Tag: Eat & Drink

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Living

Korean fried chicken and sushi bowls come to UVA

Zip Chicken owners Han Lee and his wife, Mi Eum, wanted to bring Korean food to the Corner to give diners new casual eating options. Photo by Eze Amos

Han Lee and his wife, Mi Eum, moved to Charlottesville from Maryland about a month ago to open casual sit-down Korean restaurant Zip Chicken on 14th Street, across from Boylan Heights and smack dab in the middle of the Corner restaurant scene. “I know Korean isn’t as big here as it is in big cities,” he says, “but I think young people will be willing to try it out.”

Zip Chicken’s signature item is Korean fried chicken, which is lighter than its American cousin because the meat is battered with a light flour and cornstarch mixture, then fried for 10 minutes, shaken—this puts some air back into the chicken and makes it tender and juicy, says Han—and fried a second time.

It pairs nicely with beer and is well-suited to college students, Lee says.

Zip Chicken will also offer meat and tofu bibimbap bowls, salads, potstickers, kimchi and, Lee’s favorite, bulgogi—a dish made with marinated ribeye, soy and garlic sauce, hot pepper paste, lettuce, onion, mushrooms, carrots and sesame seeds. Korean food tends to be fairly healthy (and spicy), and Lee says he wants to give Charlottesville “a [new] taste, a different choice,” when it comes to casual eating options. The restaurant is scheduled to open this week.

Got Dumplings owners Phung Huynh and Bo Zhu saw a need for fresh, healthy options near UVA, and started serving mix-and-match sushi bowls last week at Poke Sushi Bowl. Photo by Eze Amos
Got Dumplings owners Phung Huynh and Bo Zhu saw a need for fresh, healthy options near UVA, and started serving mix-and-match sushi bowls last week at Poke Sushi Bowl. Photo by Eze Amos

Last week, on the ground floor of the same building, Poke Sushi Bowl began serving up Hawaiian poke—a fresh, raw fish salad that borrows ingredients and flavors from Japanese sushi—with a modern, takeaway twist. Think Chipotle or Roots Kitchen, but with sushi ingredients.

“I feel like there’s a need…for fresh and healthy items” on the Corner, says owner Phung Huynh who, along with her husband, Bo Zhu, also owns and runs Got Dumplings.

Customers can order a signature bowl or build their own with a choice of white or brown rice; proteins such as salmon, yellow tail or organic tofu; mix-ins such as cucumber, kale or edamame; housemade sauces like ponzu citrus and miso glaze; and toppings including seaweed salad, ginger and onion crisps.

Huynh is particularly fond of The Corner bowl, with salmon, mango, cucumber and avocado mixed with sweet and hot sauce and topped with eel and sesame seeds (add seaweed salad and ginger for an extra kick). The dish is an homage to Huynh’s 8-year-old daughter who loves the smoky, barbecue flavor of eel and begged Huynh to include it on the menu.

Changes in Crozet

Concluding with its dinner service Saturday, August 20, Three Notch’d Grill closed after dishing out casual American fare in Crozet for nearly 11 years. In a press release issued by the restaurant, chefs and managers Cathy and Hayden Berry say they “have decided to hang up their aprons and kick back for a bit before seeing what adventures lie ahead.”

But 5790 Three Notch’d Rd. won’t be empty for long. Current Southern Way Cafe chef Jason Fitzgerald and general manager Kellie Carter plan to open SWAY Taphouse & Grill in October. Carter says that Southern Way has outgrown its space at 5382 Three Notch’d Rd., and the entire operation—chef, kitchen staff and servers—will move down the road as SWAY. Fitzgerald will continue to hickory-smoke whole pigs (his specialty), serve up barbecue, grits, specialty burgers and more.

Redshaw leaves Timbercreek; Yoder takes the helm

Later this month, Allie Redshaw will leave her post as executive chef at Timbercreek Market, and for a very good reason: to open a restaurant of her own. Redshaw, known for her new-school American cooking and modern, locally sourced gourmet cuisine, told C-VILLE Weekly that she leaves Timbercreek “on good terms,” and that she “didn’t want to take away from the  market” while she planned her own venture. “I figured if I was going to be working as hard as I was, I might as well have some skin in the game and do it for myself,” she says, adding that she and her business partner will reveal their concept and location soon.

Redshaw opened the café at Sara and Zach Miller’s Timbercreek Market last June and before that served as sous chef at Pippin Hill; former Clifton Inn executive chef Tucker Yoder will succeed her at Timbercreek.

Sara Miller says she’ll miss Redshaw’s creativity behind the café counter, but she’s glad to have Yoder (her top pick to fill the post) on board. “Who wouldn’t want Tucker Yoder cooking for you?” she asks. Miller says that Yoder is a particularly good fit for Timbercreek because his approach to food, like the market’s, “is all about the raw product.”

