Seanchai

Had good meals at The Local and Latitude 38.  The Local is in my mind farm-to-table done really well, neither too austere nor too sloppy, both possible pitfalls of lesser restaurants. It's also considerably cheaper than its competitors in Charlottesville.  Latitude 38 offered somewhat more exotic fare, mostly in small plates but also had a number of larger plates at similar to small plate prices.  All the offerings were quite good and the larger plates were good deals.

Ate recently at the Local for the first time in a while and you're exactly right.  Nothing fancy but great ingredients very well executed.

Pizza in Charlottesville has long been problematic.  Before Christian's became a local chain it had decent gourmet pizza by the slice, but most of the Charlottesville pizza places seemed to aim at the low-hanging fruit of the UVA student who needed to either to soak up the booze or grab a quick study break.  Being from NYC I am of course an expert on pizza (if you don't believe me, just ask me), and so was forced to go on two hour field trips to Two Amys, Pupatella, Pizzeria Orso, Ghibellina, etc. for excellent Neapolitan/ Neapolitan-style pizza (if not my mythical NYC ideal which is actually located in the pizza ovens of Apizza Scholls in Portland, OR, but I digress).

Now, when I get a craving for this style of pizza, I have an excellent option right here in Charlottesville:  Lampo (http://www.lampopizza.com) ,  Located in a tiny 22 seat building just over the Belmont bridge from the Downtown Mall, it's run by a bunch of cooks formerly from excellent local restaurants that are executing at a pretty high level right out of the chute with the authentic high heat oven imported from Italy.  I'm not saying it's better than those listed above (especially being a little more than a week old), buit I think it would certainly hold its own in a blind taste-off.   Open Monday "” Saturday, Lunch 11 - 3    Dinner 5 - 12.

The crust has spotted charring and the light, chewy texture you would hope for.  It's a small menu with a lot of cross-polination between antipasti, sandwiches, pizzas and charcuterie.  The polpettine was amazing as an antipasti (about 6 small meatballs served with marinara and pecorino) and so look forward to trying it on the panuozzi and pizza.  We had the Diavola, Margharita and Prosciutto pizzas, which were all excellent with my favorite being the Diavola.

Charlottesville has already discovered it;  get here early or late to grab one of the few seats.

Sigh.  I worked at Murphy's off and on over 4 years in the late 80s/early 90s.  I worked every Saturday night for years and usually had a blast.  It was such a cash cow for the owners that they didn't seem to mind that we drank the bar nearly dry after closing.  I had more than a few nights of stumbling out the door Sunday morning and being surprised the sun was up.    It was not a great bar but a very familiar one.  Because of the nearby hotels and apartment buildings you would get a really weird mix of regulars, tourists, and conventioneers (the tour buses full of German tourists being the worst, those cheap bastards).  Great group of people working there, some still friends to this day despite my not having lived in DC for years.  Slainte to PJ and the rest of the crew.

While less extreme than the 120 minute IPA, I think that the Firestone-Walker's Double Jack has a similar mixture of smoothness, bitterness and sweetness.  Otherwise I think you might need to be looking at barleywines ...

Nevertheless, if you go to the website, and let the pictures scroll by, one of them appears to be a somewhat respectable list of beers.

Definitely stock photos as that beer list is comprised primarily of brews originating around Portland, Oregon.  Now, if they were able to bring THAT list to DC, I think we have something here!

Having seen people in this forum get all uppity over other people who order their beef well done or commit some other culinary error, I'm not sure that I can get too upset with Todd for holding this out as an example of how not to explore another culture's cuisine (which it is).  All of us foodies snicker about the (possibly mythical) American who goes to dinner in Paris and asks for ketchup, or stays here and complains that the middle of their DOC pizza in soggy.  He has a point, however inartfully made, and I suspect that if he'd said "Midwestern tourists" instead of "Indians," we'd all snicker along with him in our superior sort of way.

He did seem to be a little dyspeptic today, though.

Kudos for using the word "dyspeptic", which I've never heard anyone actually say (but I feel I know exactly what they mean when written!)

(*) Boy, what a season Kershaw is having: 19-3, with a 1.70 ERA and 219 strikeouts. These are historic numbers, and Kershaw's season will be looked back upon as one of the greatest ever. Especially if he goes over the magic 20-win mark, people will be talking about this season for decades to come. And I think it's pretty safe to say he'll win his 3rd Cy Young Award in 4 years this season. Here are some comparisons with some of the greatest seasons ever.

