Lunch

Bashir’s Taverna for Lunch 

Tarragon chicken salad looks like it should be delicious...If you’ve been to “Fridays after Five,” you’ve walked by Bashir’s Taverna. Maybe you even sloshed in for a forgettable falafel after one too many beers in a tin bottle. Under such auspicious circumstances, the food might have been good. By the light of a sober weekday lunch, however, it reveals itself to be exceedingly average.

My friend Tom and I were seduced by sound of the “award-winning” apricot-glazed ham sandwich with brie, while our significant others opted for the tarragon salad and falafel platter. Bite one of the sandwich was good, but I grew tired of it by bite four or five… Read More

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Baggby’s 

baggbys - 8If there is one thing that Charlottesville over-serves it’s sandwiches. We have a lot of spinach-artichoke dip and egg rolls and jalapeño poppers too — sometimes all on the same menu — but sandwich shops are squished into this city’s limits like so many turkey cold cuts. Some of them are skippable, but many serve up fresh ingredients in creative, well-executed combinations that are more than worthy of your lunch hour. Baggby’s is one such establishment. In addition to old faithfuls like egg salad and pastrami you can find newfangled genre-benders like the Sedona Read More

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Bodo’s Bagels 

bodos - 07If you live full-time in Charlottesville and have a mouth and haven’t had a bagel from Bodo’s you should be the subject of one those psych experiments at UVA where they pay you $10 to breathe through a juice-box straw for an hour while asking you questions about whether you think you’re… Read More

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Riverside Lunch 

riverside - 1We were out celebrating a friend’s birthday the other night and after a few beers the guy sitting next to me said, “Crozet Pizza and Riverside are the two most overhyped restaurants in the Charlottesville area.” I bit my tongue and told myself to find a happy place and then I asked… Read More

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The Balkan Bakery 

balkan bakery - 4Erin and I grudgingly decided to try The Balkan Bakery for lunch because it’s new and we’re trying to peel ourselves away from such downtown mall casual staples as Revolutionary Soup, Christian’s Pizza, and Baggby’s. When you’re hungry it’s hard to resist the old faithful stand-bys. How silly of us it was to grudge… Read More

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