No dessert and the apps were pretty bad I didn’t stick around for the overpriced entre’s. I heard the chef did a stage a WD-50 but I think he didn’t learn anything.

Saw a well-known local enter the place and then make the mistake of ordering a shot of “your best tequila.” Oops, there went $100!

I couldn’t believe they were serving something called “pork belly” as an appetizer at The Upstairs, so I had to try it. I could not believe how delicious it was! Didn’t try anything else except a great glass of red wine…I’ll be going back for dinner soon!

Posts cognac and pork-belly? were 4 minutes apart, so by this logic, one would have to assume it is the same person. Right. The “mystery dish” was the scallops and they were indeed terrible. Overly breaded, incredibly small for $11, and completely devoid of any sort of salt or acidity. Like what was said earlier, step up your game. Charlottesville residents willing to spend the money won’t stand for sub-par food.

Oh my mistake, I’m sorry for not spelling out what I thought was wrong with the dish your restaurant served. Here goes:

The fried green tomato was overly breaded to the point of inedibility.
The scallop was overcooked and tough-and there was 1 of them.
There was no salt on either item.
There was no acidity or any decent flavor to the dish.
The bacon was tasty, but that’s because it’s bacon. It’s almost impossible to ruin.
The pile of micro-greens on the plate were completely over-the-top and did not add anything to the dish.

Do you need anything else cleared up? Let me know if this is not intelligent enough for you.

The fact is that I was a patron last night in your restaurant as well and thought the food was overpriced and not very good. However, I had attributed this to the fact that the opening night in a restaurant is extremely stressful and it takes a couple of weeks for all of the kinks to be worked out. I have worked in many restaurants, and know the work that goes into preparing for a successful night. It is, unfortunately your rude and defensive responses, Mr. Brown, that have helped to alleviate this initial response.

By calling your clientele stupid, as I believe I saw in an earlier comment, you are not only making yourself look bad, but keeping people from wanting to support you. The restaurant industry is very much based on recommendations and word of mouth. Talk badly about your clients and they will talk badly about you.

You can sit there and write all you want about how people are making things up about your restaurant. You can even assume that it is the same person writing all of these different comments. The fact is that you should not take these comments as a personal insult, but rather helpful reactions. My food was under salted and over-priced. I know quite a bit about food. I also know when something tastes good and when it is sub-par. What I had last night was sub-par. Along with the food, the lighting was bright, the room was cold, there was no music playing. All of these elements make for a not very enjoyable meal.

Insult me if you wish. I have no plans on returning.

Good day.

Also Hungry I just want to clear some things up.
and I am not being a jerk here but you did smash me on the food.
a green tomato is full of acid. ( think about that )
micro greens are full of a natural flavor compacted into a small green similar to grapes cliped and condenced on the vine.
scallops should be salted light to allow the natural sweet flavor shine with a slight counter of salt.
if the portions were to small and it was too breaded and overcooked, sorry.
If you would like to come in and try the dish again I will comp it. The breading on the tomato changed today.
I enjoy critique, so at the least give me a fair shot in a week.
Jaison

Actually I was there on the opening night I sat at the bar and did not recieve the “dessert” and Gerharts chocolate that I did see going to others in the dining room. I think it would be unproductive to just make stuff up. I had really looked forward to having a diffrent dinning experience and I was disappointed. So the folks at the upstairs can verify that I was there I sat as part of a three at the bar we drank one red breast irish whiskey and a gin and tonic. We ordered all the apps and you were out of the bone marrow. Thank you and good luck in the future.
and the soft opening defense is not good if your aren’t ready to open and haven’t trained your staff you probably should rethink opening. Just speaking from experience.

Serving food after hours, sorry about that.

Foie Gras—French for fatty liver—is the grossly enlarged liver of a duck or goose. Medically known as hepatic lipidosis, foie gras is a disease marketed as a delicacy. Birds raised for this gourmet cruelty are force-fed enormous quantities of food through a long metal pipe three times a day. This process of deliberate and painful overfeeding continues for up to a month, by which time the birds’ livers have swelled up to twelve times their healthy size.

The process of forced feeding is so traumatic, and the confinement and conditions on foie gras farms so debilitating, that the pre-slaughter mortality rate for foie gras production is up to 20 times the average rate on other duck factory farms.†

During the course of our investigation, GourmetCruelty.com discovered corpses of ducks who had literally burst open through overfeeding. Investigators also found many birds who had choked to death on their own vomit. Necropsies performed by veterinarians on dead ducks taken from Hudson Valley Foie Gras determined that some of the birds had died of aspiration pneumonia—a painful and often fatal condition caused when, during the process of forced-feeding, food is pushed into the lungs of the birds.

http://www.gourmetcruelty.com/photos.php?cat=sick

Cheers, I would love to see sous vide food in C’ville finally.

I know this argument is old but I can’t help but chime in…
It just simply sounds like the chef didn’t have his game on when the place opened…
YOU HAVE TO HAVE YOUR GAME ON ALWAYS,
and if your waiting for the state or department of health to give you the okay to cook sous vide you are a damn fool. great restaurants never even advertise or brag about the fact they use that technique, it’s secret;.
were you actually asking the state if you could use the machines?????????
are you crazy… there is a reason it’s illegal.