stay in the shallow end

Sunday: Drinks at Maya: Maya is the new restaurant that’s taken Southern Culture’s old spot on Main Street. We decided to drop by for a few drinks and scope it out. The drink menu is pretty delicious, but their food menu appears to be pretty boring. We ordered a fried okra appetizer and I was completely unimpressed. I’ll probably give them a chance for a full mean sometime, but I am not optimistic.

Sunday: Dinner from Mario’s Pizza: We originally planned to pick up a few lasagnas from Mona Lisa for the season finale of The Sopranos, but they’re closed on Sundays. Instead we picked up a few pizzas from Mario’s. I haven’t eaten at Mario’s in over a year, and I don’t think I’ve ever had their pizza. I loved their sweet sauce and thinly sliced toppings. I’ll definitely have to make it out there again.

Thursday: Lunch at Brick Oven: This is my first lunch at Brick Oven, and I highly recommend it. It’s inexpensive, quick, and delicious. I ordered the meat lasagna, and it was fresh and tasty. The meat was a little disappointing, and I think the next time around, I’ll order the veggie. For $5.95 it can’t be beat. I got the salad bar, too, and it’s still the best salad bar in town, but I think it was a little too much for lunch.

Sunday: Dinner at Mono Loco: I don’t know why we don’t go to Mono Loco more. I believe I’ve mentioned this before. This time around I ordered the fish tacos, but asked for them grilled instead of fried, which they were happy to accommodate. Calling what came out a taco may be a misnomer. It was two corn tortillas piled high with grilled fish, cabbage, pickled vegetables, and dressing. A fork and knife was required. They were really good. I wouldn’t say they were great, but solidly good. In all fairness, I didn’t order it as it was on the menu. The fried fish would’ve been better.

Monday: Lunch at Take It Away: Corned beef on onion rye. I’m not writing anymore about this sandwich.

Tuesday: Just Curry: Today I got the beef. Delicious. When Just Curry is on, they’re really on, and today was one of those days. I love that with a Curry Card, it’s only $4.

Dinner at Baker’s Crust: Had dinner at Baker’s Crust in Short Pump with Michael and Elizabeth. I’d never even heard of Baker’s Crust before this evening. The star here is their homemade chips. For an appetizer we ordered some of the chips covered in cheese and bacon. Even after having four heart attacks, I was still scrounging for crumbs at the bottom of the platter. I also ordered a forgettable panini.

Wednesday: Lunch at Cafe Europa: Congratulations to the Majorca! It’s been graduated from perma-special to full-fledged menu item. The Majorca is one of the best sandwiches in Charlottesville. Have you had yours yet?

Thursday: Dinner at Asian Express: Asian Express is working its way into regular rotation. This was another oder of string beans and sashimi. Tuna, salmon, and yellowtail. Very solid.

Friday: Dinner at St Maarten’s: Stopped by here for a few drinks and decided to order some fried things. I believe it was buffalo shrimp and chicken fingers. It’s entirely possible that these are fried from frozen, but couple them with a few beers, and they are delicious.

Saturday: Drinks at Rapture: More beers and fried from frozen stuff. We ordered the appetizer platter which included fried cheese, hot wings, jalapeno poppers, and some other fried thing. We were sitting at the outside table closest to the front door observing the arbitrary enforcement of Rapture’s dress code. Here’s a couple of hints: If you have girls with you, you will be let in regardless of your attire. Otherwise, the level of enforcement is dependent on your skin color. My favorite moment was when one gentleman was being rejected due to having a baggy shirt. He pointed out that the bouncer’s shirt came down further than his. The bouncer went inside, came back out with a tucked in shirt, and then still refused to let him in. If I can muster up the proper motivation, I’d love to conduct experiments to determine the consistency of enforcement. I’m out of last week in food territory now. I’ll dive into it in a future post.

My birthday is coming up (Thursday!), and I’m trying to decide where I’d like to eat. I generally don’t order steaks when I go out because I feel that I can grill an excellent steak myself, but I’m thinking for my birthday I’d like to try one of the local steakhouses that offer USDA Prime cuts of meat. They’re generally hard to come by as an individual.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Off the top of my head, I can only think of Aberdeen Barn and Downtown Grille, and I haven’t been to either. Would you recommend one of those or is there some super-awesome place that I’m not aware of.

Maybe I should just go to Outback. Mmmmmm… Outback.

This week we start off with a Nashville favorite, except in Knoxville, and end back home in Charlottesville.

Tuesday: Lunch at Calypso Cafe: Calypso Cafe is a little Cuban restaurant in Nashville that we used to eat at about twice a week. Their specialty is black beans, and they are unbelievably delicious. Driving back from Huntsville we wanted to go through Nashville just to get some Calypso, but decided we didn’t want to add the two hours to our trip. When we hit Knoxville, we decided to go to Chick-Fil-A, so I punched it in the GPS and followed the directions. Lo and behold, across the street from the Chick-Fil-A was a Calypso Cafe. We approached it apprehensively, hoping that it was the same Calypso, and it was. Happy day! We had lunch and bought a gallon of black beans to take home. They lasted a week.

