While scanning through my daily news, aka my RSS feed, I stumbled upon an interesting article from UNCUS. This particular article was about a new restaurant on 29 and Rio. The place is a Middle Eastern Kabob place. This could be some interesting and exciting news. If you happen to be up 29 and want a healthy snack - you now have one.

We undoubtedly review this new place called, Zam Zam Kabob. It is scheduled to open next week. Surely we will not judge it in anyway based on the fact that we have heard nothing about it and its stellar name. All jokes aside, it sounds pretty good and I look forward to eating there and/or hearing about it.

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Popularity: 40% [?]

The cat is out of its bag. OXO has been sold and it is no more. We don’t know the details on the new owner or the plans, but we are sad to see it go. I wish the new owner could come on here and let us know his plans. If anyone knows him send him this way!

While we did get an anonymous tip about 2 months ago regarding OXO being on the auction block, we didn’t believe it. Sorry birdie.. you were right.

Let’s recap OXO’s brief history.

August 5th, 2007 - cVillain’s Iron discovers the late night scene at OXO. We rave that “people were actually dancing!” We also critique some of the shortcomings of a restaurant that had little experience with the late night scene.

September 7th, 2007 - OXO learns how to walk, starts to advertise and we send our spies. At that point we were almost as young as OXO, but we saw potential. OXO was hawt.

November 19th, 2007 - OXO grows too big for its own britches. We feel bad because we loved it too much and it turned into one of those problem children. You can read the post, but “You had so much potential, so much independence, so much going for you. You almost had it just right. But you failed to listen and now you are not what I desire.” Things would change for the better.
January 19th, 2008 - The dancing gets dangerous. Drinks are banned on the dance floor.

Spring 2008 - Not sure when exactly, but OXO introduced the infamous Velvet Rope and VIP cards.

April 21st, 2008 - OXO has its bondage party. We have some pictures and wonder how to get more people in leather.

June 16th, 2008 - Closure. No forewarnings to staff or to us. And like that, she was dead.

It is sad to see one of quickest growing, most frustrating and most exciting late night scenes die in Charlottesville. cVillain will miss friendly faces, a default cVillain hangout, professional service and lots of dancing. OXO, you just matured into a sexy, young adult and you left Charlottesville. Maybe we will get to meet again…for now, au revoir.

*tear*

Popularity: 59% [?]

Well, in case you have been living under a rabbit hole in the last few weeks, you may have missed out on some juicy restaurant gossip. It seems as though one of Charlottesville’s finest is for sale, someone new is doing late nights and a former player has lost its mojo. Which is which?

You have to guess…

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Popularity: 51% [?]

Sometimes commenter dijonbray and I stopped into the new Guadalajara on the way home from Pantops tonight. Apparently they opened up shop on Sunday. We sat at the bar, munching chips and swilling delicious beer, while dijon waited for his food to-go. Business was quite brisk, and they seemed to be handling it quite well.  Nicely done, folks.

Also spotted on High Street: a new place poised to open called La Michoacana. Anyone got the deets on this joint? Is it to be a restaurant? A mini grocery? Somebody dish.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Charlottesville represents a never ending brunch epic. From the crowned winner, Blue Moon Diner, to our battle between Blue Moon and Blue Grass, to our (now) slightly outdated weekend brunch guide, you will never be short options (or a line) to eat brunch on Sunday mornings.

Enter Zo Ca Lo, the place we once compared to an Opium den. As a hip little newster to town, Zo Ca Lo must have felt left out. Ok, so maybe I’m showing my age as Zo Ca Lo has been around for 5 (?) years now. Zo Ca Lo has a reputation around town; a reputation for doing some excellent Tuna tartar, gracing us with amazing cheese balls and some very solid entrées. The restaurant has not garnered a reputation for change, but we are happy to see it finally changing its M.O. after five years.

Just a few weeks ago now, Zo Ca Lo decided to open on Sundays and flex its brunch muscles to an eager Charlottesville. We published the menu if you need to refer to it during this review. Now, what did we think?

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Popularity: 29% [?]

Ned Oldham is an educator, writer, and musician. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia in 1993, and since then has taught writing at several colleges, including University of Virginia and Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. As a writer and musician, he has published dozens of arts features for magazines including Baltimore and the Oxford American, and released seven albums with his band, The Anomoanon. He is currently the director of the Write Place, the writing center at Roland Park Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore.

Is this guy reviewing our restaurants???

Check out his Photo here for you restaurateurs

http://www.braintargetedteaching.org/aboutus.html

Popularity: 29% [?]

I noticed that there wasn’t a review on this. You don’t have to post this, cause I know my restaurant reviews suck, plus I can’t spell restaurant [fixed by editor].

My office went there the other day, and they kindly put together three tables to suit our 10 person party. The other option was to sit outside, but it was about to rain, and the man at the door made a good point, “if eet start to rain, and no table inside, you stay outside.” They set up the tables quickly and had us seated.

The menu is short, but varied. I’ve had a few things now. The meatloaf is awesome. The pork tostada looked great, but the report was that it wasn’t totally filling. I know the fried chicken is also a good choice. Everything is presented very colorfully, and yummily. This particular time I order the special, catfish tacos. They were great. I added some Sriracha sauce, cause I like things hot. I got it on my pants. I do that.

This is one of those places that forgot to or intentionally didn’t redecorate at the end of the 80’s. or maybe the 70’s. But I like the retro feel to it. The booths, however, are a little uncomfortable. The service is excellent and very cute. I like how they work together and that no one server has one table. The lunch prices are a little higher than other places ($8-12) but the food is totally worth it, in my opinion.

How about some other reviews of this place?

Popularity: 34% [?]

Most of you probably heard the rumors about The Upstairs from back in January. While rumors of funky service and a cigar bar did not materialize, we were left with a well designed restaurant that serves high end bourbon and prime grade steak. The Upstairs should appeal to a higher end diner with $8 to $14 appetizers and $19 to $45 entrées.

I had the pleasure of dining at The Upstairs this past weekend and I wanted to share my review with the world. If you are trying to find The Upstairs, it sits right above Escafe on the Ice Rink side of the downtown mall.

I like using the Ambiance, Food, Drink and Overall categorization for a restaurant review. Let me know if you want to change the structure or think I need to focus on another area.

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Popularity: 30% [?]

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.

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Popularity: 61% [?]

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.

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Popularity: 39% [?]