I used to walk to the corner almost every day for lunch when I worked at Gilmer Hall. Since moving over to ITC and not walking to work anymore, I try to eat a small lunch at my desk most days. The past couple of days I’ve gotten to eat out again. We’ve had engineers from Aruba Networks on-site and they like to eat out for lunch. Yay, my favorite!
Dragon Lady is a decent Chinese restaurant about a block away. We went there as a group of eight. I ordered the Hunan Beef and enjoyed it. They make good food, though I think I prefer Taiwan Garden for nearby Chinese food.
Today, a smaller group of us, only four this time, walked to the corner and ate at Lemongrass. I ordered chicken Pad Thai spicy. I hadn’t had the pad thai in a while so I didn’t really remember what it was like, but it didn’t dissapoint. One of the engineers ordered a community plate of spring rolls and satay. The saytay tasted breaded and fried, kinda’ weird, but I love the spring rolls. Good stuff. Everyone seemed to enjoy their meals.
Hillary and I used to go to La Taza every now and again for weekend out-of-the-apartment studying, but we haven’t been there in maybe a year. Today we had planned to go to Feast for lunch, but after seeing that their parking lot was overflowing with cars , I remembered cozy ‘ol La Taza and we decided to detour over there. We’re definitely glad we did.
The first item on their menu caught my eye and I went with it, the Cuban Sandwich, and a Guava Jarritos soda. Hillary had several items she was deciding between, and went with the Pollo Burrito. My sandwich was oozing melted cheese and every bite included a little bit of sour pickle. It was great. We were both very happy with our dishes and will be going back to La Taza for lunch.
Kate B. is back in town for the weekend, so Bart wanted to surprise her with a dinner out. He planned this elaborate deception and surprised Kate with a bunch of her friends at Charlie’s Smokehouse in Crozet. A High School band was playing there, I don’t know their name. I tracked down the twins who play guitar and drums as Thomas and Andrew Fickley, but google didn’t come up with a band myspace page for them. The band’s music was good, covering some Dead, Counting Crows, and Wilco, and playing lots of their own Phish-style jam-band music. They sounded really good. The keyboard player could loosen up a little though. Everyone else in the band was moving and grooving to the music while the keyboardist stood in the back all stiff.
On to the food. I ordered the 1/2 rack of rib with a jerk rub. It came with two sides, so I chose the slaw and baked beans. The food was good. Not knock your socks off good, but if I were in the area for something, or wanted to hear a band there, I’d check out some other things on the menu.
Update: The band is named Help On The Way.
I grabbed some carry-out from Asian Express tonight. I’ve never been there before and was quite happy with the food. The crispy chicken caught my eye, so I got that along with a spring roll.
Hillary and I were feeling lazy tonight so we decided to order pizza. There are a good number of pizza places in Charlottesville that we haven’t yet visited. Anna’s Pizza is located near us, but we’ve eyed-up the Brick Oven a number of times when we’ve visited Lime Leaf Thai. We settled on Brick Oven for no particular reason and ordered their veterinarian Christina’s Crusher pizza. We both loved it and would definitely order from them again.
After I mentioned to Brian that I thought Spry’s had pretty good Q, he said that we had to go to Jinx’s for lunch. Who-hoo – BBQ two days in a row! Jinx’s has very random hours, so our backup was Belmont BBQ but we needn’t have bothered since, surprisingly, Jinx’s was open. There are just two booths and a small counter in the restaurant, so the fact that two gentlemen were eating lunch when we arrived meant that it was pretty crowded. The restaurant had an amazing hickory smell. We both ordered a BBQ samwich and fries but he only had one order of fries left and asked if we’d be okay with splitting it or have some baked beans in addition. We went with the beans. The Q is served on toasted white bread and the smallest amount of sauce. It was really good. The smoke came through and it had an amazing pork flavor. The oil that the fries are cooked in has been seasoned from all the frying so, even though they seemed to be frozen fries, they had a wonderful flavor. The beans were even great. I’m definitely going back to Jinx’s again for a sandwich, and maybe a rib.
I haven’t been to a new restaurant in a while, so I decided to take a long lunch-hour walk over to Spry’s BBQ. Spry’s opened about two months ago on the east end of the Corner neighborhood, where Northern Exposure stood for many years. I’m not a huge fan of food that focuses on meat, so when I heard that a new BBQ joint was opening, I didn’t even consider visiting it. When I read in one of the local weeklies that this place was the real deal, I added it back to my list of restaurants to visit. I’m glad I did. At lunch, they serve a buffet that includes their Carolina BBQ. It was so much better than Big Jim’s that I can’t describe it. I won’t say that this is the greatest thing I’ve eaten, but I can say that there is good Q in Charlottesville.
When I worked for the Psychology department, I met a woman from Brazil in one of the labs. I had heard about a Brazilian restaurant in C-ville named Copacabana and asked her what she thought about it. She told me that it was okay, but for great Brazilian meat I had to check out Ipanema Grill or Texas de Brazil, both in Richmond. Hillary and I have a membership at a climbing gym in Richmond so we’re there somewhat regularly, but never in the evening. I figured we’d make a special trip sometime to try one of these restaurants.
Flash forward to yesterday, Hillary and I were in Richmond, used-car shopping, and we’re getting hungry. I pointed out a Fuddruckers earlier in the afternoon as a possible dinner choice, but neither of us were craving burgers. I knew Texas de Brazil was a little pricy, but Hillary reminded me that we hadn’t yet gone out for a nice dinner in celebration of her birthday. It was settled. We got directions and drove to the south side of Richmond and the restaurant.
The service was pretty cool. Waiters walk around with chunks of grilled meat on swords and carve off pieces for you. Most nights they have 15 different types of meat to choose from. Needless to say, it’s all-you-can-eat. We will probably go back there with family when they come to visit.