Friday: Lunch at Eppie’s: When Eppie’s first opened, I was really excited. Unfortunately, I recall my first couple of visits to be lackluster: not bad, but not great either. Things have definitely improved! The jerk chicken was very, very spicy, and the cole slaw was fresh and tangy. I can’t wait until I’m regularly working downtown to be able to eat there more often.

Friday: Dinner at Melting Pot: We decided to go to the Melting Pot for your anniversary. Yes, it’s cheesy (literally and figuratively), but we used to go for desert in Nashville all the time, and we really like it. We went for the oil rather than the broth this time, and I think that made a huge difference. Fried meat tastes way better than boiled meat. I plan on sticking with the oil for our future visits.

A little taste of Alabama at the end of this week. Enjoy!

Sunday: Dinner from Asian Express: Ordered a small order of sashimi and string beans. If you haven’t had the string beans from Asian Express, they are by far the best Chinese dish on the menu. They are just pan fried string beans in a spicy sauce, but something about the preparation gives them this crispy skin and a very satisfying texture. I love them.

Tuesday: Dinner at Crozet Pizza: Another meal with my brother. We ordered a Hero, which is sausage and hot cherry peppers. I learned something new about Crozet Pizza. They use the same amount of dough for all their sizes, so if you want a thicker pizza, order a smaller one.

Wednesday: Lunch at Take It Away: For the first time, I ordered the Chicken Salad. It was satisfyingly chunky, but I found it to be a little dry. I think that’s just my personal preference for sauciness though. I’ll be ordering it again.

Friday: Lunch at Bandito Burrito: What’s Bandito Burrito you say? Why it’s the best Mexican Food in Huntsville, AL. Remember that next time you’re there.

My family was in town this week, and I ate out way too much this week. Good thing they picked up the tabs!

Sunday: Lunch at Christian’s Pizza: Nothing beats going to Christian’s with family. We ordered 10 different slices and all had a few bites of all of them. Here’s an idea for Christian’s: Sampler Buffets. Maybe once a month, cook up a bunch of pizzas cut into small pieces, and charge a flat fee to get your fill of samples. There’s too much variety to be able to try them all with repeat visits.

Monday: Lunch at Littlejohn’s: Sometimes nothing hits the spot like Littlejohns. Generally it involves a hangover, but that wasn’t the case this time. I got the meatball sub with grilled onions and peppers and hot peppers. Why do things so bad for you taste so good?

Tuesday: Lunch at Martha’s: I believe I had the portobello enchiladas and I subbed goat cheese for the feta. It was pretty good, but my favorite part of Martha’s will always be the free refills on their homemade lemonade.

Wednesday: Lunch at Just Curry: Butter chicken is one of the most consistent dishes at Just Curry. As a Southerner, I’m guessing I feel that way due to the inclusion of copious amounts of butter.

Wednesday: Dinner at Continental Divide: Santa Fe Enchiladas. Always and forever. I had a lot of Danger Sauce this time around. You have to ask for it, so don’t forget.

Thursday: Lunch at Lee’s Grill: I ordered the Teriyaki Chicken, per usual. The real star was the Dan Dan Mien that somebody ordered. Spicy, tasty noodles. Once again, Lee’s Grill impresses. Definitely try this dish.

Thursday: Dinner at Old Virginia Fried Chicken: I can always count on Wayside. As I’ve said before, timing is everything. If you can get their chicken fresh out of the fryer, it is delicious. We’ve also rediscovered their macaroni and cheese. I don’t know if they changed it, but we can’t get enough of it these days.

Friday: Lunch from Old Virginia Fried Chicken: Talk about bad timing on my part. We had a meeting in the department, and it was catered by Wayside. The difference between fresh out of the fryer and sitting around for awhile is substantial.

Friday: Dinner at Ragazzi’s: Sometimes you just want generic Americanized Italian food. Without an Olive Garden in town, Ragazzi’s is the next best thing. I ordered a chicken dish whose name I cannot recall, and I was disappointed. It looked and tasted like they just pan fried a small chicken breast with no seasoning or breading. Then they tossed it on some pasta and sauce. I was very disappointed, as our Ragazzi’s experiences are generally good.

Saturday: Dinner at Flaming Wok: My brother decided to stick around for awhile instead of going home with my parents. He’d never been to a hibachi type place, so we went to Flaming Wok. I ordered chicken, and he ordered steak. The food is good, but quite frankly, you go there for the presentation. Lee’s Grill tastes just as good, and is $4.95. I guess you get a salad and two shrimp at Flaming Wok, so that’s something. Flaming Wok makes a good occasional visit (especially when your brother in college puts it on your dad’s credit card).

I feel like I gained five pounds just writing this up.

I love Amazon. Free Super Saver Shipping is awesome. Amazon Prime is even more awesome. Unfortunately, searching for items that qualify for free shipping is not awesome. Between the Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Merchants, used items, and out-of-stock items, I get pretty frustrated trying to find things to buy that will ship free.

To solve that problem, I wrote Spotzon. It uses Amazon’s Web Services to search for just those items that qualify for Free Super Saver Shipping and Amazon Prime. I hope you enjoy!

_{For the coders out there, Spotzon is written in Rails and uses Amazon Web Services (REST) to do the searches. I’ve deployed it on an M Class Accelerator from Joyent. I’m using nginx as the web server, swiftiply as the proxy, and 5 mongrels running the application. Yes, it’s overkill.}