The Hook - The Dish » 2010

City Market opens this weekend

by Dave McNair 12:30 pm March 30th

Rise and shine! The Charlottesville City Market opens for business this Saturday.
PHOTO COURTESTY CHARLOTTESVILLE CITY MARKET

The Charlottesville City Market kicks off this Saturday, April 3 at 7am in the Water Street parking lots. There are 111 vendors this year, 15 more than last; and First Street will be closed to accommodate them.

There’s also a new market this year, The Market at Pen Park, which will open Tuesday, May 4 in Pen Park off of Rio Road. Like the Farmers in the Park at Meade Park, which opens Wednesday, May 4, the Pen Park market will be open from 3pm to 7pm.

“So many vendors have asked to be a part of the market,” says City Market manager Stephanie Anderegg-Maloy, “ but we didn’t have room for them. Now we do.”

Anderegg-Maloy says that 25 additional vendors have already signed up for the Pen Park market, which will be similar to the City Market in the variety of vendors on hand.

Anderegg-Maloy wants to remind people that the Charlottesville 10-Miler is on Saturday as well, which runs across the West end of the Downtown Mall and down Water Street, so it might be a good idea to enter via Garrett Street.

Oh, there’s also a new market vendor website this year [vendors.charlottesvillecitymarket.com], where vendors can create a listing and provide detailed information about who they are and what they offer.

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Georgia has Chang on its mind

by Dave McNair 2:38 pm March 29th

Media reports had Georgia foodies reclaiming Chang, but it was not to be.
PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

It seems that chef Peter Chang, the subject of the Hook’s March 25 cover story, can’t even go on a vacation without foodies getting into a tizzy. On Friday, March 26 an Atlanta food magazine boasted that Chang had returned to a restaurant called Tasty China in Marietta, whose owner reportedly planned to open a restaurant together in the area. But by Sunday, March 28, the magazine decided to retract the announcement and apologize to Changians who had flocked to the restaurant over the weekend.

“If you were one of the many who ate at Tasty China over the weekend,” writes Tom Maicon, “it’s highly unlikely your food was prepared by Chang.”

Indeed, according to Chang’s friend and consultant Gen Lee, while Chang and his wife were vacationing in Georgia, the chef agreed to cook for a special function at the restaurant. Suddenly, word spread that he had moved back to Georgia.

In fact, Lee says that food writers from as far away as New York traveled down there when they heard the news.

“He’s starting to be very uncomfortable with people chasing him,” says Lee.

Lee says Chang is returning to Charlottesville this week to continue working on his plans to develop a Peter Chang-themed restaurant somewhere in the greater Charlottesville area.

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Restaurant Week raises $10k for Food Bank

by Dave McNair 8:54 pm March 25th

Food, glorious food! Our local chapter of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank gave out 1.8 million pounds of food last year.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

If you were one of the 18 restaurants or 10,156 customers who participated in the Hook’s Restaurant Week January 25-31 ( despite a January 30 snowstorm that dumped 10 inches of snow) please pat yourself on the back. As a result of your hard work and enjoyment, the Thomas Jefferson Branch of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank Network received a pack of checks March 25 for $10,156—a dollar for every $26 prix fixe meal sold went to the non-profit dedicated to feeding the hungry.

During a ceremony at the Food Bank’s Harris Street warehouse, which distributed 1.8 million pounds of food last year, Hook editor Hawes Spencer handed over the envelope chock full o’ checks to Blue Ridge Area Food Bank CEO Lawrence Zippin.

As Zippin pointed out, there’s been a 152 percent increase in the number of people needing assistance over the last ten years, with a big spike over the last couple, as the recession is beginning to hurt the middle class as well. According to the Food Bank’s head of development (more)

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White Spot owner to open Mykonos Café

by Dave McNair 3:39 pm March 25th

Last week we told you that a place called the Mykonos Café was opening up in the Seminole Square Shopping Center in the old Old Grounds Café space near Cici’s Pizza. Today, we can confirm that the café is being opened by Dimitrios Tavampis, owner of the Corner hotspot the White Spot. Mykonos Café will serve authentic Greek dishes as well as Greek-American food, including souvlaki, gyros, moussaka, an assortment of Greek salads, as well as hamburgers and subs. Mykonos Café will also offer a full breakfast menu. The café is expected to open in April.

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Former Boar’s Head chef lands at Homestead

by Dave McNair 10:32 am March 25th

Our former Kitchen Confidential confidant Mark Gallaudet, who once wooed palates at the Boar’s Head Inn, has been named executive chef at the famed Homestead in Hot Springs, according to the AP. The luxury resort plans on spending $4 million on upgrades this year. Gallaudet preceded current Inn chef Terry Sheehan, a KC contributor and Restaurant Week participant, who presides over the Old Mill Room and Bistro 1834.

