The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia
PHOTOS COURTESY RED HEN

Back in January, aspiring restaurateur John Blackburn told Dish he was looking for a talented chef willing to “flee the big 5-star kitchens” of Charlottesville for Lexington, where Blackburn has finally opened the Red Hen, a gastro-pub style restaurant in a renovated 150-year old former chapel.

“I’m hoping to identify and hire a chef in the next five months to take this on and make it her/his baby,” said Blackburn. “In other words, we’re looking for somebody who wants more than just a job.”

Well, that willing chef turned out to be OXO’s ex- empresario Tucker Yoder.

“I was blown away by how fast news traveled after that Hook piece,” says Blackburn. ” I got resumes from DC, New York, and one from Aspen. Ultimately, Tucker fit the profile we were looking for… smart, sane, ambitious, and ridiculously talented.”

However, it appears that Blackburn, founding editor of Blue Ridge Outdoors and a former journalist for C-Ville Weekly in the early days, was not content to lure just one (more)

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A few weeks ago, a new restaurant finally opened up in the old Ludwig’s Schnitzelhouse space on Fontaine Avenue, and it couldn’t be any farther removed from schnitzel and bratwurst– a Korean and Japanese joint called Arirang Restaurant, named after a popular Korean folk song about the nature of love. According to general manager Ho Lee, a native Korean who moved here from Harrisonburg, they want to be more than just another Asian restaurant.

“We are trying to bring our culture here,” he says. “Most people think Asian restaurants don’t have bars, or places to watch sports….but we have a lounge where you can have a saki and watch a soccer game.”

In addition, Lee says the food at Arirang might come out a little slower because they don’t start cooking until your order is placed. “Nothing is pre-cooked,” he says.

Lee says they make a sensational LA galbi, a name Korean’s use to describe American beef ribs cooked Korean-style, a method that originated in the Korean kitchens of Los Angeles. “They’re very good, very tender,” says Lee.

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Para Coffee owner Eric Kelley
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Three weeks ago, Para Coffee on Elliewood Avenue joined the ranks of local coffee houses, and we finally had a chance to stop by and chat with owner Eric Kelley. Located in the former Blue Wheel Bicycle and MOD building, the newly renovated space is light filled and cozy, complete with living-room like nooks occupied by inviting coffee tables strewn with newspapers and magazines, stylish lamps, and old comfy chairs and sofas. For a small space–it only has room for 49 people–it has the feel of a much larger space, thanks in large part, we imagine, to Kelley’s composition skills as a professional photographer.

Which prompts the question: why did a professional photographer decide to open a coffee shop?

As Kelley points out, he was already working for Holland Photo Arts, was doing work for C-Ville Weekly and other publications, and started his own wedding photography business in January that had him shooting 31 weddings this year. In addition, he admits he was never much of a coffee drinker.

For Kelley and his partner and fiancée Lora Keady, however, opening Para appears to be part of a larger mission. (more)

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If you haven’t had a chance to read Kate Malay’s review of TEN, be sure to take a look. It’s tasty!

“Metropolitan modern Japanese restaurants have put me in my place: bad tables at inconvenient times, with cheeky servers taking off-the-menu orders from nearby diners who have the “in.”

When Ten opened on Halloween two years ago, its understated sign and upstairs Downtown Mall location seemed to suggest that its m.o. was exclusivity. But once inside, one can appreciate the feeling of insulation from the drama of the outside world….” read on

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On Monday, September 29, UVA’s Architecture School will be hosting a visit from Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty and former director the Hartford Food System, one of the nation’s oldest organizations dedicated to fighting hunger and improving nutrition on a grassroots level.

In his book, Winne’s exploration starts in the 1960s and shows how communities since that time have responded to malnutrition with a large number of strategies and methods, including farmers’ markets and community gardens.

“Perhaps one of the most frustrating and perplexing features of the food gap is a certain relativistic quality that has wormed its way into our food system over the past ten years,” Winne writes. “Just as lower-income groups make some small gains in closing the food gap by, say, having access to new food stores in city neighborhoods or benefiting from a marginal improvement in the Food Stamp Program, higher-income groups leap ahead with an increase in their purchase of organic and locally produced food….The gap never decreases and indeed…often increases.”

