FOOD COURT JESTERS

As the Most Blessedest Day of All Year approaches, it becomes necessary to enter stores, even malls. Or in our case, “Collections.” Yesterday Stavros and I—following a hearty breakfast of Ikea-brand frozen pancakes and my special homemade English muffin breakfast sandwiches—did both.

I believe I have mentioned this assortment of shops before. This is a mall so vast it is on both sides of the same street, as crazy as that sounds! LOL!

We never go over to the south side, though, because it is mostly made up of Neiman-Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Stavros and I prefer stores like Club Monaco (pronounced Muh-NAH-ko) and Urban Outfitters. If a store doesn’t deafen us with ear-splitting decibels of shitty music, we ain’t going in.

After an hour or so of riding escalators and elevators and dodging ugly teenagers and those people who just suddenly stop walking for no reason when in malls, I was nearly faint from hunger.

“I need soup. Let’s go to the food court,” I told my love.

“Okay,” he replied.

(We were kind of tired by then so the repartee wasn’t as snappy as usual.)

Because the escalators are only placed nearby stores no one wants to go to (the all-candy-apple emporium; the thousand-dollar pen store; the chairs for schizophrenics outlet; etc), we had to take the elevator up to the food court. Normally one wouldn’t view riding an elevator as a negative, but at the Collection, the two elevators are impossibly slow and there are always a couple of hundred meatheads clogging up the entrances and it’s hard to get on one in under a half hour or so. Luck was on our side and one of them was opening just as we approached. There was a lady in a wheelchair accompanied by her husband, a toddler, and a sleeping infant in a stroller. Why can’t they take the stairs? I thought bitterly, as they rolled in, hogging most of the elevator. We forced our way in as a tall girl with a luxurious mane of chestnut hair stood in indecision just outside the doors.

“Come on in!” I said generously, “There’s plenty of room!” Gesturing to the vastness of the elevator, I accidently backhanded the lady in the wheelchair.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled.

“How rude,” I whispered to Stavros, as the brunette finally made up her mind and stepped onto the elevator.

We rode in slow motion up to the second floor. The rear of the elevator is all glass and looks out onto the mall. Stavros and I turned and gazed out at all the holiday mayhem. The photo-with-Santa opportunity at the Collection consists of a much more elaborate setting than the one I visited as a child. Here, Santa lives in a castle. A two-story castle, overflowing with maidens inexplicably dressed in Ren-Faire garb. We peered down at Santa’s throne where a small boy huddled, weeping.

“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” Stavros suddenly shouted out of the blue, startling the elevator’s other passengers and waking the sleeping baby, who began to wail at once.

“Stavros!” I said, frowning.

“I’m just kidding,” he said, looking exasperated, and the doors opened.

We stepped out and I realized at once that the food court was on the third floor.

“Oh, God,” I said, looking around for an escalator. “Come on.” I took Stavros’s hand and dragged him along, past the underpants for hookers store and the soap made from soybeans shop.

“Whoa,” I cried, once we stepped onto the moving stairs, arms windmilling.

“What’s wrong?” asked Stavros, gripping my wrist.

“I just lost my balance, those hanging things…” I waved in the direction of the giant Christmas puppets suspended from the ceiling, which is about a thousand feet high.

“What are those?” Stavros asked.

“They are…jesters,” I replied.

“Oh.”

Once at the food court, I looked around at the selection. There was a salad place (no), a “Sbarro” (no, I can’t even say that word), a Chinese place, a Zoup!, (no, no) a deli and a place called “Honey Tree” (maybe and no). I hesitantly approached the deli.

“I want soup, what’s the soup?” I asked.

No one responded since I hadn't really directed my question to anyone and then I saw the board: Chicken noodle, matzoh ball, or white bean chicken chili. Chicken noodle sounded safest, so I ordered that, plus a side of pickles. In a flash my order appeared. Everything seemed to be in order except for the old pickles, which I quickly exchanged for new.

We took a table overlooking the parking lot and grimly grey sky. I peeled back the lid of my soup and saw with disappointment that it was the Just broth! version of soup, the kind where they scoop noodles or rice or a matzoh ball in. After I added two salts and two peppers it had a vague flavor, but not very much so I picked up the package of Saltines they provided.

“What the…Stavros! Look at this!” I commanded.

Stavros reached over and took the Saltines from my hand and turned the package over.

“I can’t believe it,” he said.

“Yeah, what is that? Some kind of cost-cutting measure?”

ONE SALTINE. When would you ever want just one Saltine? What the hell sort of a gyp is that?

Well, I’ll tell you, it didn’t make the soup any better at all. To make matters worse, an event I was trying to put out of my mind forever surfaced as I was trying to swallow a large glob of noodles and I nearly threw up. I had to tell Stavros about it; I had to try to expunge the memory.

“When we were in the Apple store….” I began.

Our first stop had been to pick up an item I special ordered for the new phone Stavros gave me for my birthday. Inside the store had been an older lady with an oldish golden retriever who was with a man pulling a large suitcase. The suitcase was unzipped and open when we walked in and I noticed two ugly decorative pillows inside and a large plastic-wrapped item.

He closed the suitcase before I could fully inspect its contents, however, so I turned my attention to the dog, who I had assumed was a seeing-eye dog and unpettable. He wore a vest as those dogs do, but this one, instead of reading, “Don’t pet me!” or whatever they say, said “Pet me! I’m friendly!” so I reached down and gave him the petting of his life. Stavros joined in and we gave him a full-body rubdown for a few minutes until the lady and the suitcase man left the store.

“The dog we were petting…he had a booger or something on his face and it got on my hand,” I continued, retching slightly.

“What? A booger? How do you know? Was it a glob? Or mucus?”

My mind reeled as I relived the sight of the grayish glob glistening wetly on my knuckle. I’d tried to wipe it on my receipt but it dissolved into smaller chunks and just spread around further.

“Yes,” I answered. “It was…mucus.”

“Like this?” He poked at a noodle on the edge of my Styrofoam bowl.

“Don’t.”

“Like this?” He lifted the noodle by its edge and let it flop back down.

“I mean it. Don’t.” I pushed the tray away.

At this point I have to believe that Stavros wanted our relationship to cross the barfing-in-front-of-each-other line, but I had to put my foot down. I stood up and like the gentleman he is, he bussed my tray for me and dropped the jokes.

My stomach back on solid ground, we strode out of the food court and back into the teeming madness.

“Let’s go to SEE.”

“Ok,” I said, knowing full well that my beloved has 20/20 vision.

He tried on a variety of frames with the help of a heavily made-up “associate,” who wanted him to make an appointment for an exam.

“Well….” he hem-hawed, “I’ll come back this week. Do those frames have an item number I can write down?”

“Yes,” she said, “I’ll just enter it into the system for you so when you come in we can find them.”

I could tell by Stavros’s body language (shoulders slumped, chin lowered in despair) that he’d wanted to try to find them online for less.

“Come along, my babboo,” I said, taking his arm, and we strolled out of the Collection and immediately became lost and could not find the car for a half hour.

GUEST POST--TOAST IS TOAST WITH ANDRE AND CINDY

Today's guest post is from local aesthete and man of arts and letters, Andre Prudhomme.

