Isn't that Specialty?

A new bird has landed in the old Bohème space on E. Market Street. Her name is Zhiwei Wang Estes, and she’s behind a new Chinese restaurant and take-out joint that she’s calling Asia Specialty. Estes plans to open the place sometime before Christmas, if not this very week. Now Bohème, which Tom Fussell opened with chef Clive Papayanis in late 2006 (in the former spot of the Garden of Sheba), up and closed a while back, and we happen to know that over the last few months, several of the usual restaurant suspects have been scoping out the former French pad for frogs’ legs and late night drinking and gossiping for their own possible new dining ventures. In the end, though, it was a novice restaurateur who decided to give it a go. Restaurantarama stopped by the space last week and found that it’s already been adorned with scrolled artwork and Chinese lanterns.

Up until a month ago, Estes, a former ER doctor in her native China, was a medical technician specializing in burn wounds at UVA Medical Center. She also has a local Chinese massage therapy practice, which she plans to continue after Asia Speciality is up and running. Estes says that she came to the United States in 1998, after 10 years as an attending physician in China, to pursue a medical assistant degree. But she says she found that learning medical English was just too hard for her. The language of the kitchen is pretty universal, though, and Estes is now applying her medically and massage-trained hands toward the rolling out and shaping of dumplings and wontons.

“When I came to the United States I was surprised to see that Chinese food was not real Chinese food. It was American Chinese food. I want to make real Chinese food,” says Estes, who hails from a big city in northeast China called Shenyang.

Estes says that in contrast to other Chinese take-out places, she’s making all the doughy dishes by hand (no Sam’s Club dumplings served here). And in addition to your standard General Tso’s and Kong Pao type of plates, she’s offering traditional fire pot meals, where you pick your meat and vegetable fillings and cook your own soup in a chafing dish right there at the table. Estes says no one else in town is doing the traditional Chinese tabletop fire pot thing, but you know, The Melting Pot may beg to differ.  

Asia Specialty will have a full bar and will be open for lunch and dinner seven days a week.

Local food on the boob tube

Last Tuesday, Restaurantarama attended the launch of a new locally produced TV series called “Meet The Farmer TV: From the Farm to the Plate,” which airs Tuesday evenings at 6pm on Charlottesville’s Channel 13. The show features the local food industry of Central Virginia and is hosted by Planet Earth Diversified farmer extraordinaire Michael Clark. Tonight’s episode features the chef/farmer relationship and follows Blue Light Grill’s Executive Chef Jeff Achterhoff as he gathers local produce for the restaurant.

As Clark mentioned during the launch, “It’s going to get tougher for farmers, restaurateurs and grocers during the next few years, so we have to help each other out.” Clark says he’s seen several of his restaurant clients close recently and at least one other chef has told him that with the economy in the dumps, he’s being pressured by the powers that be to shop at Sam’s Club (dang, Sam Walton!) instead of buying fresh and local ingredients. If you think that sounds as unappetizing as we do, then tune in and support the movement. Or just tune in to see some of your favorite local characters immortalized on the small screen or maybe catch a scary glimpse of yourself chowing down gluttonously on a poppy seed roll from the Hungarian Bakery at the Saturday City Market this past season (who us?).

Quick bites

Fellini’s #9 is now serving lunch, and owner Jacie Dunkle tells us that there’s an honest-to-goodness Italian behind the midday meal. A gentleman by the name of Mose Pettrorossi has come from Italy to apprentice at Fellini’s and prepare the lunch fare.