06.24.08
Posted in 6. Reviews, 7. Other Fun at 8:59 am by Chef Matt
Last “weekend” (which is Monday-Tuesday for me) my parents finally cashed in on their Christmas present that my wife and I gave them. A nice day touring through Virginia to see some of the best wineries my home state has to offer. It’s long been one of my favorite ways to spend a day, and I figured why not share the fun with my parents as well?
My lovely wife, Caroline, was our designated driver - which makes sense seeing as how she doesn’t drink - and in return we took her to two of her favorite spots along the way. So what follows is a quick (completely unsolicited) review of the wineries and other spots we hit along the way, just so you know what to do if you ever find yourself traveling in this area. (Wow, I feel like Duncan Hines…)
First stop was a relatively new winery on the VA scene, Pearmund Cellars. Their selection was large, and the staff was welcoming and friendly. The wines were generally good with a slightly too acidic Sauvignon Blanc, a nice reserve Chardonnay, and a very interesting “Vin de Sol” which actually ages on the roof of the winery in the sun for two years before bottling and comes out like a sherry. I have been several times before, and I’m sure I will be back again.
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For the next haul, we drove down to a winery I have been past, but never in before, Burnley Vineyards. We were greeted by a very large dog as we walked in, and needless to say the smell of dog permeated everything we tried to enjoy about the wines. What a change in attitude this was for us as the lady pouring for us acted as if she couldn’t stand the fact that we were there to taste her wines! Add to that the fact that almost all of them were undrinkable, and well, we left there about as fast as was possible. In all fairness, the Rivanna White was quite nice, with a crisp front and dry finish that was enjoyable enough that we bought a bottle despite our other instincts.
If you can find a better bagel, tell me. |
Driving into Charlottesville, we stopped off at the first destination for my wife, Bodo’s Bagels. For those of you who are not alums of UVA, you might not know this secret, but these are the best bagels south of the Mason-Dixon Line, bar none. I have been to New York several times. I’ve had good bagels, I’ve had bad bagels, and I’ve had downright horrible bagels. Heck, I’ve ever tired to make bagels on a few occasions. These are the best I’ve ever had without a doubt. So even though we made it seem like a present for Caroline, who loves them as well, it was a fine break for all of us as well.
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Keswick Vineyards was the next stop on our tour and we were thrilled to once again be greeted by pleasant staff in the setting of a lovely tasting room and garden. A neat feature of this winery was how they had a wine that was called “Consensus” which was put together by the members of their own wine club. While this is a really cool feature that would make me want to be a part of that club, the wine itself tasted like something only a committee could come up with: uninspired and boring. The rest of the wines were nice, but a tad overpriced for their level of quality. I did however buy myself a waiter’s corkscrew there, as I have needed one at work for some time now since my last one broke.
Since I can’t find an image of their logo online, here is a picture of their cool main building - complete with turret! |
Through a rough rainstorm we proceeded on to a personal favorite winery of mine: Horton Vineyards. They have a Viognier (the 2006) that I feel is the best Viognier ever produced by any Virginia vineyard to date. (And I’ve been drinking them for quite a while now.) But that’s not all, as they had a remarkable Vidal Blanc, and their Stonecastle White was an incredible bargain at only $10/bottle. Throw in the fact that tastings are free, and this is a winery I always try to visit when I’m in the area. Just beware that they have so many wines to try, you’ll need a designated driver just after visiting this one alone! However, with the wide range of selection, incredible quality and fabulous values to their wines, I’m personally willing to dub Horton with the title: Best Winery in Virginia.
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Practically across the street from Horton (which is about all we could stumble at this point) is Barboursville Vineyard. A lovely vineyard with friendly staff and (I’ve heard) a wonderful restaurant, this vineyard is one of the most awarded in all of Virginia. Unfortunately, they are letting the awards go to their heads (like the likewise fabulous Chrysalis Vineyards in Middleburg, VA) and they are pricing their wines way too high as a result. Their whites are very good, their reds are mediocre. But to look at the price tag, you’d think you were buying Chateau Neuf de Pape. While always worth a visit, I rarely find their wines worth the price, so again I left without buying anything.
