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Newsletter for March 2008 Your source for what’s cooking at OBW
25 South Indian Alley Winchester VA, 22601 540-662-1455 |
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Sorry everyone for the lack of a February newsletter. I put it on hold to concentrate on a myriad of IT issues, including revamping large sections of our web site which is now updated every business day. Our menus are posted daily around 4pm. Paradoxically, I left the IT world to become a chef and these last three months I have done little other than wrangle with IT issues. Good thing I have some idea what I am doing.
I need your help in supporting Virginia wine. Specifically, we’re hosting Rappahannock Cellars on the 20th for our March wine dinner. I don’t want to cancel this dinner, so I’m asking you to think about signing up. I promise great food and wine, and more importantly, a great night out.
Also, I spent a month redoing our wine list for the first half of 2008. I’m happy to report that we have added several new wines including Amarone, Cava, Rioja, Linden 2005 Hardscrabble Red and Petit Verdot, Cadillac, Petit Sirah, Carneros Pinot Noir, and Argentine Malbec. The new list is on the web site. Finally, I’ve launched One Blog West, a daily blog of food- and restaurant-related topics. I know that many of you have been after me to do so. The deed is finally done. All my best,
Ed Matthews, Chef/Owner
Thursday, Mar 20, Wine Dinner with John Delmare of Rappahannock Cellars Our March wine dinner will feature 5 wines from Rappahannock Cellars paired with a wonderful 5-course menu. $70 per person. We’ll be pouring the Seyval, Viognier Reserve, Claret, Cab Franc, and Meritage. Come support our local wine industry! Reserve today with your credit card at 540-662-1455.
We’ve been waiting for years for April 1st to coincide with a day that we are open and this is the year. We’re going to do the wackiest, punniest menu that we can think of. And you can help. Anyone who sends us an idea for a dish that we decide to put on the menu will earn the dubious honor of getting the dish on the menu for all to see. But not only that—we’ll also give you our interpretation of that dish for free! With all apologies to Dr. Seuss, we have decided that we have to feature “One Fish, Two Fish, Redfish, Bluefish.” So what can you come up with? Let’s keep the humor relatively out of the gutter.
February 12th marked the first appearance of shad roe on our menu for the 2008 season. Each day of the season, the front page of the web site (www.oneblockwest.com) will indicate if we have shad roe that day. You should call in advance to reserve your portion.
New Lunch Menu and Take-Out Lunch Menu We’ve spent the six weeks revising our lunch menu, eliminating dishes that did not sell, and adding others. Visually, you’ll notice that we have cut the menu back by twenty percent. Not only does this let us organize the menu better, but it’s a lot more readable because we’re able to use a much larger font. And we now have really nice take-out menus for you to take back to your office. We’re accepting take-out orders by phone, email, and fax. Next office lunch, think about One Block West. Besides being the most creative menu in town, this new menu also gives the lunch crew a chance to exercise their creativity daily. They’re now responsible for a special soup, fish, ravioli, and frittata each day. View new menu.
After several years, were able to get rid of the squatter sitting on oneblockwest.com and we have now moved the entire web site to that address. And after much wrangling, we have finally got a cable modem installed at the restaurant, so we are now doing real-time updates of menus as well as responding to your emails during the day when we’re not busy. Many of you are accustomed to emailing me directly at my home account. You should now email me at info@oneblockwest.com.
At the first of the year, we switched our beef and veal suppliers. We moved away from standard corn-feed beef and milk-fed veal. Our beef and veal are free-range, grass-fed, hormone-free, and antibiotic-free. There is some body of evidence that grass-fed meats are healthier to eat. Whether or not that is true, customer feedback is overwhelmingly positive: our beef and veal are empirically much tastier than the products we were using last year. If we can find a better product to put on the plate, we will, and in this case, we have. Come taste for yourself.
We’re looking for someone to help us refine and develop our in-house database. Any starving PC-based database application developers out there looking for good food?
Recipe: Sweet Potato Hash
This recipe has clearly been the darling of the dining room during its run on January and February menus where we paired it most frequently with elk. I also demonstrate making it on a forthcoming WVPT Cooks show, to air on WVPT Saturday April 5 at 11:30am with a repeat on Sunday the 6th at 12:30pm. You can check my appearance schedule and view old episodes at WVPT.
The recipe itself is in my blog.
I won’t kid you that this economy is killing us here at the restaurant. If you can come help us out, I would really appreciate it.
Ed
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Copyright © 2008 Shenandoah Food and Beverage Holdings, LLC sensational seasonal cuisine and the W logo are trademarks of Shenandoah Food and Beverage Holdings, LLC. |
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