Thoughts of grand breakfasts swam through our heads as the night of December 1st drew to a close—I had taken a dear friend to Flint to pick up a quantity of good drywall, and neglecting dinner, found myself very hungry by the end of the night. Luckily I’d been able to furnish my insides with a thick morass of stout, but Cindy hadn’t the option to supplement solid food for good beer, so she took to pretzel rods, and we lumbered through the night. Needless to say, upon waking we found ourselves extremely famished.

“Breakfast. Where do you wanna go?”

“Well, it’s either Toast or Sam’s,” Cindy sighed.

We have our regular haunts, but rising after noon, those certain standbys were cut in half. So we found ourselves not thinking too hard, and with these two options.

“Let’s go to Sam's,” Cindy suggested, “You’re hungry, it’d be good.”

“Maybe... No, let’s go to Toast, the coffee...” Coffee is such an intimate part of the morning, and truthfully, the coffee at Sam's is not to standard. Toast became the victor.

As usual, when arriving at Toast, we found the back parking lot to be populated by cars belonging to aloof assholes; their haphazard idea of parking left little room for our little vehicle. Scuttling through the causeway I noticed a sign on the door of the adjacent restaurant giving hours, 4-9 PM, Friday and Saturday. I thought aloud, “My, that place must be fantastic!” Luckily the restaurant held only lunchgoers and not the usual hungover elites in for their weekly shovelful of “The Cure.”

It being a Wednesday we were able to seat ourselves and chose a table under a newly decorated wall, adorned with what must be the Christmas refuse of Anna’s Coffee Shop (God bless her).

We promptly ordered water and coffee and settled in with the menus, I determined to stray from the bacon and gouda omelet, my usual.

As quickly as we received our beverages Cindy commented, “This is going to be a while.”

Already she observed (what I later deduced) to be the waiter, and then a second man in the kitchen, operating the grill and dishwashing duties, taking on even the third task of bussing. The duo was operating the entire establishment.
Of course there was a table of demanding old ladies gumming up the works, so this meager staff (surely determined by some colleague’s “illness”) were already sinking into what seemed a maelstrom of gigantic proportions.

Our server was finally able to make it back for our order (and refill the coffee); Cindy deciding on oatmeal with a side of sausage and I choosing the Farmer’s Omelet, not a profound choice, but a great morning standby. Seeing as it had been nearly 24 hours since I’d eaten, I longed for the gluttonous portion.

As always Cindy was correct in her prediction—we talked of the week’s events, orated wild tales for our salt and pepper shakers (small bears in aprons), and waited for our order.

Finally the hustling server delivered a bowl of grey matter which Cindy immediately deemed “Soupy”; I with my lifelong abstinence of oatmeal couldn’t tell, but the porridge looked awfully drab and tasteless.

More revolting to me was the plateful of breakfast I received: the home fries appeared to be mutated raisins mixed with fried cheese and possibly pancake batter, accompanied by a pile of eggs and sausage lumps. A Farmer’s Omelet houses sausage, green peppers, onions, potatoes, and American cheese—this pile exhibited some vegetable pieces probably frozen around last Christmas (resurrected for this meal) with a portion of cheese lodged at the south end of the omelet, and uncertain trunks of sausage scattered about. As on the side, the potatoes exhibited a small, wrinkled appearance. However, in the omelet these tuberous pieces were at least edible, being soaked in the watery, half cooked egg like brine, which poorly housed this collage.

As soon as I saw that white runoff of the eggs I became appalled, pouring some obscenity across the table and cursing the very nook I had chosen for our repast. The gruel and sausages seemed to appease Cindy, though satisfaction certainly didn’t emanate from her side of the table. I struggled through, leaving a plate of withered potatoes astride a soupy remainder, and a sad side of dry rye on a small plate by the coffee. Yes, as lame as it is, even the toast was subpar.

R.I.P. "ANNA"

 ✝


The end of an era.

STANDOFF AT SHILLA

The first meal Stavros and I ever took together was at a Japanese/Korean joint by my old job in Troy called Shilla. I think Shilla used to be a place called Trini and Carmen’s, where my sister once barfed after too many margaritas when she was still practicing drinking. It’s got a tabletop barbecue scene on one side and a sushi bar on the other. I always eat on the sushi side because I prefer not to have acrid fumes blazing the hair and follicles from my face while I eat. I tricked Stavros into meeting me there on our first quasi-date by pretending that it was equidistant from our workplaces, when in fact it was approximately 1.2 miles from my job and 47 miles from his. With this foundation in place, Shilla is obviously a place we both hold dear.

We hadn’t been there in a while so we decided to go last Saturday evening following a trip to the nearby “Collection.”

NOTE: I would like to preface this story by admitting that neither of us was at our finest after staying up rather late the night before at a party.

At 5 pm, it was already pitch dark. The Shilla sign glowed feebly in the mist and as we approached the drive, I noted only two other cars in the lot. To make matters more sinister, my new phone (birthday present from Stavros) rang as I was setting the parking brake and its unfamiliar ring confused and startled me.  There was no name associated with the number, and the voice that barked out at me could have belonged to any one of my male friends.

“How was the party!” it demanded to know.

“Albert?” I tried.

“What?”

“Albert, is this Albert?” I was very puzzled because Albert had been at the party.

“It’s GREGOR!” he shouted in annoyance. I frowned at the phone.

“Oh, well, we are about to walk into a restaurant, can I call you later?”

“I guess,” sniffed Gregor, hanging up.

Stavros was already negotiating our seating with the Japanese hostess as I was replacing my phone in my bag and I saw with horror that she was trying to lead him into the Fume Room.

“UH—NO!” I shouted. They both turned around with stunned expressions.

“May we sit in here?” I gestured calmly to the sushi half of the restaurant.

The hostess nodded demurely and Stavros pivoted and followed without missing a beat.

Apart from the sushi chefs, we were the only people in the room. Those must have been their cars out front. What are they doing taking the choice parking places? I thought bitterly. We sat down and then I immediately got back up to go wash my hands. The music was quite loud in the ladies’ room and was the sort of soft rock normally found in chain discount stores.

There was also an AirWick© Plug-In™ Room Freshener in Apple Pie Spice™ scent that did not lend itself to the surroundings. The bathroom door (I decided to go since I was already in there) was also too close to the toilet and I felt very cramped in the stall. The motorized paper towel machine whirred eerily but nothing came out. I wiped my hands on my pants and went back to the table.

The waiter appeared at once and I ordered a glass of wine. Yes, I know I previously admitted to being hungover but what man among us can cast stones?

“What are you getting?” I demanded.

“The Bo-Bup Gog,” said Stavros, or something like this.

“Allright. I wonder if the udon is good here. Is the udon good here?” I said to the waiter impatiently.

He looked at me with an amused expression I took for insolence.

“Nevermind,” I said. “I’ll take the udon. Does that come with the sides? The little side dishes, the bowls of stuff? Or is that just with entrees? Can you get it with the udon? CAN YOU?!??!” I almost grabbed him by the collar.

“Yes, comes with sides,” he responded.

