Ploafmaster General

PX 70 Color Shade film from The Impossible Project.
A door in a back alley off Harrison St. in Richmond, VA.

So it seems that a certain Mr. Stevens has added at some more shows to his touring schedule, one of which includes a particular River City...

I'll be trying to score tickets Friday morning.

On some occasions this film has some peculiar aging/color characteristics. This photo is only a week old and has taken on greenish-yellow cast.

Shot with PX 70 Color Shade from The Impossible Project, in Scott's Addition, Richmond.

Oh, this was only PART of my dinner at Secco tonight.

This is the speck-wrapped hanger steak with charred local vegetables (field peas, I think, and carrots, squash, zucchini, and green beans), shaved summer truffles, and summer truffle sauce.

Uh-mazing.

Also, try the sea urchin dish. It'll rock your mouth's world.

Morning meal, last Saturday at Can Can.

RVANews posted today about Relay - a Charlottesville-based company that lets you order food and products from a variety of local/regional farmers and producers through a website, and pick up your order at a single location. Well Relay has expanded their service to Richmond, offering products from merchants around the greater Richmond metro area.

The site is a little janked as of this posting (I think they had a recent redesign), but I hope to try it out this week.

I always see this moped when I stop by the butcher shop, so it was only a matter of time before I photograph it, right?

Tonight I made it back to Secco for the first time in a few weeks (I know, I go there all the freakin' time). I was pumped, particularly, to be able to try one of the new dinner items: olive oil poached halibut. According to Chef Tim Bereika, the dish is elevated to it's tasty state using an almond crust, parsley sauce, corn cream, charred melon, prosciutto and halibut noodle. That "noodle" appears to be made by piping a halibut paste of sorts directly into the fryer. It adds a pleasant crispiness and a striking visual impact when the dish is delivered.

All components worked in concert to produce one of the tastiest dishes I've eaten at Secco. I'm already a huge fan, but this was a big deal. Richmond should be proud to have food of this caliber and creativity coming out of Carytown.

I grew up in New Jersey where Dunkin' Donuts are as ubiquitous as 7-Eleven. I'm no donut junkie, but I do enjoy them and appreciate quality. Living in Richmond, however, means a comparative dearth of donut shops. There are a handful of Dunkin' Donuts franchises around, but too far outside the city for practical travel. We have a lone Krispy Kreme that's reasonably close, and they're pretty solid. There is, of course, the excellent Country Style Donuts out by the airport on Williamsburg Rd (you can find their goodies at the fantastic Lamplighter coffee shop, as well).

So imagine my surprise when I drove past a new donut supplier yesterday on my way home from dinner in the West End. In part of the space once occupied by the Richmond Decorating Center I saw the bright blue and yellow sign for Daylight Donuts:



This morning I decided to check it out, and while it wasn't bad it wasn't really anything special, either. The chalk-written menu boards over the counter didn't indicate what donut varieties were available. Nor were there any little signs in the case by each donut. Sure, some were self-explanatory, like the cake donut with chocolate frosting and chopped peanuts, or the glazed cruller. But the filled donuts? The donuts with different glazes? I received quick responses from the staff to my inquiries, but I could see this missing basic information causing a slow-moving line during the morning rush. At any rate, I settled on the orange-glazed cake and a powdered donut filled with custard:



The donuts were okay. The orange-glazed cake donut had a decent texture, but the glaze had only the slightest hint of citrus and tasted, for the most part, like generic sweetness. My custard-filled powdered donut fared worse. This approximated, to my memory, Dunkin' Donuts' "Bavarian Kreme" variety, but with less success. The so-called custard had the same unfortunately fake flavor, but the donut itself was inferior to the yeasty baked goods from Dunkin, Krispy Kreme, or otherwise.

The shop itself felt too empty and boring - cheap and generic decor gave the impression that they'd set up in a hurry on a limited budget (perhaps they did). I understand this is a donut shop and not a fine dining establishment, but nothing about this place invites you to stay, let alone come back. I may return once more to try the aforementioned donut with chopped peanuts on top, but I'm honestly not that intrigued.

