Acacia (pollen)

Playing around with Lookup Tables recently, I came across a lovely electron microscope image of the pollen from the Acacia plant (Acacia saligna). Behold this beautiful (pseudocolored) "cookie shaped" disk of the acacia pollen around 50 micrometers in diameter! (as a point of reference, 50 micrometers is about half the diameter of a single strand of hair !!). The micro and nanoscales never cease to delight !!

While the pollen is blamed for bouts of sneezes, the restaurant of the same name in town continues to shine in the Richmond dining firmament.
A recent visit had us well pleased with the generally creative combinations of taste on the menu rounded off nicely with some delectable desserts from the pastry chef (almond parsnip cake?!).
Minor quibble follows: While the kitchen continues to impress, the floor seems to have some catching up to do (apparently a long recurring issue). Now, I am all for cold and impersonal (as opposed to fakely effusive) service as long as it is efficient; and Acacia is still one of the few establishments around that gets the little things done (water refills, folding napkins when a patron leaves the table - yes!). However, an eyebrow does get raised when a restaurant that deservedly aspires to this, ends up with waitstaff who dont know about the food they're serving ! An anomaly (?) but it would be helpful for instance, if one knew a wee more about certain items on the menu, what the cheeses on the plate were or able to respond to recommendation questions with a more educated answer than "everything is great". Perhaps the culinary equivalent of what in mathematics we call a "trivial solution", (synonymous with intuitively obvious)

Regardless, a fine restaurant I'm happy to still have on my favs list and well worth a visit (as an aside, vegetarians still have no luck, but the prix fixe menu @24 is easily one of the best "deals" in RVA for a solid weekday "fine" dining experience).

Back to the pollen image, I wonder if restaurants could have a "signature dish" in a literal sense (some clever word play perhaps or a crazy scientific allusion). Now that would be fun.