“Ok, that’s what I’ll have, only NO SHRIMP TEMPURA, got it? Vegetable. Can I get vegetable tempura instead?”

“Vegetable tempura, okay.”

“The Bul-Book Kon,” said Stavros, closing his menu and handing to the waiter.

I fooled around with my new phone for a few minutes and drank my wine.

“Remember when we came here that one time and you told me that story about your uncle, and the swords on the wall?” I asked my glassy-eyed mate.

“What? My uncle? What uncle?”

“Your uncle,” I said. “Something about a sword, there were swords on a wall somewhere.”

He looked baffled. The waited returned and set down six small bowls of pickled salads and gross fish cake slices. Also my udon, sans tempura anything. We started eating at once and the waiter left, then came back a moment later with Stavros’s Bul-Bik Gog, which turned out to be plain boiled beef slices with onions and one lettuce leaf.

My udon was sweet. There were bell pepper slices floating around and the broth was sick with their flavor. I added some kimchee and soy sauce and that helped somewhat.

“What about the tempura?” Stavros asked me.

“I don’t know, I’ll ask. Maybe he thought I didn’t want it at all?” I wondered aloud. “Excuse me!” I said to the waiter, who was lurking down at the end of the sushi bar and watching us.

“Um, I meant that HE will eat my shrimp tempura, not that I didn’t want it…” I lied, pointing at Stavros with my chopsticks. “We DO want that,” I added.
The waiter looked confused.

I looked at Stavros. I was confused, too. I couldn’t really remember what I’d tried to do about the tempura. Did I tell him I wanted the vegetable or that I wanted the shrimp and that I’d give it to Stavros? I read no answer in my beloved’s face.

“Uh…one moment,” the waiter said, and disappeared. Ten seconds later he was back.

“Vegetable is already cooking,” he said, “Cannot change. So sorry.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll just take the vegetable, then,” I said, looking at Stavros for any further clues. Finding none, I mumbled to the waiter’s back, “Do you think we can have some more kimchee?”

He returned with more kimchee and fled without a word. We ate in silence and kept waiting for the tempura. I didn’t want to ask again. I must have misunderstood something.

A waitress stopped at our table. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

I paused. I could bring up the tempura with her, a new person. I looked at Stavros, who had long since finished his beef and onions, and said, “Do you think we could have another bowl of kimchee?”

ROMEO PEACH FESTIVAL

I have been so busy for the past several weeks that I almost forgot to post about one of the most exciting events of the summer. I have a few moments now so allow me to share with you the tale of THE ROMEO PEACH FESTIVAL.

My dear friend Angelina Langoustine, who grew up in Romeo, graciously invited me and Stavros to join her at the festival and stay overnight at her parents’ house. She had invited me the previous year, too, but I declined, largely because Romeo seemed unknown and distant. But I have discovered that nearly anything can be endured with Stavros by my side, and in fact many otherwise horrible experiences are made fun by his presence alone, so I figured what the hell?

So one lovely Friday evening, we loaded up the car with provisions and headed north. The plan was to have a dinner party with a handful of other folks then hit the festival. So we brought a salad and some wine and Angelina was providing a big pasta dinner, and the other folks were bringing appetizers.

Romeo wasn’t nearly as far as I thought but the trip included one roundabout so it seemed like we had traveled a great and harrowing distance, which is all I ask for in a getaway. Exiting the freeway deposited us in the center of a very charming little town. There were people crowding every street corner and parents dragging children by the hands down sidewalks and old people eating hot dogs and teenagers shoving each other and tipsy-looking twenty-somethings everywhere you looked. We turned right at the main intersection, which was appropriately located at Main St and something else street, and drove slowly, looking left and right for the Langoustine family house.

I should mention that Starvos and I have similar family backgrounds. Our families are both middle-class working folks from east Detroit. We live modestly. Our parents live modestly. And we are neighbors with Angelina Langoustine, so imagine our surprise when we located the address and pulled up into the driveway of a house that looked like this:

“This explains a lot,” I commented to Stavros, referring to Angelina's surplus of belongings and expensive tastes.

“No shit,” he murmured, mouth hanging open as he took in the property.

Because I wished to appear familiar with this casually wealthy scenario, I headed straight for the back door, where I was sure the kitchen was located.

“Hullo!” I called, in what I hoped was a vaguely British upper-class tone. “We’re here!”

Angelina was at the stove in the vast kitchen, wearing an apron and stirring a pan of browning meat. There were bottles of wine and plates and napkins and silverware out and I could tell she’d been working all afternoon. She turned to greet us, a big smile on her face.

We put the bags down and she took us on a tour of the house. I do not exaggerate when I say that the house I grew up in could fit in their living room. The ceilings were 16 feet high. The floors were inlaid wood in geometric patterns. Stained-glass window panels hung in doorways. Multiple sets of stairs led up, down, zig-zagging into basements and attics. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like growing up in such a house. Turns out I didn’t have to try very hard, because when Angelina led us to her old room, I noticed that both her and her sister’s room, where we were quartered, were virtual shrines to their teenaged selves.

We went back downstairs and people began arriving. Angelina’s anorexically-thin sister and her silent husband. Angelina’s friend the psychiatrist and her husband of 17 years. Mallory and Evan, a couple recently married. Alice and Mark, a boyfriend/girlfriend team who seemed to be experiencing some just-below-the-surface tension. It was a decent mix and everyone was in good spirits and we ate and drank wine and after peach pie and ice cream we walked the couple of blocks to the peach festival.

There was plenty to see on the street even though it was pretty dark. There was an overabundance of teenagers everywhere and they all looked identical. The girls wore way too much eyeliner and the shortest possible shorts with flip-flops. They were also uniformly bronze in a very unnatural way. The boys just looked like douches, the way teenaged boys everywhere look. We passed an old church that had been converted to a halfway house for the mentally impaired.

“Where are they halfway to?” asked Stavros to no one in particular.

Finally we reached the fairgrounds. To call the scene before us idyllic would be accurate, but there was something so alien about the cleanliness and wholesomeness of what we were seeing that Stavros and I both found it a little eerie. We were instantly separated from the rest of our group and began walking from attraction to attraction, trying to figure out how we’d spend our tickets.

First was the fun house, which really was fun. If you’ve never bumbled around a thirty-foot-long mirrored maze chasing a dozen drunks with corn-dog breath, you don’t know what you’re missing. We giggled and bumped our way out of there and headed over to the children’s roller-coaster. This is the sort of roller-coaster on which a new mother might feel secure placing her newborn; a smallish, low-altitude affair with minimal twists and turns. Nonetheless, Stavros and I screamed as if we were in a 747 plunging toward the Earth at a thousand miles an hour.

Next was the legendary Tilt-A-Whirl, a boring, jarring clunker of a ride that I suspect has only survived the festival circuit for so long because of its endearing name.

The best ride was the last one we rode before running out of tickets: Cliff Hanger. This is like that ride with the swings, only instead of swings, it’s got a board you lie on facedown and a bar that comes down to hold you on, so you’re sort of flying, or hang gliding, around in a circle. This was the pinnacle of our whole experience, this five-minute ride. Stavros was in the chair next to me to my right, and I was in the outside chair.

