porcines, pink and portmanteaux

This summer has been an interesting time in RVA, with so much flux in the dining scene.

One entrant has been the recently opened gastropub The Blue Goat in the Libbie-Grove area. Gastropub being a portmanteau of gastronomy and pub. From an old WaPo article, "Not quite a bar and not quite a restaurant, the gastropub is a British hybrid of sorts, offering a casual-meets-refined atmosphere that welcomes beer drinkers and wine snobs, non-fussy eaters and foodies alike."

You wont find any standard pub grub here but there's a long bar and plenty of ungulates on the menu here (even-toed or artiodactyla if you're keeping score). The entire pig makes an appearance from the ear, cheeks, shoulder, the current RVA favorite - pork belly, all the way to the tail. I like the general concept and execution of using the entire animal and TBG does a pretty good job. And the eponymous goat, largely in cheese form.
I was rather amused that our waiter stressed that this was NOT tapas and certainly didnt conform to the standard entree concept either. I'm not sure how many of the above criteria it satisfies but both a casual nibble and a complete meal can be considered @ TBG (dishes quickly adding up for the latter). At first taste, we felt that the simpler dishes far outshone the ones with multi-ingredient descriptors. (semi) vegetarians could be somewhat disappointed by the offerings here, although the cheese plate and the excellent bread offer a couple of other places a good run for their money.
An observation - for such a large place, one restroom is a tad inefficient. A recent weeknight experience was surprisingly packed till late and the crowd, a fair slice of the 'chic' we've come to expect at many places around.

Since we're in an alliterative mood here, another "P" thats been appearing everywhere is Polyface (farms). A nice development for sure.

Speaking of portmanteaux, a new word has entered my lexicon - the chork !
I had earlier this year, hoped for a noodle-bar in RVA and lo and behold :)....there's one now. The new Ejay Rin in Manchester. I had always liked the space of the former Savor with its high ceilings and brick. ER has co-opted it well into their sparse decor. A recent visit was interesting - hot and cold (ramen) noodles, steamed buns and asian themed dishes (kimchee/sauteed bok choy). Ginger !

Other than the noodles (which were pretty good), two things were fun - one was the presence of Staropramen pivo on the menu (I wonder if it was a bit of word play on the part of the owners but I was amused. Plus it appealed to the czech-ophile in me). The second was the appearance of a rather gimmicky implement - the chork - a combination of chopsticks and a fork ! For a 25c upcharge, you get to keep your dining implement (a variant on other fancy designs available) ! While I stuck to my good old chopsticks, my dining companion seemed to enjoy its versatility ! A teeny connection to the theme - ramen with pork belly makes an appearance. I need another visit to make up my mind on the broth on this one.
As word gets around, there is sure to be an uptick in traffic at this place. Our dinner came to around $42 ...!!

The food? I saw this in the richmond.com article about the place - "It’s better than average food, for reasonable prices, using better ingredients," [co-owner Bill] Foster said.
Agreed.

In an interesting etymology coincidence that would be of interest to possibly only me, portmanteau comes from the french - porter, to carry + manteau, coat.
ER is on Porter street at the location of the former Lunch Porter !

Ice cubes melting at an alarming rate

As temperatures rise, the inexorable shift of caffeinated beverages to those of the iced kind begins. Pure water ice cubes remind me of an old engineering chestnut - "the solution to pollution is dilution". Something we'd presumably like to avoid in the coffee cup.

I think coffee cubes are an elegant solution, albeit one I've only seen only in a few places around - of recent note - Captain Buzzy's Beanery and way out in the cozy Ashland Coffee & Tea shop. I'm hardly a coffee afficionado but technically, if using a good number of coffee cubes, one doesnt even need to chill the coffee a priori. This would imply perhaps, that the choices for the hot version are easily available for the iced version !

Speaking of the far far away ACT, I like how it is casual and comfortable without trying hard. Disparate couches with plenty of dawdling material all around. Bring, forget (?), take, leave - seems to work out nicely. Closer to home, the Ellwood's Coffee shop presumably approaches this ambiance, although I do need to research if they've worked on the dilution problem.

The headline - shamelessly copied from an old Onion article, with a brilliant scientific graph to boot.