It was time to call it a day for us, but we couldn’t help but be thankful to Caroline for driving for us, so we took the lovely route 20 all the way to Fredericksburg where were stopped in at the best coffee shop in Virginia, Hyperion Espresso. Unlike the unpalatable burnt flavor that accompanies every cup of coffee in a Starbuck’s, Hyperion’s coffee is rich, smooth and well-crafted. I’ve never had anything short of an excellent cup of coffee there, and today was no exception.
So there you have it, a wide range of fun stops in Virginia’s heartland that will get you drunk, full and buzzed all in an afternoon! If you can tell me a better way to spend my day off, and to have fun with my family while doing it, I’d love to hear it!
Chef Matt
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06.17.08
Posted in 6. Reviews, 7. Other Fun at 10:43 am by Chef Matt
Walking into Grape & Bean on a night where it seemed as if the sky could unleash a summer evening shower at any moment, I was greeted with trays of the most unusual fare for a party. Lemon and lime wedges, under-ripe rhubarb, salt and vinegar potato chips and unsweetened cranberry juice were lined up on the counter for the enjoyment of the guests.
Not my idea of good party snacks. |
Any other night, and I probably would have had a few chips (love that flavor!) and excused myself quickly in search of a party that at least maybe offered something a tad more palatable. But in this instance, I dove right in to all these incredibly mouth-puckering foods since it was important for me to have a frame of reference.
Perhaps you need some reference as well at this point…
See, this was no ordinary social gathering. This was a “miracle fruit” tasting. This fruit, which is really called “miracle fruit” is a West African fruit that, when eaten, re-wires how your brain interprets sour flavors rendering them sweet for the next half hour or so. Supposedly you can eat lemons, drink black coffee, even shoot straight vinegar, and not notice the incredible sour/bitter flavors that normally accompany those foods.
Miracle fruits on the tree. They’re about the size of a large coffee bean. |
I had recently heard about this fruit from my good friend Mike who sent me the New York Times article all about this fruit, and in a coincidence worthy of the Celestine Prophecy, I was invited to this party for the little fruit just one week later.
So back to the frame of reference. Having tried all these incredibly tart foods, we all were given a single miracle fruit and were told to chew it up and let it sit in our mouth for about a minute. The fruit itself is actually quite bitter and had an alum-like effect that robbed my mouth of all saliva for a moment. But once the fruit was down, there seemed to be no residual unpleasant taste in my mouth. It seemed hard to believe that this would have any effect on these foods in front of me.
But with the first sip of coffee, I was a believer. The coffee’s strong flavors were instantly mellowed out making it smooth and sweet. As if I had added cream and sugar, but it was still black as tar. The lemons tasted like Country Time lemonade; the rhubarb was as sweet as the best of springtime pies, and the raspberries - which were already sweet to begin with - now tasted like cloyingly sweet candy. The truly amazing change were the salt and vinegar potato chips. My brain could smell the artificial vinegar smell and my mouth was prepared for the intense rush of sourness as a result. But the chip was sweet and salty instead - as if they had miraculously become sweet potato chips instead. It was hard to wrap my mind around the concept of what things should be tasting like, as compared to what was actually going on in my mouth.
Wanting the full experience, I decided to chug a shot of straight apple cider vinegar. This would indeed be the real “acid test”. It was only slightly harsh, but the overall taste was more similar to apple cider than what I would have expected if I drank straight vinegar at any other time.
If this fruit is so amazing, how come we haven’t heard of it before? Actually, the miracle fruit has been known to the Western world since the 1800’s, but back in the 1970’s, the FDA decided that the miracle fruit was unsafe as a food additive. (Was this political wrangling by the sugar lobby? Who knows?…) But the whole fruit has remained legal, and primarily grown in Florida here in the US. But getting your hands on them is difficult and relatively expensive.
