Dish recently stumbled on a local website called cvilledrinkspecials.com, which lists the various drink and some food specials at over 30 restaurants around town. It’s quite an undertaking, considering that ABC laws don’t allow restaurant to advertise such specials. But according to the site’s creator, UVA grad A.J. Maher, it feeds a need (or quenches a thirst).
“Last winter. my friends and I decided it was a pain in the a** to call bars all the time to figure out what the specials are,” says Maher. “ Since the ABC won’t let them advertise happy hours and specials, we saw a need for a one-stop resource.”
Indeed, in addition to some fabulous drink specials on the list, there are some great food deals as well. At the Biltmore, salads, sandwiches, and burgers are $5 on Wednesdays, and over at St. Maarten’s, you can get a pork BBQ sandwich with fries for $4.99. On Mondays at Wild Wing Café there are $1 kid’s meals, and over at Bel Rio they have $5 entrees along with some great wine and beer specials.
It also sounds like Maher wouldn’t mind some help, maybe some folks sending him some email or tweets about the latest deals ([email protected]), as updating the site is time consuming and not terribly lucrative.
“It’s only made me $14 in the four months of its existence, from Google ads, and I can’t sell ads to the bars.”
Still, he sounds an enthusiastic note about why he created it, “Surely other financially-struggling students and penny-wise locals were looking for food and drinks on the cheap too.”
Live cooking competition featuring the defending Iron Chef Darden faculty team. Local celebrity judges and our own “Alton Brown” emcee. Assorted Mediterranean-inspired appetizers. Two drink tickets. Proceeds to benefit the Local Food Hub. All for only $20. Monday, May 3 6:00pm – 9:00pm at Orzo Kitchen & Wine Bar
Contact Scott Hollander (732-766-7433 | [email protected]) for more information.
The Huffington Post reports that Charlottesville resident Sissy Spacek and Northern Virginia resident Robert Duvall enjoyed a wild night out at Wall & Water with Bill Murray at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of their film Get Low April 27. What did they talk about? Well, chef Peter Chang, of course. Turns out Duvall is a fan of the elusive Chinese chef, while Spacek didn’t make it to Taste of China before Chang split. Well, Dish hopes they know Chang has plans for a place in Short Pump.
Meanwhile, New York Magazine has a funny account of the dinner, before which a guy crashed the Get Low party by pretending to be a friend of Spacek’s daughter, Schuyler Fisk. Murray apparently tried to lose him by getting everyone to jump out of the car into rickshaws. As a joke, Murray then wrote a fake letter to Schuyler the next day pretending to be the guy and slipped it under her hotel room door, which had Spacek and her daughter calling hotel security and the police— before Murray fessed up.
Here’s an idea for a new eatery: pizza cones. Apparently, they are creating quite a buzz in New York City, and have been popular for some time in Brazil, Russia, and Italy. If fact, according to this New York Press article, a blogger from Charlottesville named “Alex” took a bus to NYC during a blizzard just to try a pizza cone.
That would be recent UVA grad Alexander Patton, 22, now charter coordinator for the University Transit Service, who rode with a friend up to NYC on the Starlight Express February 24.
“How often does a revolution in pizza technology occur?” says Patton. “The last major innovation could arguably be the creation of the stuffed crust pizza, back in ’95.”
Unfortunately, a category 5 blizzard was hitting the Northeast at the time, and during the trip they couldn’t see the road, and the wind was rocking the bus. But they made it.
People told Patton he was “stupid” to travel so far for a slice of pizza, even if it was rolled into a cone, but Patton says it was “definitely worth the trip.”
“One of the best things about eating a pizzacone was definitely how clean it was,” says Patton. “ I didn’t get any grease dripping onto my hands, and I was easily able to eat it with one hand… like an ice cream cone.”
Overall, Patton calls the experience “fantastic.”
“I got to have an awesome trip to NYC and try out an innovation in pizza technology,” he says. “ Some may say that this is merely a novelty, but I believe that this is a pretty awesome concept, and I would love to see this spread. I mean, come on, it’s pizza in a cone! It really just makes me wonder, “Why didn’t I think of this first?”
