We are all up in arms about gas prices and no one has mentioned rising food prices in cville…lunch for 2 at a fast food place like Sticks was $20!? Wow! But, it was a great, filling lunch.
Falafel Sandwich
Like the chicken, it came on a standard food-service grade thick pita bread. Add some chopped iceburg lettuce, sliced roma tomatoes and cucumber yogurt sace to provide the bed for the perfectly fried falafel, and for $5.95 you have yourself a deal. Don’t expect the traditional ball-shaped falafel. these guys look like shrunken garden-burgers (kinda of endearing but strange looking at the same time). My first reaction was that they are industrial products, and judging by the shape alone they could be….eerily perfect. But once you bite into it the taste tells you otherwise (so I think)…the texture and tastes of the falafel mix are bright and savory with a nutty finish that lets you know you are eating chick peas. The only thing I can knock this sandwich on is the bread. It is far too thick and chewy to deserve sitting next to the veggies and falafel. Something lighter, thinner, and more toasted would make a better fit I think. With these sandwiches its always a tough battle between picking a bread that wont tear and leave you eating a sandwich out of the palm of your hand and a bread that has that nice, toasty, crunchy lightness that lets the contents speak for themselves.
Chicken Kebob Sandwich
There are a couple things that make a great grilled chicken sandwich
- crispy exterior
- moist inside
- charred flavor lines on the outside
and Sticks hits it right on with these grilled to order sandwiches. With such big pieces of chicken it would be nice to be served an extra 1/2 portion of the accompanying sauce to wash down the animal protein. Like the aforementioned falafel, the bread is the weakest link and is definitely store-bought.
Humus and Pita Chips
Let me start off by saying that what they serve in the humus tastes good, but it doesn’t necessarily taste like humus. The humus here was hard to pin down for three reasons: taste, texture and color. It is supposedly made with chick peas, olive oil, lemon, garlic and sesame (I assume they mean tahini), but for the life in me it doesn’t look right. I have made homemade humus countless times at home since New Years and have yet to make something that has a color different than the source chick peas. The humus itself has a color mixed between light brown/light orange with flakes of a green vegetable in there (perhaps parsley?). The taste is milder than chickpeas and tahini which leads me to believe there could be another bean in the mix. I really cannot think of another reason for the odd color/taste besides using a recipe which is non-standard for humus.
The chips are really good. But, the menu says they are grilled, but I am willing to bet they are deep fried. They are crispy and oily as hell. Looks like they use the same bread as the sandwich….maybe there is a good use for store-bought bread after all?
Final Thoughts
Definitely try this place out for lunch. They are quite busy at that time and have a nice outdoor seating area with umbrellas. And do try the humus and try to help us solve the mystery of the cryptic taste/color/texture.
Falafel Neon a la Flickr
Full Menu For All You Hungry Villains That Are Reading This When You Should Be Working
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Tagged as: arabic, foodie, kabob, lebanese, middle eastern, persian, turkish, vegan, veggie
Sticks is awesome. Their sauces are specially good. I’m a big fan of the creamy cilantro one
Sticks has never been all that cheap but it has always been yummy!
I am particularly fond of their salad. It comes with lettuce, tomatos, cukes, carrots, croutons, and grilled onions. You get one stick of your choice (I like the pork) and a lemon vinegarette. I always add olives and feta. $8 + change for a delicious salad.
Thanks for the review, coco. Which location did you try? They are on Preston across from McGradys and in the Giant shopping center on Pantops. I was at the one on Pantops yesterday.
whoops! i tried the one on Preston…forget some places in cville have multiple spots!
Guess I went on the wrong night…had the Falafel Platter couple weeks ago and thought it just OK. The falafel was overdone and dry, which was disappointing as it was the center of the meal. The eggplant salad was good, and the rice, as rice tends to be, just there, just fine. This was at the Preston location. Not poor enough to write it off, but made me think twice about how often I would be back.
Dude, you ate humus?!
