Ploafmaster General

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:

  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ploafmaster/8252230269/"><img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/wp-content/149855/2012/12/7b8d0-image-asset.jpeg" alt="" /></a>

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.

I'm doing it. I'm finally starting a freaking podcast of my own.

I've been on Jawgrind for a while now, and I still love that, but I've had an itch to do my own thing, so now I will. I've created a new section for this site that will host information about and the audio for the podcast, so check out The Opposite of Daniel when you get a chance. The first episode is in the planning stages, and I hope to have it recorded and posted within the month.

This morning I left my old pre-Craftsmen-era house in a developing city neighborhood wearing a clever graphic t-shirt. I climbed into my VW with quirky personalized license plates and drove to my local, independent coffee shop that roasts their own beans. I drank my cappuccino and San Pellegrino sparkling water while obsessively checking the status on my pre-ordered iPhone, eventually taking a look at some mobile website wireframes for my IT job. Oh yeah, and I totally tweeted a photograph of my beverages. Later I'll stop by a nouveau-Southern restaurant to sip on pre-Prohibition cocktails mixed by a craft bartender before catching up on my DVR'd episode of Louie. I'll watch that sitting on my contemporary sofa while simultaneously surfing the Internet.

Have I REALLY never written about this on my blog? I searched a few versions of my website and couldn’t find a post about the origin of “ploafmaster”. So I’ve adapted the below text from a forum post on RadioParadise.com. Forgive me if you’ve heard this all before.

* * *

I'd really like to say that there's some deep significance to my broadly-used Internet nom de guerre. Sadly, there is no clever explanation. It all really starts with PLOAF, teenagers, and a candy-coated Apple computer...

When I was in high school a computer game developer named Bungie (later purchased by Microsoft, and creator of the Halo franchise) published a game for PC and Mac called "Myth." No, not Myst...thank goodness. Myth was a new type of real-time strategy game with fantastic multiplayer features, and my friends and I would often play on one friend’s father's iMac (the original style) in the office. One useful feature was the ability to establish teams, or "Orders." Our dorky appellation was "Gun Toting Ferrets" with the disturbing/cute banner of a fuzzy animal carrying a Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol (inane, yes, I know). We encountered another group of competitors who called themselves, "PLOAF." Besides our delight at such a funny name, we were curious about its meaning. So we asked. We sent messages to the group asking about it, but they never replied. We spent several weeks trying to get an answer, but no dice.

Eventually we did the only thing we could as immature, high school males: we adopted the word as our own, and used it for whatever we wanted. Not as a “secret word”, to “get attention”, or as an excuse to use "unnecessary quotation marks”. We decided it would represent any part of speech and any definition - never to be assigned a permanent meaning. I even used PLOAF on the license plates of my 1985 Honda Prelude (rest in peace, li'l brudder) when I was a sophomore at VCU in Richmond.

* * *

So why the "master" suffixed to this strange word? Well the answer is lamer than what I’ve already told you. The rest of my user name comes from a marriage of punk rock and an over-complicated card game I played in college.

Right away you’re connecting the dots. Well a few years into my undergraduate years at VCU, I played a card game called “Mao” (look it up) with several friends who already identified me with the term “ploaf” by way of my license plate (among other things). In our variant of the card game, the “Mao” for the round could make up a few rules. So one of my rules was that players who spoke had to address me as “Ploafmaster General”. It's really that simple. A nonsense portmanteau. Thereafter I adopted “ploafmaster” as a user name as early as 2004, and “Ploafmaster General” as the title of my first serious blog around 2005.

* * *

Sadly, I discovered the true origin of "ploaf" a few years ago. Out of sheer curiosity, I ran the occasional search for the word PLOAF on the internet. One year, I actually turned up a result - a web page for the very order of Myth players. To my dismay, the word was indeed a contraction of two really dopey words: Pimento Loafers.

Blame it on the Short Pump location. The Far West End of Richmond is hardly known for its exciting food (with at least a few noteable exceptions). Or maybe it's the midsummer timing. Richmond is far quieter when there's a beach to occupy on the edge of our state. Perhaps it's the size of our market. We're a small city that may not have enough adventurous or financially capable diners to support 3 pop-up experiences in 5 months. Whatever the reasons (and mine are purely speculative), Richmond's third pop-up was a bit light on the head count.

Well, Richmond missed out.

"Meddle with spoons." was a collaboration between Secco's Tim Bereika (half of Meddle back in February) and Chef Johnny Maher (recently of spoon 1.0). I was fortunate enough to have attended each of the prior pop-up events here in Richmond, and I enjoyed them both - two very special meals for a city that is still in the process of a slow wake-up to what fine dining can be. I was, naturally, looking forward to a collaboration between these gentlemen.

The major differentiator for this meal was its setup as a pasta-tasting menu; sure, the amuse-bouche, intermezzo, and dessert contained no pasta, but the 4 major dishes each featured a different freshly prepared pasta component. There was cavatelli made with chick peas, fresh spaghetti, and two beautifully-formed filled pastas (one of which was black from squid ink). In every case the pasta was cooked perfectly - tender but with texture, and delicious.

I could say a lot of the same things about Meddle with spoons that I've already said about the first two of Richmond's pop-ups: statements about balance, craft, letting the ingredients speak for themselves. I'll save the details for my take on each course at the end of this post but, at the risk of a little redundancy, I do want to highlight how the flavor spectrum built and shifted over the course of this meal. Not only did Tim and Johnny transition from light and delicate to rich and meaty flavors, but the combination of spices, herbs, and other ingredients created a surprising sense of continuity from one dish to the next. It was like an expertly-assembled playlist for the taste buds. The charred, earthy flavors (and cumin) in the smoked scallop scarpinocc did a great job setting up my palate for the still richer squid ink agnolotti with chorizo inside (and that smoked paprika!). Likewise, the brilliant intermezzo - essentially a panzanella sorbetto - both cut through the richness of its predecessor and woke up the tongue a bit for the peach dessert that followed.