Yoder, recognized for his exquisite treatments of local ingredients, served as executive chef of Clifton Inn for four years before stepping down in December 2014. Since then, he’s worked on various food projects, including a pop-up restaurant and catering.

“I have always been fond of working with local farms and farmers, and [this] seemed like a good opportunity to work directly with a great local producer,” Yoder says of his new gig, adding that Virginia farmers grow “some of the best produce on the East Coast. It’s an easy option to search out great raw ingredients and let them shine.”

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Living

Cold-brew coffee isn’t a watered down version of the original

Snowing in Space Coffee Co. co-owner Paul Dierkes, left, says adding nitrogen results in smooth, thick and creamy coffee, similar to a Guinness.

It’s been really hot. We’re all sweaty and sluggish, and most of us could use a good jolt to get through the dog days of summer.

Enter iced coffee, which, on a steamy day, can taste like the ambrosia of the gods…as long as it’s done right.

Brew a regular cup of coffee, let it cool and drop in a few ice cubes and you’ll be left with a bland, weak, watered-down brew. It might cool you down, but it won’t taste very good. There’s an art to brewing a flavorful glass of iced coffee, and coffee shops and markets all over town are mastering it with different techniques.

None of them are necessarily better than others, it’s just “a matter of preference,” says Milli Coffee Roasters owner Nick Leichtentritt.

Here are some of the methods local coffee shops are using right now.

Cold brew

A few years ago, almost nobody was cold-brewing coffee, says Shark Mountain owner and head coffee roaster Jonny Nuckols. Now, it’s all the rage, probably because the cold-brew method yields a smooth, flavorful, non-acidic beverage ideal for adding some cream and sipping slowly, he says.

Cold-brew coffee is a distinct way of brewing. As its name implies, it never touches heat. To create a batch of Shark Mountain cold brew, Nuckols finely grinds a light-roast coffee and adds the grounds to a filter bag within a nylon bag inside a five-gallon bucket. He pours about three gallons of cool water onto the grounds and lets the mixture soak for 20 to 24 hours. Then, he pours the filtered, concentrated brew into a five-gallon keg and adds water to bring the brew to a normal, but still fairly strong, strength. It’s dispensed from the keg and poured over ice as customers order.

This method extracts good flavors from the bean while leaving out the bitterness found in hot coffees, says Nuckols. Depending on the bean used, you’ll taste more chocolate, nut and berry flavors than you might with a hot cup of coffee, but you won’t get as robust a flavor profile, because high temperature is what ultimately draws out all of those notes. But still, “cold brew is definitely a good thing for the coffee industry,” he says. You can try Shark Mountain cold brew at Studio IX or at the iLab at Darden.

Shenandoah Joe’s Brain Freeze is also a cold-brew iced coffee. Owner Dave Fafara says his shops use a blend of coffees created specifically for iced coffee. Their 16-hour, triple-strained cold brew is popular: Fafara estimates that, during the summer, Shenandoah Joe moves between 100 and 125 gallons in Charlottesville each week. And JM Stock Provisions also sells cold brew—you can take home a growler of it—which they brew in-house.

Japanese style

Over at Milli Coffee Roasters on the corner of Preston Avenue and McIntire Road, Leichtentritt uses the Japanese-style iced coffee method. The resulting brew is “a little more well-balanced,” he says. “One of the big selling points of cold-brew coffee is that people say it’s very low-acid.” But, to him, “that little bit of acid is what helps make a good, balanced cup of coffee.”

Like cold brew, the Japanese-style method begins with finely ground coffee and a filter, but this method uses hot water. “It’s essentially like brewing really strong coffee” that is immediately poured—and thus cooled and diluted—over ice, Leichtentritt says. The cooled coffee is then stored in a carafe and poured over ice once again upon serving.

Cooling the coffee right away is the key. High temperatures bring out a coffee’s flavor, but the longer a brew is exposed to air as it cools, the more those flavor-packed compounds break down. Cooling the coffee quickly, with ice, helps trap and preserve those compounds.

Other shops around town, including Atlas Coffee and Mudhouse, make their iced coffee using a similar process. It’s the easiest way to make a lot of iced coffee quickly, says one Mudhouse barista.

Nitro

Nitro coffee, one of the latest coffee trends, is more like a craft beer than a brewed coffee, says Snowing in Space Coffee Co. co-owner Paul Dierkes. Nitro isn’t served on ice, but it is cold brewed and served cold from a keg. It tastes great black, but if cream and sugar is your thing, pour ’em in.

To brew nitro, Snowing in Space cold brews coffee on a large scale, kegs it, then pumps nitrogen gas into the keg at a high pressure for a long time to essentially agitate the brew. It’s served directly from the keg’s tap. Dierkes likens the resulting brew to a Guinness (a nitrogenated beer); it’s smooth, thick and creamy, with a foamy head.

