
I decided it was finally time to try out a restaurant located on the corner of Park and Meadow (it’s like, the fifth since I’ve been in Richmond), and it was absolutely worth our time. We showed up around 12:44 and sat down at the counter in what was so far a half-full restaurant. The barstools are comfortable, but there’s presently no rail under the counter to rest your feet, so your shoes dangle as if you were a little kid. I was assured they’re planning to install a standard chrome wrap-around rail in the very near future.
The general decor was just right – everything felt carefully but not obsessively selected, with wall-hangings that included various decorative plates, posters, and what I believe was an illustration of jazz singer Nina Simone. Bead board covered eight feet of the height of the walls and the lighting was just enough to supplement the ample natural light coming in through the windows. I got a similar impression here as I did when Cafe Gutenberg was new years ago, and when I first walked in to Can Can – there’s a serious attention to detail here that can often bode well for the food itself.
And the food did not disappoint. Valerie ate the chicken salad sandwich with potato salad on the side and I had a croque madame. Valerie’s potato salad included (what I believe was) a homemade pickle slice. My croque madame had Black Forest ham and gruyere on tasty and crusty Italian bread with – get this – Mornay sauce instead of the simpler béchamel. This meant the addition of cheddar, gruyere, and Parmesan. We both ordered their “lemonade” which consisted of the juice of lemons squeezed right before our eyes, mint-infused simply syrup, and club soda. Wow! Refreshing and delicious.
By the time we finished our sandwiches, Garnett’s had filled up to capacity and some folks were standing by the door waiting to be seated – at 1:40 in the afternoon! We weren’t finished with our meal yet, so we ordered dessert. Valerie tried a slice of the Hummingbird Cake – a banana and pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting. It tasted like a well crafted banana bread with extra goodness from the pineapple. I ordered a slice of apple pie and they were kind enough to indulge this New Jersey boy’s request for a slice of cheddar cheese on top. The pie had clearly been cooked in a straight-sided pan, but this made for some fantastically thick, tender, and delicious crust at the corner. And it was a good sharp cheddar on top, too. I washed down the rest of my meal with a Boylan’s root beer.
Now for the interesting side details: I actually ordered a croque monsieur (no fried egg on top), and Valerie had actually ordered the smoked salmon sandwich, and we both received the wrong orders. Neither of us were the slightest upset about this because I didn’t mind a bonus fried egg, and Valerie loves chicken salad anyway. But when we were ready to pay and leave, the gentleman who was serving us insisted that we would not be charged for our meal. The whole thing. Even the stuff that had no mistakes. I felt bad about this – this was only their third day open, and I understand it can be difficult for new restaurants to become financially stable. And I really like this place! I want them to do well, so I wanted to pay for our meal (especially since we both really liked everything we ate). But he insisted with this condition: “Just come back.”
We will. And we’ll rave about it to everybody we know.
Hayashi Sushi replaces Akida in the West End
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009So it seems as if Akida’s West End location as been replaced by Hayashi Sushi.
I’m a big fan of Akida on Robinson St. in The Fan, but despite its superior ambiance, I always thought the West End location (conveniently close to my office) edged them out on the preparation/flavor front. So what I’m left to wonder is whether a) the West End Akida couldn’t stay open, b) the operators of that location bought out the location, or c) something else I’m not considering happened.
Richmond Biz Sense reported the business license for Hayashi on 6/11, and the earliest review online that I can see is from July 17th. Oh yeah, and so far no website to be found.
Anybody know what happened? Anybody been to Hayashi? I may have to go there next week to give it a shot.
garden state of mind
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009Part of why I’m writing anything right now is because I feel like every passing day that I don’t exercise my creative muscles I risk their atrophy. I sit at my desk at work and can practically feel my brain calcify, or some other ridiculous biological metaphor that comes with having poor writing skills (even when I DO feel creative).
But mostly I’m writing this because I’m really pumped about my upcoming weekend.
Tomorrow is the last work day of this week for Valerie and me since we get Friday off in advance of Independence Day. We’re heading straight up to her mom’s house in the evening to have dinner and hang out with her mom and sister for the evening. Then we drag ourselves out of bed before first light and drive up Eisenhower’s Interstate to Red Bank, New Jersey. This will be my first visit to my home state since the passing of my father in March last year, and it’s been far too long. There is much to be done.
