stay in the shallow end

Episode 10 starts with our last meal in Huntsville, AL before we continue to Charleston, SC. I’ve had a couple of people as me where I find these places, and it’s almost entirely word of mouth. For Charlottesville, Charlottesville Dining is an excellent resource. Nationwide, I’d say my favorite resource by far is Chowhound. It’s just an old school message board with an ancient script, but it’s by far the largest online community for people who like to eat. My first meal this week was based on recommendations by several users at Chowhound, so without further adieu…

• Monday: Lunch at La Michoacana: Several Chowhound members have
  proclaimed La Michoacana as the most authentic Mexican in Huntsville. I ordered the Chile Colorado, which was beef tips in a fiery red sauce. Except for the sauce being a little too watery, I was very pleased. The beans and rice were pretty typical mexican restaurant fare. Overall, I’m happy with it, and I’ll go back, but it’s no La Hacienda in Nashville.

• Wednesday: Late Night Snack at Gilroy’s Pizza: Charleston bars close at 2 AM. Gilroy’s is pretty much the only place you can get food after that, so we went down there and got a pizza. I don’t remember it, but Gilroy’s is always satisfying, so let’s just assume that it was this time, too.

• Thursday: Dinner at Fast and French: After hearing about Fast and French from lpk’s friends for years, I final made it out with them for Fondue Thursdays. I ordered the Beef Fondue Special which came with a salad. The salad had a ginger dressing that has a sharp ginger bite to it. So delicious. The fondue itself was marinated chunks of lean beef and a few sauces: a red pepper aioli, horseradish sauce, and au jus. All very delicious. I also tried some of the swiss and blue cheese fondues that everybody else had, and they were cheeserific. Finally, I dipped a few pieces of my beef in the blue cheese fondue. Then I had eleven heart attacks.

• Thursday: Appetizer at Raval: Raval is a small wine and tapas bar on King Street in Charleston. I’ve walked by it before, and it never would have occurred to me to go in, but our friends took us there after fondue. I am so glad they did. I don’t really understand how I was able to eat anymore after just having the fondue, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try the Andalusian Meatballs. At their core, they’re just meatballs in a tomato based sauce, but the addition of some bold spices and chorizo to the sauce really blew me away. I could have them for every meal for a week without once being bored. So freaking tasty.

• Thursday: Pizza at Gilroy’s: Another late night, another pizza at Gilroy’s. I actually remember this time. I got a tomato and jalapeno pizza, and it was delicious.

• Friday: Dinner at Fleet Landing: I was itching for some seafood, so lpk got a recommendation from a friend for a place called Fleet Landing. Sometimes I get an idea in my head for what I want to eat, but I can’t really describe it. It’s a “I’ll know it when I see it” kind of thing. Well, when we walked into Fleet Landing, I saw it. It’s kind of like a beach seafood restaurant, without any of the kitchiness. I ordered seared sea scallops with cole slaw and charleston red rice. I expected to get three or four big scallops, so I was pretty shocked when I got nearly a dozen. They were excellent, as was the cole slaw and rice. lpk got the seared tuna with mashed potatoes and green beans. The tuna had a teriyaki glaze, which was awesome. The green beans were crisp and fresh. I’d say the mashed potatoes were the only disappointing part of the night. We’ll definitely be back here on our next visit.

• Friday: Late Night Snack at Slices by Doriano’s: We changed up the late night pizza tonight. I had a slice of sausage and jalapeno, and it was fairly average. I don’t really feel any need to go back.

And that’s it for Charleston. I weighed in when I got back home, and it looks like in ten days, I put on six pounds! I guess that makes the culinary portion of the trip a success. I’ll be taking it easy for a week or two to give my digestive system a chance to recover, so episode 11 should be a lightweight.

Another BlogZOT! from macZOT!

MacZOT.com Fans want Pzizz because ‘According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation and its effect on work performance may be costing U.S. employers some $18 billion each year in lost productivity. Another study pushes this cost to over $100 billion.’ – link to full article

I now officially declare my MacBook Pro as the crappiest piece of hardware I’ve ever purchased from Apple. In fact, I could go as far as saying it’s one of the crappiest pieces of hardware I’ve ever purchased, especially in the $1500+ price range. I don’t even know where to start:

• The Whine – The whine is well documented by pretty much every Mac site on the net. It’s dependent on CPU usage, so leaving certain applications open, like Photo Booth, eliminates it, at the expense of battery life, performance, and memory usage. When I’m in the library, I’m pretty much forced to leave the machine asleep as the whine is deafening in complete silence.

• Intermittent Airport – I haven’t seen this one recently, but I haven’t been at school nearly as much lately either. Sometimes when I try to connect to cavalier, my airport icon starts flickering, and it’s unable to maintain a connection. It’s possible it’s been fixed recently, but I’ll go ahead and list it here.

• The Heat – Again, this is not an isolated problem. Extended periods of typing leave my palms sweaty and uncomfortable. I can forgive the bottom of the case heating up, as the heat has to go somewhere. The keyboard, however, should not be used as a heat sink. It was kind of nice in February and March, but now that summer is here, it’s way too much.

• Warped Casing – I noticed that my battery wasn’t sitting flush a few days ago. It looked like whatever adhesive they used had loosened (probably due to the heat) and now the aluminum cover over it was bowing out. On further inspection, it turns out the battery itself has developed a prominent bulge, which is pulling the cover off. Now that I think about it, I should probably get this machine off my lap, as the battery might explode and spill battery acid all over highly sensitive and valuable regions of my body.

• Useless Battery Indicator – Most of the time, my battery indicator just says “Calculating”. The time remaining is completely meaningless, and it never gets to fully charged. In fact, when I plug it into the wall, my little MagSafe connector flashes between green and orange. Of course there’s nothing mentioned in the print or on Apple’s support site as to what that means. And yes, I’ve recalibrated the battery many times.

• Random Shutdowns – This may have to do with the bulging battery or the battery indicator, but I can just be using the machine on battery and it randomly shuts down. Not going to sleep, but a full fledged shutdown. The battery is obviously dead, cause if I try to restart it, it starts for a second and shuts down again. Only reconnecting it to power fixes it. No warnings and no sleep, I just lose all my work since my last save and have to wait for a reboot and all my Applications to start up.

Back when my problems were just the whine, heat, and Airport, I was going to wait until I’d seen in the Apple Forums that the problems were resolved before contacting Apple. Now that the battery is having issues, I’ll be calling them in the morning. I really can’t undergo any downtime right now, but I guess I have no choice.

Here’s to hoping Apple will be good to me…

Welcome to a half and half episode of Last Week in Food. I start in Charlottesville, and finish in Alabama. Enjoy!

• Sunday: Dinner at St. Maarten’s: Michael briefly mentioned the appetizer-o-rama that we had at St. Maarten’s. The Jalapeno Bottlecaps were incredibly delicious, and despite what Michael says, the Tabasco only makes them better. We also got some Cheese Fries and Nachos, which were both very tasty. St. Maarten’s really knows bar food.

• Monday: Lunch at Tip Top: This was our second visit to Tip Top. Their pasta dishes are good, because they are simple, and the ziti this time around reflected that. I ordered the Chicken Shwarma with Onion Rings. The Onion Rings were delicious, but the Chicken Shwarma was average. I really don’t feel compelled to go back, but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually.

• Tuesday: Dinner at Wild Wings: I’d been to Wild Wings in Charleston, SC many times and always enjoyed it. My experiences at the Charlottesville Wild Wings have always been poor based on the horrendous service. My friends were already there and ordered for me this time around, so that wasn’t an issue. Also, who can argue with $3 pitchers of PBR. That was an excellent surprise. Their wings, however, are just too small. They’re also never hot (temperature wise), which is annoying. $3 PBR makes up for all shortcomings though.

• Wednesday: Lunch at Padow’s: When I was commuting to Richmond two summers ago, I ate at Padow’s down there about once a week. This was my first visit to the Charlottesville location. I ordered my deli standard, which is a reuben. My only complaint is that the bread was pretty soggy. Other than that, it was absolutely delicious. Combine that with some kettle chips and a Doc Brown’s cream soda, and I may have found my favorite deli in Charlottesville. That’s a good thing, since I really don’t like any of them.

• Friday: Lunch at Tony’s Little Italy: Welcome to Huntsville, AL. Tony’s Little Italy is a new italian place between Huntsville and Madison. One of my friends has been raving about it for months now, and I finally made it out with my dad and my brother. The pizza was absolutely incredible. The crust was thin and crispy and was so not greasy. I loved every bite and ate way too much. Another plus was the huge knots of garlic bread that they gave us for free while we were waiting for the pizza. I think it’ll be a regular visit whenever I go home.

• Friday: Dinner at Lakeview Oyster House: I drove down to Birmingham to hang out with friends and begin the real dining adventure. I wanted some slightly lighter fare to get things started, so the oyster house seemed perfect. I ordered a Lobster Caesar Salad and we got a couple dozen oysters. I couldn’t tell the difference between the types of oysters except that one of them was bigger. The salad was a typical Caesar salad. I expected chunks of grilled lobster, but I got big fried balls of batter that supposedly had lobster in them. Definitely not worth the upcharge.

