They’ve got balls
The new spot on West Main Street might be called One Meatball Place, but the place has a lot more balls than just one and they’re not all made from meat. If Bubba from Forrest Gump worked there, he’d list your options: “Get ’em on a sub, on pasta, on a pizza, on a salad, flattened on bread, by themselves. There’s beef balls, pork balls, chicken balls, vegan balls, salmon balls, falafel balls, special balls. There’s marinara sauce, spicy green chili sauce, mushroom gravy sauce, pesto sauce, alfredo sauce, BBQ sauce, tahini sauce, mediterranean hot sauce, cucumber yogurt sauce, special sauce. Provolone cheese, mozzarella cheese, parmigiano cheese. That’s, that’s about it.”
Starter sammies
Breakfast, as we know from our mothers, is the most important meal of the day. But don’t limit yourself with a soggy bowl of cereal or a boring bran muffin. Try one of these breakfast sammies to start your day with a real snap, crackle, pop.
Ace Biscuit & Barbeque serves up a simple ’wich of homemade chorizo, egg, and your choice of cheese on one of its signature biscuits (above) at its Henry Avenue shop.
At Calvino Café in the Main Street Market, go Italiano with the Cassanova: Italian sausage, roasted tomato, red peppers, asiago cheese, and egg.
Try the breakfast burrito Downtown at Café Cubano: a flour tortilla filled with eggs scrambled with cheddar and tomatillo salsa. In a word, scrumptious.
East meets West
Husband and wife owners Xioanan Wang and Hui Quiao opened C’Ville Oriental Market in its first incarnation on Carlton Road 18 years ago after the couple moved to town from San Francisco for Hui’s job as a UVA researcher. Back then, our fair city’s tiny Asian population had to truck to Richmond or D.C. for basic supplies, so they filled the void with a modest Chinese grocery.
Well things have changed. In August the store reopened in a huge standalone building on 29N just short of the intersection with Greenbrier Drive, a reflection of demand for the over 1,500 products that line its colorful shelves and the owners’ desire to serve a growing and diverse local Asian community.
If you are cooking Asian-inspired food, there is no comparison between what you’ll find in an Asian market and what you’ll find in the grocery store’s international section, where brands like Kame sell a whole line of sauces, noodles, and flavorings. You might not be able to read the bottle, but you can bet that a $10 bottle of oyster sauce selected from a shelf full of Chinese-made oyster sauces at different price points will taste a lot better on your bok choy.
Also, the produce specials can be impossibly cheap and rewarding. You can get a family-sized bag of yu choy or Chinese broccoli for $2, fresh tofu and seaweed, and impossible-to-find ingredients like whole frozen jackfruit. Not sure what you’d do with a whole frozen jackfruit, but I’m sure you can find out on the InterWeb.
C’Ville Oriental is Chinese-owned and the lion’s share of the stock is certainly Chinese-focused, but Hui said the mission is “to bring in one country after another.” The store now carries nearly a half-aisle of Indian dry goods, popular Fillipino brands like Mama Sita, an array of Thai and Vietnamese noodles, and Japanese favorites like Golden Curry.
If you’re cooking an Asian-inspired Epicurious recipe, take a trip to C’ville Oriental and use it as your point of entry. The staff is extremely helpful and will point you to the tamarind paste for your homemade pad thai. Regulars swarm for the fresh Peking duck that comes down from D.C. at the end of the week and Hui says they intend to add fresh crab and live fish to the mix (the aquariums are already there). Talk about changing with the times: C’Ville Oriental is also available through Relay Foods, if you’re too busy pressing your own tofu to make it to the store.
Eye on the pie
“Cake need not apply,” warns the info page at CvillePieFest.com. What started in 2010 as a playful social media sound-off between two online food personalities—Marijean Jaggers (Pie It Forward) and Brian Geiger (The Food Geek)—has grown into an annual community event full of crust and verve. Charlottesville Pie Fest is part baking contest, part pie tasting, and part silent auction all to benefit PACEM, an organization that matches up shelter space to homeless individuals.
Baking hopefuls reserve their slot online and then come bearing two of their pies to a public judging location. But half the fun is the social media smack-talking that leads up to judgment day. Weeks before rolling out their dough and fluffing their fillings, participants begin to tease and taunt one another via Facebook and Twitter (#cvillepiefest). A little pie in the eye to fire up the rivalry.
Other than round in shape with a pastry or crumb crust, any pie goes at the Charlottesville Pie Fest. Some bakers rely on inventive twists while others stand on grandma’s recipe. In 2010, it was a caramel green tomato pie that sweet-talked the judges and, in 2011, it was a more traditional (but no less delicious) cherry almond pie that took first prize.
This year’s Fest just happened on October 14 (can you still smell the fruit-filled scent of victory?), but start honing your recipe now and you’ll be serving up a slice of humble pie to next year’s competition.
Coocoo for hot cocoa
Forget Swiss Miss. Serious hot chocolate lovers know the good stuff comes more closely resembling a melted chocolate bar than the runny stuff you prepare at home. Locally, grab a mugful of Splendora’s pudding-thick Italian version on the Downtown Mall or at the City Market on Saturday morning from Diane LaSauce’s booth, Free Union Produce & Gourmet Edibles. BYOM (bring your own mug) and fill it up with her Parisian-style chocolat chaud topped with a few of her homemade marshmallows. If you’re hell-bent on staying in your jammies for hot cocoa, keep a bag of Gearhart’s Maya Drinking Chocolate mix that’s spiced up with ancho chile, cinnamon, and orange in the pantry and get back under the covers.