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Labor of love: Top chef tackles BBQ

by Dave McNair 5:06 pm March 23rd

Chef Hartman works the smoker.
PHOTO COURTESY BBQ EXCHANGE

Craig Hartman, well-known as the executive chef at Fossett’s, the AAA Four Diamond award-winning restaurant at Keswick Hall, not to mention an early adopter and star of the Hook’s Restaurant Week, opened a new restaurant in Gordonsville with his wife, Donna, on February 16. But don’t worry, he won’t be leaving Fossett’s, as Ms. Hartman is handling the day-to-day operations of the new place on Martinsburg Avenue in the old Rudy’s Hardware space.

While a chef of Hartman’s stature, which began when he became, at age 21, the head chef of the country club at North Carolina’s exclusive Pinehurst Resort, might be expected to open a fancy French-style bistro, or a high-end steak house, Hartman’s choice came as a surprise to Dish: an old school BBQ joint called the The Barbeque Exchange. Yup, it appears the chef has a soft spot for the art of slow-cooked meat.

“You know, it’s actually easier to grill a steak and serve it up with some nice vegetables than it is to serve one good pork BBQ sandwich,” says Hartman, who describes getting the temperature right, injecting the meat, enduring all that smoke, monitoring the cooking— not to mention all the pulling and chopping over the 48-hour process. “A true BBQ restaurant is a labor of love,” he says. (more)

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The Chang effect: Wooing palates, breaking hearts— and why he left

by Dave McNair 4:47 pm March 23rd

Peter Chang’s food has created a frenzy among foodies.
PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

Last fall, word that a famous Szechuan chef had quietly set up in Charlottesville had foodies salivating. There was a small newspaper mention and online chatter from groupies who track his every move, but after a March 1 story in the New Yorker, diners went into a feeding frenzy.

“We were surprised that it became so popular so fast,” says restaurant co-owner John Rong during a lunch time interview last week. “We noticed business going up after the story in the Hook, too, but when that story in the New Yorker come out…”

Indeed, sophisticated palates from Richmond and D.C. began making pilgrimages to Taste of China, where— even on cold winter evenings— lines could be seen snaking out onto the sidewalk of the north wing of Albemarle Square Shopping Center.

What was happening? Ever since the New York Times discovered the C&O back in 1976, Charlottesville restaurants have been making headlines. But this crossed some lines. For weeks, “Have you eaten at Taste of China yet?” was a popular refrain.

“I’ve been there at least 12 times since December,” says lawyer Ellen Teplitzky. “One week, I went there three times. And I’m not alone.”

Rong smiles and shakes his head, free to (more)

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Snap: MyKonos coming soon

by Dave McNair 1:52 pm March 23rd

Looks like a Greek-American restaurant named MyKonos Café is opening up in the former Old Grounds Café space near Cici’s Pizza. We contacted Great Eastern Management to find out more, but have not heard back from them. Be sure to check the Hook’s food blog for updates.

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On TAP this week: clean drinking water for the world’s children

by Dave McNair 11:11 am March 22nd

If you’re planning to dine out this week, some of the area’s best restaurants are giving you a chance to help people around the world improve the quality of their drinking water. According to UNICEF’s TAP project, 900 million people around the world, half of them children lack clean drinking water. Waterborne illness is the second leading cause of death of children under 5-years old. The TAP project is an effort to change that situation, conducted during World Water Week every year. All you have to do is pay $1 for a glass of tap water you usually enjoy for free and the proceeds will go to the project. For just $1 you can supply a child with clean drinking water for 40 days.

What’s more, students at Light House Studio put together a PSA for this year’s event called “Together We Can Fill The Cup.” Check it out here.

The restaurants participating are: Ariana Kebob, Aromas, Bang!, Blue Moon Diner, Bluegrass Grill, The College Inn, Eppie’s, Fleurie, Horse & Hound Gastropub, Hotcakes, Ivy Inn, Orzo, Petit Pois, X Lounge, Zinc, and Zocalo. The event ends this Saturday, March 27, so get out there and enjoy a great meal and help a thirsty child.

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Taste of China: The hottest ticket in town

by Hawes Spencer 4:56 am March 14th

Those aren’t flat-screen TVs; they’re backlit scenes o’ China.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Happy diners, some of whom waited an hour for a table— in a town where any wait is unusual— savor the joy of getting served at Taste of China on Friday, March 12. Even though the Hook’s Dave McNair tried to announce back in November that Peter Chang was a celebrated Szechuan chef quietly practicing his craft next to Li’l Dino subs at Albemarle Square Shopping Center, it took a March 1 “Annals of Gastronomy” story by the New Yorker’s Calvin Trillin to break open the floodgates. Curiously, he still offers that goofy standard Chinese menu found at literally thousands of chop suey huts (for those terrified of his highly spiced cuisine). On a reporter’s recent visit, he saw the overworked owner handing off the telephone to customers to handle the incoming inquiries, but the funniest part is what everyone who takes a queue ticket was told: “20 minutes.”

–last updated 11:51am Tuesday, March 16

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