Lemonade from Lemons

You know how difficult it is to update your website to reflect your correct hours of operation?

Apparently, if you're the Viceroy, pretty difficult.

Meaning that when a girlfriend and I showed up for lunch today, based on their web page saying they were open 10-2 a.m. Saturday-Sunday, a sign on the door clarified things.

Brunch begins in August.

Huh. Maybe that should be noted on the website, folks.

For the purposes of our lunch, we headed up Sheppard to the VMFA and Amuse, where they were not only open, but doing a brisk lunch business.

We joined a wine-drinking couple at the bar and considered our menu choices.

I saw no reason to resist a farm fresh BLT with a sunnyside -up egg and aioli and all it took was my decision to convince my girlfriend that she needed the same.

Tomatoes are too good right now to pass up any opportunity to eat them and it wouldn't be a proper lunch with this particular friend if we didn't have good fries.

Part breakfast, part lunch, the open-face sandwich on a slice of focaccia tasted incredibly fresh with its arugula and heirloom tomato, not to mention the yellowest of egg yolks oozing over it all.

I'm not ashamed to say we plowed through our plates without bothering with conversation, instead doing all of our catch-up during the hour and a half after our plates were licked clean.

The pleasure of pools this time of year, the inherent difference in people's paces, the pains of being dissed by friends, we covered it all.

And that's not even counting the requisite discussion of the opposite sex, both personal and professional.

When we finally left Amuse for the nearby photography gallery, I was greeted by the most satisfying surprise.

There, on the wall, was a plaque dedicated in memoriam to George Cruger.

George, a former boyfriend and long-time employee of the VMFA, had been the one responsible for the VMFA beginning their photography collection back in the '70s.

When he'd died last year, I'd suggested that the gallery be renamed in his honor, here.

I must not have been the only one to suggest such a thing because there on the wall was the acknowledgment I'd only hoped to see.

Thanks, VMFA, for doing right by George.

A wonderful lunch in the light-filled Amuse with a really good friend was just icing on the cake.