Ploafmaster General

If I wanted to open a brewery I could, theoretically, learn to brew at home, practice, improve, etc. Making a business of my hobby requires lots of regulation and process, but I could, at least, start my path at home. But what if I wanted to develop my own gin? Or bourbon? I’m not legally allowed to make bourbon at home, even for personal consumption.

What if owning a still of a limited size for personal use was legal? I’d be more than happy to pay a modest registration fee if that’s what it would take. Localities could have fire code around the location and use of stills for safety reasons. I just think it’s a shame that I can learn the process of brewing in a relatively affordable, hands-on way, but to become any kind of reasonable distiller you have to go elsewhere or know somebody.

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Just screwing around with some video today.

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Today I had the privelege of touring the site of Ardent Craft Ales, a brewery opening later this year in the Scott's Addition neighborhood of Richmond, VA. We're in the middle of a continuing craft beer boom, but the guys from Ardent have been fine-tuning their work for years in a rented garage up in Church Hill. Generous sampling on brew days has had me eager for these guys to get off the ground, and soon we'll all be able to exchange cash for suds in what I think will be one of this city's great breweries.

Interesting conversation happening on Twitter this morning around Richmond's never-that-successful-yet-comfortable-neighborhood-spot Popkin Tavern. It is, apparently, shutting down soon, to be replaced by a new venture from a celebrity chef. Taber Bain, a Jackson Ward resident (and very funny dude on Twitter), lamented the impending loss of a more affordable watering hole within close walking distance, and sparked some commentary that got me thinking:

I think we see two conflicting forces at work here, and I believe they'll have to reconcile if a recently revitalizing neighborhood is to thrive in the long term. On one hand, we have yet another signal that Richmond is a dining destination. And it's near (but not technically in) Jackson Ward again. I don't really care about the celebrity factor so much, but it's good for our city when somebody noteworthy thinks it's a worthwhile investment to open up shop with his main brand.

On the other hand, who are all these upscale restaurants in the Jackson Ward/"gallery district" area serving? Are they for largly upper-middle-class white folks coming in from the suburbs or wealthier city neighborhoods? Are they for young professional residents of the surrounding area? Are they for the long term residents of Jackson Ward that have lived there since before it became a "revitalizing" neighborhood? Not everybody in Jackson Ward can afford to grab a beer at Comfort or Bistro 27. Heck, I'm sure there are folks in Jackson Ward who would consider Popkin Tavern pricey.

The practical side of me sees a clear reason for restaurants of all sorts moving in to Jackson Ward and vicinity: it's still gotta be cheap real estate compared to hotter spots like Shockoe Slip or Carytown. But every upscale restaurant that stakes its claim has an impact on property value. If we fill a district with upscale dining, can a more casual, neighborhood-centric spot move in, let alone survive? And what about the residents? Will their rents increase, pricing them out of the neighborhood they chose (or not) before trendy restaurants moved in?

Some of this sounds similar to well-worn conversations around gentrification and its effects on a neighborhood's character, and I'm not trying to retread any of that. What I'm trying to reconcile, in my mind, is how we welcome new business that's good for the city as a whole while also providing spots for people of a particular locale. I'm left wondering: what's keeping a casual neighborhood restaurant from opening/staying open in Jackson Ward (or the surrounding area)?

I'm neither a neighborhood historian nor Jackson Ward resident, so I'm sure there are things for which I'm not accounting and perhaps some restaurants I'm overlooking. I'd love to be corrected and at least continue discussing this tension in the dining scene.

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It doesn't take much browsing through my portfolio or Flickr stream to see that my sister-in-law Elizabeth is a frequent collaborator. She's not a professional model and I don't have access to a hair or makeup artist, but she's worked well with me because she a) loves to have her picture taken, b) possesses an expressive face, and c) takes direction really well.

When she was visiting over the holidays she brought with her what was essentially her Halloween costume: a semi-formal get-up intended to look like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. We had a bunch of fun with it, shooting at my favorite bar and with my studio lights at home. You can take a look at this set on Flickr as well.

Whenever I encounter folks more than a few years younger than me, I feel old. It's the usual reasons - ignorance of music, shows, or other cultural ephemera that defined a part of my own life. "What do you mean you heard [insert song title here] on a classic rock station!?" The absolute worst example to date was trying to explain the concept of a newspaper comic strip to my 8-year-old nephew after giving him his first Calvin and Hobbes book as a gift.

I figured it was a given that having a child of my own would only exacerbate the situation. Each passing day would provide an avalanche of reminders that I was aging, accelerating once she entered school and developed a peer group that determined what was cool and interesting.

Maddie's infancy has, so far, had the opposite effect on me. Within myself I'm reduced to a state of ignorance several times a day. Why is she crying? What's funny to her about the tone of my voice? Can she recognize my moods yet? Externally, when I spend time with my daughter I fall in to patterns of absurd songs, made-up words, silly faces, and spontaneous laughter. I don't know what could make me feel younger.

Another Cycle

The downstairs restaurant space under the Stuart Court Apartments has provided a home for innumerable restaurants since I arrived in Richmond back in the autumn of 1999. Nobody would laugh at you much if you suggested that the spot was cursed, much like some other locations that have, in the past, rotated through their fair share of owners and/or dining establishments. But curses break, and now Elephant Thai has stuck around at Cary and Harrison for some time. Garnett's has a comfortable hold on the corner of Park and Meadow.