“STAVROS!” I yelled once we took off, and he looked over at me, laughing.

“WE’RE FLYING!” he yelled, and laughed some more.

Around and around we flew, swerving high and low over the faces of people on the ground waiting in line, seeing and hearing the whole fairground in a panorama of short-shorts and blinking lights and grinding gears and Taylor Swift and fallen flip-flops…finally the Cliff Hanger screeched to a stop and we staggered off. The carnies were all South African and mean. You said thanks to them and they looked at you like they wanted to rip your lungs out. We bowed courteously and scurried out the gate to find the rest of the gang in the beer tent.

Once inside the beer tent, I realized that we were in the midst of a giant all-year Romeo high school reunion. Thankfully everyone wanted to repair to a local saloon so we elbowed our way out and walked to a bar. It was during this segment of the evening that some of the couples in our group began to lose the ability to conceal their hostilities with one other, and Stavros and I decided to head back to the Langoustine house for the night.

We slept in Angelina’s sister’s room in twin beds we pushed together, and in the morning, went to a little diner for breakfast. The Romeo-ites were already out in full-blast festival mode so to cap off the trip, we took a quick stroll through the park hoping to catch the pie-eating contest. It was the first Saturday of the month, and so the tornado siren was going off. We had to shout to talk, and as we passed the petting zoo, I noticed all the animals were walking quickly around in a frenzied circle, heads bent low.

“They don’t like the siren!” I yelled to Stavros. “We gotta get out of here! This is freaking me out!”

Suddenly the eerily idyllic nature of the festival began to suggest only one thing to me and that one thing was David Lynch.

We hustled our asses back to the car and hugged Angelina goodbye and got the heck out of there.

It was probably the best night of the summer.

PS For those of you who think that the festival pictures above look a little seedy, it’s because they were actually taken at the Michigan State Fair, which is not in Romeo and is not at all idyllic, unless you grew up in Sarajevo.

CAFE MUSE-1, MEZZA-0

Couple of things: First, I am annoyed about something. While this is hardly news, I never said it was, so shut up. Here’s what I’m annoyed about. Several months ago on one of our trips to the afore-maligned Café Muse, Stavros and I noticed a new storefront on Royal Oak’s Fifth Street. It looked like it was going to be a fancy restaurant, and because it was called Mezza, I assumed it would be Italian.

Well, guess what, food-eaters? It’s not. It’s middle-eastern. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how frustrating it’s been trying to find falafel in the state that has the largest Arabic community outside Iraq.

And if this discovery were not crushing enough, let us move on to the menu. The day we noticed Mezza had finally opened, a very nice lady spotted us peering at the menu posted in the window and rushed out to give us one. It’s been in my car for a couple of weeks and I’ve been using it to blot my lipstick. Today I was stuck at a red light for longer than the five seconds that I can tolerate having nothing to do and so I picked it up and glanced over the fare.

We’re finally at the thing I’m annoyed about: Dead center on the menu I see the header “PASTA.” Already I’m pissed—why do they have pasta? It’s Lebanese food! Then I read the brief description underneath and it turns out it’s one of those things where you can “create your own.” In fact, I think it actually says those despicable words, “Create Your Own Pasta!” (Say this with a sing-songy sneer.) The pasta shape is linguini. You can choose either marinara or cream sauce and then scallops, shrimp, or chicken. FOR $15.99! You’re not even paying for the expertise of a chef who’s mastered or even invented a recipe! It’s just some red sauce from a jar on ONE KIND OF PASTA ONLY that costs probably 50 cents a pound and then they throw a handful of chicken slices or shrimp that are worth about $2 and they have the nuts to charge $15.99 for that shit! In a Lebanese place! BURN IN HELL, MEZZA!

All right, now one quick other thing. Maybe you noticed I mentioned we were on our way to Café Muse. Okay, so maybe they had a couple of hiccups when they moved to the larger location. But I gotta admit, Stavros and I go there every weekend and we love it although I am still mad that they don’t have pickles. Call them cornichons, yo.


A few weeks ago on a spectacularly chilly and rainy morning, we were chatted up by one of the owners, David, whom you may recall commented here once in defense of his restaurant. David talks to us all the time, as do the rest of the staff, rather more than previously, in fact, and Stavros and I have considered that this could be a new policy. At any rate, on this particular rainy Saturday, David was preparing the table next to us in a rush and told us that his brother and cousin were in from out of town and would we please say nice things about him.

The brother and the cousin finally arrived, sat down, and were served the special beverage of the past few weeks, raspberry lemonade (which I think is $3—at Mezza, the plain, non-rasberried lemonade is FOUR DOLLARS) and got settled in. Stavros and I smiled at them with the special smugness of people who know the identities of others while their own remains unknown.

At once the cousin presented David with a gift—a painting she’d made just for him to hang in the restaurant. He unwrapped it and I of course craned my neck to see it. What I saw was about on par with a relative-created project any of us has received: a horror. Orange background with Jackson Pollacky swirls of gold puffy paint.

“Ohhhh!” exclaimed David.

“Ohhhh!” exclaimed I, immediately thereafter, as it was obvious I was staring. David’s eyes slid over mine, stopping for a split second to say, “Yes, I see that this is ghastly but she is my cousin” before skidding to a halt on her proud and smiling face.

“I know you like orange!” she beamed.

Well, Stavros and I really felt like one of the family after that. We practically hugged them all before stepping back out into the rain. I considered writing about this episode then but I was afraid David would remember the interaction and figure out who I am. I hope enough time has passed, but if not, David, please do not let on that you know. It’s much more fun this way. XO!

GUEST POST--SCOTIA STOP CHICKEN DINNER

This episode's guest post comes from Javier Wilhelm, local bon vivant.

Today I woke up and I knew that I wanted my lunch from a party store. I’ve been eating a lot of prepared food from party stores lately, with great success. Typical fare from these places is usually a couple varieties of pizza by the slice, fried chicken, sausages, hot sausages, ribs, and other food. Also potatoes.

A friend of mine tipped me off to the Scotia Stop recently, as they said it was a great little party store. I need a place to buy beer and cigarettes regularly and considering there have been no other local recommendations, I went to the Scotia Stop.

I drove there by car, and when I got there, I went in. I said “Hey!” to the cashier before he even had a chance to say hello to me. I told him, “I am here to get lunch,” and he confidently replied “Oh, we’ve got plenty of that.”

I went over to the “hot food counter” and looked at the food. The problem was that I couldn’t see the food! The glass was completely fogged up by the steaming hot food and various side dishes. The food bin attendant quickly wiped away the food fog, and I could finally see the food. Honestly, I wasn’t that excited, because I knew what to expect.

And I saw what I expected. There was fried chicken, fried chicken wings, and ribs. Then I noticed (what I believe sets Scotia Stop apart from the other party store I went to) is sides. And a combo meal. You can get macaroni mixed with cheese, as well as a cobbler portion of dessert food.

I said I wanted the Chicken Dinner Combo, for $5.99 please. I told him I wanted the macaroni side, instead of the dessert side, and he put it in the styrofoam carry-out tray.