Back in February, we reported that Ten executive Chef Chul Kee Ko had moved on, setting the stage for long-time sous-chef Pei Chang to take over. But we never did find out where Chef Ko was moving on to. Until now.
According to the Post’s Tom Sietsema’s Dish column, Ko will soon be the head chef at a “highly anticipated” new place on DC’s Massachusetts Avenue called Buddha Bar, an exclusive Paris-based franchise with locations in only the world’s leading cities.
“Get primed for Peking duck, curry shrimp in banana leaf, sushi— and a major scene,” writes Sietsema, who says that the owners of the new restaurant dined at dozens of places around the county before settling on Chef Ko at Ten.
And get this: the Buddha Bar is costing $10 million to build! According to Washington Life Magazine the place will have 22-foot ceilings and an 18-foot Buddha statue from the “jungles of Indonesia.” As a side note, not everyone is keen on this concept, especially some Buddhists. (more)
Eppie’s Dan Epstein has a delicious app for you.Now that iPhone’s can jump from Tweeting to eateing, as Eppie’s co-owner Dan Epstein and his customer and local techie Brian Williford have launched orderTopia, which allows customers to create an order, choose a pick up time, and pay for their order using their internet-equipped phone or computer. OrderTopia holds the order until it’s time to begin preparing it, then prints it just like orders at the restaurant.
“We built this system to run directly through the restaurants’ existing point of sale system,” says Epstein in a release. “This frees up front of house staff to focus on in-store customers and doesn’t require any changes to kitchen procedures already in place.”
So far, Elevation Burger (a Northern Virginia-based franchise), Eppie’s, and Revolutionary Soup are on board, with Rise Pizzaworks, Mellow Mushroom, and Boylan Heights in discussions.
Check it out!
A laid back, backyard grilling-style menu at the Clifton Inn to accompany great beers from Starr Hill, Devils Backbone and Blue Mountain breweries. $55 per person or $100 per couple. (This event starts at 6:30pm, a time that incorrectly given in the original posting.)
Mother’s Day Brunch at the Clifton Inn. $48 per person / $22 per child (excluding tax and gratuity). Call for reservations!
There’s Morel Mushroom four-course dinner at the Clifton Inn to celebrate the mushroom season. It’s Monday, May 3. $58.00 per person (tax and service charge are additional). Here’s the culinary line-up:
1ST COURSE
MOREL MUSHROOM CREPE
SOTTOCENERE FONDUTA, GARDEN ARUGULA
AND 100 YEAR BALSAMIC VINEGAR
2ND COURSE
HANDCRAFTED PAPPARDELLE WITH MORELS, PEA SHOOTS
PARMESAN AND CHICKEN JUS
3RD COURSE
BUTTER POACHED MAINE LOBSTER WITH MORELS
RICOTTA GNOCCHI AND SAUCE AMERICAINE
DESSERT
COUPE ‘ELLERY’
CHILLED RHUBARB COMPOTE
WITH WHIPPED WHITE CHOCOLATE
AND LEMON ZABAGLIONE
Call 434-971-1800 to make reservations.
After losing the name of her restaurant to a pizza franchise moving to town this summer, Brix Terrace Café (which is now supposed to be called the Terrace Café) owner Karen Laetare has received some good news. The Martha Jefferson Hospital outpatient facility on Pantops has selected her to operate its café, which had been run by Tiger Fuel and Simply Delicious Catering.
“Someone told me I should call it the Briquette,” jokes Laetre, “ but I thought I would get in trouble with the Kingsford charcoal company.”
Instead, it will be called the Terrace Cafe @ Martha J and serve outside visitors and hospital patients and employees. For now, it will be open Monday-Friday from 7am to 3pm. The menu will have the same offerings as Brix; easy grab and go, specialty sandwiches, coffee, pastries, daily hot food menu item and soups. Brix will also be the exclusive caterer for the hospital functions.
“This is a great opportunity for Brix, and it is so refreshing to be connected with a Foundation like Martha Jefferson who wants a small business to succeed,” says Laetare. “It is truly a win-win situation built on great respect for each other.”
Orzo Kitchen and Wine Bar in the Main Street Ma...
Chef Angelo Vangelopoulos munches on his ̶...
Upscale steak and seafood place above Escafe on the Downtown Mall.
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