Winne’s 5pm lecture, in room 153 of the Architecture School at the University of Virginia, is free and open to the public. It will be followed by a reception and book signing. Parking is available in the Culbreth Road Garage.

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Under questioning from the grand jury about his involvement with Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton rationalized having said there was nothing going on between them by uttering the famous line, ” It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Clinton went on, “If the–if he–if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not–that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.”

Huh?

Fortunately, the definition of “Is” on West Main is a little more straight forward–it’s a new music venue above the new tapas restaurant Si, both of which open next week in the old Starr Hill Restaurant & Brewery space on West Main.

“Si’s owners asked me what they should put in the space upstairs,” says Stew Hartman-Mart, who’ll be managing the music venue, ”and I suggested a music venue to fill (more)

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Cheers to the Hook for the new Dish blog.  I think I know how these things work…

We’ve known that Oakencroft Vineyard and Winery is closing its doors on December 31, but on a recent wine tasting afternoon on a sunnier day than this, I learned that cases are selling at a 30% discount.  Cheers to owner Felicia Rogan for doing more than her part to put Virginia on the map as a wine producing state.

Case in point: the Monticello region welcomed a new winery to the trail this summer.  Pollak Vineyards (pictured left) is located off 250 West, near Route 151 to Wintergreen.  They’ve already received a number of inquiries about weddings, and it is not surprising when you arrive at the tasting room, easily mistakable for a country home with its huge windows and wrap-around patio, set against our idyllic Blue Ridge backdrop.  I did a full tasting, and despite how young their vines are (relatively), the wines they’re producing are really nicely rounded.  It’s rare to have the pleasure of tasting two wines of the same vines–Chardonnay grapes, in this case–one fermented in steel and aged in oak, the other vice versa, both fantastic.  And the finishing touch?  A bowl of ripe merlot grapes to try, fresh off the vine.

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Virginia Wineworks, home of Michael Shaps Wines, is adding weekend hours for wine tastings and winery tours. Now through December, you can taste from 11am to 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Virginia Wineworks is located 15 miles south of Charlottesville (next to First Colony Winery) on Harris Creek Road off Route 20 South. For more information call 434-296-3438 or email info@virginiawineworks.com.

If you can’t make the trip to Virginia Wineworks on weekends, you can taste Virginia Wineworks and Michael Shaps wines every day at the bar at Fossett’s inside Keswick Hall. 434-979-3440 for more information.

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Kate Malay reviews TEN in our September 25 issue.
PHOTO COURTESY KATE MALAY

The Hook will welcome Kate Malay, a.k.a.. “lilith,” who found that not having a byline with your real name wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, as our newest food reviewer next week.

“My experience was similar to former Gawker editor Emily Gould’s,” says Malay about writing anonymously for local gossip website cVillian, which she co-founded, referring to a column Gould wrote in the New York Times Magazine, “though on a much smaller scale.”

Toward the end, Malay says it got bad. In addition to having her IP address tracked, and having nightmares about being humiliated in her legitimate job or getting confronted by the people she was writing about, “There was this uncomfortable dichotomy between the perception of my identity I wanted to convey and the perception of my identity that people actually found appealing,” she says.

Recently, Malay says a tech-savvy friend asked her what she saw for the future of “new media.”

“I honest-to-God think there will be some kind of authentication process to account for all of the identity play that takes place,” she says, ” so there’s not so much disparity between real and online personas.”

Writing as herself for The Hook, we hope she’ll be able to straighten some of that out. In fact, writing for us may have been in the stars for Malay. Back in May, she sent in a letter-to-the-editor, as herself, saying how much she loved reviewer Ned Oldham’s contribution to our “The Eater” restaurant review column (note: Ned’s reviews will continue). Of course, we had no idea she was “lilith” at the time, though we should have guessed by the way she ended her email: “You may have read some of my work…” She also asked to be considered as a reviewer if the opportunity ever arose.

Look for Malay’s upcoming review of TEN, online and in print next week.

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Michael McConkey of Edible Landscaping.
PHOTO COURTESY MICHAEL MCCONKEY

Enjoy a day out in Afton learning how to eat your yard! This event includes tours, lectures, music, children’s workshops, food and more. On Saturday, September 20. Call 434-361-9134 or visit the Edible Landscaping website for more information.

What is edible landscaping and how can you do it? Let Michael McConkey of Edible Landscaping explain: (more)

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