Recently there has been much debate about two eateries by the local blogging community. So much so that I am not even going to try to link to all them. Just too difficult with my nearly antiquated Mac that will not allow me to cut and paste links. So if you really want to read all of the reviews and subsequent discussions go here and read, I'll wait.... OK, are you up to speed? Good. Now, let's move on to our adventure....
Finn and I started the evening at Can-Can. After getting more wet in the freak thunderstorm than at his swim lesson we had arrived in a fairly damp condition. We pulled up to the bar and grabbed an extra barstool for the impending arrival of RVA Foodie and our discussion on the dangers of cutting onions. Seems both of us had damged ourselves. Myself while slicing where a slide of the outer ring of the onion sent the knife through the side of my finger down to the fingernail. RVA with the error all of us fear the most - a mandolin mistake. I'm still missing a piece of my thumb from my last careless use of this culinary death trap.
As I savored my Tanq 10 martini I pondered the discussion that had gone on over the last month or so about Can-Can. No real complaints about the food, really mostly raves, it was increasingly inconsistent service - mostly at the bar - that had everyone all up in arms. I quickly realized that I would be a bad judge of the bar service. The managers all know me, or actually they know Finn (I'm just the one who pays his bill), as do most of the bartenders - one is even a customer at my bookstore. Besides that, I tend to be a bit pushy. I won't give them a chance to ignore me. I did notice they had one more bartender on then they usually did at this hour and that they were keeping much more busy than last we were in. Perhaps the scathing letter from In Vino Veritas had done the trick. RVA Foodie arrived, was greeted by the bartender and.... oddly, was not offered a drink. I'm guessing we should call that a fail.
At this point as Finn and I had been there an hour before Foodies arrival and Finn was making the transition from quiet, content and drawing to his strange need to circle the restaurant. The Can-Can staff are very indulgent of Finn and servers and managers played with him and helped me keep an eye on his travels. (Parental Note - Had there been any diners at the tables or had he disturbed anyone trying to eat I was prepared to remove him - as it was just after 5 everyone was at the bar.)
We noshed on some raw bar and one of the managers bent the rules and got Finn some gougeres off the dinner menu. Sensing Finn was ready to go we asked for the check. Although we had asked for separate checks it came combined. Sigh, fail. Honestly, we were never asked if we wanted to order anything, food or drink. Not once was there a spontaneous offer of a drink refill. I suppose if they are going for aloof French service they have achieved their goal. Personally, I think they have quite a bit of re-training to do as they seem to have drifted from their basic level of service they had when they first opened.
Saying good-bye to RVA Foodie, Finn and I took off for something more substantial to eat. Pizza sounded good so it was off to Tarrantino's. Half the bloggers seem to love this new place while the other half have been completely unimpressed by it. Prior to Fridays visit we had eaten with them twice. Once at the restaurant and once by take-away. Eating in-house the crisp was perfect and I raved. Eating at home.... the crust had steamed to sogginess (not sure if that is there fault or the cities founders for building Richmond over a humid swamp...) and we had the most distressing of topping slides. Basically it was a wreck. IVV had eaten there last week and declared the crust soft and the pizza greasy. Time to recheck the in-house, superior in my mind, product.
I ordered two small pies. One a red Hawaiian, the other a seafood bianca. No puddle of grease on either and the crust was perfect. Disappointments? I had a couple. The pineapple on the Hawaiian contained so much moisture that there was a puddle of liquid in the center of the red pizza. That moisture may have been the driver of our topping slide that we had at home. The seafood on the bianca.... the scallops (bay) were firm and tasty, the shrimp were also bay and were lacking. Just this side of fishiness the pizza would have been better served using chopped jumbo shrimp rather than the bay. This was also our first try with the bianca - excellent.
We took the remainders home for snacks. Trying a piece cold that evening I found the crust to still be firm with a bit of crunchiness. So at least we know it travels well after being allowed to cool.
Bottom line - Can-Can needs more friendly engaging bartenders that are more service oriented. The current level of service is more nightclub than upscale restaurant. Pizza at Tarrantino's needs to be eaten in-house, either in the main restaurant or back in the pizza parlor. Do not allow it to steam itself to sogginess. Not even out to the parking lot. They either need to put steam vents in the boxes or we can't do carryout until Fall when the humidity drops down to a more pizza friendly level....
Following the lead of earth2karen and Kelley Stern on a slow Wednesday morning we have '5 Things'...
5 Jobs I Have Had - Captain/Sommelier, The Barony, Hotel Inter-Continental Captain, The Mansion, Atlanta, GA Manager, J.Riggings, C'ville Compliance Analyst, Capital One Caretaker of Finn while occasionally selling books....
5 Movies I Can Watch Over & Over - Starship Troopers - Campy Fun At It's Best Dune - 6 hour directors cut LOTR - I/II/III Brazil Go
5 Places I Have Lived - Portland, OR Kinshasa, Zaire Laramie, WY Hilton Head Is, SC Richmond, VA
5 TV Shows I Love - Dead Like Me - Bring It Back! Dexter Big Love 2 1/2 Men How I Met Your Mother Penn & Teller's Bullshit
5 Places I Have Been On Vacation - Cairo, Egypt London (4 Months) Denmark (many, many visits to family there) Nice, France Berkley Springs, WV....
5 Of My Favourite Meals - Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup - There Goes All My Foodie Cred.... Raw Bar & All It Entails Filet Mignon - Cooked Pittsburgh w/ Bearnaise Foie Gras Real Mac & Cheese - Not The Gourmet Fad Currently Sweeping RVA
5 Places I Would Rather Be - Where Is It Happy Hour? Right Now! Anyplace Less Humid Than RVA In August Eating Dinner & Drinking w/ Good Friends Taking Finn To The Park In A World Without George W Bush....
Last Saturday we had the Sketchy's over for for a little infrared grilling. Up till now we had only been trying small cuts of meat and fish on the grill and I was dying to try a slightly bigger cut. I called my faithful butcher, T at Belmont Butchery, and put in an order for a 4lb leg of lamb, sirloin end. She came through and I picked up a beautiful piece of meat ready for the grill.
The evening arrived and so did the Sketchy's. Actually it got off to a rather shaky start but you would need to read about that at Sketchy's Kitchen for the full story. After repairing the damage and making the first round of martinis we tucked into the first course of the evening.
Purple Artichokes. I had found these at Fresh Market and they looked interesting. I thought about serving them slightly chilled with a garlic aioli to dip. Thinking back, while at the market, I remembered a slightly frustrating story by RVA Foodie and his attempt to make aioli. Erring on the side of caution I decided to pick up some organic garlic aioli at Fresh Market and save my first try at the substance when I might end up only killing my own family through a culinary mishap. Upon arriving home I noticed that the aioli had expired several days ago. Not a good thing for a mayonnaise containing uncooked eggs. Making the trek back from Battery Park to Fresh Market.... well, if you add up the time, energy, wasted gas, frustration. Should have tried to make it from scratch. Live and Learn.
Back to the artichokes. I steamed them for 45 minutes (a little longer than I would green ones as they seemed a bit tough) with water, wine, lemon and onion. Allowing them to cool for a bit they then went into the fridge to chill further. The result was ok. They were very pretty but, even after the 45 minute steam, were still a bit tough and a little stringy. The hearts were good but I am afraid that if I steamed them longer to make the leaves softer they would have been too mushy. Bottom line, looks good on a plate but not worth the premium over green artichokes.
For the lamb, I decided to get some professional advice and went to Brown, Alton Brown. So he gets the credit for the paste and the basics, slightly altered for my grill, of cooking. I had T at Belmont Butchery prep the lamb for me. Basically debone and butterfly so it was a large flat piece. The next step was to make the rub. In a small food processor I added:
8 mint leaves 4 cloves garlic 1 tablespoon sea salt 1 teaspoon ground black pepper 2 tablespoons canola oil 5 tablespoons dijon mustard
Blend into a paste. Rub the paste on one side of the lamb, roll it up and tie with butcher's string. To help the flavours even out I did all this the day before. I removed the lamb from the refrigerator about an hour before cooking. When it came time to grill Alton was no longer any help as he used charcoal so I was using educated guesses after that.
I started the heat out at the sear (700+) level. About 5 minutes on each side got the lamb going well. Next I dropped the heat level to the middle of the grill range which should put the temp at around 350. I did 20 minutes on each side (rotating 180 degrees to avoid cool spots) and then checked with a meat thermometer. Honestly, I am hopeless when it comes to meat thermometers. It kept coming up at 150 but I knew that was wrong. I laid down a piece of foil to avoid flare ups and put it on the coolest part of the grill for another 10 minutes. Removed from the grill and then covered for a 15 minutes rest. When sliced it was medium rare, except for a couple of rare slices towards the center. Perfect.