Snowing in Space sources its beans from Shenandoah Joe and offers three single-origin brews, including the straightforward, nutty Brazilian Gimme-Dat and the unusual blueberry Lil Blue, and plans on introducing more varieties, including a cocoa mole flavor, soon. “The goal is experimentation,” Dierkes says while admitting he’s not a coffee connoisseur. “Let’s get experimental with styles and flavors and get interesting coffees to people.”

You can try Snowing in Space’s nitro coffee at Paradox Pastry, Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Champion Brewery. But it isn’t the only nitro in town—Shenandoah Joe and Mudhouse offer it as well.

Categories
Living

Some food trucks are putting down roots while restaurants hit the road

Morsel Compass Mobile Kitchen co-owner Keely Hass is opening Morsel Compass West with Jennifer Blanchard in Crozet’s Piedmont Place, also the future home of Smoked BBQ Co.’s restaurant. Photo by Tom McGovern

It’s that time of year again—when it’s so hot outside you dream of lounging in the air conditioning. But we know one thing that will motivate you to venture outside: food. Lucky for us, the food truck scene here is exploding with new trucks. We counted more than 15 roaming the city on any given day, and even a few brick-and-mortar places are jumping on the bandwagon and going mobile. But it goes both ways: Some of these freestanding kitchens are becoming so successful, they’re opening permanent locations. And none too soon—we’re sweltering just thinking about how hot it must be in a food truck kitchen in 100-degree heat.

106 Street Food

After working on the culinary scene for two decades, chef Will Cooper has opened his own business. Hitting town about two months ago, 106 Street Food dishes up classic American fare with a dash of Southwest-, Latin- and Asian-inspired flair. Cooper was so gung-ho about opening his own mobile kitchen he built the truck himself. In between his stints at Bella’s Restaurant, the Glass House Kitchen and Rapture, Cooper also worked in construction, and knew enough to put his truck together in four months.

On the menu you’ll find massive, mouthwatering sandwiches, like the 16-hour smoked brisket. But Cooper’s favorite is the pork schnitzel. Inside a hearty pretzel bun lies a deep-fried, panko-crusted pork loin topped with an egg, arugula, white cheddar and lemon caper aioli.

Smoked BBQ Co.

Smoked BBQ Co. is “the little wagon that could.” Owner Justin van der Linde and sous chef Kent Morris started out with a barbecue cart in downtown Charlottesville, but now they’re making the move to open their own restaurants—yes, plural—both in downtown Crozet’s Piedmont Place, a mixed-use building that’s still under construction. Their first-floor eatery, Smoked Kitchen and Tap, will focus on barbecue—ribs, brisket and pulled pork—along with Southern-style sides, and will be family-friendly. The fourth-floor restaurant, The Rooftop, takes advantage of the 50-foot overlook of the Blue Ridge Mountains with an open fire pit and heated terrace. On the menu is woodstone oven pizzas with a Southern twist, accompanied by craft cocktails. “We’ll have probably the best views in town,” van der Linde says.

Even with opening two restaurants simultaneously, the duo plans to keep its food truck, which features hickory-smoked barbecue, slathered with its signature dry rubs and sauces, in rotation.

Morsel Compass

We know and love them for their international-inspired tacos topped with everything from Korean pulled-pork barbecue to chicken souvlaki. But now Jennifer Blanchard and Keely Hass, owners of Morsel Compass Mobile Kitchen, are laying down roots and opening up Morsel Compass West, a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Piedmont Place. “It’s more than tacos,” Blanchard says. “Our menu’s going to be, pardon the compass reference here, all over the map. We get to pretty much do our wildest dreams.”

They’re going to do all the things they couldn’t do before on a food truck: bake, make soups and, what they’re most excited for, breakfast. But for devoted fans of the food truck, there’s no need to worry. “The truck is still going to go out,” assures Blanchard. “[It’s] a huge part that got us to where we are.”

Moe’s Original Bar B Que

Ashleigh and Mike Abrams just celebrated Moe’s Original Bar B Que’s one-year anniversary in Charlottesville, and now they’re joining the food truck craze. The Asheville, North Carolina, natives are featuring “Southern soul food revival” dishes including award-winning Alabama-style pulled pork, St. Louis ribs and homemade sides, in their new mobile kitchen. The truck is making stops at local wineries and breweries such as King Family Vineyards and Starr Hill Brewery.

So far, the Abramses are loving the attention they’re getting thanks to their food truck. “It’s like a rolling billboard,” says Ashleigh. “There’s a lot of potential for us to get our name out and spread the word that we’re over here on Ivy Road. And we wanted to branch out into the community.”