/oh, right. nevermind.
Rice in most restaurants in this country sucks. Usually commercial ops use the Uncle Ben’s style parboil rice which is this el cheapo rice grain that has zero taste and a nasty hard texture. Good rice is usually found in most Japanese and good South American restaurants. Both styles are completely different, but two areas of the world whose citizens demand the rice usually be perfect.
haha, yes coconut welcome to the internet. I had humMus, thanks for the correction!
They all serve white rice too which has, like zero percent nutritional value I think.
My Chinese friends that own Taiwan Garden tell me that rice has almost tripled in price!
Thank you, ethanol.
thanks for the correction!
Actually, Wikipedia lists “humus” as an accepted transliteration, so it was a dumb joke but not a correction.
Ethanol is not the main factor in rising food prices, although it is a tiny piece. The demand for food is growing which places higher demand on fertilizer and seed prices among other things.
Rising fuel prices for example make transit of rice from Asia more expensive than before. That is mostly due to our increase in fuel consumption, of which ethanol has not had such a huge impact yet (ethanol does decrease your gas mileage!).
Has anyone else been sick from Sticks? Tasty menu, but I’ve been violently ill twice and sicky feeling 2-3 more times after eating at Sticks on Preston. 3 more cases among my friends. That pretty much accounts for 100% of my experience with food poisoning in the past 10 years, and the fact that it’s always at Sticks makes it seem highly unlikely that it’s coincidence. My bet is that they have some standard procedure they use (like maybe scraping the dregs of the old cilantro-lime sauce into the fresh batch every day?) that breeds salmonella or something.
Not kidding! I mentioned it to the manager once, and I’ve always kinda wanted to send a bit of that cilantro sauce to a path lab, but ultimately couldn’t be bothered. So I’m wondering if anyone else has had a bad experience after eating at Sicks.
@12- Ethanol IS a major factor driving food prices up. Read the OECD report published just yesterday. Ethanol / biodiesel production is cited as one of the major factors.
The HUGE spike in grain prices since 2005-6 is primarily a result of massive droughts in grain-producing regions like Australia. But the ill-advised political push for biofuels is widely seen as a major factor that will increase food prices for the next decade.
@13 not for nothing but you seem not to like any place you go. You slammed Bizou and now Sticks. Perhaps you’re a victim of “waiter revenge” or the unluckiest guy in cville because both those places have never done me wrong.
Sticks is co-owned by the dude who owns Hamilton’s. I’m sure he keeps the place up to standards. And my bf’s friend got food poisoning form The Local the other night but I will still go eat there.
The corn used for ethanol is not the corn we eat. Ethanol’s effect on grain prices is the result of farmers choosing to grow indsutrial ethanol friendly corn vs. the corn we eat, or the crap they process into corn byproducts which are very unhealthy.
Specifically to rice, I would think the effect is indirect, more of a commodity market scare since rice grows in a different environment than corn.
Another thing to look at is the amount of corn used for ethanol, that we actually use, vs. the amount of corn we use to eat directly, and indirectly through processed corn products. I would think the growth for corn derived products is greater than that of ethanol.
@15- no secret that I think C’ville has suk restaurants. I can list dozens of places that i like, but unfortunately none of them are in Charlottesville. Except for The Local. Which I thought was rather good. But I just heard that it’s another good place to get food poisoning.
@16- I’m not suggesting that Sticks is actively dirty or anything. But I’d be willing to bet that they have been doing something wrong. Things like that can happen, especially when staffers develop a habit of doing something a particular way not realizing the risk. Food poisoning isn’t just getting a stomach ache, it’s officially described as becoming “explosively ill”, and is typically caused by bacterial contamination. Health inspectors in most places just look at things like cleanliness cooler temperatures. They don’t routinely do lab tests for bacteria.
Speaking of food poisoning, you all know you can read the health inspectors reports on any restaurant in town here:
http://www.healthspace.ca/Clients/VDH/TJefferson/TJefferson_Website.nsf
Click “Restaurant Inspections” up on the left, type in any name and go to town.
