–Like Newsies, but with food. I’m trying out the name. You like? You know the drill…
TV marathon. I’ve been keeping track (kind of). In addition to the self-proclaimed sports bars in town, downtown restaurants and food stores with TVs include, but are not limited to: Beer Run, Crush, Kiki, Maya, the Nook, West Main, and Zinc. I’ve seen Hitchcock or avant garde flicks in more than a couple of San Francisco bars, and I like it! I swear I’ve seen all of Sin City if I piece a couple of cities together.
Breakfast tacos at Beer Run. Not bad! Home made tortillas and organic eggs make the base, and you can pick one of their combinations or choose your own from a list of toppings including cheese, black beans, bacon, chorizo sausage, and potato. Four bucks and some change felt a little steep, but hey, I like their business.
Maya. I drive by it every day, and it appears to be getting a steady flow of diners. If you haven’t been in a while, go back. I feel like they’re having fun experimenting both in the kitchen and behind the bar. One night, I ordered a cornbread pudding that was so good, I threw caution to the blustery winter wind and downed it all. Pudding on a menu shows that the kitchen conserves and reuses, and I really respect that. We’ve all agreed puddings can go awry easily, but I keep ordering because the perfect pudding makes the wild goose chase worthwhile. (I’m still reminiscing about the texture of it.) Maya, save that recipe! Ted’s been mixing up fun stuff, too. I walked in on the right night… a vodka cocktail with cranberry and cinnamon. Artini, come back!
The Nook’s lunch rush. The Nook, for the record, was PACKED yesterday! I could barely get in. Thor and I aren’t regulars, but we obviously don’t speak for everyone. Stuart, the politeness and speed of your wait and host staff were refreshing, and all in spite of the difficulty to maneuver through the crowd, which included wee ones and retirees alike. Thanks for a nice meal.
Service at Ten. I hosted out-of-town guests from the west coast in December, and Ten was the one Charlottesville restaurant I wanted to bring them to, to show off the city’s cuisine. Three of us are former servers, and all of us love sushi. I hyped it, we dressed up, we wanted to order half the menu. But. It was a half hour before we all had our drinks. When a server is slammed, the sympathy of a diner with a martini toward said server greatly exceeds that of a diner without! Soon, the meal was everything I’d told my guests it would be, 86ers of tempura avocado and foi gras meatballs notwithstanding, and the service was superb. My guests agreed: I have myself a world-class city with world-class cuisine.
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Tagged as: Belmont, Charlottesville, Cocktails, Downtown Mall, Rants, Raves, Restaurants, Restaurants/Bars, Reviews
Sorry for the random bold when I published it. I’m really into “choose your own.”
Downtown-ish restaurants with TV’s also includes South Street Brewery. Excellent place to suffer from March Madness. Additionally, the bar section of Downtown Grille has two TV’s. Also, on the list: Court Square Tavern.
Not sure it really counts (and I haven’t been there in ages; not since I actually knew one of the bartenders), but the bar in the Omni probably still has one.
Further afield, Continental Divide has a television, as well.
Lilith, sorry I missed you and Thor yesterday, I worked the night shift. But, I wouldn’t have known it was you two anyway…
Yes, yes, I knew most of these… wow I’m in a rut. It’s a very good rut, but definitely rutty.
X has a TV now as well
shebeen has a couple tvs in the bar
I can understand why sports bars and brew pubs have TV’s but for the life of me I don’t get the TV thing. They are a complete conversation suck! The point of going out is to exercise the vocal cords and work on your social skills not to stare blankly and sputter out such well-worn exclamations as “Ughh”, “Oh”, “Wow”, “You see that!”, “That was amazing!” “They’re gonna win”, “No they’re not”, “That team sucks”, “Fuck you!”. “You wanna take it outside?!?” Such eloquence.
Ban, ban, ban the television from dive bar and cocktail lounge alike!
Sin City is a perfect example of why it’s good. It’s a suspenseful, sexy, highly stylized film. Mood.
100% agree with Silmo. I’m definitely guilty of turning attention to the tv when conversations dwindle, which of course, only fuels the problem.
Silmo, I could not agree more! The worst is when you are sitting across from someone at a table and the TV is behind you, and your friend stares over your head at the TV while you try to converse . . . and then interrupts your awesome rant/observation/story/ anecdote/joke with a nonsequitur such as: “Wow, [fill in the blank with a sports team name] lost/won/is losing/ is winning/etc.”
Tvs in bars keep the girls I date from thinking “Ughhh, I’m missing ‘Clash of the Choirs’ for this?
Now shut up everybody, Matlock is on.
I didn’t have a TV for two years, and then I only had channel 29 for the following two years or so (coworkers would teasting me by asking me if anything good was on “the channel” last night as they discussed The Sopranos), the result of which was my complete inability to look away from a TV when I did see one. It got really bad to the point where I would pick my seat at a bar based on not being able to see the TV to prevent my complete zone out.
Now I’m up to five whole channels and a boat load of Netflix, so while I watch more TV, I can actually be in the same room with one and not stare hypnotically. Not sure what was worse.
But what about a widespreadly viewed movie to set a mood? I do agree with you about most “TV.” I originally had written, but took out: if I want to watch sports, I’ll go to a sports bar, and if I want to watch the news, I’ll go to an airport.
Being really lazy, I like having televisions at South Street. I can walk there easily from home, when it’s bitter cold outside. The beer is good. If I go there with the express intention of watching a game, I’m not ignoring anyone (or else, they’ve come with me to watch the game, as well).
Also, there’s the “single chick waiting on her terminally late companions” factor. At least one of my friends is just notoriously late for everything, but not according to any sort of mathematic formula which would allow me to just wait and meet her when I know that she will actually show up. A television gives me something to do, until she does show up. Well, if I haven’t managed to snag a local freebie weekly to read, instead.
As for ambiance movies, I sort of like them. There was a place up in DC which did that. Made it more interesting than going to just any old bar.
chatted with the owners of the box today (J.A. and C.W.). looks like they wil be opening in ten to fourteen days.
Is that the J.A. formerly of M.M.?
uh, lilith, where is my sushi?
J.A. still of the M.M. and a place or two in richmond. . . .
to answer the like or no like question of “foodsies” - no like. what is it supposed to mean? food news? views on food? foodsies sounds a little affected to me.
i like foodsies, just like newsies….I like any word ending with ies….
it’s very cuddly. you can do politicsies, weekend previewies, sex with roboties, oyies, silmoies, 2o4sies……it’s affected with love.
ooh we’re so cool. let’s talk in abbreviations. j.k! i hung at m.g tonight with l.f. and t.d. haha. ttyl. lmao. you forgot M. F. He went to P.R. for vacation and you forgot he was an owner? o.m.g. y’all.
Now if they would only replace the mindless programming (sports) with some other mindless programming on these bar tvs, for instance with something like erh PORN, then we could have our selves a nice little social behavior experiment….
2o4, what are you doing up this late? I’m sorry we didn’t invite you out! It would have been so much fun!?! I think we rounded up another for poker though?
nighty night
HD I made Sil invite me too, even though I knew I couldn’t make it, just to feel included, so he did, it was very nice in an arm–twisting sort of way.
I know, he spilled his guts.
I still wish we’d had you along
Now I feel really warm and fuzzy inside H-D thank you and on that note nighty-night
A coffee bar, in a city where I once lived, had a little nook that showed the Independent Film Channel, as well as the occasional DVD. I thought that added to the milieu.
Someone, bring me a cigarette and an espresso! But mostly the cigarette!