• Saturday: Lunch at T-Bonez: T-Bonez is required eating when I go back to Birmingham. It’s a cheesesteak joint that has a unique method of mixing the chopped steak and cheese on the grill to make this delicious meaty/cheesy mix and just scooping that into a really chewy sub roll. It’s awesome, and they had a new Mexicali cheesesteak made with cheddar and salsa. I highly recommend it.

• Saturday: Dinner, Sol y Luna: Sol y Luna is a first time visit for me. It’s a new tapas restaurant in Birmingham that’s pretty fancy. They also have a large selection of tequila and a tequila sampler which combined with a few of their margaritas pretty much destroyed me. We ordered six appetizers between the five of us, and while I can’t remember a single one, they were all delicious, and the final tab wasn’t too bad for all we ate and drank. Highly recommended.

• Saturday: Late night snack at the Purple Onion: The Purple Onion is a 24 hour Mediterranean grease pit which was one of my staples in college. As always, it tastes best after midnight, so we went around 1:30 AM. I ordered the Gyro Platter which consists of gyro meat (not Kronos), tzatziki sauce, salad with a greek dressing, and some wild rice, which is supposedly just Uncle Ben’s. One of the best parts is their fresh brewed mint iced tea. The meal hit the spot as usual, and I was so stuffed that it was very difficule to orient myself in bed where I could actually fall asleep.

• Sunday: Brunch at V. Richards: I know nothing about this place. I ordered some french toast, bacon, and cheese grits. They were all above average. I’d never had french toast on wheat bread before, which was interesting.

Next week we’ve got one more meal in Huntsville, and then we head down to Charleston, SC for the rest of the week. I’m excited about Charleston, as it’s so full of good eating. I’m also excited to finally be all caught up. I’m excited easily.

Almost caught up! This covers May 7 to May 13:

• Sunday: Lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings: BW3 has my favorite wings in town, and probably ever. They’ve introduced two new flavors, Mango Habanero and Asian Zing. I got a dozen wings, six of each, and the new flavors are fantastic. Especially Manga Habanero. It’s rare that you see a mass market sauce with heat and flavor, but BW3 pulled it off with Mango Habanero.

• Monday: Dinner at Sticks: I strayed from the lamb and ordered the pork kabob platter. My first kabob was charred to black all the way around, and I pointed it out to them, and they quickly swapped it out for me. I stuck with my usual sauce (Cilantro Lime) and side (Sesame Beans). The pork was tender and juicy. The meal as a whole was delicious, and once again, I just question their pricing. On the way out I picked up some onion rings and hummus for lpk, and they were delicious as usual. Sticks has the best hummus in town.

• Tuesday: Breakfast at Bodo’s: I walked out of my last responsibility for my first year of grad school and went to Bodo’s. I had a sausage, egg, and cheese bagel. It was exactly what you would expect from a sausage, egg, and cheese bagel.

• Wednesday: Lunch at Cici’s Pizza: Sometimes you want to stuff your face with as much cheap pizza as possible. Cici’s is by far the best place to do that. We also had a coupon! $8.99 for two buffets and two drinks. It was delicious.

• Wednesday: Dinner at South Street: lpk and I shared some Nachos, and each ordered a salad. They’ve got some really solid nachos, and I’m starting to really like their salads. The star at South Street will always be the beer, though.

• Friday: Lunch at Christian’s Pizza: Christian’s is the antithesis of Cici’s. The quality is insanely high, and I order two slices, and am stuffed at the end of the second. This time, I forewent the pizza and got a Steak Calzone. Absolutely delicious! It was stuffed with steak, onions, peppers, and cheese.

• Friday: Dinner at Milan: I’m an Indian food snob. My mom makes the best Indian food ever, and that sentiment extends beyond immediate family. After several visits to Milan, I wrote it off. Recently I went back, though, and found a dish that I can stick with and have even found myself craving. That’s their Tikka Masalas. They make them with lamb and chicken, and they are both really tasty. My only complaint is the ridiculous amount of butter they use in preparation, but that seems to be the case with pretty much all Indian restaurants trying to appeal to American taste buds. I had the lamb tikka masala with garlic naan, and I finished every bite of it. Unfortunately, their lunch buffet is total crap.

• Saturday: Lunch at Old Virginia Fried Chicken: This was another unexpected visit to OVFC. If they were located anywhere else, I’d never go… it’s just hard to say no to that smell when you’re walking by. We were there right around lunch, and there was a line. The chicken was fresh and juicy, further reinforcing my theory. lpk tried the fish sandwich, which one of our friends has been telling us we need to try for pretty much forever now. It was really good, but was practically dripping oil. Gently squeezing the oil out of the fish might just make this sandwich perfect.