UPDATE (4/5/2011):
Lest I lose my Richmond food credibility, I think I need to add something to the top of this post. The quality of this joint fell off very quickly. I mean seriously fast. It's too long a story and involves too much conjecture, but I basically don't go here anymore. The pizzaiolo that was the star of the kitchen no longer works there, unfortunately, but the pizza fell off before he left.

I stand by my taste buds' experience when I ate that first pizza at Stuzzi, but I'm sure some of my enthusiasm was affected by the novelty of finding proper Napoletano-style pizza in Richmond. Emotions easily override reason, especially where sensory input is involved.

The main point is, I had a great pizza on that particular night. I've since had better pizza from my own oven using a pizza kit from Pizza Tonight and some fresh mozzarella. If you like Stuzzi, fine. But you won't catch me in there these days.

****************************************

The bar has been raised for pizza in Richmond, Virginia.

Valerie and I dined at Stuzzi, the new pizza restaurant that took over the much-missed 1 North Belmont location. I was worried for a while that this place would be big on gimmick and low on quality because they lean heavily on their Napoletano pizzaiolo and hand-built brick oven in their marketing. They seem to have spent more money on decoration and branding than a typical pizzeria as well.

All fears melted like their freshly-made mozzarella in a 1000 degree oven when I took my first bite.

This pizza is the real deal. Other then the fresh mozzarella on our pizza Margherita, there was a perfect quantity of crushed San Marzano tomato sauce, a few leaves of fresh basil, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. AND THE CRUST. Goodness gracious, the crust. I've opined before about the criticality of a pizza's crust. That I could eat this crust by itself and be satisfied is a mark of superior quality in a pizza. This wasn't just one of the best pizzas I've eaten in Richmond. This is one of best pizzas this Jersey boy has ever eaten (with the top spot still firmly held by L'Antica Pizzeria di Mechele in Naples, of course).

They have a reservation book, and it may be a good idea to take advantage of it if you can't make it to the restaurant by 6 PM on a Friday or Weekend evening. It was pretty busy tonight on Fathers' Day. It also took quite a bit of time for us to receive our pie, but I'll chalk that up to Stuzzi having only been open for a couple of weeks (hopefully!).

Side notes: We also started off with the mozzarella fritta - basically a sophisticated mozzarella stick, but made with their fresh cheese (round slices instead of sticks) and hand breaded. After our pizza we ordered some of their mini cannoli. These were a fantastic finish as the filling was some of the best I've had. Not too sweet, and a nice stiff texture.

It's $9 for the pizza we split, but if you're hungry you could easily scarf one yourself. It's still worth it. This is pizza as craft. But they have plenty of other toppings that look fantastic (and I intend to try) and will probably make splitting a pizza more filling for both parties.

Or you can just order one for yourself anyway. I have a feeling this stuff will make some of the best left-overs :-)

I work out in Richmond's West End, pretty close to where Parham Road intersects West Broad Street. Everyday I pass by what was, until recently, a Fuddrucker's burger joint. It's been closed for a while now, and I've been wondering what, if anything, would fill the empty building. Considering the trend of businesses moving further west toward Short Pump and leaving empty space behind, I was happy to see a construction trailer in the parking lot over the weekend.

This morning, however, I was thrilled to discover that not only will that space be occupied, but it's being taken over by one of my favorite Richmond food purveyors: Buz and Ned's Real Barbecue.

Here's how I connected the dots:
1. I searched for Fuddrucker's on Google Maps so I could get the street address.

2. Then I ran another search just using that street address, and a surprising link showed up under "Selected businesses at this address" in the sidebar: "Buz &Ned's Real Barbeque." I was immediately excited, but then a little confused because the spelling was off. Was it a mistake (on Buz and Ned's website it's spelled "barbecue")? I needed additional confirmation.