This is, however, why I have scratched a few venues off my list, so be ready.
/my tax dollars at work!
@17- an economist you are not, methinks. It’s all about acreage. Land that was being used to produce food corn and feed corn is planted in biofuel crops because the profit that yields per acre is higher. Less acreage planted in food corn decreases supply. Price goes up. That’s rather basic agricultural economics.
@18 Shen said you were rich hedge fund trader who liked BBQ, she just didn’t say you were an elitist snob.
Your delicate system seems to be at odds with the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and several other national and regional publications who have long lauded the local food scene. If you don’t like anything in Charlottesville that’s your right but your vitriol for all restaurants local just hurts a lot of fine local business.
You’ve got the cash, open up a place and show us how it’s done.
OH SNAP
@18- Yeah, yeah, and you’re a foul-tempered kraut! Now that we’ve got the name-calling out of the way…
I like good food and good service, and I’m critical of the local food scene, but that doesn’t exactly make me an elitist snob. And vitriol? No, that’s YOUR middle name Deety-boy. When a “fine local business” like Bizou serves me raw pink chicken I don’t think it’s unreasonable to mention it publicly. I’ve no grudge against Bizou, but I would rather they cooked the chicken before they serve it.
Notwithstanding your obnoxious speculation about the depths of my pockets I have seriously considered opening a restaurant here. But I think the local taste kind of runs to “cheap and greasy”. (That’s not intended as an insult–take an honest look at what’s popular on local menus.) I could “show you how it’s done”, but I’m not confident it would be profitable to try.
@23 You can’t find ONE place in Charlottesville that you consider good (the Local looks to be a maybe) and you’re not a snob. Sorry Old Boy, that dog doesn’t hunt. You are the very definition of a snob. You also said that they served you a bottle cap in your meatloaf @ Bizou- I’ll bet that never happened. Re-read your comment @13, that is vitriol (Bitterly abusive feeling or expression- so you don’t have to look it up)
Really, a hedge fund guy is going to call my speculation on his net wealth obnoxious and then tell me that your actual considering opening a place. Priceless! You brand most local cuisine as “cheap and greasy” and say it’s not an insult. So everybody here at Cvillain who likes any place in Charlottesville (other than the Local) is beneath your cultured palate. Fascinating!
Finally you admit you could show me how it’s done and yet you can’t make money at it. Making money serving good food is how it’s done- or didn’t they teach that to you at business school.
Play nice.
Damn I missed some fun today.
yeah, flooze. It’s friday and everyone was on and effing lively.
Oh well… got to earn a buck and I don’t do that sitting my ass in front of the computer so I should be grateful. I could not be a Dilbert .
@20 we are talking about the same thing, read again.
Mmmmm…..I do love the food at Sticks - one of my fav places
May I heartily recommend Sticks limeade? It’s great. Pricey, yes, but yummy for sure. Me, I’m partial to the chili spiked beef with the cilantro lime sauce. Side of the cucumber-tomato salad please.
Tho I’ve had most of the other sides and they are good too.
When I bring out of town friends to Sticks, they always say they wish there was one near them.
The orange-y color of the hummus, I’m wondering if they throw in a little paprika perhaps?
Ok, now I need lunch….
[…] front-counter. They looked dam good. If I had known this was a semi-lunch spot I would have skipped Sticks and had pizza instead. A couple people were there just for the pizza, so it should be at least […]
you would have to throw in a helluva lot of paprika to make it that orange…by then it would be so bad, you just use it as cement. Maybe there is a roasted red pepper or something. Oh the mysteries of local hummus (two h’s).
try Mona Lisa’s pizza and let us know if it tastes as good as it looks!
@ jay la tete: we have conflicting reports from the same government:
I asked the one of the owners ty, what make the hummus that orange like color and he said that it is a little paprika and a little coriander and cumin. And as or the rice there is kinda health there is fresh basil in it.