They had three varieties of hot sauce; the man recommended the garlic hot sauce to me because “it is hotter.” I was disappointed to find that they didn’t have any solo cups for
the hot sauce, and that if they did, it would cost me a whole dollar. I decided to fill up my styrofoam carry out container with hot sauce, because everything is just going to get hot sauce on it anyway.

I also bought a 24oz. bottle of Beck’s Beer because that goes good with chicken.

I made it home in a matter of minutes. And upon my arrival, the chicken was at ambient temperature. Which is fine with me; I don’t need hot chicken, really. I was happy to see a large portion of the macaroni along side one half of a large potato; broasted. And also a very light biscuit. The biscuit, however, did not come with butter, so I dipped it in the macaroni and then into the hot sauce so it would have some liquid stuff on it.

The chicken breast was standard, but tasted good. I have always had a hard time getting breast meat off of a fried chicken breast. But that is my fault. Not their fault.

What I was most pleased with was the chicken wings. They are the kind of wings that are not separated into drumettes, wings, and chicken tips, but the kind that they leave all-together, in one piece. That is my favorite kind of chicken wing.

In conclusion, I am very full. I don’t feel sick at all, and that was a huge fucking potato. The men that work there are very pleasant, and I would go back for the wings.

STAVROS ON MAGARITA'S VIA ICHAT

STAVROS: I had some of the worst mexican food last night
EUNICE: where?
STAVROS: the place on wdwd in berkley
EUNICE: Margaritas's?
STAVROS: yeah, last night, after i left your house
EUNICE: oh...really, you went there? did you eat there? or get carry out
STAVROS: i got carry out
STAVROS: burritos
STAVROS: terrible
STAVROS: threw it out
EUNICE: what made you go there?
STAVROS: i wanted to go to Zumba
STAVROS: and they had *just closed
STAVROS: and so, i took 11 mile up to
STAVROS: worst mexican food ever
EUNICE: yes, i have never really seriously considered going there. it looks awful.
STAVROS: it was awful
STAVROS: had about 4 bites
STAVROS: man
STAVROS: threw it out
STAVROS: and i'll eat anything
STAVROS: the beef was grey
EUNICE: too bad you don't have a picture.
STAVROS: just take a picture of a trash can
STAVROS: surprised i'm not sick

STAVROS AND EUNICE HIT THE THUMB

This past weekend, Stavros and I travelled to Lexington, a charming little harbor village on the shore of Lake Huron just 18 miles north of Port Huron in the thumb. Whether you're looking for a weekend retreat, a cottage or a retirement home, Lexington is the place for you. Does it seem like I wrote that last bit? I didn’t. I took it from the Lexington website.

I’ve been to Lexington a few times in the past couple of years and Stavros hadn’t been up there for about 20 years. His people used to have a farm up in the thumb and he spent many idyllic summers there, much like my summers in southwestern Idaho, only without all the Mexican gangbangers.

We stayed at a bed & breakfast in town. The house was an 1870 farmhouse with three guest rooms. We stayed in the “Movie Star Room” which had a very nice chenille bedspread, the type that one might expect Jennifer Aniston to have, and a lot of black and white photos of has-beens like Natalie Wood.

Another highlight of the B & B was a room called “Settee.” This is what they say about “Settee” on their website: There is a coffee pot located in the room for early morning convenience. You are welcomed to relax and watch the morning news or read the daily newspaper in your robe on the provided loveseat.


We arrived in town at about 3 PM and immediately went to eat, because I must eat almost continuously. We shared a “pizzette” at a place called Smackwater Jack’s then walked along the breakwall, where we naturally ran into some acquaintence of Stavros’s. We could be rappelling in Brazil and someone Stavros knows would swing by on a rope.

We made our way back up the street and stopped in a few stores. Stavros determined that the attractive people were the out-of-towners and the homely ones were residents. This seemed to reinforce his earlier observation at a gas station in Port Huron: “Say what you will about Detroit….but the farther away you get, the weirder people are.”

We picked up some groceries for the barbecue we were attending later on that evening and returned to the B & B to lie down for while. We ran into the proprietress in the kitchen, who was wrist-deep in what I knew to be “French toast casserole,” because she told me what she’d be serving for Sunday breakfast when I made the reservation. Stavros lay immediately upon the chenille and closed his glorious eyes while I read my book in the nearby chaise and jostled the bed with my foot every time he seemed to be drifting off. Finally, he awoke and we departed for the barbecue at the cottage of some friends of ours. They were up from the Detroit area with their kids; two couples, Pierce and Joanne Nawtee and Krystal and Pete St. Patrick.

The gentlemen had apparently been sampling the contents of the cooler for several hours by the time we arrived. The ladies were busy in the kitchen making salad and mac & cheese for the children. I uncorked my Pinot Grigio and poured three glasses while Stavros trotted out the back door.

“Salud!” I said, as Krystal and Joanne and I touched juice glasses.

I helped Joanne prepare salads and do the dishes then went outside when she got to the “cheese” part of the mac & cheese. There is nothing that smells quite as bad as mac & cheese to me. The guys were standing around the barbecue trying to seem busy when I stepped out the back door. Pierce didn’t put much effort into it and plopped down in a lawn chair, his head lolling backward.

“He’s gone,” murmured Stavros.

“I see that!” said I, smiling brightly at Pierce, who suddenly lifted his head and attempted to focus on us.

We ate and played catch and chased the children and told them some scary lies about what happens to kids that try to go to the beach alone and stuff like that for a few hours. When the s’mores and the sparklers were finally gone, they were sent to bed and the adults gathered around the bonfire. It was very nice, even when the wind changed direction and fully engulfed my person in smoke and flying soot.


This sort of classic summery memory-making went on for maybe another hour and we decided to pack it in. Forgetting nearly everything we’d brought with us, including my sunglasses, the bug spray, and our baseball and mitts, we clambered into the car and bounced down the dark highway the two miles back to town. After the “Zappa Plays Zappa” show, I am all about FZ so we had to listen to “Any Way the Wind Blows” a number of times before I felt we could end the night.

We entered the front door and crept stealthily upstairs to our room. The owners’ room was directly next to ours so we had to be extra quiet. Naturally we both slept like logs and awoke 22 minutes before the official breakfast call. I took a shower and made sure to use some of every product in the bathroom, even going so far as to steal a Biore blackhead remover pad.

We trundled down the stairs and onto the wide front porch, where the B & B’s two other couples were already tucking into breakfast and revealing dull things about themselves to one another.

“Thank God we don’t have to sit with them,” I whispered, as we took the other table.

A margarita glass filled with fruit salad was at each place setting and within seconds, the proprietress rushed out with platters of French toast casserole topped with warm berry sauce and grilled sausage patties. Regular readers of Modern Coastline will not be able to believe the following statement but I assure you it is true: Stavros did not like the French toast casserole. His official explanation was that it “didn’t taste like anything,” but I suspect that it simply didn’t taste like sugar. I thought it was really good, as far as those things go, but the sausage was spectacular. I ate all of my sausage (two large patties) and most of the fruit salad and about half of the giant French toast wedge. The proprietress came to take our plates and looked genuinely hurt that Stavros had left one sausage patty.

“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed enthusiastically as she took my plate. “Those sausages were wonderful! I am just…so full! Aren’t you full?”