3. I searched around on Richmond Good Life's excellent (if a little over-crowded) website to see whether any recent stories talked about Buz and Ned's expanding into the West End, and I found a December 2009 article from Richmond Magazine. The article isn't specific about a location, but it's interview with Bruce "Buz" Grossberg indicates that he "arranged financing for a new place in western Henrico County and plans to close on the property by the end of January." Well it seems that closing happened, and things are moving forward because:

4. I ran a search through Henrico County's system for Plans of Development and found a case indicating that Buz and Ned's application for "Transfer of Approval" was received on April 14th of this year, and approved on May 26th, last week. The most recent update to the case was today, by Lee Pambid of the Planning Commission indicating the approval and sending of the approval letter. According to Article VI of The Rules and Regulations of the County Planning Commission for Henrico County, "Approval(s) of plan(s) of development are granted only to the owner-applicant(s) listed on the application. Subsequent owner(s) must request that the Commission transfer approval(s) to them." So this approval essentially transfers development rights from Fuddrucker's to Buz and Ned's.

I'm not really sure when it's supposed to open - and I'd be happy for anybody to fill me in - but since I drive by every morning and afternoon I'll be on the lookout as the situation progresses. It sure will be nice to have some of my favorite 'cue out by my office.

Normally after experiencing a high-quality food establishment I tend to gush about it on these digital pages rather quickly. I don't know if it's yet another sign of my dwindling energy for blogging or that it simply slipped my mind, but I've been to Secco Wine Bar in Carytown four times since May 14th and I'm just now writing about it outside of Twitter.

Secco (Italian for "dry" - hence the up-turned bottle, I think) is the long-in-the-making brainchild of Julia Battaglini, the owner of next door's River City Cellars, and it supplements RCC's fine selection of wines, cheeses, and beer with a clever dining menu. That is to say if you enjoy shopping at RCC then you probably already like about 1/2 of what they serve at Secco. What you won't find in the retail side, however, are some of the spectacular edibles such as their duck terrine with pistachios and dried cherries (wrapped in jamon Serrano, I believe), passatelli in brodo (a fresh pasta soup), pork confit sandwich, or flamenquines (pork cutlet rolled with more Serrano, breaded and fried).

The quality of the ingredients and the presentation are of a high level and, most impressively, quite affordable. The menu indicates "small plates" but the portions, while not the over-sized helpings of your average restaurant, are typically plenty for lunch. You can still put together dinner for between $10 and $20 pretty easily, and seemingly half of the excellent wines-by-the glass are around $5. Secco's menu favors sampling and sharing, and the prices make it a great entry point to fine dining in Richmond. When I consider the comfortable atmosphere and friendly staff, however, Secco also invites you to become a regular, serving equally well as a place to meet with friends or simply chat with the bar tender.

I think I may stop by for a glass of cava tomorrow evening, in fact.

Last night I was fortunate enough to be on the floor of the Stuart C. Siegal Center at VCU to photograph the Rams defeat the Richmond Spiders 65-57. There's a photo feature of my work up on RVA News.

Yesterday I had my first paying photography gig through RVANews photographing St. Joseph's Villa as they celebrated 175 years in operation. Check out the results!

Just doing my civic duty.

Went back to Garnett's Cafe today, and finally got to take some pictures with good light.

Sure, I'll add to the growing pile of reviews for Garnett's Cafe ([www.garnettscafe.com](http://www.garnettscafe.com/) - the site doesn't work just yet, so hit up RVANews for the deets).

I decided it was finally time to try out a restaurant located on the corner of Park and Meadow (it's like, the fifth since I've been in Richmond), and it was absolutely worth our time. We showed up around 12:44 and sat down at the counter in what was so far a half-full restaurant. The barstools are comfortable, but there's presently no rail under the counter to rest your feet, so your shoes dangle as if you were a little kid. I was assured they're planning to install a standard chrome wrap-around rail in the very near future.

The general decor was just right - everything felt carefully but not obsessively selected, with wall-hangings that included various decorative plates, posters, and what I believe was an illustration of jazz singer Nina Simone. Bead board covered eight feet of the height of the walls and the lighting was just enough to supplement the ample natural light coming in through the windows. I got a similar impression here as I did when Cafe Gutenberg was new years ago, and when I first walked in to Can Can - there's a serious attention to detail here that can often bode well for the food itself.