I'm not sure that My Noodle & Bar is the solution to this basement dining room's short attention span.

Noodling

My Noodle has been open for a couple of weeks as of this writing, and my dinner tonight tasted like they're still working on their product. I started with an appetizer called "Thai sun dried beef" that was actually dried by some non-breaded deep frying. It wasn't bad, but improved quite a bit after dipping in some nondescript, slightly spicy sauce.

My main course was chicken and galangal (a relative of ginger) soup that included a coconut broth and rice noodles. This dish was an odd duck. On one hand, the chicken looked/felt/tasted as if it had simply been chopped then roasted or stir-fried, then dropped into the bowl of soup after the fact. Same story with the broccoli. Neither had much flavor. The noodles themselves were perhaps a bit more al dente than I expected, but not enough to be a problem. The broth - while sweet and tasty coating the other components of the dish, was overwhelmingly sweet after a few spoonfuls.

Vais-je revenir?

I think it's exam week at VCU as I write this, so parking close to Stuart Circle is still kinda tricky on a week night. Tricky enough that I've passed up trying out My Noodle a few times already. I think I'll hold off on a return trip until the semester is over, but I do want to go back. Maybe soups aren't their thing. Perhaps I should ask about their favorite dishes (though my soup was listed as a "chef's special" already). Next time.

I'm NOT quitting my day job, but I'm trying to get a little more serious about my photography.

I've been taking pictures with great enthusiasm for years now, and over these years I've recognized both an apptitude and affinity for photographing people and food. That's probably because people and food are my favorite things. I've been able to turn the latter into a little food column for RVANews, but never really did much with the former.

I want to take on more work for hire, so I've reorganized this website to emphasize my photographic work and keep my side projects from becoming a distraction. Primarily I'd love to take portraits for creative and professional folks, but I don't have too many clearly-set boundaries. Take a look at my People portfolio to see the sort of stuff I do. If you want a portrait along those lines, I'm your guy.

I'd also love to photograph more food, whether it's a restaurant menu, cocktails, local food and beverage producers, etc. Food photography is most of my paid experience, and I still enjoy it. Check out my Consumable portfolio for a sample.

If any of this fits your needs and you're interested, drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you, meet with you, and work with you.

I was visiting the website of a local confectionery when I noticed something strange at the top of the page. You see that? It's not just an ad, but it's about type 2 diabetes - the kind you can get from eating too many sweet things.

Why on earth would a bakery want, or even allow an ad that seems to cast its products in a bad light? The problem seems obvious at first; the ads are context-based. That means some keywords on the site matched up with some ads in the service's system and there you have it. Sugary food gets us diabeetus. But most site owners would prefer to keep certain ads from their pages because of undesireable associations such as, I don't know, their products might give you a disease.

Then I noticed something else. That URL in the location bar isn't for the shop in question. It's for a mobile website service, DudaMobile. This is the real problem with our scenario.

DudaMobile makes money in one of two ways: either you subscribe with a monthly fee (discounted if you pay annually), or sell ad space at the top of your website. I don't think every website faces such comically mismatched ads, but it's the price of "free" in this case.

Early this morning, my little girl Madeline was born, and she's wonderful. If you're in to the whole family site kinda thing, don't forget to check out warshaws.net - it's where Valerie and I will be posting absurd quantities of photos, writing about the development of our family, and other related what-not.

Ever since I first heard that Mel Oza was opening a new place in Carytown I was excited. He's the man behind the food at Lehja - one of the few good reasons to drive out to Short Pump - and I've talked about his vittles before. Now he's opened Curry Craft at 2915 W. Cary Street and, having eaten there last night, I think I can save time and fuel when I want Oza's take on Indian cuisine.

I don't know their hours (not posted on the door or the website yet). I don't think they're open for lunch. And they won't have their ABC license until this Thursday (4/25), but just do yourself a favor and go try some stuff out. I know this week is Richmond Restaurant Week, but spare a night for a new joint if you can.

Oh yeah, of course I'm going to tell you about what I ate. Valerie and I did two appetizers, a couple orders of garlic naan, and a shared entrée, and we took some leftovers home. Valerie started with their soup of the day which was a creamy tomato and coconut soup. It was a little on the spicy side for her, but she still loved the flavor (and so did I). I think there was something sweet in there other than coconut, but I couldn't place it. I just wanted to soak it up with some naan all night, or pour it over almost any other food as a sauce. Really, it was fantastic soup. I started with Tellicherry Chicken Rotti, a well-spiced collection of chicken pieces with cherry tomatoes and diced mango. The chicken was juicy and tender, and the blend of spices was strong but not overpowering. Really good stuff.

The main course we shared was called Chicken Ananas "Udaigiri". Along with the same spiced rice I've enjoyed at Lehja, the dish was delicious chunks of poultry in a coconut curry sauce with sweet pieces of pineapple. Val and I both loved the heck out of this dish and were happy to take home what was left. I look forward to checking out more of their menu in the future. Next time I'll get an entrée of my own so I can eat something a bit hotter (like the duck vin d'alho).