Ron Guidry-like (says the NYC homer who doesn't even like the Yankees)

* The U.S. Rowing Master's National regatta touts the on-site beer garden. The hosts are sponsoring microbrewery tours (15 in the city limits!).  The first half of the "Things to Do In Grand Rapid" web page is devoted to beer. And, in case you were wondering, Grand Rapids is Beer City USA. It's too bad I have to actually race while I'm there.

..

Speaking of beer, Founders is one of the best breweries in the country and they do have a taproom menu;  it's gotta be better than Applebees's ...

Rehoboth

Had two very good and moderately priced meals in Rehoboth this past week.  Henlopen City Oyster House never fails to please as I had some delicious oysters as well as a pretty good clam po'boy.  We also went to Pig & Fish for the first time and really enjoyed it.  The fish and chips were awesome as was a refreshing cold Thai melon soup.  Both places also have excellent craft brew options that paired well with the food.

Really looking forward to trying Public Fish and Oyster with my wife without the kids if I can finagle a babysitter.  My older son has an expensive taste for fresh seafood and high sense of entitlement;  I blame his mother of course.

Well, I went anyway   While travelling with my family on a moderate food budget (but sadly an immoderate beer budget), I was well pleased with all options listed above with the exception of Agave , which we decided to forgo because of our big lunch at Mountain Sun.  Comida was a bit overpriced for tacos with different-ish ingredients but tasty nonetheless.  Mountain Sun, Freshcraft, Euclid Hall, Choice City (Colorado Reuben with buffalo, excellent), Oscar Blues HMLS,  and even Tap and Handle were all very good, casual exemplars of bar food thoughtfully executed.

I have to say I was surprised by the quality of the pizzas at Lucky Pie and Hops & Pie, both with very flavorful crusts and toppings. I'd put these pizzas up against any in the DC area save maybe Pupatella (different styles, I know).

Heading to Colorado for the first time in two weeks with days spent in Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins. While this trip with the family will be outdoor hiking and beer centric, I was planning hitting the following spots for casual food:

Longmont - Oscar Blues Homemade Liquids and Solids

Louisville - Lucky Pie

Boulder - Mountain Sun and Agave

Fort Collins - Choice City and .... Tap and Handle, I guess (choices seem limited here)

Denver - Comida, Euclid Hall, Freshcraft, Hops and Pie

Any suggestions/edits?

Thanks.

As an arguer, I thought "this will be an easy fray to jump into" but you know, not so much.

Screaming Blue Messiahs and "Bruce Springstone"

Simpsons? Family Guy? The Flintstones broke that ground. Gets my vote.

Most importantly, the Screaming Blue Messiahs.  One of the best and strangest concerts I ever went to had the Screaming Blue Messiahs opening for the BoDeans at Lisner Auditorium circa 1988.  I loved both bands at the time but they were VERY different.  The SBMs came out and frankly terrified the mostly preppy fans of the BoDeans.

Don, I hope you will take a beer and call it even, instead of $5 

I also like to put up what we offer as beer&wine here in Shaw:  (sorry I could not do a better job with copy pasting, if any moderator can, feel free to adjust)

Brunch will start here in Shaw on Sunday at 11am with fresh squeezed OJ mimosas, lobster omelets, salmon benedict, brioche french toast..

Wine by the glass

WHITE/ROSE

EL LIBRE | TORRONTES | ARGENTINA| 2012 | $7

CAMPOS de CELTAS | ALBARINO | SPAIN| 2012 | $9

CONO SUR | ORGANIC SAUVIGNON BLANC| CHILE| 2012 | $8

CRIOS | ROSE OF MALBEC | ARGENTINA | 2013 | $8

RED

BLOCK NINE |CAIDEN`S VINEYARD| PINOT NOIR| 2012 | CALIFORNIA| $10

CAMPOS de LUZ | GARNACHE | OLD VINE | 2012| ARGENTINA | $7

EVODIA | GARNACHE| 2012 | SPAIN| $9

FLACO | TEMPRANILLO| 2013 | SPAIN | $7

BEER MENU

ON TAP

WEIHENSTEPHANER | HEFE-WEISSBIER | 5.4% ABV | GERMANY | $7

STONE | IPA | 6.90% ABV | CALIFORNIA | $6.5

BELL`S | AMBER ALE | 5.80% ABV | MICHIGAN | $7

AVERY | WHITE RASCAL  | BELGIAN STYLE ALE | 5.60% ABV | COLORADO| $6.5

DUCK RABBIT | MILK STOUT | 5.70% ABV | NORTH CAROLINA | $6

ANDERSON VALLEY | SUMMER SOLSTICE | CREAM ALE | 5.00% ABV | CALIFORNIA | $7

LAGUNITAS | A LIL` SUMPIN` SUMPIN` | WHEAT ALE | 7.50% ABV | CALIFORNIA | $7

CHAMPION | KILLER KOLSCH | 5.00% ABV | VIRGINIA | $6

BOTTLES

STILLWATER ARTISANAL |AS FOLLOWS | BELGIAN STYLE GOLDEN ALE | 9.0% ABV | MD | $7

EVILTWIN | FALCO |IPA |7.0% ABV |CT | $7

FLYING FISH | RED FISH |RED ALE |7.0% ABV | NJ | $6

CRISPIN | APPLE CIDER | 5.0% ABV | CA | $6

Champion beer from Charlottesville, represent!