And the food did not disappoint. Valerie ate the chicken salad sandwich with potato salad on the side and I had a croque madame. Valerie's potato salad included (what I believe was) a homemade pickle slice. My croque madame had Black Forest ham and gruyere on tasty and crusty Italian bread with - get this - Mornay sauce instead of the simpler béchamel. This meant the addition of cheddar, gruyere, and Parmesan. We both ordered their "lemonade" which consisted of the juice of lemons squeezed right before our eyes, mint-infused simply syrup, and club soda. Wow! Refreshing and delicious.

By the time we finished our sandwiches, Garnett's had filled up to capacity and some folks were standing by the door waiting to be seated - at 1:40 in the afternoon! We weren't finished with our meal yet, so we ordered dessert. Valerie tried a slice of the Hummingbird Cake - a banana and pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting. It tasted like a well crafted banana bread with extra goodness from the pineapple. I ordered a slice of apple pie and they were kind enough to indulge this New Jersey boy's request for a slice of cheddar cheese on top. The pie had clearly been cooked in a straight-sided pan, but this made for some fantastically thick, tender, and delicious crust at the corner. And it was a good sharp cheddar on top, too. I washed down the rest of my meal with a Boylan's root beer.

Now for the interesting side details: I actually ordered a croque monsieur (no fried egg on top), and Valerie had actually ordered the smoked salmon sandwich, and we both received the wrong orders. Neither of us were the slightest upset about this because I didn't mind a bonus fried egg, and Valerie loves chicken salad anyway. But when we were ready to pay and leave, the gentleman who was serving us insisted that we would not be charged for our meal. The whole thing. Even the stuff that had no mistakes. I felt bad about this - this was only their third day open, and I understand it can be difficult for new restaurants to become financially stable. And I really like this place! I want them to do well, so I wanted to pay for our meal (especially since we both really liked everything we ate). But he insisted with this condition: "Just come back."

We will. And we'll rave about it to everybody we know.

This is exactly the type of story I like to see: After years of decay, Union Hill has been rezoned to allow some commercial property under special circumstances. Let's hope this stems the tide of dilapidation and attracts more interest in what I think is an interesting and overlooked corner of the city.

So it seems as if Akida's West End location as been replaced by Hayashi Sushi.

I'm a big fan of Akida on Robinson St. in The Fan, but despite its superior ambiance, I always thought the West End location (conveniently close to my office) edged them out on the preparation/flavor front. So what I'm left to wonder is whether a) the West End Akida couldn't stay open, b) the operators of that location bought out the location, or c) something else I'm not considering happened.

Richmond Biz Sense reported the business license for Hayashi on 6/11, and the earliest review online that I can see is from July 17th. Oh yeah, and so far no website to be found.

Anybody know what happened? Anybody been to Hayashi? I may have to go there next week to give it a shot.

Tonight Valerie and I went to Good Shepherd Baptist Church in Church Hill to attend the Nehemiah Action for an interdenominational/interfaith group called Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities, or RISC. It's called a Nehemiah Action based on the story of Jerusalem's rebuilding in the book of Nehemiah from the Old Testament of the Bible, and the focus is on bringing issues of social justice before those in the city of Richmond with the power to change policies. Last year they voted on issues to pursue and study, and tonight a committee ranging from a priest to a rabbi presented findings and requests related to three topics: drugs/crime, education, and healthcare.

The first section addressed the affects of drug addicts in the city jail and included a plan to use treatment programs to help reduce recidivism. Mayor Jones was present to face questions of commitment and gave reassuring responses. RISC's next step involves lobbying the city council to fund a pilot program that's expected to help up to 120 inmates per year.

The discussion of education was eye-opening. The focus was on reducing the rates of drop-outs and out-of-school suspensions, and some of the findings were a little shocking - particularly that a serious chunk of out-of-school suspensions were for being out of school in the first place (truancy, etc.). There was a recommendation to adopt a city-wide disciplinary program, but I got the impression this was a more recently adopted issue with earlier-stage research.

The final issue was health care, and specifically the provision of primary care for the poor and uninsured. The organization has been working with VCU's health system to improve primary care for those in need by more efficiently disseminating information about care centers and and hours for the Virginia Coordinated Care program. The requests included conducting setting real benchmarks to measure improvement in the program and follow-up meetings with RISC.

