tomatime !! eleventy111 !! 1111 !!!

Imperfections and all (taste) before they're gone ! Thanks SOTJ...

A fascinating read on the topic:
Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit
By Barry Estabrook
Hardcover, 240 pages

new and old sprouts

A bustling time in the Richmond dining scene. A rough count shows around a dozen or so new restaurants sprouting up in just the last couple of months. I'm not sure if its the new kid syndrome (seen regularly in RVA), a consequence of various “natural events” or simply bad luck, but over the last couple of weeks, we’ve had to postpone trying 3 places on this list because of hour+ waits. And these were on weeknights !! Unprecedented. Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Amidst all this newness buzz, one could almost miss out on some rather sad news – “Sprout” in the VCU area is closing on Sep 5th. While I would not count myself a regular, I have had the pleasure of watching this sprout grow. We have eaten there several times all the way from its seedling stage (back in June 2010) when they were still setting up, to their reclaimed wood furniture stage, to a stage of some maturity and menu stability. I have gone through like-bleh cycles with it – quibbles with execution at times, really enjoying the food at others and all the while appreciating and wanting to support them. They even amused with their menu-in-LP-cover bit. The locavore movement is all the rage these days, and it is rare that a restaurant in the city doesn’t proudly proclaim some aspect of their menu that is locally and/or VA sourced. Sprout was a nice “early adopter” of sorts, which was always something I liked. In a wee bit of nostalgia for me, it also served as the setting to bookend some remarkable personal life episodes. A veritable loss for the area. Good luck.

While I have no idea why Sprout is closing and wouldn’t wish to speculate, I read a rather interesting paper on restaurant turnover rates in the country (“Why restaurants fail” by Harsa et al, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly August 2005, 46, 3, pp. 304-322, doi: 10.1177/0010880405275598). Bottom line – 26 % fold in the first year, 19 % in the second year and 14 % in the third year. The three-year cumulative restaurant turnover rate for franchised chains was 57 %, and 61% for independent restaurants. A bit of data for the statistically curious but its hard to draw any conclusions. Even El Bulli closed because it was bleeding money.

Ending on a non sequitur. I recently had the pleasure to encounter a “pay what you want” concept that I just found simply fascinating - “Decide afterwards for yourself what a fair price is for the eat”. While I’ve heard of this idea before (with even Panera getting into the game), this was a first I’d seen for a relatively “high-end place”, if one can call it that. At some level, the restaurant has a minor bar against abuse via a strict no walk-in policy. Every dinner “sells out” and the food is spectacular and innovative. I wonder though, how this would work as a general business model? In Richmond?
It would certainly make for an interesting behavioral experiment.

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.

Time is an illusion...

....lunchtime doubly so !*

Random musings for the day: At what point do the hypothetical cons (food quality, poor service (eg. rudeness/attitude), décor/cleanliness, price) overcome the pros of eating at a place (food quality, good service, convenience, price, statements of sorts)? In the specific context of a lunch, should some variables trump all (eg. convenience, price)?

Is a single instance of a “con”, reason enough to consider not patronizing a particular restaurant anymore? No background here in the interest of fairness – every restaurant may have a bad day. Oddly enough, I think I am readier to forgive mediocre food than (perceived?) impolite behavior on said bad day.

In other campus notes - Sadly, summer has taken its toll on both lunch carts worth visiting around the VCU main campus – Nate & Olio. MCV carts are still going strong.
The new ownership at Rev it Up has now had some time to get settled - some modifications and changes in menu but they've largely hewed to the previous version.
Construction on Grace will apparently only add to the plethora of chain eateries around campus. A bit on the IHOP - Aramark nexus. Not anti-chain per se but feel an opportunity lost to add some local flavor, quite literally.

6/21 x 7/2

"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?"
— *- Douglas Adams "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"

menu clouds

A couple of layovers later, I have the chance to post my latest bit of data analysis fun (time-wasting?). For some time now, I have been thinking of checking out the degree of "commonality" among menus here in RVA and a method of visualizing the same.

This last restaurant week and word clouds provided a nice opportunity to look at this data. Assuming that the 30 restaurants that participated provide a fairly good cross-section and are fairly representative of menu/food preferences in RVA (a decent approximation in retrospect), it was easy to extract the menus from here and voilà.