I had a hankering for some sort of reduction to go with it but couldn't find a recipe for what I wanted. Made one up off the cuff with the idea that it would go in the trash if it failed. Took 1 quart of lamb stock (from Belmont Butchery), 2 cups medium dry sherry, mint leaves and rosemary. Placed in a sauce pan, brought to a boil, and then lowered the heat and allowed to reduce to about a cup and a half. It came out pretty good and it took only a little bit to add the flavour I was looking for.
Of course every dinner needs some sort of activity. What could be more fun than drinking and catching cats. So we put out the traps baited with oil infused mackerel. Quickly we had three cats in the traps and safely away into the basement. The next morning they were sent off for their visit with the vet and then returned in the afternoon. Sadly, that evening when I took them a post-op meal one of the cats had expired. A call to the vet at Operation Cat Nip and the consensus was a heart defect, the result of inbreeding in the feral cat colony in our 'hood. The expired cat was also lactating so I checked around the house and in the bushes for any kittens but couldn't locate any.
The tally, if your keeping track, so far:
4 female/2 males - Trapped Fixed and Released 1 male - Not Healthy or Injured - Euthanized 1 female - Didn't Learn Lesson & Trapped Again 1 female - Didn't Survive Procedure
Come back next month for Round #4 of the Feral Feline Hunt!
Do you expect to get paid for the work you do? I do, well I would. Problem with me is that I own a business that is teetering on the edge of profitability. Regardless, most people expect to be paid for their work, whether it be physical or creative.
My sister is an illustrator up in Philadelphia. Like the vast majority of artists she is not exactly wealthy. She actually makes a living at it which is better than many artists who only make enough to cover their materials or less. Like inventions an artists creative output is protected from unlicensed use by copywrite laws. Because of the fluidity of the art world there have been times that companies have used an artists work, for gain or otherwise, and either haven't bothered to compensate or haven't been able to find the artist. In response to this came the Orphaned Works Bill. A corporate created loophole that allows an artist creative output to not only be used without their permission but also without compensating the artist. Sounds to me like someone is trying to skip out on paying a bill.
For a more complete explanation of the bill and how it works check out my sister's blog.
Frankly, I'm tired of all this. Points were made by all sides and that's enough. I saw something hurtful and said something, some edits were made and now it's slightly different. I don't know if that is good or bad but there you go.
I created this blog as a story of our family and the foods we eat and things we do. I don't regret the post but don't feel it really fits on what this blog is. If you really want to read it I saved it to a word doc and I'll send it to you. Comments are lost in the ether and I won't publish any comments on this post.* I don't really care to hear from people on either side of this debate.
*Except for Genevelyn who came late to the party and since she's a friend is allowed one comment.
Drum Roll................................................................. Trumpets Blare.......................................................... And......................................................................... Looks like sometime in late January we will have to change Finn's status from 'only' child to 'oldest' child........
Lethargy. That's the only way I can describe the way I felt yesterday. Day 4 of our fun little heat wave/ozone alert left me sticky, tired, cranky and feeling like I had taken up smoking again. My HVAC people didn't help as they didn't show up for a scheduled annual check-up that I had for yesterday. Admittedly, my AC was working (to an extent) and they had been swamped with calls from people whose AC was not working at all. Annoying but understandable. So, as I was sitting in a just barely enough cooled house, when M called, the last thing I wanted to do was fire up the stove or oven to cook any food for dinner. We decided what we needed was a nice cold plate of raw fish in a nice cool restaurant....
Sadly, the AC at Moshi-Moshi wasn't up to the challenge. We arrived, ordered drinks and appetizers and proceeded to perspire. The apps were good. We got our favourite, the tempura shrimp (10 pieces, a value RVA Foodie would be proud of) and we tried the pot stickers for the first time. Finn loved them, filled with fresh tasting shrimp, and after a bit of hesitation he started gobbling up the grilled tofu. Great food aside, I was getting a bit worried about ordering raw fish in the heat of this dining room.