I'm a sucker for numbers so I kinda want to see the actual research they collected in their studies, but I'd say it was a pretty good night over all. It's good to see congregations joining together to help the city this way, and I intend to follow the suggestions presented tonight. I'll be praying for them as well.

Today was rough.

From the moment I sat down at my desk, feet still aching from the 10k, I was busy. Request after request seemed to pile up with seemingly little time to dig myself from the fast-growing pile of work in my queue. There were deadlines, questions, confusion from co-workers, and a general sense that today's pressure greatly out-paced that of my day-to-day. As 4:30 loomed I started to feel like I needed a dramatic break from the mentally cramped environment of the day but I wasn't sure how I'd accomplish that without going straight-away to bed. Not one to call it a night early, I recalled that Can Can has a weekly cocktail tasting that I had yet to attend.

I'm not going to say that I needed a drink but the prospect of good mixology lifted my spirits, so Val and I headed to Carytown for some light fare, cocktails, and atmosphere.

Can Can's cocktail tastings work thusly: from 6-7 on Tuesday nights they mix up free (!) tasting portions of the evenings tipple while the full size is a special price all night. Tonight's sampler was a Gin Rickey (theirs had Bombay, lime, soda, and simple syrup on the rocks) mixed up right, and weighed in at $6.50 if you went for a full dose. Pair that with the Fontina Fondue (which we had at our first dinner there) at $4 bucks and you have a reasonably inexpensive night out with a cocktail and a fancy snack in a classy atmosphere. This evening, however, we had a few other drinks - London Pride on tap, for example - and couldn't resist dessert.

I also crossed a gustatory threshold; I tried, for the first time, oysters on the half shell.



I chose to have my first oyster at Can Can for two reasons. First of all, I'm pretty comfortable with the freshness and quality of this restaurant's food. More importantly, I was able to snag oysters one-at-a-time for $2.50. Steep? I don't know yet. But I do know that I didn't have to commit to a plate of bivalves with the possibility of hating them.

It turned out, however, that raw oysters aren't scary or slimy. They taste...well, they taste like the sea. Nether fishy nor smelly, the oysters and their liquor (the briny liquid in the shell) went down the hatch easily with a quick burst of flavor. The bartender, hearing it was my first experience with oysters, helped me out. I was first served a little guy which was a bit more intense in flavor. I ate this small serving unadulterated since it was my maiden voyage, and the experience was good enough for me to order a second. My next oyster was considerably larger and I spiked him with a squeeze of lemon for a touch more brightness that worked well against the ocean flavor.

All told we were in and out of Can Can in about an hour with some quality eats in between. It was the perfect week night diversion to take my mind off a brutal day in the cubicle farm.

Today Valerie and I participated in the Monument Avenue 10k Run/Walk. Those familiar with my portly physique can probably guess that I walked. Val walked with me and that made all the difference, I believe. I managed to finish the whole thing in less than two hours, averaging just over 3 mph, and now I think I'll relax for the remainder of the weekend :-)

Pints at Penny Lane this evening sound about right!

I decided today that I'm going to embark on a photo project moderately larger than previously attempted. This project will be a bit academic in nature as well, uniting photography with historical and cultural research to provide more than just a visual picture.

I plan to catalog the various geographical regions of my fair city, Richmond, VA.

Periodically (I have no set interval starting out. Weekly? Monthly?) I'll post an entry about a specific part of Richmond city that includes some geography, background, landmarks, and whatever other relevant and interesting tidbits I can uncover. All of this will be accompanied by photographs I take while visiting these neighborhoods/districts, and its my hope that these pictures will reflect well the character of each locale.

I'm not sure where I'll start yet, but it certainly won't be one of the major sections like The Fan or Shockoe Bottom. I'll hit those, too, but they'll take more time to plan, because I have to find a happy medium between educating the uninitiated and shying away from too-heavily-tread ground.

Keep an eye out!

UPDATE: I believe I'm going to start with Union Hill.