Brunch - Taking My Time At The Virginian

Brunch on The Corner. For those not familiar with The corner, it is the strip of University Ave. in Charlottesville where students drink. You see, in Charlottesville, people don't tend to do much more than that when they go out. If there's live music (which there almost always is) of good quality (a staggeringly high percentage of it is) there's a 1 in 20 chance that the bar hosting it will be full. Then - of the full bars hosting music, 4 of 5 will be inhabited by the back-turned, hair-gelled du-du-dudes drinking Bud Lights and doing a very good job convincing the girls they're with that sleeping with guys in bands will make them poor.

Besides drinking, you can eat sandwiches, but little else, at most of the watering holes on The Corner. While discussing the potential brunch-of-choice for this week's entry I came to conclusion around 1:00AM Sunday morning (the exact hour when everything that makes it from my brain to my mouth is a stroke of sheer and incalcuable brilliance) and decided that I would check out The Virginian. Not only that, but about an hour later I called Tedo (pronounced: Michael Jackson's borther) and his wife, Tetette, and asked them to join me. At 11:00AM.

Oops.

I had forgotten, amognst all of the brilliance floating in my head at that point, that married people aren't late. They don't forget things either. And they wake up early. The combination of these three woke me up around 11:05 with the ol' "We're on our way to The Virginian. For brunch. The one you called us about last night. See you there. At 11:00. Like you said." This call was followed fifteen minutes later by the "Where are you?" call, which resulted in me apologizing profusely (and sincerely, I might add) and for the first time in my life, ordering an eggs benedict via telephony.

(Bloody: 2 of 5) 11:25AM - My arrival is followed by the prompt order of a Stolichnaya bloody. It appeared some minutes later garnished with a lime wedge, and I was excited by its appearance - hearty with a solid amount of horseradish and other particulate matter. Wrong. It was obviously made from a mix that contained potassium sorbate, and let me tell you: that sh*t will make any beverage finish like a Diet Coke and half a pack of sugarless gum. I've had it with that sh*t. Couldn't taste anything else in the cocktail, and I only got halfway through with it.

(Service: 1 of 5 NOTE: Yes, the benedict review comes here, but for the sake of full editorial slander, we go to Service) 11:45AM -

11:55AM -


12:10AM -


12:20AM - My eggs and Tetette's breakfast sandwich arrive. Tedo is placed on hold.

12:25AM - Tedo's benedict, which he told me was coming with a tomato instead of canadian bacon (Tedo loves animals. And trees. Trees more than animals, I think, and in a totally different way) a well done egg, and two extra english muffins as sides (so he can make an eggs benedict sandwich) arrives: Surprise, Tedo! Extra bacon! Or was it no tomato you wanted...? Hmmmmmm....Sent back.

12:35AM Tedo's benedict, now with tomato instead of bacon, arrives: Surprise! Tedo jiggles his eggs.

12:37AM Tedo's egg stops jiggling.

Follow the timeline, boys and girls. I don't know who to blame on this one. I got the feeling that our waitress, bless her heart, (you know it's gonna be bad, now) got the gig early one morning, and I mean early, after a manager had thoroughly gone over her qualifications. When she finally brought us the check, it had five voids on it. Wait - I do know who to blame. The management.

If you are employed by the food service machine, brunch sucks. I know this. I've posted this before, and once was even stupid enough to work it. Once. You have to find someone who, at least by resaurant standrads, wants to be there and knows what they're doing. In fact - you should only allow someone that has been to brunch work at brunch. And by "been to brunch" I really mean "nice legs".

(Benedict: 3.5 of 5) Since I didn't order my beney in person, I didn't see the rest of the available sides, but mine arrived with home fries and cheese grits, the latter being excellent. The egg was a tad undercooked and there wasn't terribly much hollandaise, but it was certainly satisfying. That's it. Not great, but certainly not bad.

(Price: 2 of 5) $7.00 for benedict (with two sides) - good. $8.00 for two large OJs - bad. $4.00 for a bloody - good. $2.25 extra for Stoli - bad. Now, the kicker:

$1.99 for coffee - bad.

But not too bad. I almost feel like their saving you some indignation by not making you pay $2.00 for a cup of coffee. Fancy places don't charge $2.00 for a cup of coffee. Don't charge $1.99, either. At least it wasn't the "f*ck you right in the face" $2.50 cup from last week...

(Overall: 2 of 5) Not highly recommended. However, on another day, what with the prices and basic quality of the food, I'd say that if you're stuck on The Corner after a late Saturday night and you're being told that you really need to get out of here before some dude / dudette comes looking for their University of South Carolina whitehat, it's better than eating dirt.

But not better than bring a paper bag full of the night before's vodka, buying some tomato juice, horseradish, worcester, and mustard at the Lucky 7, and eating outside of Bodo's.

Not that I've done that.

The Virginian is located on University Ave. on the UVa Corner.
Phone: 434.984.4667