I’ve been wanting to keep news a little lighter this week, so a good review for Eppie’s is in order.

While potentially isolated negative experiences are hard to go from, I sympathized with Yupster’s recent salad woes. Being told you can’t have exactly what you’re there for is news that’s hard to swallow, and it’s happened to everyone at some point. I’m under the impression she was more surprised with the downtown lunch culture. I’d say regulars are kind of a big deal.

But I digress. After all, it sounded like she loved the meal she ate. Not surprising, there.

Eppie’s is great. Soup, salads, pastas, chicken, and southern-style vegetable plates are all for the taking for under $10. Diners order at the cash register, wait about five minutes, then pick up their tray or to-go bag. It’s a smooth operation. The space feels cozy but open, and the patio is one of the mall’s summertime see-and-be-seen locales, with its location between 4th and 5th east. It’s so family-friendly, too, that I want to order like a munchkin and have a PB, marshmallow, and banana sandwich. And one of these days, I will.

Not long ago, Eppie’s launched its daily specials menu, and I’ve tried to memorize it so as not to be too conspicuous. Dan, if I’m wrong, correct me!

I’m a salad kind of person myself (if you hadn’t noticed) and make a strong case for the Santa Monica with chicken. I couldn’t believe myself, because »Read More

Popularity: 3% [?]

I warned Escafe about the rave review I’d be giving it, and here it is.

Setting

Located just west of the three blocks between 2nd W and 3rd E that informally constitute “restaurant row” of the downtown mall, Escafe seems seldom stumbled across by newcomers and tourists. My mom and I did just that, however, when I moved here in 2001, and it has been a favorite lunch destination when she visits ever since. I think that most restaurants get one chance to win over a diner, two chances with me. But if every meal I’ve had at Escafe were its one chance, it wins every time.

Service

Loyals (as opposed to “regulars”) were nervous when Doug and Sean announced they were leaving in 2003, but »Read More

Popularity: 5% [?]

…at risk of pulling a CocoNUT…

When Thor and I review restaurants on cVillain.com, we often talk about our servers’ decorum, interior design, the crowd the business attracts, and wait time for our meals. We have precious little control over these elements, if any.

But I still have control over my enjoyment of the most important elements of dining out: my company, and the meal itself.

Since I can’t offer up the identities of my favorite dining companions so you can ask them out (or my own identity, oh happy day!)…
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Popularity: 2% [?]

I love Bang. (I can practically hear the management’s sigh of relief from here!) For me, it has been a  girls night out destination, a third date destination, and a professional socialization destination since it opened. It is always a special occasion to go to Bang, because it’s Bang.

The menu is a diverse selection of tapas-style dishes, and every time I eat there, my table goes through the same routine of wanting everything and painstakingly narrowing the options based on who ate what most recently. Some dishes never get exhausted. If Bang were to remove from the menu its calamari, trio of salads, salmon nori roll, or sixty-second sirloin, I think a bang would be the least of the commotion. When the cocktail menu changed a few years ago, for example, bartenders found themselves still making old drinks for clientele who just couldn’t let go. I’ve never even seen someone remark that none of the cocktails look good to them. There are only, like, more than 20 to choose from.

And it’s hard not to fall for the place, inside and out. The wallpaper and the backlight of the bar make Bang one of the sexier (-est?) settings in town. (For this reason, I typically avoid doing anything relating to work there. I once felt unnaturally toward a colleague halfway through cocktails and small plates upstairs.) The walled-in patio with Christmas-lit trees stays popular even when it gets cold.

The servers are lookers, too, aren’t they? Under the influence of Ketel One and orange wallpaper, I once left an employee my phone number and actually thought he’d call. I later discovered it happened nightly. (And maybe I’m not the bombshell I thought I was!) I bet their filing cabinet of job applications has to be emptied regularly. My one recommendation is to the servers: remember it’s our special occasion, no matter how often we come see you.

Popularity: 4% [?]

[not the cville one]

I won’t help you win, but I will help you not look like an idiot when you go for your first time.

1: Go early, but not that early.
If you’re going with a group of four or more and want to sit at a table, you should arrive by 7:00. I’ve had friends be so committed to trivia night that they’ll save a table by drinking by themselves until friends arrive. The friends are so appreciative that they buy the staker-outter drinks. Then they’re too drunk to play. Just make your friends go with you.

2: Make up a funny team name, but don’t expect anyone to laugh at it.
Bunny rabbits die when the team names are announced. They’re disgusting. Do not think you can come up with the funniest team name ever. Trust me. You can’t. Start out with something simple like, “I [did] K-Fed and now my [crustaceans with pincers] have [STD that rhymes with slurp]. Don’t look at me like that.

3: Don’t wait for the TV.
The questions get called out over a loudspeaker and you submit your answers on paper. It’s not Damon’s. Go to the table in front of the TV and collect one score sheet and way more answer sheets than you need. (I don’t have to tell you to do this. You’ll do it anyway.)

4: Make your table shut up while the questions are being asked.
You might feel rude, but how do you plan to dominate Trivia Night if you can’t hear the question? Once the question is out, they can go back to singing Toto.

5: Know how to score.
Three categories are announced before each round, and you’re supposed to decide then whether to assign 1, 3, or 5 points to each category, based on your confidence in knowing the answers. The antes are upped in the second half. Once you write your answer down, the table “bitch” brings it to the front to be scored.

I’ve learned over “the years” that Trivia Night is neither for the weak of intellect nor weak of liver. So unofficial #6: Keep track of what you’re drinking. Lame? Well, if you like having your boss still be able to smell beer on your breath at 5pm Thursday, go ahead and drink two pitchers of Blue Moon. If you want to avoid Rule 6, invite your boss to join your team, but let them make up the team name. Good luck!

Popularity: 7% [?]

John Turturro

The 20th annual Virginia Film Festival takes place November 1-4 with the theme “Kin Flicks.” Over the past 20 years, the festival has paid homage to classic and cult films, shocked audiences with experimental art, and imported Hollywood’s finest talent. This year, it does it again with a focus on the fam.

The goal is to educate as much as it is to entertain. As part of 1999’s Technovisions program, audiences experienced Odorama with John Waters’ Polyester. Every year, a film’s production is broken down in a shot-by-shot presentation by someone who contributed to its making or who should know. In 2003 I was captivated listening to Frank Pierson, then the president of the Academy, talk about recreating a bank robbery in Dog Day Afternoon. Roger Ebert did it with Antonioni’s Blowup in 1998. The stars who come always teach, from Sydney Pollack (2001) to Sandra Bullock (2004).

Of course, people do love the stars who show up.

What do I recommend? Everything, because there’s something for everyone. Be the first to see Honeydripper, with John Sayles. See Dirty Dancing on the bigscreen. Ask Alan Berliner talk about his inner demons. Bring your kids to see Charlie Chapman in The Kid with live musical accompaniment on Sunday. Tickets are $6 and $9 (day and evening). Buy online at www.vafilm.com. Charlottesville, we’re lucky to have this.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Folks, was there an excess of nitrous balloons around the downtown mall late Saturday night or was it just me?  I didn’t know Charlottesville was that public about its drug consumption.

[pic]

Popularity: 3% [?]

Greetings, I was toying with the idea of posting this top ten on my MySpace page, but nobody but oy would appreciate my efforts I am afraid. PLEASE do not construe this as a rant or complaint, this compilation is solely meant to be an observation.

So guys here is. And please feel free to chime in.

In no specific order, the Disproportionate Prevalence list of my beloved Charlottesville.
Disclaimer: This list has been created using purely the organic and 100% recyclable phrase ”Charlottesville has too darn many … “

…Real Estate Agents/Attorneys, (Pick your evil)

…Braids (new trend lately?)

…Publicly juggling pre-teen boys

…Volunteers

…Lightening strikes

…Networking groups networking the heck out of every little available space in every little coffee bar in town.

…Honda Elements/Toyota Prius (again, pick your evil)

…Tabloid Sized “Opinion-zines”/Public opinion outlets. (Note I didn’t use the word Rant)

…Bowties’n’suspenders

…Bumper stickers (On the front)

I know the cvillians out there are a tough crowd, and this is what they do for fun?!

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Popularity: 2% [?]

It is a matter of incontrovertible truth that the finest burrito in town can be had at El Paso Grocery Store on the corner of Meade and Market. In the back of the store, one finds Charlottesville’s closest equivalent to a taqueri­a. (N.B., Excluded from the current taxonomy is the infamous taco truck, for as a mobile food-service unit, said taco truck can at any moment exist outside the boundaries of Charlottesville. It’s still, rumor has it, delicious.)

Certainly, other burritos merit mention: Atomic’s is good; Blue Moon’s breakfast burrito is quite comestible (though, truth be told, “breakfast burrito” in general probably ought to be a category unto itself); Qdoba’s is good but gets automatically disqualified because it’s owned by Jack in the Box. So, El Paso rests atop of a delectable pile of burrito makers.

And yet, despite the preponderance of delicious burritos in-town, one encounters a veritable burrito black hole in the 29 North/Hollymead area (where many a fine Cvillian’s your current author included punches his or her timecard, despite living in-town). This burrito shortfall is at once lamentable and reparable.

With the opening of Martin’s Grill Riverside (whoops!) and Christian’s Pizza, we have witnessed the successful transition of downtown operations to an outskirt location. Certainly, a burrito entrepeneur an El Paso II, even?! let us not overexcite ourselves”will eventually follow suit. It can’t possibly happen too soon.

Popularity: 5% [?]

To me, Mediterranean dining in Charlottesville meant tomato basil soup at Cafe Europa and marinated eggplant at Aroma’s. “Greek” or “Middle Eastern” don’t even come close to warranting their own categories in the Hook and C-VILLE’s restaurant listings. I just lived without falafel, really…

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Popularity: 5% [?]