When a small businessman decides where to open a new establishment, he scopes out the area to make sure there's room for him in the market. Fortunately for us all, there appears to be no saturation level for Charlottesville.
Bustling new restaurants open up all the time, even as the old favorites stay busy. The newest and hippest one this month is Bang, a trendy, nouveau sushi place behind the 'Mono Loco's' strip adjacent to the Downtown Mall.
Tim Burgess and Vincent Derquenne, who own nearby Downtown culinary powerhouses Metropolitain and Bizou, opened the restaurant three weeks ago. They set out to design a restaurant just the way they wanted it, and to serve whatever they felt like. They do the cooking while a French pastry chef prepares the exotic fruit sorbets and Asian-influenced pastry concoctions.
Deep red walls surround three sides of the dining area and the fourth wall is textured to look three-dimensional. The lime green bar is one of the coolest you'll see in town. Lit panels, showcasing bottles of high-quality liquors fill in behind the bar.
Bang makes over a dozen different martinis in all flavors and colors, and almost each one has its own unique glass. They don't come cheap ($8), but they are quite good. Sample the Appletini and the Honey Ginger martini. Or, try the Mr. Big. Billed as a "manly Cosmopolitan," the drink nixes "Sex and the City's" emasculating pink color and uses white cranberry juice instead of red.
Once you move past the drinks, Bang's main problem is that the menu's so hip it doesn't differentiate between appetizers, entrees or desserts, and the items listed have little or no explanation. Obviously, an explanation of every item would reduce the coolness factor for those in the know. But "Banana leaf wrapped Escarlar with Jicama" leaves us squarely in the "not in the know" category. Don't hesitate to question your server.
This lack of description on the daily-printed lime green menus can produce some ill expectations. For example, the "Chilled crab/lime/mango salad" ($9) is not a leafy green salad with the above toppings and flavorings, but rather a scoop of crab lumps mixed with mango pieces, held together with a mango
mayonnaise. If you don't like mayonnaise, don't expect to glean any indication of its presence from the menu.
The format for eating at Bang defies the standard routine of ordering appetizers first, followed by entrees and desserts. Instead, you are encouraged to order anything on the menu at any time. The portions are generally small (think: sushi tapas bar), but they pop out of the kitchen quickly.
The red curry of mussels is served in a deep bowl as a soup with shrimp, a little squid and rice noodles ($10). The harsh reality of the still fully formed squid may be tough to take for the less adventurous, but dedicated sushi lovers won't even blink. The curry provides the perfect amount of spice to compliment the fresh seafood and is not at all overwhelming. This is one of Bang's strongest selections and one of its more filling ones, too.
The delicious Tobbeko handrolls ($6) pair sushi with red roe, served with wasabi and an oily dipping sauce. The ocean side salad is a crispy, stringy, kelp delight. Mixed-in garlic and sesame seeds dominate the flavor, but the green seaweed's texture offers an unusual treat.
The easiest things to identify on the menu are the pork spring rolls with Vietnamese dipping sauce ($6). This is an obvious crowd-pleaser because everyone feels confident they know exactly what will emerge from the kitchen if they order it. All of the tables around us had orders of spring rolls, which are quite tasty and easy to share.
In addition to the sorbets and the rice brulee with fruit "sushi," the pastry chef prepares a Pu Pu platter (all desserts $7). The large dish included a deep fried banana, the inside of which had been hollowed out and filled with chocolate sauce. Fried pineapple, along with a homemade donut fashioned around a fresh mango, rounded out the plate. Without question, this is the dessert of choice at Bang.
If Tim and Vincent aimed to make a mark on the Charlottesville hotspot scene, they certainly accomplished their goal. After several nights of invitation-only dining, word of mouth has prompted standing room only accommodations for the growing clientele Friday and Saturday evenings. Although Bang is not ideal for regular dining, and some of the entrees fall short of expectations, the environment itself is enough to warrant a visit. Sure, you may have to put yourself on the waitlist to get in on the weekend. But the experience, whether drinking, dining or lounging on the swank couches upstairs, is well worth the wait.
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