“Yes,” Stavros agreed, pushing back from the table and standing up.

“We have a child in Indiana,” commented one of the time machines sitting behind us.

We packed up and left at once. Following a brisk stroll through town, we decided that maybe we weren’t full after all, and we popped into Wimpy’s, Lexington’s famed hole-in the-wall hamburger joint.



We ordered and perused the local “paper,” which was actually more of a pamphlet; a four-page (cover, inside front cover, inside back cover, and back cover) homemade effort. Most of it consisted of ads for real estate agents and rib night at the golf course restaurant, but there was a smattering of “content” also. My favorite part was the joke sent in by a reader about the guy who went to the store to get his wife some tampons but got her string and cotton balls instead to pay her back for getting him loose tobacco and rolling papers instead of a pack of cigarettes the night before. Also I enjoyed the riddle about “I am having lunch with my only sister’s husband’s mother-in-law’s daughter in law. Who am I having lunch with?” (The answer to that one was supposed to be somewhere in the paper but it was not so if you know the answer please tell me.)

“I gotta go the bathroom,” Stavros announced.

While I waited I puzzled over the riddle and stared at the 8-year-old Wimpy’s employed to bus tables wipe counters until Stavros abruptly returned and whispered to me that he hadn’t been able to go because while he was in the bathroom, some man kept rattling the door, trying to get in. I turned around. “Who?” I asked.

“I dunno.”

Two hamburgers (the misshapen blackish sort with greasy fried onions clinging to the surface) and a large chicken fries and order of onion rings later, we were finally really full.

We hoisted our hugely fat selves into the car and made one last tourist stop at the swinging bridge in nearby Croswell, home of Pioneer sugar. I climbed on the bridge and started trying to make it sway.

“Nice Biore blackhead strip,” said Stavros.

My hand flew to my back pocket and felt the edge of the package slipping out.

“You ever use one of those?” he asked. “It’s gross. You leave it on for like, eight, ten minutes, then peel it off and it’s like a forest of blackheads.”

Well, after that special moment, we bade a wistful farewell to Lexington.

And then the drama began.

About 45 minutes into our trip and during the zillionth playing of “Wowie Zowie,” we heard a noise. It was a repetitive sound, the kind of sound that follows the revolution of a tire going about 70 miles an hour. A tire that used to have air inside of it, but no longer does.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!” screamed Stavros, “PULL OVER!”

Well, he didn’t curse like that but he did suggest pulling over. So we slowed down and stopped and he got out to examine the suspect wheel. It was indeed flat.

He opened my trunk and fished around under the Tupperware and paperbacks and old sweaters and newspapers and coffee cups, looking for the jack.

“Where’s the jack?” he yelled over the nonstop stream of semis blazing past at 120 miles an hour.

“I don’t have one.”

Well, to make a long, sweaty story short, a very lovely police officer stopped and offered to call a towing associate of his to come help us.

This was terrific because my insurance carrier, to whom I pay a large sum of money for the specific benefit of roadside assistance, chose first to be baffled by my inability to describe my exact coordinates, then to react by putting me on hold for 10-15 minutes.

A tow truck arrived lickety-split and a burly sort changed the tire after being sort of a prick to Stavros when my dear asked a simple question about my being billed. We chalked it up to the distance-from-Detroit thing and let it go.

Forty-five minutes later we were pulling off the freeway on our exit when Stavros received a text message from his next-door-neighbor, Arnie. “'Fuck the cops—Arnie,'” he read aloud. “What does that mean?” He called Arnie back and got voicemail. We decided to drive past his house—maybe there’d been a break in over the weekend? Some sort of crime on their block?

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I bet he was driving by and saw us on the side of the road with that cop.”

Stavros turned and fastened his heavily lashed orbs on me. “My God,” he said. “You’re right.”

Moments later Arnie called and confirmed my guess. He couldn’t believe what a dick the cop was, making us both get out of the car after pulling us over! We all were laughing, whooping, and hollering and high fiving over that one for a while.

ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA

Last night Stavros took me to Zappa Plays Zappa at the Motor City Casino’s Soundboard theater. Neither of us had ever been to a show at Soundboard before, although apparently he has spent quite a lot of time in casinos for gambling purposes. Because of my good breeding and natural aversion to all aspects of life’s underbelly, I was wholly unfamiliar with what to expect but looking forward to a new adventure.

We left slightly early because I fantasized about getting a cocktail at a fancy casino bar while lights flashed and jackpots clanged into buckets and lovely women in sequined gowns threw dice on felt. The glamour factor began to dissipate as we exited the freeway and passed the bombed-out building adjacent to the casino’s parking lot but still I clutched Stavros’s hand in anticipation. As the parking guard pointed us toward the proper entrance, we noted a mid-fiftiesish hippie couple standing just outside smoking. The female squatted like an old Chinese woman waiting for the bus as the man chatted jovially with the black security guard posted at the doors. Both hippies had long, curly gray hair and wore loose tie-dyed outfits.

“That’s about the gist of what you’re gonna see in this show,” Stavros commented, a Zappa fan all his life.

Hmm, I thought, okay, mentally adjusting my image of the artsy, eccentric, brunette, glasses and vintage outfit-wearing audience.

The security guard pointed us up an escalator to the theater. We stepped off into what amounted to a large food court with the theater at one end. At the center was a coffee island. There was a really crummy-looking bar that looked like they lifted it right out of Metro Airport next to a huge dining room. Four middle-aged women sat at a table along the rail in the bar and guffawed their brains out as we passed. They were either drunk or recently released from a mental institution because nothing’s that funny.

“I bet they don’t have Stella,” moaned Stavros glumly, gazing at the scene.

There was a lobby just outside the huge dining room with an “associate” (which is what the casino calls employees, I know, because I saw a lot of doors marked “Associates Only”) stationed at a podium monitoring a long line of people waiting to enter.

“What is that?” I asked Stavros. “What are they waiting for?”

“To get in,” he told me.

“Is it free?” I was amazed.

“No,” he said.

As we rounded the corner, I stared in at the restaurant, wondering what was so tantalizing that people would be willing to stand in line like starving Russians to get in. The place was about a quarter full, so it wasn't like it was at capacity or anything.

“I think it’s all-you-can-eat,” my brilliant Stavros said.

“Ah!” said I, as I watched a man in a trucker’s hat salt a giant bowl of rice.

We approached the cadre of guards and associates standing in a line of defense at the theater’s entrance. We were still a good 12 feet away when one of them announced loudly in our direction: “Five minutes.”

We looked at each other.

“Let’s walk around,” I suggested, and we turned and headed toward the casino itself. We walked through a smelly but well-lighted tunnel with glowing aqua walls to another wing of the building from which noise and lights emanated. Yet another associate stood at the gate of this area.

“IDs,” he commanded blandly.

Stavros and I looked at each other again. This was just too much hassle.

“No, thanks,” we said, and started to turn away.

“You gotta show ID to get in the casino,” he said.

“That’s okay; we’re just killing time till the theater opens,” we said, and left, thwarting his attempts to boss us around.