You see, Red Bank celebrates Independence Day with fireworks a day earlier than most places. There’s a veritable cannonade of colorful explosions in the sky over the Navesink River, a display to rival New York City (and, indeed, formerly executed by the same people). My step-mom carries on the tradition of hosting a serious party at her house marking the occasion, and there I hope to see several members of my dad’s family.
Red Bank is, itself, a treat for me. It’s like all the charm of Richmond’s Carytown on steroids (with some of the same inherent problems, unfortunately, like greedy landlords). Whether it’s Zebu, or The Bagel Oven, or even the played-out and kitschy Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash (comic book shop), I don’t much tire of walking along Broad or Front Streets taking in the scenery of my youth. I have to dwell on The Bagel Oven for a moment, too, because it’s seriously my favorite bagel shop on the planet. I love me some Cupertino’s while I’m here in Ole’ Virginny, but even their fine bread pales in comparison to the goods on Monmouth St. The only concern I have is whether I can make up my mind between an egg or salt bagel…
On the 4th itself (Saturday), Valerie and I will travel a little southeast to Sea Girt where Jammie (my mom’s mom) lives. She’s trying to sell her home and move down south to retire near my mom, but while she’s still on The Shore I’m happy for the chance to visit her in the home where I spent half my childhood. We’re definitely hitting up The Ice Hut, some of the most glorious Italian Ice around, and who knows? Maybe we’ll have pizza at The Squan Tavern if I’m lucky. If the weather is as nice as expected, I’ll probably take Valerie down to the boardwalk at night so we can see the other small towns up and down the coast set off their 4th of July fireworks displays.
I also have to make sure, at some point, to procure a proper pork roll, egg, and cheese sandwich on a poppy seed hard roll. If half of that sounded foreign to you, you’ll just have to make a trip to the shore yourself sometime. Words fail.
On Sunday we’ll start the long drive home, but we’ll stop in Delaware to see my brother, Mugs, his wife, Valorie, and our nephew, Donovan. There’s even a chance that our newest nephew will be there to greet us…
Those are the roughly-laid-out plans, and here’s some needless alliteration for you: family, food, and fun. It’ll be a welcome break from the daily soul-suck of work this past month. And of course I’m taking a load of pictures 
Like Colonel Sanders Pole Dancing
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009I’m always entertained by Alton Brown, and this little clip from Serious Eats is no exception:
Ruining the Art of Julia Child
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009This does NOT look promising:
Why is it that a movie partially concerning one of the most important figures in America’s food landscape is coming from the same abysmal writer who struck out with a trifecta of crap in her last three movies (Bewitched, Hanging Up, and You’ve Got Mail)?
(via kottke)
Of Oysters and Gin
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009Today was rough.
From the moment I sat down at my desk, feet still aching from the 10k, I was busy. Request after request seemed to pile up with seemingly little time to dig myself from the fast-growing pile of work in my queue. There were deadlines, questions, confusion from co-workers, and a general sense that today’s pressure greatly out-paced that of my day-to-day. As 4:30 loomed I started to feel like I needed a dramatic break from the mentally cramped environment of the day but I wasn’t sure how I’d accomplish that without going straight-away to bed. Not one to call it a night early, I recalled that Can Can has a weekly cocktail tasting that I had yet to attend.
I’m not going to say that I needed a drink but the prospect of good mixology lifted my spirits, so Val and I headed to Carytown for some light fare, cocktails, and atmosphere.
Can Can’s cocktail tastings work thusly: from 6-7 on Tuesday nights they mix up free (!) tasting portions of the evenings tipple while the full size is a special price all night. Tonight’s sampler was a Gin Rickey (theirs had Bombay, lime, soda, and simple syrup on the rocks) mixed up right, and weighed in at $6.50 if you went for a full dose. Pair that with the Fontina Fondue (which we had at our first dinner there) at $4 bucks and you have a reasonably inexpensive night out with a cocktail and a fancy snack in a classy atmosphere. This evening, however, we had a few other drinks – London Pride on tap, for example – and couldn’t resist dessert.
I also crossed a gustatory threshold; I tried, for the first time, oysters on the half shell.