Moshi-Moshi still only does huge orders of sashimi (6 pieces for $12-$15) and doesn't have any combo platters on the menu. I grumbled this to the waitress and she produced a sheet of paper from her pocket that outlined some platter options. Eureka! A way to get an array of fishies without ordering way too much food. I decided to go with the mega platter and pass the California Roll off to Finn. The platter had 4 pieces of salmon, 4 of white fish, 4 of white tuna, 4 of albacore, and 8 pieces of chefs selection of sushi. The verdict? It was ok. The pieces were huge, almost too big, but it wasn't too exciting of a selection. For $35 I would have been better off ordering exactly what I wanted even if that meant sushi sizes and giving the rice balls to Finn. I also felt kind of rushed to eat quickly as the fish quickly moved to room temp in the heat of the dining room and went from nice and firm to soft and mushy (moshi?).
Finn ate the California Roll so fast we were concerned he was going to choke himself.
Normally, I order hot sake to go with my little fish bites but even I, who drives around with his seat heater on in this weather, couldn't quite stomach that in this heat. Moshi-Moshi has a very nice list of different sakes that are served cold. I had actually never tried cold sake but, as the descriptions on the sake list were very educational, I decided to take the leap. I chose one that claimed a light pear flavour yet dry rather than sweet. It was exactly as described and was refreshing in the heat. As I was the only one drinking I was concerned about the sake getting warm and loosing it's appeal. The waitress, who did a great job throughout, paused at the dilemma and then came up with a solution to keep my sake cold. She also apologized for the uncomfortable temperature in the dining room. Seems it has been an issue even though they had been assured the system that came with the building was sufficient, they are looking into solutions to the problem. I can imagine it won't be cheap.
Speaking of issues left from the previous occupants of the space....
When Finn finished the California Roll as well as the rice off my sushi he decided to go exploring... I mean, annoy the other guests. After a couple of admonishments he began to play around our table and, like any other 3 year old boy, play with his favourite insect, ants. The ants, which frequently do not survive the encounter with Finn, were all over the floor. This was also the moment I started picking them off my arms and legs. Ugh. A few words with the waitress informed me that they were aware of the problem but hadn't been able to resolve it. Ummm.... Call an exterminator perhaps? Yes, I know, there are much worse insects to find in a restaurant but I still don't like them crawling on me.
Overall? The food was good - still think they can do better on the combo options though. The service was better than our last visit. We'll go back in the fall when it's cooler in the dining room and the ants have gone into hibernation.
Between the Ozone Alert and the smoke from the NC wildfires it was, at nearly 100, very miserable. As we were running errands I had turned on the air conditioning and it seemed to be working. The car was cooling down, slowly, but I was still sweating like a pig. WTF?
It all became clear today while driving to work. Seems I still had the seat heaters turned on in my car. Kinda hard to get cool when your butt's being heated. Doh!
Since we built a new kitchen in our house last fall we have ended up with two refrigerators in our house. Initially, the old one was going to come to my new store when the move was complete but I don't really have a good spot for it. So it has stayed upstairs in our house. Besides being a huge waste of energy it's a bit noisy so it has been getting my nerves. The issue is that it does come in handy. For beer, access to cold sodas with out having to walk all the way down stairs...., and when we have dinner parties. When one is marinating different items, prepping for multiple dishes, and stocking up on adult bevvies, you cannot beat having a second fridge. Carbon footprint be damned!
Last Saturday we had a few guests over so the use of fridge #2 was in full swing. First to let dough rise for the bread the night before and then that day for any number of different things. After the party things slowly went back to normal. Fast forward to last night. Puttering around the house I found myself in the old kitchen and checking the old fridge. Inside I found two forgotten pink boxes. What on earth could this be? Turns out some cupcakes from Veron! The cake was a little stale but not too bad and the frosting was fine. Finn and I were very happy.
Sadly I forgot to take a picture before eating and thought it would be a bit cruel to post a picture of the remains of the cakes.
Still, I should probably unplug that second fridge.
Restaurants change for any number of reasons. New chefs, management, or ownership. Flagging sales can be a driver especially in new restaurants who haven't 'discovered' who they are. Sometimes, though, it can be a misguided attempt to be something your not.
Last February we went to Popkin on our way to the circus. The food was basic bar grub. Lot's of fried items, sandwiches, and bits to nosh on. Nothing fancy, except for the ubiquitious cilantro pesto, but they knew what they were. A tavern serving the kind of food drinkers want. Nothing wrong with that and, to be honest, they did a decent job of it. Whoever was manning the fry station knew what he was doing - crispy and clean not greasy and tasting vaguely of something else. It was the kind of place that, in my younger days I may have hung out with friends or popped into eat at in between different clubs. It was with all this in mind that, after a swim lesson with Finn, that we decided to re-enter Popkin Tavern.