It's a new place, so I'm sure folks will find things that need improvement (though everything was fine, service included, when Valerie and I were there). Just cut them some slack while they settle in, and help give this place a good start. It's delicious, and I want it to stick around.

Valerie and I are having a baby! I created another site exclusively for family stuff so Val and I could both post thoughts, photos, and whatever else on there.

Tonight marks my first run of at-home color film development. The photo above was on a roll of film developed using the kit pictured in the photograph.

I did all of this with a used, analog heating circulator and a giant plastic tub of water - all for the sake of a constant temperature around 102º F. Constancy is important for even developing, and I'm pleased-as-punch with the results. I can't wait to shoot some more color, and I certainly can't wait to tackle some post-processing on the remaining images from these first two rolls.

I got a thing I put together starting this week about one of my favorite bands. Go check it out.

Trying a restaurant for the first time on the Saturday night after Valentine's Day isn't the best idea; many restaurants produce special menus, and the crowds may have different expectations. But the quality and execution should still represent the business, correct?

Valerie and I received a late confirmation of visiting friends and made a quick effort to find a place for dinner. The nature of this weekend meant that our favorite choices (and usual back-ups) were already booked, so I suggested calling Deco. I wasn't hopeful they'd have a table for 4 on a Saturday evening, what with their recent win of the 2013 Elby Award for "Best New Restaurant", but we had no trouble. So it was that tonight was my first experience at Deco.

It's a neat little space. It looks like a shoe box from the outside and it's simple on the inside. But the interior is helped quite a bit by some pretty and effective light fixtures, and while the dining room is cozy it never felt cramped.

I started checking out the menu while Valerie and I waited on our friends to arrive, and noticed two things. First of all, much of tonight's menu was different from what I saw on the website. This shouldn't shock, but it's not just the specific items so much as the sections and pricing. Then I saw "San Valentine" across the top of the page and realized that, while it wasn't a pre-fixe menu, it's probably a special set of dishes running from this past Thursday through this weekend. They certainly seemed to carry a holiday premium with prices well above the online menu (I'm talking most main dishes over $20 while they're almost all under $20 on the website). So yeah, see paragraph one. This wasn't likely the usual fare. But some of Richmond's best restaurants change up their menus frequently to little or no detriment, right?

Well I've gotta say that the food at Deco was just...okay. I had the risotto del giorno which, tonight, included clams, mussels and shrimp mixed into the rice with a healthy dose of marinara stirred through. I wouldn't get it again. It wasn't bad, but it was just on the right side of keeping it at the table. I may be growing snobby about what passes for a good restaurant, but I don't send food back unless there’s something truly problematic about it. "Bland and mineral-y" is a disappointment, but not the same as delivering incorrect or undercooked food.

Valerie's pasta with a "filet ragu" tasted much better, but I feel like the only reasons they used beef tenderloin in that dish were to both justify the higher price and catch the eye of folks who reflexively drool over filet mignon. A different cut might have added more flavor for a lower food cost, but "sirloin ragu" doesn't have quite the same ring to most diners, does it? Valerie just wanted pasta with meat sauce, so ultimately it was fine. I wish I'd ordered it. I didn't finish my entrée, and I was planning to skip dessert, but I always fall victim to cannoli. Deco's cannoli were pretty good, I have to say.

Between our companions' meals and our shared appetizers, we saw a few other unremarkable dishes. Their "crab meatballs" were basically miniature crab cakes (including that pale orange-y dipping sauce), and the fried calamari (because of course...) was passable with its included marinara. If Deco's typical menu is close enough to what's on their website, it's also fairly unremarkable. That's not automatically bad, but I'll have to try it myself to see what the fuss is about.

I was disappointed with my main course, but I'm more disappointed by the restaurant - not because it's particularly bad, but because it's not particularly good. Not tonight, at least. It doesn't have to be the best restaurant in town. But par-for-the-course, upscale-casual Italian food isn't something we're lacking in this town or any other the size of Richmond. What is it about Deco that secured it's "Best New Restaurant" award? How did Deco win the award over Belmont Food Shop? Or Heritage? Or Peter Chang's China Cafe?

Look, I'm not saying people shouldn't eat here. I just tend to spend a lot of words explaining why something bothers me (I am descended from lawyers). I want to give Deco a fair shake, so I plan to return soon and try a few more dishes. Hopefully next time I'll be eating my words along with the food.

It isn't news that Netflix has just released House of Cards - their adaptation of the 1990's British series of the same name. I'm probably not the first person you've heard of that recently started watching the show, taking in a few episodes at once. I'm also not likely the first person you've heard to say the show is good but not great. It's well executed and well acted, but merely okay in the writing department (so far); a little too heavy handed or on-the-nose with some of its themes.

I'm three episodes deep, but it's a scene from the first episode that struck me last night. Zoe Barnes, an ambitious young journalist, is talking to Representative Frank Underwood in his home. It's their first real meeting and, new to this game, Zoe is attempting to use flirtation and revealing clothes to extract information from the congressman. He's a Washington veteran and calls out the cheapness of her tricks. Impatient, Zoe tries to be direct, leading to this excellent exchange:

"Oh, is foreplay over?" asks Underwood.

"I read somewhere that JFK never lasted more than three minutes," Zoe says.

"Your point being?" he asks.

She counters: "Time is precious. Powerful people don't have the luxury of foreplay."

This scene is the show at its best; the dialog is good but also feels real. The timing is great, and so is the tension and uncertainty of where this meeting will lead. But I disagree with the sentiment. I was immediately reminded - really, right in the moment - of a scene from Scorsese's Goodfellas. In Henry Hill's reminiscing, he contemplates the situation of mob capo Paul Cicero, noting that at gatherings he typically sat down in one place while everybody else came to him and other people did all the talking. He observed that, "Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn't have to move for anybody." That, according to Hill, was power. No rushing, no regard for the scarcity of time. I think Hill's comment says a bit about the changing power structures of the entertainment industry - changes for which Netflix is partially responsible.

You see Netflix (and increasingly, everybody else) doesn't have a lot of power with audiences right now when it comes to releasing new programming, so they don't have time for "foreplay". They cannot afford to make an audience wait from week to week to see each new episode, because waiting risks that viewers will lose interest in the process. So Netflix skips the foreplay and gets right to the point by dropping the entire season on us at once. This allows the strength of the season-long narrative arc to draw us through the show's rough patches, because we don't have all week to wonder whether it's worth giving up another hour. Was an episode perfect? Not even close. But if I want to know what happens next, I just have to queue up the next installment whenever I want to find out.

David Fincher, who directed the first two episodes, said in an interview last month:

I think he summed it up rather well. There are, of course, exceptions. Maybe not to the "specific time slot" or "specific day of the week" aspects of his quote (thanks to DVRs). But there are a few TV channels and a few shows with enough power left that they can take their time. HBO and AMC are the two cable channels that come to mind. These two channels have earned a reputation for high quality television drama, so they can afford to keep up with the traditional television schedules, releasing a series one episode at a time while production is still in progress. AMC has even taken to the frustrating habit of splitting seasons of its most popular shows in half, spreading two half-seasons over an even longer stretch of the calendar.

Could Netflix get away with such behavior on a new series? It's possible, but I doubt it. Lillyhammer, Netflix's first original show, was just a blip on the radar even though it was released the same way. Any extra power for House of Cards would seem to come from its high profile director and leading man. And when Arrested Development returns this year, that will surely trade on the strength of its preceding seasons.

Granted, this isn't all about the power of content producers for Netflix. Their customers are already used to binging on TV series. It's how many of my friends and myself watched Friday Night Lights or were introduced to both Downton Abbey and Sherlock. And it's not like Netlfix has advertisers around these episodes of original programming, either. But if Netflix is trying to establish itself as an alternative "channel" of original content, they're not in a position to release a series piecemeal as they wrap up production. I'll be interested to see, if House of Cards is a hit, whether Netflix considers getting episodes of other seasons/shows out earlier, while a season is still in process. It would mean audiences have to wait from week to week, but they wouldn't have to wait for the entire series to wrap before they can start watching. That's the kind of anticipation only afforded shows with real power.

I tagged along with my wife and her mom to see Tom Hooper's cinematic take on the musical, Les Misérables (as opposed to Bille August's non-musical take on the novel in 1998). I admit having walked in with tainted expectations ever since reading the exhaustive and excellent critical take-down of the movie's cinematography by Film Crit Hulk. But I've always loved the musical (one of the rare few I enjoy), so what the heck. Preconceived notions aside, I formed what I believe to be my own thoughts on the film. The old adage goes, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all", so I'll start with the nice.

I felt the acting was generally very good, from the leads to the supporting cast. Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway were believably emotive while Russell Crowe was appropriately intense. The singing from the non-movie-star supporting cast was often excellent, particularly Éponine, and of course, the music is mostly the same music I love from the stage musical.

But some things are miserable indeed in Hooper's Les Mis...

The top-billed cast were not up to the vocal task. Crowe and Jackman sang through their noses. Amanda Seyfried warbled. Hathaway's pitch wandered. I'm particularly upset about Hathaway's singing since, in interviews, she so frequently referred to her mother's role as Fantine in the original touring musical cast.

But the visuals bothered me as much as the singing. The editing frequently recalled Michael Bay's frenetic cutting every few seconds for no discernible reason. The shot choices and cinematography made me feel claustrophobic; where we should have seen many wide shots emphasizing the scale of situations we instead spent half the film looking up Hugh Jackman's nose. The overuse of wide-angle lenses, shots below character eye-lines, and hand-held cinematograpy made the whole world feel false and disorienting - even when we should have felt joy and celebration.

Whether or not my opinions were corrupted ahead of time, the entire movie felt musically and visually unstable.

2/5

This week's entry for my food column, Favorites, is up on RVANews. Check it out!

So I'm doing another thing. Today marks the first entry in a new column of mine over on RVANews. It's called "Favorites" (at least for now), and the premise is simple: one really great photo of a really great dish with a short description of what it is and why it's great.

I get to take the photos, write about them, and eat the food. It's sort of like legitimized food blogging, if you will :-)

This week is about a clever little dish at Heritage, and I already have next week's entry in the works - which is good, since I'll be en route to New Orleans when it goes live!

Also, as a bonus, here's an alternate that I shot on film. Click through to Flickr for details:

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Okay, let me try this again.