Next week’s episode which should show up later today or tomorrow, and it takes us to Alabama. My scouts in Huntsville and Birmingham have earmarked a few places I need to try, so I’ll be reporting back on them.

Ugh! I fall behind one week, and all of a sudden it becomes three. Here is Episode Seven covering April 30 to May 6:

• Sunday: Dinner from Asian Express: I ordered the Chirashi. There’s not that much you can say about a bunch of pieces of raw fish on rice. Actually, not true, one of the types in the “Chef’s Selection” was cooked, smelled really bad, and made me gag. I’m not sure if that was just my reaction to the fish, or if there was something actually wrong with it. It’s never happened to me before, so I wish I knew what kind of fish it was so I could steer clear in the future. Other than that, it was delicious, and fairly inexpensive for the amount of fish it offered.

• Monday: Lunch at Old Virginia Fried Chicken: I ordered a three piece white meal with baked beans and potato salad. I went around 3:30, and the quality of the chicken confirms my theory that you really need to go here when they’re busy and the chicken is fresh. During off hours, it just tastes too stale.

• Tuesday: Lunch at Noodle Bar: It was a hot day, so Peter recommended I try the cold noodles. If you’ve had the cold sesame noodles at Marco and Luca, these are similar except much higher quality ingredients and a slightly more peanutty flavor. The dish was really refreshing. I think I might like Marco and Luca’s more, but only because I’m more used to them.

• Wednesday: Lunch at Feast!: Oh Feast!, you make such delicious and expensive fancy-pant sandwiches. I usually get the Reuben here, and I even ordered it initially before changing it to the Roast Beef and Pimento. That was a mistake, unless you really like pimento cheese. The side with the sandwich on this particular day was fruit salad, which was annoying as I was accustomed to a nice little salad or chips or something more meal-like. For some reason I always enjoy my food at Feast!, and then walk away disappointed with the dining experience.

• Friday: Lunch at Riverside: I heart Riverside. It’s such tasty fried goodness. I deviated from my typical order of a burger and asked for a foot-long chili dog. Unfortunately, the order got miscommunicated and I only got a regular chili dog. They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, so I ordered some chicken wings. The chili dog was excellent. The chicken wings were breaded and fried without sauce, so not what I expected at all. Next time I go, I’ll be getting a burger.

• Friday: Dinner at Mario’s New York Pizza and Pasta: lpk and I always forget about Mario’s, even though we always enjoy it. We headed over there and I ordered a Pizza Pop and lpk got some Ziti. Our food took forever to come out, but the menu said that Pops take an extra 15 minutes. It was absolutely delicious and very reasonably priced. If you haven’t been, you really should check it out. We’re going to try to remember to go next time we crave Italian.

• Saturday: Lunch at Marco and Luca: Like I said above, I really enjoy these noodles. Something about the styrofoam box and the runny sesame sauce really do it for me. The fact that they cost $3 and are filling enough to make a meal doesn’t hurt at all.

• Saturday: Desert at The Flat: It took me way to long to make it out here. I got a Nutella crepe, and it was Nutellicious. A ridiculous helping of Nutella tossed into a fresh crepe. One might say it was too much Nutella if such a thing were possible.

One more week down, two more to go!

Welcome to this week’s much belated Charlottesville Blog Carnival!

Last week’s blog carnival gave DocMultimedia a bit of an ego boost, so I’ll indulge him this week as he asks, given the Commonwealth’s love for tobacco, can we really have a Miss Virginia that doesn’t smoke? As for our other crops, Jennifer and Patience discuss their scores from CSA (community supported agriculture. Apparently they are in the minority, as UVa students have found that most of Charlottesville gets it’s food from far, far away. Hoos News, the brainchild of another group of UVa students, signs off for the year. Chris caught Umphrey’s Mcgee at the Pavilion, and this time, his car didn’t blow up. The Book of Joe announces Duluth Trading’s new adjustable hot sauce, which makes me all giddy inside. Sean wants you to see Cindy Sheehan, ScamperDude (and Bob Barker) want you to help control the cat population, Michael really wants you (or somebody) to take his books. Last but not least, we’re no longer the best place to live, even in Virginia, but we do have the best trash collection workers ever.

Well, wasn’t that fun? Keep your eye on cvillenews.com for next week’s Charlottesville Blog Carnival.

Wii is Number One.

I’ve been in the library since eleven this morning studying, and lpk IMs me to tell me she just woke up. We’ve been chatting for twenty minutes, and then this happens:

I can’t decide if this is awesome or sad.

P.S. Four posts in a half hour. I think this is what procrastination smells like.

Of course the Charlottesville Blogs Aggregator pulls down my feed in the ten seconds that I had accidentally posted my list of meals from this last week.