The first thing we noticed was a new menu, actually two menus. Uh-oh. I find it to be a bad sign when a restaurant cannot decide on a menu. Different menus for different times of the day, yes. Different menus because they are not sure who their diners are or what they want, no. One menu was a 'Tavern' menu the other a 'Dining' menu. It looked like they were trying to go upscale with moules frites (mussels & fries), fancy french fry combinations (one sounded vaguely like a beef bourguignon with cheese - sounds messy to me and, frankly, not that appetizing), small pizzas and a number of 'hot' entrees that you can find in every trendy restaurant in town that is lacking in creativity. OK, let's see if they can live up to their new image....
Ordered a cocktail. I understand that not every bar stocks my favourite gin, Tanqueray 10, but a bartender should at least be aware of it's existence and be prepared to offer alternatives. A blank look on the face does not inspire confidence in you knowing your product or how to put it together. If your moving upscale you need to have liquors that reflect the new direction and train your staff to do more than pour draft beer. Also, it might be a good idea if they wiped down the fridge doors and dusted the glass liquor shelves more than once a quarter. I nixed the idea of ordering fresh mussels based on the amount of dirt I could see. If you can't even clean your bar how is your live shellfish storage?
The mess behind the bar caused me to look around a bit more. Little piles of dirt on the floor. Tables that looked un-wiped, some with a single salt shaker, some with two pepper shakers, some with none (nearly all in need of re-filling and a wash). Sugar caddies with or without sugar, or just the blue stuff, or just the pink stuff and sugar. All this sounds small until you are the guest trying to flag down a waiter during a rush because you don't have what you need already on the table. Eating in a bar I have low expectations. When you start asking $20+ for entrees you need to justify that expense. These are all management issues. You cannot raise your food standard without doing the same with the staff. These was a lot of staff there. All doing sidework... ok, folding napkins.... ok, mainly just chatting with each other.
Speaking of the staff, the oddest interaction went on while I was there. Some twenty-something guy was there and the staff was fawning over him. Both boys and girls seemed to be hitting on him. Since they were all hanging on his every word and were in raptured silence I could hear him prattle on. Sorry, a long pretentious speech on the 'unappealing esthetics' of the ESPN2 logo on the sides of the widescreen TV nearly inspired me to fling my martini glass in his direction. But all these kids were jockeying to be near him, to put their hands on his shoulder, it was all very odd. I'll have to ask Jack about this phenomena. Maybe he can clear it up a bit.
The guy was also the reason that we didn't try an entree or some of the more upscale items. He had the Pan Seared Sea Scallops. Looking at the plate from distance it was a tinker-toy construction of asparagus and scallops held together by a blob of mashed potato. Beyond looking awkward, it smelled, bad. I know a shady scallop when I smell one and, at 10 feet away, it overpowered the tobacco smoke in the bar.
So, this brought us to our food decision. One of their gourmet pizzettes. Basically a 12 inch pizza. I selected the Pepperoni Tomato and Wild Mushroom. The crust reminded me of my baguettes last weekend where I had not kneeded the dough long enough leaving a strong flour taste. The extent of the tomato was the sauce, the pepperoni was unremarkable, the wild mushrooms were oven dried button. Basically, we should have gone to Tarrantino's.
Every restaurant has a personality. The combination of the chef, the management and staff, the food and the decor all add to this. It doesn't matter if you are a 5-star or a greasy spoon, you can serve a good meal when all these factors are in agreement. On our last visit I though that Popkin Tavern had a good idea who they were. The recent changes have upset that balance and I think they have lost their way.
It all started with dinner one night with Mr & Ms In Vino Veritas with the thought of grilling 'big ol' honkin' pieces o' meat'. Compounded by an email from Veron about her Hungry Hubby having grill envy. The idea was simple. Fire up the new infrared grill and throw open the doors to a few foodies and allow them to bask in the 700+ degree heat with whatever food stuff they cared to play with. Emails flew back and forth for a few days and then the preparations began and the players arrived. Joining us were Mr & Ms In Vino Veritas, the Sketchy's with little Aidan, Veron & Hungry Hubby, as well as our non-blogger friends Cy-n-Ide (with C4 still on board - so to speak). RVA Foodie was invited but decided to blow a gasket in a futile attempt at aioli instead.
