elizabeth

put yourself out to pasture

Last night was the first open-to-the-public night of service at Pasture, the new restaurant from Comfort's Jason Alley. They've been serving friends and family since last week in a limited capacity, but last night anybody could take a crack at the menu (including actor David Straithairn, who was dining alone in the booth behind my wife). I've been looking forward to this new joint for a number of reasons. I'm already a huge fan of Alley's work in Comfort. The concept makes me think of Comfort's food with Secco's format (i.e. small plates intended for sharing/sampling, but with refined Southern food in this case). And the location is in a part of town that could seriously use some evening destinations.

So Valerie and I arrived last night around 5:15 and were seated immediately. I have a feeling the weekend could be quite busy, but opening on a Wednesday on East Grace Street meant it wasn't crowded before 7. But before I talk food, I have to say - the interior of this place is freaking cool. Spare, contemporary, and open, Pasture will be loud when it's busy. But you'll want to be there. Simple furniture and bright shades of green stand out against dark, heavy wood walls on either side of the restaurant. Dangling exposed bulbs on bundled cords shed additional light along the perimeter, and the bar is lined with tall stools you'd more likely see in a wood shop. And the bar! I think there are 16 taps (only draft beer at this place), and you immediately notice two things: there are no flashy tap handles, and there is no visible liquor or wine above the bar. They serve both, of course, but the real visual emphasis is on this gloriously utilitarian row of taps on a stainless steel drip pan, set into one of the aforementioned heavy wood walls. Superb.

But I don't go to restaurants to gawk at the walls and banquettes. There's food to be eaten. And the food here is off to an exciting start! Valerie and I ordered up some of the bread, butter, and jams while we decided on additional fare, and even that was quite nice: some rustic bread accompanied by sage-honey butter (Mmmmmm...) and three jams. These jams were cranberry, fig, and a spicy green tomato-jalapeño - a nice variety. We each had a few beers from a pretty nice selection, and explored the menu a little further.

Now Valerie LOVES deviled eggs, and I hate them. Full stop. But I tell you, her little plate of deviled eggs with bits of black truffle and salmon roe on top was quite pretty. They looked like the highest order of the form, and Valerie thought they were delicious. I, on the other hand, tried out the pork rillettes. This arrived in a cute half-pint mason jar with some really good toast,and two garnishes: pickled red onion with some herb (parsley?) and "quince mustard" which was chunks of quince cooked down with mustard seed. Valerie piled some of the rillettes, onion/herb mix, and quince on some toast, and I said "it's a redneck bruschetta!" The rillettes, by the way, were super tasty without being too salty. Could have used a bit more toast, though.

Moving on from the cold to the hot, Valerie went for the fried chicken. This arrived in easy-to handle smaller chunks with a 1-cup disher of potato salad on the side. I tried some of the chicken, and while the crust was light and crispy, there wasn't a whole lot of flavor going on. Granted, I'm not naturally a fan of fried chicken, but I think this one could stand some tweaking. Valerie enjoyed the potato salad, and felt more or less the same as me about the chicken, but she still ate most of it. I ordered up the braised beef brisket with grits and turnips, and Valerie and I both agreed this was fantastic. Some of the braising liquid was on the plate and added to the flavor of everything else. The brisket was tender and moist, the grits creamy with just the right amount of texture, and the turnips richly flavorful.

Then of course we had to try dessert. And wow, these were something to behold (and taste!). Valerie had the deep fried apple pie with salted caramel and whipped crème fraîche. It looked like a classic pocket pie (or Hostess fruit pie, if you will), with a paint stroke of the caramel across the plate and two cannelles of the crème fraîche permeated with flecks of vanilla bean. Sweet mercy, it all tasted incredible. But I think I liked my dessert a bit more...the "candy bar" made with a rich chocolate ganache and filled with caramel and bits of hazelnut. There was chocolate painted on the plate and flakes of some sort of candy - maybe a hazelnut candy? - scattered across the top. A single, candied hazelnut adorned one corner of the bar. This was an absolutely stellar dessert that could hold its own against any other in the city of Richmond (and far beyond).

What a meal - and great service, too. Michelle Jones, co-owner and general manager, was making the rounds thanking and chatting-up guests, and Valerie and I had a very pleasant conversation with her at the end of our meal. She also told us that we can expect the menu to change around every month, which will certainly keep palates entertained.

Either way, I'm intrigued. And I'll be back - repeatedly!

a better control

Here's a detail shot of the wing-flexing control mechanism for Rick Young's hand-build, functional replica of a 1911 Wright test glider. This is the glider that was used to improve in-flight stability after the Wright's had already achieved powered flight years earlier.

I felt like a little kid just having the privilege of seeing this thing let alone being allowed to photograph it with my 4x5 camera.

blue goat

One of the newer hot spots on the Richmond dining landscape is The Blue Goat - a restaurant beside the art house Westhampton Theater. It's a self-styled "gastropub", an appellation which hails from England where some clever restaurateurs decided to mix the atmosphere of a pub with fine dining.

So the environment at The Blue Goat is pretty cool - nice and open, plenty of exposed beams/rafters/whatever, and the kitchen visible through a window in a small, glass-enclosed private dining room. The bar, where I sat, was straightforward. There were TVs on the wall tuned to NCAA football. I can understand the desire - if this places is supposed to be a pub, patrons will want their sports. But I admit my own unfamiliarity with the dining concept made me feel a bit of cognitive dissonance at these flat panels in the middle of what is, theoretically for Richmond at least, forward cuisine. Otherwise the bartender was friendly, and I had a tasty glass of Tripel Karmeliet to boot.