What you wouldn't know, had I not decided to so blatantly tell you, is that I spent well over an hour crafting some lengthy complaint about my relationship to the term, "foodie". Talking about foodies can be just as tiresome as foodies, and after several hundred words I abandoned the piece, recognizing it for what it was: whining. So here I am on a second try. And all I want to do here is explain my relationship to food. If that makes me a foodie (most of you will say it does), so be it.

I'm only one-fourth Sicilian (my last name is Warshaw, for crying out loud), but I grew up in a house dominated by the Italian influences of my heritage. This is because of the somewhat matriarchal structure of my mom's family. Her mother (100% Sicilian, second generation American) is the first born and continues to have a strong and endearing personality. My mother is also the first born and likewise has a strong and influential personality. My best childhood memories are of family gatherings with my mom's side of the family, centered around food. This side of my family is typically warm and eccentric, and we all love to eat nearly as much as we love hanging out in a huge gathering of each other. Thanksgiving might involve at least a dozen people, and we always had baked ziti or lasagna right next to the turkey.

My mom ended up with 4 boys. She was the only woman in a house full of testosterone while I was growing up, but she managed. Now even growing up in the 80's and 90's, most guys in my generation didn't really learn to cook (frankly, I don't think many folks learn to cook at home anymore regardless of gender, but that's based on my own anecdotal evidence). But with all the good food in my immediate and extended family, my brothers and I were interested. My mom, thank goodness, indulged us.

All of us boys enjoyed watching PBS cooking shows, whether it was The Frugal Gourmet, Yan Can Cook, or anything with Julia Child. Combined with watching our family prepare food, these shows made each of us more eager to learn, so it was only a matter of time before our mom caved in and started teaching and allowing us to cook. Whether it was simply how to make scrambled eggs, or mom's meatball recipe, we took every opportunity afforded us. I can't speak for my brothers on this, but my creative proclivities and methodical mind instilled a desire to prepare ever more complex foods, culminating with a dessert I made for a high school French class: profiteroles. Here I was, a nerdy teenager, making my own pâte à choux from scratch along with a custard filling and chocolate sauce to drizzle on top. I'm not saying it was worthy of anything more than a high school French class, but it wasn't your typical student dish, either.

In college I couldn't afford much beyond dorm room staples, but I had to mess around with even the cheap ramen or frozen pizzas I could obtain. I was always looking for ways to tweak or enhance the flavors (to wildly varying results); anything to make inexpensive and boring food more interesting to eat. When I graduated and started earning a real salary, everything changed. The ability to buy more and better ingredients (and a few helpful tools) meant more experimentation and more complicated dishes. I discovered Alton Brown's glorious Good Eats which crossed my love of food with technique and science, and there was no turning back.

A steady paycheck also means I can actually dine out more often (too often, truth be told). I won't rehash descriptions of all the places I've tried around town over the years, but it's safe to say that I have a preference for restaurants that care about their ingredients, their technique, and their presentation. This covers a wide gamut of eateries from humble pizzerias to fine dining establishments.

So here's the situation for me now...

I do actually care about things like free-range or pastured livestock, organic produce, and truly natural ingredients. These things factor in, to an increasing extent, to what I purchase and where I dine. But I'm not going to turn my nose up at a hamburger made from Wal-mart chuck served to me at a friend's party.

I do get excited by "artisinal" products, be they sausage, cheese, wine, or liquor. But that's only because I love craftsmanship, and I want to pay the craftsmen for their work. That doesn't mean I won't just buy a block of cheddar that says Cabot on the label, or a package of Martin's potato rolls.

I do like dining in restaurants with clever menus, ingredients, and presentations. Good cooks are craftsmen, too, and I similarly want to reward their work. But the food still has to taste good. Just because you used beef marrow doesn't mean it's delicious.

I do like so-called "craft bartending". The right bartender can make your drinking experience as good as the best eating experiences. But I still like my gin and tonic, or my Old Fashioned. All the fancy mixology in the world can't make up for ruining the classics.

I do like writing about food. And I like writing about it on my stupid blog. Since I'm not a professional it's the easiest way for me to share my opinions about restaurants and food products. I have no illusions about having an "audience" or "brand", and you don't have to read my website if you don't want to.

I do like taking photographs of food. And this one is sometimes a sore spot for me. I'm already a serious photography enthusiast - if you go to the landing page of my website, in fact, it's a portfolio of my photography. Most of it isn't food, though photographing food pairs two of my favorite things together, and I've been lucky enough to be paid for some of it. The profusion of Instagram/Twitter/Facebook food shots makes food blogging and photography particularly insufferable, but I won't be that guy letting my dessert melt because I have to take 50 pictures to get it right. I won't be posting garish pics that I took with a smartphone and an LED flash. But because I'm already that guy lugging around a huge DSLR (or sometimes a 6-pound medium format film camera...), I'll totally be guilty of whipping out obnoxious camera gear at the dinner table. Sorry about that.

What I won't do is be that guy who sneers at your restaurant suggestions. I won't interrupt your conversation to correct you on your wine description. I won't be jumping from restaurant to restaurant in search of the next big thing. And I won't stop loving, writing about, photographing, and eating food.

