Charlottesville Breaking News
Just Curry returns
Just Curry has a sleek interior and a streamlined menu.Meri Jane SmithMore than three years after closing down two locations of Just Curry– one on the Corner and one in the Downtown Transit Center– Chef Alex George is currying favor once more with a new location on the Downtown Mall.
"The opportunity presented itself, and it was too good a chance to pass up," says George, a one-time personal chef for the wealthy who also serves as executive chef at the popular and upscale Commonwealth Restaurant and Skybar. For the revived Just Curry, which opened on February 20, George has partnered with a physician who declines to be named.
The menu features two types of chicken curry as well as beef, lamb and a vegetarian option in three sizes ranging from $6 to $14. Side dishes include basmati rice, peas and rice, plantains and rice pudding. And former Just Curry loyalists may also appreciate the bright ambience of the new space– located directly across from Commonwealth in the former Great Scott's Gourmet Popcorn location– which features bright red walls, hardwood floors and stainless steel accents.
Currently, Just Curry is open only for lunch Monday through Friday, but George says the restaurant will start serving dinner on Friday nights with the arrival of Fridays After Five in April. After that, he says, "we'll see how it goes."
Mall battle: Arena, city face off over broken bricks
The ADA compliant barricade the city erected around the damaged bricks blew down in March.Roger VoisinetFour years after the $7 million re-bricking of the Downtown Mall, a patch of damaged bricks along the edge of the Main Street Arena near Water Street is pitting a property owner against the city in a dispute over who's responsible for the repairs.
"They have been in this condition for almost a year," wrote Arena General Manager Will van der Linde in an email sent last July to the city in advance of the planned visit by Michelle Obama, which was cancelled in the wake of the mass shooting in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater.
"Anything you can do to attend to this problem would be appreciated," van der Linde wrote.
The city fired back a week later with a letter from Parks and Rec Director Brian Daly, who cites a 1995 agreement between the city and the property's original developers assigning the responsibility for repairing storm and sewer lines under the bricks and for replacing the damaged bricks.
The failure, wrote Daly, was of a drain and pipe under the bricks. "I am advising Main Street LLC that you have thirty days from the receipt of this letter to develop a plan of action for remediation of the defects."
Arena owner Mark Brown was quick to dispute Daly's assessment, asserting in a letter to Daly that the storm and sewer lines were in working order and that the area of damaged bricks is outside the bricked area that the Arena must maintain.
"As you can plainly see the area in question is not included in the private maintenanc...
Pie one on: New cart brings taste of Down Under
The Pie Guy, Justin Bagley, in front of his food cart.Courteney StuartIn America, the word pie is usually preceded by the name of a fruit– apple, peach, blueberry. It's a different world Down Under where pies are stuffed with meats, vegetables, and just about anything you can think of. After a seven-month trip to Australia in 2009 following his graduation from VCU, Justin Bagley returned home to Charlottesville convinced that his fellow countryfolk would love the pies that sustained him over the course of his travels.
"I ate them every day," says Bagley, 25, who opened The Pie Guy food cart on the Downtown Mall right outside Mudhouse on Monday, April 1.
There are currently seven "meal" pies on the menu including "The Breakfast Pie" filled with bacon, egg and cheese, "The Snake Bite," a mild green curry with chicken and vegetables, and the heartier "Melbourne," chunks of steak in a rich gravy sauce. There are also two vegetarian options– "Ayers Rock," filled with eggplant caprese and "The Boomerang," a vegetarian quinoa chili. And of course, there's dessert: "Tassie Devil Delight," more commonly known as apple pie.
"All our food is sourced from Virginia or from Virginia companies," says Bagley, a Charlottesville High School grad, who notes that certain items including chilis can't be grown locally but that he orders them through Virginia owned companies. He does his prep work and cooks the fillings at the kitchen at Triple C Camp, where he was once a camper, and then bakes the pies on site to keep the pastries...
All eyes
Bill EmoryFormer neighbor Paul Whitehead, often up to something creative. Moved to San Francisco.
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Commentator Bill Emory puts up a new photo nearly every day at billemory.com/blog.
Beautiful 'Road': Kerouac adaptation has charms but does it have soul?
Sam Riley stars as Sal Paradise in this iconic road story.IFC filmsAlthough Jack Kerouac's On the Road has been praised as a milestone in American literature, this film version brings into question how much of a story it really offers. Kerouac's hero, Sal Paradise, becomes transfixed by the rambling outlaw vision of a charismatic car thief, Dean Moriarty, and joins him in a series of journeys from his mother's apartment in Ozone Park, N.Y., as they crisscross the continent to Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and then back again, until it occurs to Sal “I've never been south.” They turn to Mexico, finding in its long, straight cactus-lined roads, some secret to themselves. They also find marijuana; the two may not be unrelated.
These journeys also yield forth booze, women and jazz — which contain their own secrets, but not simply through the searching for them. Along the way, Dean seeks his dead father and exudes so much charisma that the real Dean, Neal Cassady, is said to be the inspiration for the Beat Generation. Published in 1957, On the Road grew not into a movement but into a brand; Kerouac was a frequent gues...
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