Roanoke Market Building: So Much Food, So Little Stomach (from May/June '05)
by Andrea Clark, Virginia Watson and Bruce Watson Photography by Doug Miller Downtown Roanoke
Urban International. The Market Building offers a vibrant slice of downtown life, and some great food - everything from Cuban to custom salads at Grassroots Deli (below).
With its wonderfully eclectic mix of ethnic foods, first-rate American fare, and the occasional surprise or two, The Market Building is the unsung culinary center of Roanoke. Those who haven’t eaten at the Market are missing out on one of the most essential Roanoke experiences.
So, we gathered a group of gourmets, gourmands and hard-core foodies who blissfully pick apart each and every meal, be they at a fast-food joint or Alexander’s. Three of the group endured eating their way through Poland together (lots of sturgeon and buckwheat pierogies), and two of the aforementioned three are excellent chefs in their own rights. One of us is a regular food critic for The Roanoker, and the other three just like to eat.
We six foolishly decided to review all of the restaurants at the market in one sitting.
We waddled out of the building with our pants unbuttoned after sampling from 10 different places for a surprisingly miniscule $56 including drinks and side orders.
Here are our reviews of the food in alphabetical order:
Burger in the Square
982-1639
As the winner of The Roanoker’s Platinum dining award for best burger (non-chain) in 2004, it stands to reason that Burger in the Square’s offerings are going to be excellent. Our burger was juicy, tender and thick. In short, it was everything that a burger should be. Burger in the Square uses high-quality meat, which makes their burger stand head and shoulders above most chain restaurant burgers.
Chico’s Big Lick Pizza
342-1197
Chico’s Big Lick Pizza, spawn of the larger, Roanoker award-winning Brambleton location offers almost the same menu with the notable exclusion of beer. As with the “big-daddy” location, the dough is perfection. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. The crust isn’t too crisp or too thick, or too thin. It was amazing that we were able to come to a consensus about the crust, as the six of us have a tendency to be rather picky about our pizza crusts.
Says one of our attendees: “I do not normally eat pizza crusts, unless it’s Chico’s.”
A perennial favorite is the Blue Hawaiian with pesto, cheddar cheese, pineapple and ham.
Grassroots Deli
342-5588
Their specialties are soups, sandwiches, and custom salads. Of the nine dressings they offer, six are homemade. The two low-calorie options for salad sauce and the bleu cheese are bought.
The salad itself was above average. It had dark leafy greens and garden-fresh produce. We have to give them points for not putting any iceberg lettuce into our salad. The portion of salad that we were served was generous, which was pleasing. Unfortunately it was served in a mummified taco shell, which went beyond stale into the realm of styrofoam.
Asian fusion, Find Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai dishes at Hong Kong Restaurant.
Hong Kong Restaurant
345-3790
We should note, right off the bat, that despite the fact that the name of this restaurant implies that it serves only Chinese food, it also features Thai and Vietnamese cuisine.
When we walked into the market we were seduced by one of their specials, a Thai dish with the evocative name Evil Jungle Chicken. We could not have made a better choice. We ended up fighting over the scraps of this particular dish, and as we were rotating plates, it nearly didn’t make a full circle around the table.
There was much to love about this spicy entrée, full of tender chicken, green peppers, bok choi, celery, carrots and baby corn, in a piquant sauce reminiscent of a Thai “Texas Pete” hot sauce.
There was a little disagreement as to whether or not this was the best dish at the table, with a couple of people saying that it was good, but could have been larger, and one person saying it was her favorite.
“It was the best thing I’d tasted all day,” exclaimed one happy foodie.
When ordering this dish, please remember that it doesn’t serve six.
Kim’s Seafood & Deli
343-0516
Shock set in as we looked at the price list at Kim’s Seafood & Deli. The 10-piece steamed shrimp with vegetables that we tested was only $4.88 (including tax). The rest of their prices were equally reasonable. It’s hard to imagine finding such good quality seafood so cheap elsewhere in Roanoke. Personally, we don’t think it can be done.
That said, the peel-and-eat shrimp were steamed fresh, right in front of us, and generously seasoned with an Old Bay-type mixture. They were incredibly plump and juicy, and were exceptionally flavorful. However, no wet-naps were served with the shrimp, so we ended up scrubbing our fingers for hours afterwards in a vain attempt to get rid of the shrimpy smell.
The vegetables were cooked to just beyond crunchy, and served with a sauce that we initially thought was a side serving of butterscotch pudding. The owner said the sauce was homemade; it tasted like a ginger tartar sauce with a hint of lemon. It paired nicely with the vegetables and probably would have been great with the shrimp as well, had we not already gobbled them down.
This lunch special in particular would be an outstanding option for people watching their weight or concerned about eating a heart-healthy diet.
Kim’s also serves many other kinds of seafoods, both steamed and fried, and if the quality of their other dishes is comparable to the one we had, it is an excellent choice for any seafood lover.