I chose to have my first oyster at Can Can for two reasons. First of all, I’m pretty comfortable with the freshness and quality of this restaurant’s food. More importantly, I was able to snag oysters one-at-a-time for $2.50. Steep? I don’t know yet. But I do know that I didn’t have to commit to a plate of bivalves with the possibility of hating them.
It turned out, however, that raw oysters aren’t scary or slimy. They taste…well, they taste like the sea. Nether fishy nor smelly, the oysters and their liquor (the briny liquid in the shell) went down the hatch easily with a quick burst of flavor. The bartender, hearing it was my first experience with oysters, helped me out. I was first served a little guy which was a bit more intense in flavor. I ate this small serving unadulterated since it was my maiden voyage, and the experience was good enough for me to order a second. My next oyster was considerably larger and I spiked him with a squeeze of lemon for a touch more brightness that worked well against the ocean flavor.
All told we were in and out of Can Can in about an hour with some quality eats in between. It was the perfect week night diversion to take my mind off a brutal day in the cubicle farm.
Breaded To the Point Of Parody
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009Mercy me, but Patton Oswalt’s review of the KFC Famous Bowl is funny enough to bust guts.
Food Fail Around Richmond
Monday, February 23rd, 2009There’s a new website for food in the Richmond area called Food Around Richmond. I’m going to gently dismantle it today.
The first thing that slaps me in the face is something I can’t say too much about, but it’s still worth a mention: It looks pretty foul. Yeah, I’m using a slightly broken Wordpress theme myself, and I’ve not taken the time to clean it up. That doesn’t mean I can’t recognize another website with visual issues. The header appears to be three stock food photos of varying size stitched awkwardly together with a not-so-appetizing transparent embossed “Richmond” stretching nearly the full width. There’s the tag cloud, the 500-ish wasted pixels below every post dedicated to subscribing, tags, sharing, advertising, etc.
Oh yeah, the “advertising.” The entire website feels like an ill-conceived money-making project. There are four permanent spots for sponsor placement in addition to the banner ad at the end of each post. So far they’re all empty (though the banner advertising is BOTH “cheap” and “affordable”!). You know why? Because nobody really reads this website yet. It’s as if the site owner erected billboards in the middle of farm land that might possibly have a road built through it someday.
But you know what? You could have an ugly website littered with ad space and still have a winner if you have good content. The content, though, is the most unfortunate part of Food Around Richmond…
Problem #1: There have been five reviews since February 9th, and the first three were chains. Richmond is replete with outstanding and varied independent restaurants. It’s nearly criminal to start off a local food blog with a review of Outback Steakhouse.
Problem #2: Four of the five reviews have been well outside of the city limits. The only review of a restaurant in Richmond proper was for Weezie’s Kitchen.
Problem #3: No links to restaurant websites. Sure, “the social networking application of Twitter and YouTube is cool,” (lifted directly from the site) but you can hardly talk about the social aspects of the web if you’re not linking to the websites of the restaurants you review. I know not every eatery has a website of their own, but that’s not the case for Weezie’s or the three chains reviewed on the site. Restaurant websites nearly always have menus, pictures, and other useful information, so it’s unfortunate that Food Around Richmond couldn’t include links.
Problem #4: The “twist of video” for each post doesn’t add much. I don’t expect a new site to have professional video production, but these short segments don’t serve the food well. The shots are often too close to focus, and the lighting is usually too dark which frequently leads to the food looking unappetizing.
Problem #5: Food blogging usually requires food writing, and the writing here just isn’t that good. I don’t mean to insult the author(s) because not everybody writes well. I don’t consider myself a good writer, but you don’t have to be a good performer to recognize whether a performance is good. The style here is too direct, adding little more than simple descriptions and statements of fact.
It’s not that I expect a fledgling food blog to be A+ in it’s first few weeks, but there are already several solid food columns and blogs in the Richmond area that you can’t avoid good examples if you spend five minutes looking for them. I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t start your own food blog just because there are some out there, but it would be hard to take you seriously if you’re just more noise instead of at least standing tall among the existing players. If the goal is to rake in some advertising dollars, as seems to be the point with Food Around Richmond, you have to do at least as well as Richmond.com. I just don’t see that so far.
If you want a broader perspective of food in the Richmond area, check out Richmond Good Life’s sprawling aggregation of reviews, etc. You’ll find links to plenty of worthy Richmond food reads and even write-ups of restaurants by other blogs/sites around town.