Yes, this was the third pop-up in our small River City since February. But the whole point of a pop-up restaurant is to experience a once-in-a-lifetime menu that showcases the skills of a chef (or chefs, in this case) and the best qualities of the ingredients involved. That being the case, if there's any reason that Meddle with spoons was lightly-attended, I sure hope it's not because Richmond diners are "over" the concept. Traditional full-time restaurants that last beyond 1 or 2 nights are great - even my own preference most of the time. But I'm always game for a chance to see what Richmond's creative and skilled cooks can pull out of their hats when left to their own devices, and I'll be keeping my eye out for news of whatever comes next. I'd love to keep a great thing going.

Okay, the main portion of my write-up is over, but for the completists out there, here's my breakdown of each course. I didn't take any photographs, as with spoon 1.0, because the excellent Kieran Wagner was again on hand to do the work of a professional. I'm looking foward to when his film is processed.

Amuse Bouche: Fluke Crudo with variations of summer squash, vanilla, and Manzanilla sherry

A lovely bite to kick things off. The fluke was delicate, and the squash variations made for a pleasant combination of textures. I tasted the vanilla lightly, and it worked well with the flavor of the sherry.

Course 1: Chickpea Cavatelli with tomato, fresh fenugreek, and ricotta salata

The pasta here was nice and tasty on its own, and the whole dish had a wonderful aroma. The grated ricotta salata provided a light saltiness and the tomatoes were just great - they seem to have been cooked (roasted?) and then charred on the outside, and they tasted sweet. It was a nice lighter course with the first of what would be several expert uses of herbs throughout the meal.

Course 2: Smoked Scallop Scarpinocc with roasted corn, huitlacoche, marjoram, and cumin

Confession: I knew what huitlacoche was before this meal, and while I'd never eaten it, I was bit hesitant. Readers of my blog already know my tragic pickiness (I'm always working on it), but the ingredient is essentailly corn infected by a fungus. It's considered a blight in the USA (called "corn smut" by farmers), but enjoyed in Mexico. It's an inky black color and mushy in texture, so the look of it, had it been on its own, doesn't add to its appeal. But I knew I was in good hands with Tim and Johnny in the kitchen, so I dove in when it hit the table. And you know what? It helped out the dish quite a bit. It added a bit of earthiness to what was a fantastic course. Scarpinocc is a filled pasta, and these were beautiful on the plate. The charred corn was excellent, and there was a pretty (and edible) charred corn silk garnish as well. Smokey, earthy, toasty, and well spiced, this was an enjoyable plate on its own that also led perfectly into the next dish...

Course 3: Squid Ink Agnolotti with chorizo farce, clams, greens, and smoked paprika jus

I could smell this dish before it arrived at the table, and I liked it already. This had to be my favorite full course of the night. Four or five lovely little black pasta purses sat on top of tender greens in a delicious broth. The spice level was just right, and I finished this course licking my lips.

Course 4: Pasta alla "Carbonara" with slow-cooked egg yolk, guanciale, and Pecorino-Romano

The textures in this dish were perfect - simply excellent spaghetti and an egg yolk that was like butter. But this was the lone disappointing course of the night for me, because the flavor just wasn't there for all but the last two bites. This is a surprise, too; guanciale is an Italian style of bacon made from the jowl, and while that particular component left a pleasing saltiness in my mouth afterward, it didn't stand out much throuout the course. Neither did the Pecorino, either - a sharp enough cheese that its absence stood out. I didn't need 10 pieces of bacon and a cup of cheese, but my dish tasted mostly like undressed pasta with some egg yolk. Again - everything in the bowl had fantastic texture. But I couldn't taste much until, for some reason, the last two bites where there seemed to be a little bit of creamy sauce.

Intermezzo: Panzanella

Panzanella is traditional Italian salad made as a use for stale bread. Most folks know the contemporary version that's a bread and tomato salad with some olive oil, and perhaps a few other ingredients. What arrived at the table was a different animal all together - a quenelle of what seemed to be a tomato sorbetto in a small pool of olive/herb oil (I think?) with crispy bread crumbs. Taking the entire bite at once was magical - bright, salty, acidic, with a little crunch at the end from the bread. This little bite very nearly stole the show for me. It was a fantastic example of elevating such a simple poor man's food to a beautifully-presented and inventive spot of food between dinner and dessert.

Course 5: Textures of Summer Peach with bay lauel gelato, aroma of burnt cinnamon, kaffir lime and crème fraîche cake, and vin santo croquant

Oh my, what a finish. Slices of fresh peach, cooked peach, dense and lightly sweet cake, AMAZING gelato, and crisp candy (the croquant). The only trouble here was the "aroma of burnt cinnamon" because, you see, the diners behind my booth had just received their agnolotti. So I could only smell the cinnamon holding the plate up to my face - otherwise all I could smell was the smoked paprika and chorizo from the other table. Other than that, this dessert was outstanding - tasty, beautiful to look at, and a fun assortment of textures. And how can you go wrong with a dessert that contains fruit, cake, ice cream, AND candy? Summer indeed.

The People's Blues of Richmond perform at the Brewdependence Day event at Hardywood Park Brewery.

Here I go again changing things up on my website. This time, however, I'm REALLY happy with it. It's not perfect, but through the glorious special sauce that is Squarespace 6, I have a unified website that lands on my photography portfolio but still includes my blog. Customizing the styles was fairily easy, and adding the pictures to the portfolio couldn't have been easier. Everything looks fairly good on a smartphone, too.

So there you go. A site design that may finally have some longevity.