By the time we got back to Soundboard five minutes had passed. We were required to present our IDs and my handbag for a thorough scouring. I actually had to pass it through a metal detector before spreading it open in all its pantyliner/lip gloss indignity before the glassy eyes of a becornrowed guard.

We strode immediately to the bar just inside the gates to wait for the theater doors to open. The bartender approached us at once and asked to see ID.

“Again?!?” we cried, reaching into our wallets.

“Sorry,” he replied, “What can I getcha?”

“Do you have Stella?” Stavros asked with a challenge in his voice.

“Nope,” said the bartender, with what I felt was a certain pride, “Nothin’ fancy. Bud, Bud Light, Miller, MGD, Corona.”

“Corona,” grumbled Stavros, swiveling toward me on his stool. “It just pisses me off,” he hissed, as the bartender poured his beer into a plastic cup.

“What, baby?” I asked.

“This…beer situation,” he whispered, then: “Can’t I have it in the bottle?” he said in an irritated voice to the bartender.

“Nope!” said the bartender, with the same smugness as before. “What can I get you?” he asked me.

“Um, what kind of…white wine do you have?” I asked fearfully.

“White Zin, Chardonnay, Riesling,” he answered.

“Uh, the Chardonnay,” I said, turning to Stavros and putting my hand on his arm. “It’s okay, baby.”

“It’s going to be like twenty bucks!” he predicted, getting out his charge card.

The bartender returned with my wine. “Thirteen dollars,” he said.

Stavros smiled murderously and slid his card toward the man.

Around this time, people began arriving to the show. And by “people,” I mean men. Middle-aged men. Hippie men, hanging-out-on-the-boat men, lawyer men, all kinda men. Every now and then one of them had his woman along, but for the most part, it was a real sausage-fest.

“See what I mean?” said my Stavros, as he eyed the testosterone pouring past the guards.

We slugged down thirteen bucks’ worth of booze and entered the theater. We were instantly assailed by yet more associates who wanted to see our tickets. After presenting them, we were directed down a flight of stairs to the main floor. It was very dark and spotlights shone from all directions. An associate at the bottom of the stairs led us to our seats. There were bars on both sides of the stage which I thought was very convenient. As we settled into seats one and two in row F, section 150, Stavros noted the projection of Frank Zappa’s face that shone on the back wall of the stage.

“The aspect ratio’s off,” he declared. “Let’s get a drink.”

“May I see your IDs?” the bartender asked.

The show began promptly at 8 PM. The place was almost entirely filled, from what I could tell, with sausages and the occasional roll. One prim-looking woman sat on the main floor just below us with a paperback and a sweater draped over her shoulders. A lone man sat in the chair in front of hers and he excitedly chatted her up until his friends arrived and he was forced to slide down into the last chair in his row, crushed up against the wall. The prim lady’s husband arrived shortly thereafter and handed her a Little Caeser’s mini-pizza and two packages of wet naps. She looked very pleased, although the arrival of the ex-con looking hippie couple who took seats on her other side resulted in the discreet sliding of her own chair four or five inches to the left.

It was a long set, the final 45 minutes or so punctuated by the more or less continuous ear-splitting whistle of a beer-chugging blonde woman in front of us. Sax solo? THWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET! Dweezil Zappa says anything at all? THWEEEEEEEEEEEEET! Xylophone magic? THWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET! There was literally nothing this woman wouldn’t blast her whistlehole over.

Another fun sidebar was the total incompetence of the A/V techs. Particularly whoever was manning the big-screen cameras. Shots abruptly cut from camera A to camera C to camera Z with no apparent logic.

The theater itself was a very good place to see a show once you get through the hundreds of security checkpoints. The sound was great and the seats were really good. It was a little expensive, $50 each, although my dear Stavros paid. It was a wonder that nearly the whole place was filled considering Detroit’s dreadful economic picture. I guess what remains of southeast Michigan’s well-heeled just about fits into a medium-sized auditorium.

As we left, Stavros pointed out that a door emptying out on the sidewalk led directly from the theater, and all the escalatoring and stair-climbing we’d done was just window dressing.

“What?” I said, too tired and Chardonnay-logged to compute.

On the Lodge freeway on the way home, we saw the worst drunk driver ever. He or she was swerving slowly from the slow lane to the passing lane, cruising occasionally in the middle lane for a while before edging into another. I wanted to call the police but Stavros said that we should just let that person die. Actually, he just got onto the Davison and we marveled about it for a minute then changed the subject and went home and went to sleep.

TOWN TAVERN AGAIN--GUEST POST

Today's post is from my mother, Bonita Sigmundfreud. Please enjoy her delightful recounting of a grim experience.

Our family probably will stop having birthday dinners in restaurants for the rest of the year at least. So far, our luck has been bad. For my birthday last month, we had dinner at Hong Hua and were terribly disappointed; it certainly is not the splendid restaurant it was a few years ago (see my daughter’s review). Last night, for my husband’s annual 29^th birthday, we tried Town Tavern in Royal Oak.

The restaurant is attractive. There are a few patio tables, and, thanks to doors that run the width of the place and are left open in good weather, the tables in front present an illusion of being outside, too. The interior is clean and sleek, the only drawback being the inevitable television set over the bar. (Can we not lose the tv, folks? Please? It is SO ugly.)

We sat at one of the front tables and enjoyed the breeze while we waited for our server, who was wonderful: professional, thoughtful, and prompt with service. Drinks were lovely, wine was lovely. Our waiter brought a basket of hot bread slices dusted with a little parmesan. Delicious. And the chopped salad my daughter and I shared was very nice.

The whole trouble was the entrees. Drill Press’s (daughter’s) buttermilk fried chicken looked terrific, but she said that the breast meat tasted as though it had been thawed, frozen, and then thawed again. I didn’t try it, but it looked dry. She ate very little of it, and believe me she can pack it away.

The commander’s (husband’s) New York strip was medium, which would have been okay, except that he had ordered it medium rare. And it cost twenty-five bucks for eight ounces. The commander sort of picked at it and left it alone. Luckily the asparagus was all right—a little woody, but all right—and he’d had some bread.

My turkey enchiladas were lousy. I think that they must have taken some diced turkey breast from the refrigerator, rolled the meat up into flour tacos which were placed in a small casserole, spotted with a little tasteless salsa and unidentifiable cheese, and zapped in the microwave. Honestly, there was no flavor to the thing, and it was dry. Really dry.

Our waiter apologized, took the enchiladas off the bill, and asked that we come back and sit at one of his tables again so that he can try to make up for the experience. He was a doll. What is so distressing is that we ordered very simple dinners, and the restaurant couldn’t manage them. I will give the place credit for not serving entrees large enough for three normal people, a common problem today.

There is far much too emphasis on style over food in many of Royal Oak’s restaurants and a tiresome tendency to cater to unattractive singles (or would-be singles) crowds. These people are there only to impress each other and arrange sexual liaisons. They do not deserve to be catered to. Food comes first if the place is called a restaurant. If I have to stay in my own kitchen to get good food, something is wrong. 

~Bonita Sigmundfreud

LEFTOVERS CRIME SCENE

This tray of leftovers is in the kitchen at my work right now. The rules around here are that if there is food in the kitchen, it is up for grabs. The food sits out on the counter for hours and hours. I think this started out as some kind of middle-eastern buffet.