Market fare. The building has a sampling of everything from traditional American fare such as hotdogs and hamburgers to the more exotic sushi and ropa vieja.
New York Subs
342-9758
None of us are particularly big sub fans. So we were a little leery of New York Subs when we set out to do this review. We’ve all had way too many dry, tasteless, boring, bland, sub-par, homogenized subs from national chains.
However, our fears were completely unjustified. Not only are New York Subs’ sandwiches fresh, juicy and flavorful, they have innovative combinations such as the Caribbean Jerk Chicken Sub, and the Mesquite Chicken Sub.
We ordered The Ultimate Steak, which is a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich with more of everything. When we got it, we were surprised that they had managed to squeeze so much cheese, steak, peppers and mushrooms between the sides of a sub roll.
This is not your average cheese steak. It is a gloriously messy concoction, chock full of flavor – a great lunch, but not the thing when you’re wearing your best clothes. We found ourselves short of napkins as the cheese and dressing ran our arms, but the terrific taste was worth the mess.
Nick’s Pig ’n’ Chicken
982-0029
The members of our group are serious about their barbecue; two of us, in fact, served it at our wedding. That having been said, Nick’s Pig ’n’ Chicken is nothing to sneeze at.
A pulled-pork barbecue sandwich should be a perfect balance of flavors, textures, and temperatures: tender strands of smoky meat with tangy sauce and cool, crunchy coleslaw. Nick’s upholds the goal. Their sandwich was outstanding. The meat was perfectly cooked and seasoned, the coleslaw was fresh, and the bun was soft and fluffy.
The only down side was that they were a little stingy with the sauce, leaving the sandwich slightly dry. Be sure to order extra sauce.
Nuts & Sweet Things
344-3717
This is one of the few places in town to get crystal rock candy on a stick, which some of us were addicted to until we were told to start watching our sugar intake. They also have fudge, jelly beans, chocolate-covered pretzels, jelly fruit slices, ice cream (with flavors like coffee, orange pineapple, chocolate, rainbow sherbet, and peanut butter chocolate) and many other confections.
If you want to completely overstuff yourself after lunch, this is the place to do it. All of their sweets are of excellent quality for a decent price. A sweet ending to your Monster Market meal.
Paradiso Cuban Restaurant
985-4552
Few of us were familiar with the cuisine, except for one who had spent much of her childhood in south Florida.
We sampled ropa vieja, which means “old clothes or rags.” The beef is torn and cooked in such a way that it resembles rumpled fabric.
The meat itself was spicy and served over red beans and rice. The beans had an excellent sauce that they were cooked in. This dish tied for favorite with the group. Its exotic flavors proved popular with all of us, although some remained steadfastly loyal to the Evil Jungle Chicken.
The only downside of the meal was the “tropical salad” that consisted of cabbage and iceberg lettuce and a vaguely doctored ranch dressing. However, this was not enough to take away from the amazing experience of the main dish.
Pasta Perfection
343-2957
Fast food pasta places have rarely lived up to our expectations; unfortunately, Pasta Perfection was no exception. Bland and boring, the only notable feature of the dish was the sauce, which was syrupy sweet, and rendered the meal nearly inedible.
The salad that accompanied it was good and had dark leafy greens and a simple oil and vinegar dressing.
Red Coyote Mexican Grill
345-2180
This Mexican food tasted more authentic than most of the Tex-Mex cuisine found at local restaurants. We had steak fajitas with black beans. The beans and vegetable mix was wonderful. The steak was a little dry, but had excellent flavor.
The proprietors of the grill generously gave us extra tortillas so we could each make our own fajita.
It was generally agreed that the fajitas were overshadowed by some of the other dishes we were sampling, although they were definitely good on their own. We are all looking forward to going back and trying some of their other dishes.
Zorba’s
342-4107
Quite a few of us in the group were already familiar with Zorba’s excellent Greek foods (favorites include falafel and baba ghanouj), so we decided to branch out from our usual order of gyro and order a chicken dish.
While the chicken was flavorful and spicy, it was a little bit dry. It sat atop a bed of plain white rice and was served with a creamy cucumber sauce that one member of our group identified as Tzatziki. Unfortunately, the unseasoned rice only added to the dryness of the meal, leading at least two of our reviewers to seek refills on their drinks.
This dish was enjoyable, although not above the evil chicken and old clothes.
It is the consensus of our overstuffed food critics that there is much to love about the Market Building food offerings. A veritable United Nations of food is represented under one roof without a single national chain sullying the collective mom and pop feel of the place. Whether we were enthralled or disappointed with the dishes ordered, it was obvious that each and every little business under this massive roof tries its very best to carve out its own little niche. The specialties that run the gamut from evil Thai chicken to a good old American burger offer something for everyone – even a group of six picky gastronomes.