“U-P-Y-O-U-R-S…. What a rude Ouija Board!” |
Is it a life-changing experience? No, not really. The effect wears off after about half an hour, and fortunately, the effects abate themselves slowly. (It would be a nasty wake-up call to suddenly down a shot of vinegar and realize you had lost your super-powers…) However, if you ever have the means, I totally recommend it as a fun way to spend an evening with some friends. Like the first time you use a Ouija Board, it is a curious oddity that is fun in a unique way. But then you go back to enjoying salt and vinegar potato chips the way they were meant to be had - in all their salty-sour glory.
Chef Matt
P.S. A word of warning though… After eating large quantities of nothing but sour (acidic) foods for half an hour without noticing it, the result on your stomach is predictably upsetting. Better have some milk, or some Tums on hand for afterwards.
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04.05.08
Posted in 1. The Story, 6. Reviews at 8:48 pm by Chef Matt
I know that the main reason that most of you read this blog is for the food-related content and how the story of my career into the culinary world is continuing to evolve day by day. And I promise that eventually this post will get to that interesting stuff. In fact, if you want to skip this main story, feel free to use this handy jump link to skip straight to the food stuff.
How can you not trust a face like that? |
As I have mentioned several times before here and there in this blog, my guilty TV pleasure is watching The Maury Show. Like a train wreck in Darwin’s wading pool, I just can’t take my eyes off of watching that moment when a man learns that he is now going to have to spend the next 18 years of his life raising a kid that until just a few seconds before he was denying. Or the corollary, watching a woman become humiliated since the man she was “one thousand percent sure” turned out not to be the father. It is the lowest of the low form of entertainment in our society, but for some reason I love it so.
For these past few days, I have been up in New York, taking in some sights, hanging out with friends, even attending an art show opening (where I rubbed shoulders – literally – with David Burns (sic - “Byrne” - sorry!) of the Talking Heads) and of course enjoying some great food. (No, this isn’t the part where we get to the food stuff. Be patient.)
But when I knew I was coming up to New York for these other reasons, I was quickly on the phone to the good people who offer tickets for Maury, and I reserved a pair of seats for my friend, Niki, and me. The line began at about 7:00AM, and Maury himself came by and said hi to us all before he was ushered off to make-up. We were led in groups upstairs past “security” which was just a metal detector and some people who patted my pockets. Then we sat in a holding pen for about 20 minutes where they treated us to watching – what else? – today’s episode of Maury, before being ushered into the studio itself.
A pantheon of lights screamed down upon the collective masses assembled for the taping. More lights than I thought existed in the entire country in fact. Perhaps like God’s flashlight pointing down at all of us as if to say, “Why are you watching this?” But it was not too long before we knew why. The crowd was getting more and more psyched as time went by, and soon the stage manager was out there teaching us how to react to different situations on the show.
The Maury audience entering the studio. |
“Let me hear you all react to hearing some really surprising news.”
“GASP!” we all replied.
“Now let me see what you think of some cheating boyfriend coming out onto the stage.”
“BOOO!!!” We all yelled while jumping to our feet.
“We are such sheep,” said Niki.
“Baa!” I replied.
Maury himself was really great. At no time did he seem uncomfortable with the masses who were gathered there to see him. He genuinely enjoyed these fans, and took the time to take photos with them and interact with everyone who wanted to say hi. I personally am not the type of person to bother a man at work, so I didn’t rush up there myself, but it was nice to see him be so happy with all those who did.
“You only watch good TV shows.”
“True.”
BEEP!
“That answer was…. false.” |
The show they taped was of the “Lie Detector Tests Revealed” variety, and while I’m not going to go into the details before it airs, let’s just say that it was pretty obvious to all of us in the audience that these guys were not being 100% truthful as soon as they opened their mouths.
And we dutifully let them know what we felt about them when they came onto the stage.