I can explain what happened and no bitter pill here to swallow. My team at The Bottlehouse spent over $5K in logo design, menus, banner, food, t-shirts, payroll, patenting our name, and lastly renting a commercial kitchen. From day 1 our operation chose to never utilize, purchase or even have one ounce of product cooked, cleaned, prepped, wrapped at our current place of employment. After all was said and done, 2 days of pure exhaustion working 12 hour days at one job and prepping and cooking at night through the morning.

I would do it again in a heartbeat. Did our food fail? Yes. We were asked at 315PM to have dishes prepared for the judges, which after 3 hours of cooking and running around made it difficult.(All contestants had the same criteria so again the guy who complained that his food wasn't as fresh, all of us had the same issue) But no different than a Food Trucks operation, or a busy restaurant on any given night. We reached with our items because we did not feel that with our concept one dish signified what our concept was going into the competition. 2/3's of our operation were null and void from the start. We couldn't sell or showcase our wine and beer knowledge. So instead we braised our pork in beer and our short ribs in red wine. (get it) Interestingly enough only two teams did not get a call from the reporter, Bottlehouse and The Ballston Chophouse. Look, do I think it would have been great had the judges seen our booth, looked at our logos and menus, talked with us in action, sure. But everyone who was in the competition got the same treatment. Its not like Victor and Christiana had the judges in their booth and they side tracked the rest of us. Yes, I think our logo is pretty cool. Yes, our menus looked awesome. But in the end no restaurant got extra treatment from the judges. Do Victor and David Guas know each closely, yes. Same with Mike Isabella, of course. And in fairness that is to his advantage just like any restaurant owner that has a large social following can attract the masses before opening his or her doors without serving one plate of food. see Spike Mendelhson.

The criteria for the competition was clearly laid out for 'anyone' to enter, experienced or not. Plenty of other restaurant owners could have participated but chose not to and we knew that from day 1

In the end this is a business decision for Brookfield and the property owners. Some might not like, some will understand but in the end for me, I had a blast.

So, are you folks still looking for a spot?  I love Tria in Philly and so love your concept as well.

Every time we go to Philly, we always time it so we check out of our hotel Saturday morning, drive down and park on Washington Avenue and hit our spots around the Italian Market.  For some reason this ritual makes me so happy.  First stop is the Center City Pretzel Company, open 4 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturdays, to get a big stack of soft pretzels (a couple to munch on, the rest to put in ziplocs and freeze).

We cross Washington Avenue and start making our way up S. 9th Street in the Italian Market proper.  Our boys love looking at both the curbside vegetable stalls as well as the store windows, with the best part of course watching and listening to the south Philly vendors and customers; very exotic to these central VA boys.  First stop is Cappuccio's Meats, which has an incredible variety of linked housemade sausage.  The signature one we always get is the pork, broccoli rabe and provolone, which is always unbelivably tasty and of course an encapsulation of Philly's true signature sandwich.  This place is small, old-school, and not very pretty, but product and service are great.

Next stop is Tortilleria San Roman, which makes fresh tortillas right before you and always gives you a mini stack of free  tortillas just off the griddle to dip into the three salsas they sell (red, green, and pico de gallo).  Their tortilla chips are delicious as well, which they sell in a variety of sized bags.

Still chewing, we cross the street to hit the two main Italian food emporiums, DiBruno's and Claudio's House of Cheese.  The service is slightly friendlier at Claudio's but both are very free with free samples of their cheese and charcuterie.  The two are amazing places where I load up on pasta, meats and cheeses that I can't get in this form back in Charlottesville and certainly not seasoned with that great south Philly attitude.

Pizza was tasty as advertised although I wouldn't say I was blown away.  We had the Margherita and the Salsiccia (fennel sausage, roasted fennel and tomato), both of which were fresh and delicious.   Crust is very similar to Pupatella, which of course is no faint praise.  They did have a square slice of the day option; on the day we were there earlier this month it was broccoli rabe which we enjoyed very much.  The crust in that case was thicker and frankly functioned more as a topping delivery system than a integral component.