Once everyone arrived, and Finn greeted Aidan (see above picture), martini's were made and the grill fired up. To get things rolling I threw some fillets of grouper (marinated in a Japanese inspired liquid) on the grill. For this dish I used my grilling basket to avoid the fish sticking to the grill. Four minutes later we had juicy grouper for people to nosh on.
Next up to the grill was Hungry Hubby. After a few minutes instruction on the grill itself, HH pulled out a sword and measured the grill. Off to the kitchen he went threading sword after sword with chunks of meat daubing them with some sort of melted butter concoction. The smells that came off the grill were heavenly. The meat came out moist and juicy, the extreme heat having seared all the juices inside. After years of dry, overcooked kebab meat this dish has ruined all other possible attempts at kebab making. HH decided then and there that he was getting an infrared grill and Veron, after tasting the results did not seem inclined to argue.
Next up to the plate was Mr Vino. The Vino's are on a cleansing diet for a short time so they were consuming no animal products. This made for a few adjustments for the evening. I had decided to make my faux mashed potatoes (actually made with cauliflower) for the evening so I had to adjust to make it vegan. Substitute Veggie Stock for Chicken, Soy Milk for cream, Smart Balance for butter, and I actually found a vegan parmesan substitute. The result was pretty good, I think I under salted but no one seemed to agree with me, so there you go. The Vino's had also brought kebab's, but of the veggie variety. We lowered the heat on the grill a bit, didn't want the skewers to burn (they did anyway), spritzed with a bit of olive oil and on to the heat. While this was cooking I added a piece of cedar board and threw on a hunk of salmon with a bit of white wine and dill. Once again all came out well (except for the burned skewers). The veggies stayed moist and, since we kept them moving on the grill, they cooked all the way through without getting too charred.
The next guest chef was Sketchy. He had brought some skirt steaks. The heat on the grill went back up and wrapped pieces of corn added to the upper rack. As skirt steak is so thin these had to be cooked quickly but with lots of contact with the grill to encourage proper charring. Sketchy's steak was a success. Perfect MR, juicy, and lots of flavour. The Sketchy's had also brought tow kinds of homemade marshmallows. One was infused with lavender, the other peach. Great snacking items. Stopped eating marshmallows years ago because they were too sweet and just really didn't taste of much. These were wonderful, especially the lavender. Sketchy mentioned maybe posting the recipe on his blog....
To finish on the grill I had planned a NY Strip tasting. I had got 4 NY Strips - One from Fresh Market and from Belmont Butchery a regular CAB, an organic CAB, and a Wagyu. All were cut basically the same, allowed to come to room temperature and sea salt applied. While they all cooked the same amount of time the Wagyu may have got a little more heat as the amount of marbling caused the grill to flare up a bit. Once cooked they were allowed to rest and then sliced thin. The results? The cheap one from Fresh Market was ok flavour, nothing special, but was a bit tough and had some gristle. The organic had really good flavour but had so much gristle that it was tough to cut and to chew. The regular CAB from Belmont Butchery was a winner, great taste, tender, and no tough spots. The Wagyu was excellent, buttery, tender, melt in your mouth. I would, however, give the ribbon the regular CAB based on the relative little damage it did to my pocketbook compared to the Wagyu.
Veron stepped up to the plate for desserts. Cupcakes, Financiers (little teacakes), and, of course, her macarons. All were delicious and the way we attacked them would make one think we were a bunch of 19th century orphans in London. Yum!
Of course with all this we had copious amounts of adults beverages. Martini's, too many different kinds of wine to count, and akvavit. As the liquor flowed so did the volume on the side porch. My favourite neighbours across the street, the ones with the dead body a few weeks ago, seemed to have their illegal activities interrupted by all the noise and activity. Although there has been change. The drug dealers seemed to have been moved out by the owners and new people moved in. The new profession is not dealing but prostitution. Oh joy.
Corporate escapee enjoying life and fatherhood. Proprietor of bookstores in Richmond and Charlottesville. Caretaker of a vintage Richmond home. Consumer of fine wine and food.
Recently there has been much debate about two eateries by the local blogging community. So much so that I am not even going to try to link to all them. Just too difficult with my nearly antiquated Mac that will not allow me to cut and paste links. So if you really want to read all of the reviews and subsequent discussions go here and read, I'll wait.... OK, are you up to speed? Good. Now, let's move on to our adventure....