How was the food? Well, I don't mean to nitpick, but when a place like this gets lots of buzz, purports to do something different in our city, and charges upscale prices, I'm not pulling punches. Now I don't have many punches to throw, but I was a bit disappointed with both food items I ordered.

First I had the house-made ravioli stuffed with braised goat, ricotta, and Swiss chard. These were dressed with sage, brown butter, and shaved pecorino. This dish sounded great, but a number of things bugged me about the execution - none more than the doneness of the pasta. Now I like "al dente", but either this pasta was undercooked or they had too much flower in their dough because it was slightly tough despite its thinness. As for the filling, I didn't catch any flavor other than the goat (didn't see ricotta inside either) - tasty, but not the only ingredient on the list. And the ravioli seemed to be swimming in brown butter. Sure, there was sage, but I couldn't pick up on its flavor (short of eating big wilted sage leaves). I'm pretty sure it was unsalted brown butter, too, with no salt added after the fact. This wouldn't be an issue, I think, if it didn't have to compete with the ravioli filling. But I felt like I was eating chewy goat ravioli in a grease puddle that occasionally had the nutty finish of brown butter. I'm not putting it that way to be snarky - that's really how the dish came across.

My second item was a pair of comically-large veal marrow bones (around 6 inches each), roasted and served with black olive tapenade, gray sea salt, and a little toasted bread. The marrow here was flavorful at the ends where it had browned considerably and came in contact with the salt, but the majority of the marrow was uninteresting. I feel like this would have worked considerably better had the bones been cut in smaller sections allowing for more browned marrow. That may just be my preference, but this is also my write-up. Just having bone marrow on the menu isn't enough to get me excited. You have to prepare it well, too.

So I know that's a bit harsh on the food front, but I'm not going to sugar coat things. This restaurant is supposed to be something new and different in an increasingly interesting Richmond food scene, and I always hope this sort of stuff succeeds in order to keep dining interesting in this town. I do plan to return in at least a few weeks to give it a second chance, however. A friend of mine who is a frequent Blue Goat patron told me they're changing their menu in about two weeks, and I'd like to see if things lighten up (there are like three pâtés on the menu right now in addition to rillettes, cassoulet, and the aforementioned marrow bones). I don't expect health food, but the menu at the time of this writing feels like an open protest against the existence of hypertension.

Oh well. I hope things are better when I check it out next time, but it'll be tough to go back and ignore my first impression. We'll see...

it's a start

Time to burn that ironic "VCU Football: Still Undefeated" t-shirt. VCU club football lost its first game against the Radford University Highlanders 19-18.

Play was disorganized and undisciplined, but it was still a heck of a lot of fun to watch. Both teams squared off on the field at Thomas Jefferson High school, and in between refs yelling at VCU to step back away from the side line and players cramping up as early as the first quarter, we managed to have some football.

I have to say, there were some promising moments, though. Our quarterback, junior Mike Jones (#7), threw a few clutch passes for some big gains. And we did a great job of capitalizing on Radford's pathetic punter. Of course that same punter gave the kick of his life when it mattered most, and put VCU too far back to march down the field at the end of the 4th quarter. Desperation led to a final turnover that provided the final nail in VCU's coffin.

There were actually quite a few people there, too: around 200-ish people filling up the VCU stands and lining the fence. Chants familiar to VCU basketball fans filled the air, and the atmosphere was generally exciting. The team's website doesn't have any information about the next game, but I hope it's happening soon (and in Richmond). VCU lost, yes, and it's not NCAA-sanctioned play, but I'm just glad to see a football team for my alma mater.

I'm selling a print!

That's right! I'm selling a print of my photograph "golden" (two posts below) on my Etsy shop! Check it out!

audi 5000

Today's the last day at my first "real" job after I graduated from VCU. I've been a database developer/analyst for Affinion Loyalty Group for the past 7 years working on points systems for credit cards. Yeah, it's as dull as it sounds :-)

But I did learn a ton from the people I worked with, and I'm glad to have been a developer for so long. On Monday I move on and leave development behind. Ah! Transition!

golden

So here's my last shot from my San Francisco photos. Ending on an obvious note. But I really, really like this shot.

Val and I got up at 5 AM on this day, and we caught a cab in front of our hotel around 5:30 and headed to The Presidio and the south overlook. When we arrived it was only just starting to get light out, and the fog was pretty thick. It was even intermittently raining, so I had the rain cover from my bag strapped on top of the camera while it sat on the tripod. When it stopped stpitting just a bit, I managed to take a few long exposures, and this is the one I liked the most.

I may not have left my heart in San Francisco, but I do miss the place, and I hope to make it out there for a longer stretch sometime in the future.

home stretch

Today is the start of my last week at first post-college job. I'm bracing myself for what could be a crazy 5 days as people scramble to reassign my work or get in their last questions before I'm off the payroll.

On the other hand, it could be a slow crawl as my work is reassigned elsewhere efficiently. Either way, I'm anxious for the transition to complete. At least I'll have my new classes starting this week to distract me a little.

push (process) a rope

Spool of cable at the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco.