Nicola’s Veggies is this tiny door in the wall veggie restaurant located on 110 2nd St. NW (the north side of 2nd street on the Downtown Mall). When I say “door in the wall”, I literally mean it. Nicola’s interior space must not occupy more than 35 square feet. You order through a screen window next to the door, and someone inside, most likely a nice woman named Kimberly will scramble away making your lunch a hopefully green experience. And she really does scramble, but it must be ridiculously hard working in that tiny space, so if it takes 5 min to build you a great salad, please don’t give her any crap.
Their size does not detract from the food quality.It is owned by the same owners as Marco and Luca. I have had the exquisite pleasure of ordering lunch from them since they opened, and every time its delicious. Now I have to warn you, if you don’t like vegetables, like really hate them, then you might not like this. Nicola’s offers you a veggie overload.
So the Charlottesville City Farmers Market is one way to participate in this scene, but there are many other places to embrace this spirit all over town. Courtesy of the Piedmont Environmental Council’s Buy Fresh Buy Local guide, here is the directory to end all directories for the local food scene:
So I am officially ending my vacation, breaking the chains of my previous imprisonment, and embracing the food scene in full force. I am skinny, weak and oh so hungry. I was told by my superiors that Cville wasn’t ready for a trigger happy food critic…some of you think otherwise.
Let’s clear up some air over here. First a little background on myself so you don’t think I am completely full of the shizzle. I was born in this country to a family of European parents who absolutely love food. If there was one time in the day where we can break the Guinness Book of World Records record for loudest conversation, it was definitely at the dinner table. Eating is not just a necessity for me, it’s life. It is the conductor to my life’s symphony. My parents have spent the last 30 years in the food business with me at their side, so inevitably, I have a particularly strong connection with food.
It seems not all farms are treated fairly, and our local sweetheart, Polyface Farm, seems be getting the cold shoulder from the USDA. Joel Salatin mentions he would like to sell custom slaughtered meat, but can’t. The irony here is that the government is OK with us eating his meat in any way shape or form, as long as we don’t give him money for it. It must be processed at a USDA approved facility bla bla bla. Have any of you seen Fast Food Nation? Would you prefer one of our local boys cutting the meat or the heathens in the meat factories? I know regulations are there for a reason, but they don’t always bring out the best.
Exactly. So cVillains, who’s for Joel selling us his meat?
So I embarked on an odyssey last week (does that sound too serious?), to find out about cville’s vegetarian offerings. Given some of the comments on the posts related to this, let me clarify what that means. I was not looking for vegetarian ONLY restaurants, just places that, lets says you took a date to that happened to be vegetarian, he/she would be quite happy. So all of you hippies take a hike, this is not the post for you.
Dependable Zo.Ca.Lo…what do you have to offer to those meat weary folks? Apparently just one dish, an amazing dish I have never had before in my life. The lone vegetarian warrior on the entrees menu is the “Black Bean and Corn Relleno”. I really didn’t know what to expect, I just read the description: smoked tomato grits, smoked pico, cilantro buttermilk honey”, figured it was cool to eat and ordered. I should warn you, this isn’t some “I am on a diet so I am trying out vegetarian food” type of dish. This thing definitely has healthy quantities of butter and cream…perhaps French cuisine had an affair with a Mexican damsel from the south and many years later Mr. Frenchie comes back to town to find out he has a lost daughter…this is his little chalupita.
If you are looking for the vegetarian deal of the century, then Eppie’s on the downtown mall is the place to be. Their menu offering is pretty meat heavy except for the side’s section, which allows you the choice of a veggie only platter in 3 or 4 choice combos with a generous piece of corn bread.
I opted for mac n’ cheese, collard greens and coleslaw. For around 6 bucks I received an impressive amount of food that I couldn’t even finish. Everything on the plate was good quality. Not to say there isn’t any room for improvement like making the collard greens in a more modern manner or using a different cheese on the mac n’cheese, but the value per vegetable was really good. They had a wide variety of sides on the menu which I will definitely go back for. For a southern food lunch, it was light and left me happy…happy to know even with western fare this vegetarian craze can be satiated!
I also noted one of the kitchen staff came outside to offer a bowl of water for one of the customers that had their dog with them. I found that to be a terrific gesture. Talk about southern hospitality!
I know, a brewery? I would think the same thing…but I go where the wind takes me this week, and everyone seemed to finish the work day at South Street’s famous Tuesday evenings, full of cheap excellent beer and worthy grub. This review will be short and snappy.
I feared South Street would break my vegetarian streak of the week (and it was only Tuesday), but the words “portobello ravioli” called my name from the menu. I didn’t even bother reading the description assuming there was nothing in this meat related. Yes, I was right. The ravioli were giant round circles cooked perfectly and filled with sautéed portobello…they were dam good. The sauce was a crème based cheese sauce topped with parmesan cheese. This dish alone made the evening a success.
I couldn’t find anything else on the menu that appealed to my inner veggie except for the veggie optioned nachos. Did I miss something else on the menu worth noshing on?
I had the pleasure of attending yesterday’s UVa student presentation on the Charlottesville Glocal Food System. I know, Vanillavy is handling all of the “green” stuff this week, but a flyer for the event caught my eye and I thought it would be a great break from the office. This is (what appears to be) a yearly event for a class at UVA focused on the local food economy/eco system. The class, consisting of both graduate and undergraduate sutdents, is titled “Healthy Communities, Healthy Food Systems (Part III): Global-Local Connections”. Now that is a mouthful. The following presentations were made:
Day 2, the fight to eat vegetables continues. I feel a bit lighter and have a little more energy, but also feel a little gassy (I know, gross). Yet, the challenge goes on, and yesterday I found myself at the hippie strip mall on Preston Avenue. I mean hippie with the best of intentions. There is a yoga studio, The New Body Mind Spirit, where I had the pleasure of speaking with a hippie instructor. Apparently if you are part of the elderly or pregnant population in cville, this is the yoga studio for you. They focus more on the “intention” than the movement like a traditional vinyasa. Next door to the yoga studio is Blue Ridge Eco Shop. This is basically a store that has more green than your stomach/wallet/house can handle. They have everything from clothes to lights to cleaning products, very cool.
And then in the corner a couple feet away is Café 88. What is it with Asian restaurants and double digit numbers anyways? The previous founder/owner of cville’s vegetarian haunt Ming Dynasty, Li Chen, started a new Taiwanese café. The place is teeny tiny like a little baby, and the menu is even smaller. While some might balk at that, there is something refreshing about having limited options…there are so many restaurants out there that give the consumer so much choice, it’s a task in itself to order.