My wife Valerie and I were fortunate enough to attend the benefit dinner at Heritage for the Steven Stiller Foundation; this foundation distributes funds to families in need of aid in New York and New Jersey in the wake of Sandy hitting the Tri-state Area. Combine assistance to my region of origin with the best food and drink Richmond has to offer and I'm all too happy to participate. Every reasonable news/food website in town has already mentioned who would be involved, but I'm going to name everybody along with their courses as a reminder. Oh yeah, and be forewarned - this write-up is chock full of obsequious, fan-boyish hyperbole and excitement, not just because I care about the folks and cause involved, but because this is yet another in a line of very special meals I've experienced in the fair River City. Also also, this is a long and detailed summary of the food and drink. If you'd rather TL;DR the whole thing, skip to the gallery of photos at the end.

The meal started with a wonderful appetizer from a latecomer to the event, Lee Gregory of The Roosevelt. He prepared a smoked hamachi crudo with puree of red cabbage, pork rind crumbs, radish, salmon roe, and chive. It was a nice, lighter start to the meal at room temperature, and not too rich.

Sidebar. What I find most interesting, in retrospect, is how much of a departure this was from the menu at The Roosevelt. But it exemplified something we're increasingly fortunate to find in Richmond; when you have an excellent and creative chef, the cuisine matters a little less. Truly skilled cooks can make excellent dishes of all types and styles. And whether the courses that followed Gregory's matched their respective chef's typical fare or not, they all possessed those two qualities: excellent and creative. Impressive execution paired with inventive preparations and presentations.

So the meal continued with a course that actually typified the style of its creator - a fresh pasta dish from Secco's Tim Bereika. Spaghetti with a pecorino cream sauce, scallions, black pepper, and crispy speck from Olli Salumeria - this was almost a variation of spaghetti carbonara, but it was better than any carbonara I can remember. Mattias told me at the bar that Tim's dish was a celebration of his Kickstarter success (to which you can and should still contribute!), and it sure tasted celebratory. Valerie and I both picked greedily for every last bit of speck or pasta in the bowl.

Heritage's own Joe Sparatta supplied the next course which included supremely tender and buttery rockfish served over minced Brussels' sprouts and popcorn polenta. As if that wasn't delicious enough, the fish was topped with some salty and crusty goodness and crispy lardo - prepared by Sparatta's hands from a VA Mangalitsa hog.

The final savory course was prepared by The Magpie's Owen Lane, and it was a knock-out. Braised pork cheeks with cinnamon baby carrots, rosemary shortbread, and a "pecan pie" gelee. I'd never have expected rosemary and cinnamon to work so well together, but it's one of the best flavor surprises I've had in ages.

There was dessert to finish, of course, and this came from the hands of Winburn Carmack. She's a Richmond prodigal who has returned to bake bread after working as pastry chef at no less than McCrady's in Charleston. Her dessert was "ants on a log", which included compressed slices of celery, a celery sorbet, peanut dust, peanut butter (or some other form of peanut-like sauce), and a peanut butter pound cake. Not only did it taste intriguing (and better than you'd think as a dessert), but it was simply gorgeous on the plate. I've seen gorgeous dessert presentation at Acacia or Can Can, but not like this. It looked like a course out of Alinea, right here in RVA. No exaggeration.

AND THAT WAS JUST THE FOOD.

Remember - Heritage is home to one of Richmond's finest bartenders: Mattias Hägglund. And he teamed up with another one of Richmond's finest bartenders - T. Leggett from The Roosevelt - to create a killer list of drinks especially for this fund raiser event. They each came up with three libations with a collaborative 7th entry, and let me tell you they were all excellent. The "Sandyhook Stormy" was a milder and more nuanced take on the Dark and Stormy. The "Mexican't" made layers of complex magic with both tequila, Campari, and mescal. "The Spaniard" married rye whiskey with Amontillado Sherry for surprisingly delicious results. The "Don Lee Down South" was really special - Cheerwine soda, rum, and somehow the flavor of popcorn on the finish! A delight that's difficult to explain and even harder to understand, but terrific just the same. The "Smoked Up and Fancy Free" tasted like a glass of campfire, balanced by the Luxardo maraschino liqueur, while "The Williamsburg Stunner" was a tasty and rich combination of Jameson's, gin, Ramazzoti, and Cynar. The last drink on the list was called "There's No 'I' in Team" and was served in a glorious antique Tiki (antiki?) cup. It was light and tasty.

Phew, now I can exhale after that breathless love-fest! But only just - because I have to point out something else that really hit me hard about tonight's event. We all know it was a fund raiser. We know that any money after covering costs goes to charity. But each and every course looked and tasted as if these cooks were working in restaurants with their names on the doors. Firing on all cylinders. Many (or all?) of them working on their night off. Everybody involved worked just as hard for charity as they would for their paychecks and, consequently, made one of the most memorable dinners I've eaten, here or anywhere.

Now that I'm done fawning over the RVA food all-stars, how about you check out some pictures of the whole shindig:

Fat Dragon is a Chinese-American restaurant that opened up in the old Stronghill Dining Company spot on Boulevard, in Richmond. On the grand, wide spectrum of such eateries, I'd say it's more P.F. Chang's than Peter Chang; that is, the restaurant is a lot more like a Chinese theme restaurant than even a faint attempt at authenticity. That's not automatically bad, but it's not very distinctive, either. And having checked out some of what they have to offer this past Thursday, it's not particularly exciting to eat, either.

