Food news: New restaurants galore!, old cookbooks, and CANDEMONIUM

Better put on your stretchy pants, because there’s a ton of food news this week.

January 23, 2014; 9:51 AM • by Ross Catrow

The Fan’s newest little green grocery (not to be confused with the Northside’s Little House Green Grocery) opened yesterday, welcoming neighborhood residents unwilling to brave this week’s “snow.” I had a chance to stop by Harvest Grocery & Supply, and it’s adorable. Two important facts:

1. They sell sriracha.
2. You can get an apple that doesn’t look like it fell off the back of a steroid truck.

In addition to those staples of life (not sure what else you really need though), they’ve got plenty of other goods like salsa, fresh fruit and veg, pasta, meat, cleaning products, etc. Once things get sorted out with the ABC, they’ll have beer and wine as well. So take a chance, brave the “weather,” and stop on by.

• harvestrva.com
• 1531 W. Main Street
• Monday – Saturday • 8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
• Sunday • 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM

— ∮∮∮ —

After a year of clever/creepy marketing, The Rogue Gentlemen is opening this week in Jackson Ward. Richmond.com has a ton of words about the marketing campaign leading up to tomorrow’s opening and a bit about the menu—which sounds ambitious.

• theroguegentlemen.com
• 618 N. 1st Street
• Monday, Wednesday – Saturday • 4:00 – 10:00 PM
• Sunday • 10:30 AM – 4:00 PM

— ∮∮∮ —

Down on 4th Street, Café Le Ville opened and offers “fast casual dinning” and “gourmet sandwiches and salads infused with a French twist.” This location, if you can remember back that far, used to house the old 4th Street Diner—the more low key and darker (dirtier?) answer to 3rd Street Diner. Good times.

Richmond.com has some more words on Café Le Ville.

• cafeleville.com
• 9 N. 4th Street
• Monday – Friday • 7:00 AM – 8:00 PM
• Saturday •

— ∮∮∮ —

Jamyce Vinson, who you may know as “Midterm Munchies” if you hit up the farmers’ market baked goods scene, will open a new bakery in Jackson Ward called Sweetopia. BizSense has some more details.

— ∮∮∮ —

Garden and Gun has this awesome feature on old Southern cookbooks that are in the public domain—which means free for you! Specifically, you should check out The Virginia Housewife, published in 1836 by Richmonder Mary Randolph. It includes the recipe for “Fish sauce, to keep a year“, comprehensive pickling instructions, and apparently the first published recipe for macaroni and cheese:

Boil as much macaroni as will fill your dish, in milk and water, till quite tender; drain it on a sieve, sprinkle a little salt over it, put a layer in your dish, then cheese and butter as in the polenta, and bake it in the same manner.

— ∮∮∮ —

You knew canned beer was invented in Richmond right? Well, tomorrow, January 24th, is the 79th birthday of canned beer, and Hardywood is celebrating with a pretty incredible event: CANDEMONIUM!!! They’ll be canning beer early in the morning, handing it off to Brown Distributing for “processing” (ominous), and then opening it up for public consumption that very day. So tomorrow, and tomorrow only, you can drink beer as fresh as it’ll ever be!

It will be a low productivity for the RVANews office.

Here’s a list of all the places you can get uberfresh beer tomorrow:

• Capital Ale House Downtown
• Capital Ale House Innsbrook
• Capital Ale House Midlothian
• Commercial Taphouse
• Corks And Kegs
• Ellwood Thompson’s
• Fat Dragon
• Joe’s Inn Fan
• Once Upon a Vine North
• Once Upon a Vine South
• Portrait House
• Postbellum
• Rappahannock
• Savory Grain
• Shields Market
• Southern Railway Taphouse
• Station 2
• Sticky Rice
• Strawberry Street Market
• The Camel
• The Cask Cafe
• Toast
• Total Wine & More Westland Plaza
• Total Wine & More Robious Hall
• Uptown Deli
• Whole Foods Short Pump

— ∮∮∮ —

Just a quick reminder: the Elbys are this Sunday. If you’re unfamiliar, the Elbys are like the Oscars but for the Richmond food scene. People get dressed up, awards are presented, schmoozing happens. Tickets are $65 and still available online.

— ∮∮∮ —

Cool Hunting had a quick profile of Richmond-based Mamacita’s Gourmet Hot Sauce. They like it because it’s thick.

Photo by: Scott Pharr

January 23, 2014 9:51 AM 1