An interesting side dish was the rotolo, which was best described as a pizza pastry with ricotta, mortadella and pistachio pesto.  Half savory and almost sweet, I liked it a lot.

I don't have any firsthand knowledge on this, but I wonder if the situation of having a brewmaster who's not an owner is similar to a restaurant being in a similar situation with a hired chef.  In the beer world it seems more the case that you hire a brewer whom you trust to brew a certain way but basically turn the keys to the brewery over to them as opposed to a chef just executing an owner's vision.

I wonder if in Bluejacket's case whether the brewer is given ingredients by Greg Englert and told to make it work somehow;  the upshot being that these are Englert's beers, not the brewmaster's and maybe the underlying reason for her leaving.   This would also explain the insistence on opening with 20 beers whereas most breweries start with a much smaller core linup, nail their execution, and then expand from there. Again, pure speculation on my part

Some of the dialogue that I like so much on wikiquote.org

Scottee, I was just going from their website - it sounds like they just moved a few hundred feet: "Owner Michael Mooney opened the original Kate's (a family name carried by both his grandmother and his daughter) just a few blocks away in 1996, before moving to his current location in 2000."

Is the same Michael Mooney who has ownership in the Murphy's Irish Pubs in DC and Alexandria?

I know it's not answering the original question but for sheer number of items on menu, gotta give a shout-out to Shopsin's in NYC's Lower East Side:

http://www.shopsins.com/

I flew through this Christmas present in a couple of days.  This is a riveting read although some may be intially put off by his hip-hop vernacular.  Stay with it and you get a poignant story of a guy who's lived a crazy life so far.  Restaurant latchkey kid, door-to door jewelry hustling with his parents, juvenile delinquency, lowrider, gambler, financial worker, cooking school at the CIA, hotel chef, food truck and now restaurant owner.  Given his success creating the Kogi Taco food truck and subsequent restaurants in Los Angeles all celebrating hybrid cusine, the recipes are all over the map as well in a good way, tweaking comfort food classics with some different techniques/ingredients.

I've already made the gumbo (his tribute to Emeril Legassse's Essence Of Emeril cooking show that kickstarted him from a partying low-life to his cooking career) and it turned out great.  The flanken short ribs for the Korean grill classic kalbi have been marinating overnight  and are on the menu for today.

We stopped in yesterday for lunch and of course had to get the chicken parm.  I grew up in pizzeria-infested Queens, NY and so of course consider myself an expert on the Italian-American sandwich.  While very good, the one at G does not scale the heights of greatness.  Bread, sauce, and cheese were all excellent; my slight issue was with the chicken itself.   The chicken breast had perhaps been pounded a little too enthusiastically as the texture was very dense.  Tasty?  Absolutely with none of the grease issue above; just not transcendent.

Not to bury the lede, but what WAS transcendent was the meatball sandwich. Everything was clicking here on all components and the meatballs themselves were perfect with a trace of lemon zest that worked with the acidic sauce to really lighten the hero I mean sandwich (having NYC flashbacks).  This meatball hero (yes, I give it that NYC honorific) I would get weekly if I lived closer.

We had the opportunity to stop by last night and enjoyed it very much.  The atmosphere is woodsy yet sophisticated (I know that sounds like a PR blurb but it fits).  The food menu was varied and hitting a lot of the expected beer/food pairings (wings, mussels, flatbreads, sandwiches, etc).   It sounds like the execution of our food compared to SVT above was a little higher.  The Korean short rib tacos were very tasty (if a bit small) but I'm not sure what made them Korean as there wasn't the spice kick I was expecting. Likewise the blue crab mac and cheese had lots of crab but was a bit lost in the fontina cheese sauce.  On the other hand, the 10 spice wings did have a nice restrained kick to them and were excellent.  The restaurant, being in the middle of the Penn Quarter/tourist hotel vortex, is probably aiming toward the middle/safe with their food choices a bit more than I'd like but was still of high quality.

The beer selection was pretty solid with local representation from Three Stars, DC Brau, and Atlas.  I enjoyed a refreshing Three Star Saison with pomegranate.  No DC Brau On the Wings of the Armegeddon but they did have Victory DirtWolf, so they get points for that.  In contrast to the visit above, the service was actually a bit more formal than expected albeit friendly and knowledgeable.  That could have been due to the GM making the rounds of the floor, checking in on all the tables.  All in all, a very pleasant experience and we will return.

I definitely plan on checking this out on our spring break trip to Philly.