A few things first, though: Fat Dragon only just initiated a soft opening period on November 11th, and opened fully to the public on the night I dined. So I give some leeway to any food/service issues for a while. That being said, the service was very good, if a bit too enthusiastic; the excessive references to fuzzy terms like "local" and "organic" reminded me that this restaurant comes from the same folks who created The Blue Goat - where name-checking their suppliers sometimes felt more like marketing rather than recognition.

So on to the dining experience, after that verbose preamble. My initial thought walking in to the place was that it looks pretty cool inside. High, open ceilings, mostly spare decor, plenty of wood paneling in the right places. There are tons of large windows, too, since the building is at the corner of Boulevard and Leigh St. This makes for great views - if there was much to see other than River City Tattoo and Buz & Ned's. The bar area seems to take up nearly half of the dining room between the bar itself and the smaller tables around it. Consequently, there were televisions around the bar tuned to sports - though the side where I ate was more conventional and TV free. I thought I caught a glimpse of a set-apart smaller dining room that's likely intended for private parties.

Fat Dragon's beer list (drafts and otherwise) is pretty nice with plenty of Virginia microbrews on tap alongside many other quality beers. Tons of taps (I forget how many - 24 maybe?) that I'm sure will see some frequent rotation. But I opted for cocktails that evening. These were both pretty good: The Lotus Blossom was made with sake, pear vodka, lychee srup, and muddled lychee fruit in the glass. I think mine was a bit on the strong side, but the flavors worked well together, and actually complimented the dish I ordered (I'll get to the food soon). My second drink, The Candidate, was Makers Mark bourbon, orange and lime juices, and a "brown sugar cube" which I think was just a big ice cube rolled in brown sugar. It was a nice, comfortable drink I may replicate at home. So yeah - this joint might actually be a good place for an adult beverage on the Boulevard if you feel like it's your kind of scene. I don't know if it's mine, but it's close to home and the drinks are reasonably priced for how they taste and what's inside.

The food is where I'm kinda down on this place, and that's a lot more important to me (especially if I'm designated driver on a particular evening out). I started my meal with "Chef Zhao’s Bao Du Jour" - little crusty buns (hee hee) baked fresh every day, theoretically changing every day, too. The order came with two of them, served on a wasted Easter basket's load of shredded iceberg lettuce, but they were pretty tasty - filled with some braised pork preparation. The bread itself was just the right amount of sweet, but a bit on the dry side. Not bad, overall, and worth trying different versions. I went for these because they were actually one of the most interesting starters on a menu that otherwise includes safe/boring options. Maybe they're the best of their class (or maybe not), but I'm not really interested in vaguely "Asian" wings, an "Asian" take on fried calamari, and generic Asian Fusion versions of spicy fried shrimp, ribs, and dumplings.

I had a similar problem picking out my main course, but that was exacerbated by higher (for Richmond) prices. Lots of the mains push or exceeded $20. I suspect this is because of the purported quality of the ingredients - which is commendable - but many of these dishes are glorified Chinese-American staples. My choice was the Tangerine Beef. The menu says it's "thinly sliced beef tenderloin wok fried crispy then tossed in a tangerine reduction". It was an enormous pile of food. The beef slices appeared to have been pounded thin before having been bettered and deep-fried. This gave them quite a large surface area, and the default service is chopsticks unless you request Western utensils. I actually like using chopsticks (I even use them for my white rice), but these pieces of beef were too large for single bites and too heavy (and slippery with sauce) to hold in chopsticks for very long. So I compromised, using a knife to cut the meat into pieces I could otherwise grab with the chopsticks.

Eating mechanics aside, the flavor of the dish was okay, if unremarkable. Tenderloin is, uh, tender, but not a particularly flavorful cut of beef. That left all the flavor responsibility up to the batter and the sauce. It's here that I should mention that the batter coating on my beef slices was nothing you could describe as crispy. I'm not sure if they fried them incorrectly, fried them earlier and allowed them to become soft, or tossed them in a gallon of the gloppy, indistinctly sweet/salty/tangy sauce ahead of time. I am sure, however, that the fried batter coating on my beef was mushy. Not in an off-putting way, just not what the menu described. This could be a first week kink - I certainly hope so. But the sauce? Aside from the excessive quantity, this viscous brown glop didn't do much for me. It wasn't disgusting (that's the faintest of praise, I guess), but it had little more going on than the aforementioned basic flavors. The dish as a whole had some mild amount of spice from the dried chilies tossed with the sauce, and there was a circle of twisted orange slices around the bowl in which the food arrived. The portion size may have been intimidating, but the presentation was pleasant enough.

I would never assume the rest of the menu is like a single course after a single visit, but it does look like a mixed bag. They have their version of General Tso's Chicken ("Chef Zhao’s Chicken"), ribs, fried shrimp, and stir fry, among others. The Tea Smoked Duck sounds good, as does the Spicy Tenderloin Hot Pot. I'll see what it's like the next time I'm in there. And there will be a next time, because my wife wants to try it.