 

A—2/3 of a gnawed-upon pita. Notice it’s mostly wet. Is that grease? Meat juice?

 

B—Cajun carrot. One of many pieces of thoroughly blackened and dried-out vegetables.

 

C—A couple of crumbs of chicken. I think. It may be something else.

 

D—What is this? Correct guess wins a soul kiss from Stavros.

 

E—Meat. I don’t know what kind but it looks and smells like dog food.

SHITTY PAPER DISCOVERS FAVE WE LOVE LONG TIME

"Jane Slaughter"

INYO!

We had been looking forward to the opening of Inyo as much as our ill-fated anticipation of Da Nang (see “THANG LONG”). For months, the signs in the window along Woodward had been taunting us with the promise of a new Asian restaurant. I checked their website every day. Finally there appeared the option to make a reservation, so I put us down for two for last Friday.

Our reservation was for 6:45 because we had plans at 8 to go to the local comedy club. I was kinda nervous that we’d be the only people in the restaurant but I noticed a few other tables occupied by fellow early birds when we walked in. We were greeted by a tall, blonde Russian woman in a stunning black pantsuit. She showed us around so that we could get a feel for the place and choose our seating. In addition to a large bar in the front, tables are lined along the L-shaped northern half of the restaurant with a handful of very cozy, high-backed booths beyond them and a small, dark sushi bar in the rear, although it was a struggle to make note of these things because I was totally mesmerized by the swish-swish of the hostess’s pants in concert with her Slavic sussurations.

We selected a high window table along Woodward so we could keep an eye on the door. And when I say “we,” I mean I exclusively close the table for this reason. I don’t think Stavros cares where we sit as long as there is no heavy a/c blowing in his face. The table was set with red plastic chopsticks and black cloth napkins (chic!) and everything smelled new, new, new. There was the requisite techno music that every Asian restaurant in town (Ronin, Sakana) seems to favor, and two televisions above the half-circle bar, but the atmosphere was nonetheless reasonably pleasant. An abundance of wait staff stood nervously about, and a tallish fellow I presume was the owner hovered between the bar and the door all evening, making fleeting, suspicious eye contact with me, which added an element of intrigue to the evening that I found refreshing.

Our waitress was a very perky and white-toothed Katie. It seems like everyone lately has unnaturally white teeth. It’s very distracting. Anyway, Katie took our drink orders and I was pleased to note a lot of wine by the glass available. Stavros and I looked over the menu and decided to try a bunch of things and share instead of ordering entrees. Most everything on the menu was Japanese, with the exception of a few side dishes (fried rice) and I think two out of three of the poultry entrees (General Tsao’s Chicken, etc). We stuck with the flavors of Nippon for the most part. Here is what we ordered and what we thought:
• Hot and sour seafood soup—Excellent job on the “hot”; not too much white pepper. Could use some more of the “sour,” though.
• Seaweed salad—Good, standard seaweed salad, only served in a martini glass atop three thin lemon slices which made the bottom of the salad very lemony and not so good.
• Agi dashi tofu—Very, very good deep-fried tofu with bonito atop. Only complaint, was supposed to have sauce accompanying, none was provided.
• Ohitashi—Boiled spinach with bonito and dipping sauce. This was great; I have never seen this offered in Detroit and all it needed to be perf was a little soy sauce. (NOTE: We had to ask for soy sauce; none was on the table)
• Fried noodles—This was a $4 side dish that was unexpectedly great. Julienned celery and carrots with bean sprouts and scallions mixed with fried thin egg noodles. See pic here of Stavros with fried noodles and the next item on our list.

• Tempura bowl—Also great. Perfect crispness outside, no greasiness inside. Shrimp, squash, onion…I think that’s it.
• Pickled vegetable roll—Good, nothing crazy but what do you expect with such a pedestrian dish?

I am pleased to report that the ladies’ room is very well done also. In the aforementioned Ronin, I get the distinct feeling they either ran out of money or interest by the time they got to the johns. Junky, dark, and shitty stalls. Inyo may not have a cheesy make-out-on-the-sofa zone with big, open windows, I grant you, but the food’s better and it’s cheaper. It’s also a lot nicer. It’s cleaner. There’s no sleazebag element. Yet, anyway.

Items of note:
1. While I was in the can, the suspiciously spying owner man approached our table and asked Stavros how everything was. I think he waited for me to leave to talk to Stavros alone. Why? I don’t know.
2. The blonde Russian was replaced by a tall black girl in an ill-fitting sari and hideous clunky shoes. Put the blonde back.


Our bill, as you can see here…

…was not that much. You’ll note we each had two drinks, and Stavros’s beers were pints, not the 12-oz versions. I think we’ve spent that much at the Emory (although at the Emory you’d have to combine our bills to come up with a total; see “GALL AT THE EMORY” and “EMORY ON NOTICE”).

We left without dessert (tiramisu and mango something but we were stuffed and we never get dessert but I did ask what it was nonetheless) and went across the street to the comedy club, which was noteworthy only because of my terribly inappropriate attempt to join in the fun of the audience participation of improv. (Was that sentence a bit long and clumsy? Sorry.)

As anyone who has been to one of these things knows, the emcee asks the audience to provide words or scenarios for the comics to work into their acts. Well, as you can see by the bill above, I had two Chenin Blancs at Inyo. I ordered a house white at the comedy club, which turned out to be an especially vile Chardonnay, which I guzzled down quickly to get it over with. I then ordered another one to rinse the rancid taste of the first of one out of my mouth, and the second half of the show began. I should mention that the place was half-empty (optimism varies by locale and temperment; see “CAFÉ HABANA”) and that we were seated at the front table, stage right. So the emcee’s having a hard time generating much enthusiasm from either the boring crowd (a handful of women having a pathetically sedate bachelorette party and a Chinese couple and their underage son who sat in total boozeless silence the whole time) or the performers, who seemed to be going through the motions despite each having profoundly agitating personal problems. I found myself wishing we’d gotten seats in the back so we could slip out. Instead, I guzzled down approximately nine glasses of rotgut Chardonnay in preparation for the nadir of the evening, which can be described thusly: The emcee asks the audience for a three-syllable word beginning with the letter “B.” He keeps talking, apparently describing the part of speech in which this word is used, but my mind was off and running, trying to think of a three-syllable B word.

“BUCHENWALD!” I yell out.

The emcee, who’s standing on the other side of the room, the entirety of the audience between us, glares up from his notes as me and hisses, “I said ‘adjective,’” as all other persons in the room stare poison hate daggers at me.

“BUCHENWALDIAN!” I try again.

At this point, Stavros lays an okay-shut-the-fuck-up hand on my arm and I try to make myself as small, silent, and apologetically posed as possible. Obviously I did not “participate” in the show any more that night, and when it was over, fairly ran to the car. Later I justified my contributions by thinking of the great comedy clubs and comic performances of yore. What kind of stiffs are we growing around here? Reminded me of the time I had the chutzpah to stand up at an Elvis Costello show at Pine Knob and the lady next to me threatened to call security unless I took my seat.

See you at Inyo.