So here are the word distributions among menus in the area. Data interpretation is left to the kind reader (methinks the preponderance of 'safe' options is telling).

Entrée:


Main Course:


Dessert:

latte love at lamplighter

one of many reasons I like the place, my lack of epidermal decorations notwithstanding.

RW vegetarianism

Its restaurant week time again in RVA. Dine for a cause!
While perusing the menus, I was struck by how potentially difficult it is for vegetarians to really get into this whole event. A quick tabulation (of menus only, the restaurant may be more accomodating) showed rather slim pickings for the non-meat/fish eaters out there. 8 out of the 30 restaurants participating had no possibility for a vegetarian to construct a 3 course dinner...20 had one entree option that could enable putting together one (mostly variants on a theme). 2 had more than 1; but, of this pair, one was a small plates restaurant that could result in only one possible permutation.

Caveat - This is just a random observation and not intended to make a broader point especially in consideration of the parametric constraints in this enterprise. Also, in all likelihood, the market size may be somewhat limited.

The Mayor

If one is looking for a nice, formal dining experience with all the genteel charm and grace of the latitudes, I would be hard pressed to recommend an alternative to Lemaire at the Jefferson. There are options with decidedly more “exciting” food or a more contemporary décor/youthful vibe, but what tips the scales in Lemaire’s favor is the overall stately feel to the dining experience, sans too much stuffiness. While my notes from last year that Lemaire “lacked in general diversity” still ring true for some categories, I must say that after some recent visits, I’m pretty pleased with the level of maturity it has attained and the number of check marks it satisfies on my imaginary dining list.

No dawdling around waiting for water refills, no laminated, flimsy menus, no cramped seating in rickety rooms. The wait staff have a certain degree of professionalism about them, manage to rotate efficiently and are able to add some of little touches one expects in a restaurant attempting for a certain class (folding napkins when a patron visits the restroom for example). After my recent rant on announcing special pricing, I was particularly pleased to see our wait staff recite the prices of each special. The dining rooms can get a little loud (although a conversation in muted tones is easily within earshot), the bar is particularly raucous at times but perhaps it’s the vaulted ceilings or the generally opulent feel to the architecture that seems to mellow things down. The food is pleasant and elegantly constructed, complemented by a very decent selection of wines. VA sourcing (naturally) and regionals like kale, collard greens, mac n cheese, black eyed peas etc make appearances both as sides and in dishes, albeit of a fairly standard repertoire. Currently offered - a rather interesting prix-fixe Picasso tasting menu for $50. Chef Bundy, I guess the overall ambiance of the Jefferson and typical clientele might necessitate a certain degree of circumspection about your menu, but it would be great to see your imagination fly and go wild with a dish or two.

Lemaire is not inexpensive, but it compares very well (and exceeds on certain counts) with several of its peers (@ a price point that includes practically every restaurant in town that successfully (or not) aspires to a certain cred).
And it’s on Open Table!

OPEN

I’ve been a fan of Open Table for several years and I still think it’s a pity that most restaurants in RVA don’t use it (~30 as of today).
From a recent NYT article: “Over the past decade, OpenTable has grown into the dominant online restaurant booking service and now claims more than 20,000 eateries, mostly in the United States. As of March, it says, it has seated more than 200 million diners.
The reasons are clear: You can check online for available tables at top restaurants in most major markets, making a booking and get a confirmation e-mail – all for free, and without having to wait on hold with a (sometimes) snooty reservations host.”
(we’ve been “turned away/off” from quite a few restaurants in the area owing to this archaic policy)
In a down economy with fewer people dining out, its quite fascinating to see how Open Table (Nasdaq: OPEN) has performed relative to the Dow since its inception (trading at 5x its Summer 2009 IPO price and a tripling since last year!). Wish I had some investing acumen!

A few restaurants around have 1000 point tables available many evenings. At a simple calculation of 2000 points equating to a $20 gift certificate*, that’s like a nice ~10% discount at many places, just a click away. Too bad the choices on where one can use it are limited here in RVA.
* - Consider a typical meal for two (sadly still sticking to the general 3-course paradigm and using rough price estimates) (>> half of the Style Magazine’s Top 50 are at this level or higher) to establish a base: Shared appetizer - $8 + Two entrées - $46 + Shared dessert - $8 + Drinks - $18
Total - $70 (add t&t) ~ $90 as the base price (± $) for two.