Look, I'm not the type of person who likes to just slag restaurants in public. The dining scene is one of my favorite parts of Richmond, VA. But we have so many awesome places that I think it's fair to start developing some higher standards. Fat Dragon is a potentially decent bar that needed a restaurant (silly VA law). And it picked a tired theme restaurant.

Today I'm pretty excited. I finally pushed out full, public notice to the Internet about my podcast, The Opposite of Daniel.

There are a number of rough edges to this thing. As of this writing, my cover art still isn't displaying in iTunes (though using the Downcast app on my iPhone I can see it just fine). The audio is uneven and full of plosives and sibilants (I have almost no mic technique). The conversation is sometimes disjointed and meandering. It's a little too long (future episodes should be closer to an hour, I hope). And I left in far more ums and likes than I'm comfortable with.

So why did I make this public today? What was the rush on me editing the audio and telling everybody about it?

Because I'm a lazy and easily-distracted person, that's why. I have so many ideas that, if one of them takes too much time, work, and attention, I can easily get bored and move on to the next idea without ever finishing the first one. I really didn't want that to happen with my first podcast, so I pushed it out the door. Will I get negative feedback as a result? Slow down! It'd be haughty of me to assume more than 5 people will even listen to this thing, let alone give me any form of feedback. But if people do listen and do provide feedback, I'll just use that to make episode 2 better.

If this podcast never has more than a handful of subscribers (or any at all) after a few months, that's fine. I had an idea. I turned that idea into a thing. A thing you can actually find on the Internet and download and listen to. And that's all I needed it to be.

My first piece of freelance writing is up on the Internet!

Turns out it's been up since the 15th, but the Dining section of the Richmond Magazine website still shows the September "5 Favorites" piece in the carousel. BUT, it also seems that my intro was excluded from the digital version (which is odd considering the theoretical lack of space constraints...). So I'm including my original intro below - you'll have to follow the link to read the rest.

I'm not going to be the 50th person to write something about how Richmond is transforming into an exciting food city. I couldn't hope to articulate that point better than some of the professionals that have done so before me. But I will say that I agree whole-heartedly. Richmond has seen a number of excellent restaurants open up and stick around over the past couple of years, and more are on the way. Valerie and I were fortunate enough to eat our anniversary dinner at the latest: Heritage.

Now we actually attended the soft opening on Friday of last week (9/28/2012), but the passed hors d'œuvre were just a preview of the full dinner menu. Let me tell you, the opening menu is full of promise and dishes that seem just right for autumn (particularly the squash soup, risotto, or half chicken). When we dined on Tuesday for the official opening, we sampled a number of courses across all parts of the menu (and plenty of cocktails, too) and found strong cause to return often in the future. Heritage may have just opened, but they really hit a home run with their food, beverage, and service.

Our cab showed up 15 minutes early so we arrived well in advance of our reservation, but that wouldn't have mattered; opening on a Tuesday night meant that the dining room wasn't really full at 6:25 (though it was at about 2/3 capacity by the time we finished up at the bar). We started with a cocktail hour sitting at Mattias' bar and enjoyed what we already knew to be some of the best drinks in town. Mattias Hägglund is one of the owners (along with his sister Emilia Sparatta and her husband Joe - the chef), and we'd experienced his mixology at Comfort and the first spoon. pop-up restaurant. His list of house cocktails for Heritage keeps up the good work with some classic American cocktails and delicious originals. I should also point out that the beer and wine lists look great, too. I may have to make a special return trip just for a pint...

With cocktails in our stomachs we sat down at a table for our dinner and took it in rounds with breaks in between. The menu is split into three sections based on the amount of food - small, medium, and large - and we began with an order of the pork "fries" from the small plates. Made from smoked and shredded pork rolled in potato flour and panko break crumbs, these deep-fried goodies are almost cartoonishly indulgent. But then you dip it in what I can only assume is a house-made barbecue sauce and take a bite, and you just want more. These were a highlight of the meal, even at the opening. We sampled some other dishes from the medium and large plate sections of the menu interspersed with more cocktails. The gnocchi are just right, and they were served with a fascinating onion "butter", apple, bacon, thyme, and parmesan. And the flounder from the large plates has this creative and delicious crust made from brown butter and toasted powdered milk.

Oh yeah - they have dessert, too. "Only three for now" Joe told me, but that's no concern when one of them is the "chocolate cube" with coffee crumble and bourbon dolce de leche. There were actually two cubes on the plate (perfect for sharing, and about 1.5 inches on a side), and the texture was somewhere between ganache and a stiff mousse. Rich, delicous, and the perfect portion size.

I can't finish this little write-up without talking about the space, too. Heritage is in the old Six Burner location, at the corner of Main and Vine, which closed last month before transforming into the current incarnation. It would have been easy to simply change the logo and some table cloths and reopen as is - Six Burner was American fine dining, after all. But in less than a month the new owners transformed the interior into a more open and bright space. New casework, some new paint, and the removal of some of the old seating all help to make the dining room feel a bit more comfortable than its previous incarnation. It wasn't really bad before, but I think the changes are, generally speaking, improvements.

Valerie and I left having enjoyed a terrific meal, and I can't wait to go back. I just might need to get there early so I can get a seat, because I think Heritage is going to be very popular very soon.