I’ll keep my eyes out on YouTube for any clips of this show, and especially if I’m in them so you can see me responding in all my “wind-up monkey” glory. I’m not proud, but damn if it wasn’t fun.
So now for the food. (Thanks for waiting for those of you who read all of this. For those of you who used the jump link, I’ll try to be brief since you obviously have very little time on your hands.)
I made sure to ask for some food recommendations before I headed up to New York, and I wrote down the names of the places that seemed best. I compared those to where I was staying, and I found that a nice French restaurant, Fleur de Sel was only about 10 blocks away from our hotel. So Niki and I headed out to a very nice dinner where she had frog’s legs and I enjoyed seared foie gras (almost as good as mine… ha ha) for a first course, and she had a fabulous veal breast and I a wonderful lamb rack for our second course. Washing it all down with a nice Cote du Rhone, the meal was nothing short of exquisite.
This is yuzu, and it is delicious! |
But dessert is where this restaurant really shined. I had a roasted baby pineapple half seasoned with some firey Szechuan peppercorns and accompanied with an ultra-sweet yuzu sorbet. Niki had a delectable carrot cake, and in an apology from them for making us wait so long for our main courses to come out (it wasn’t all that long…) they gave us a free chocolate cake dessert that came with the darkest chocolate ice cream I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. It is also apparently standard practice for them to offer some homemade truffles and other candies for dessert for all customers, so our table was absolutely covered with sugary delights for this final course of our meal.
But wait, there’s more… As we waddled out of the restaurant, happy with all the collective dessert euphoria we had found ourselves immersed in, the maitre d’ handed us a small cake wrapped in plastic as a sort of “consolation dessert” for the evening.
“Is this just in case I need more dessert on my walk home?” I asked. The maitre d’s smile was all that was needed for me to know that I wasn’t the first person to ask this question.
The other food highlight comes at the other end of the culinary spectrum. As many of you know, I am a huge fan of great dives – which is something New York has plenty of – and on this trip I had to try the Venezuelan treat of “arepas” that Niki had been telling me about ever since her last trip to the Big Apple. For our last lunch, we headed over to Caracas to sample these tiny sandwiches.
Small but delicious. This photo is from their website, so this really is what they look like. I highly recommend giving them a shot. |
Made fresh to order with a cornmeal exterior and awesome spiced meat interiors, these juicy handfuls are such a step ahead of any quick bite that McDonald’s has to offer. I can’t imagine how the McDonald’s around the street manages to stay in business in fact with such a better option available just a few steps away. But since that might have meant some compromise to the quality of my lunch, I was happy to have this place be a little more of a secret. Well, as much of a secret as it can be considering it recently expanded its business to the space next door to keep up with demand…
All in all, a great trip to New York. Great food, awesome museums, fabulous art show (and art show opening after party – a first for me) and of course, Maury. I had been needing some time away from the restaurant to recharge my batteries for some time now, and I think this trip was a great way to do it.
If only I now wasn’t so darn tired from all this recharging…
Chef Matt
P.S. Please don’t bother to point out how I rant against some TV being terrible, and then turn around and watch Maury. I’m already aware of the conflict there…
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01.28.08
Posted in 1. The Story, 6. Reviews at 11:23 am by Chef Matt
No, please rest assured dear readers that all of my kitchen staff is alive and well. Nor is this title in reference to the many animals that are killed in order to bring about the delicious food we serve. If you want that type of propaganda, please go visit some other silly site. The death in question is rather in reference to some of my beloved equipment that has shuffled off this mortal coil after incredible service to me and my restaurant.
First, there are my shoes. If you can still call them that. I bought a pair of slip-resistant work shoes back when I was working at Vero that were light weight, comfortable and really affordable. I have worn them every day since. Sure the leather coating was starting to peel a little here and there, but as is the case with all shoes, the more I wore them, the more comfortable they got. I just couldn’t bear to give them up.
Yeah, I actually wear these out in pub |
