I like to do things and to go places.

ANNA'S

Last weekend we woke up early, and since it was pleasant outside for the first time since, oh, early October, we decided to ride our bikes someplace for breakfast. I haven’t taken my bike out of the garage since sometime in September (there was a large, hammock-like cobweb attaching it to the garage wall which I was able to remove with a pair of gardening shears), and my tires were kinda flat, so we decided to go to the gas station on 9 Mile to get air. Stavros, being the gentleman that he is, immediately announced, “I’ll handle this,” and jumped off his bike to unscrew my nozzles. Now, I don’t want you to get aroused by that visual so let me clarify things: He was just taking the cap off my bike's valve stems. Anyway, because I feel I must supervise every imaginable task, I lorded over Stavros with my hands on my hips and began issuing instructions. He looked up and fixed as steely a gaze as is possible with those eyelashes and said, “I know how to put air in tires.”

Well. I guess he did, because it was much easier to keep up with him afterward. I suggested we go to a mystery spot—a little diner I’d seen all my life but never tried (because it seemed like it had to be gross) called Anna’s on Woodward in Pleasant Ridge. So we wove through PR and stopped our bikes in front and looked in the windows before entering. You don’t want to just march into a place you’ve never been—what if it’s Leprosy Day or something? Anyway, it sure looked cute. It was shotgun-style with tables running the length along the windows and a bar on the other side. The tables were formica and chrome with turquoise leather chairs and a bunch of porcelain knick-knacks and plants and shit were on the long windowsill. It looked totally charming. I couldn’t figure out why no one was in there. So we walked in and noticed two things at once. First, it wasn’t entirely empty; there was an older man sitting at the counter having coffee and talking to the ancient woman behind the bar, and second, the place smelled God-awful. It hit us the second we walked in the door. It was like getting smacked in the face with an old man’s underpants. Medicinal, unclean, moldy, ill. I mean, every gross smell you associate with the severely elderly in one noxious inhalation. Still, perhaps we’d get used to it. We were already inside, after all, so it was worth a shot.

We took the seat nearest the door and I went to wash my hands while Stavros sat down. The old lady took no notice of us, and I heard the man at the bar say something to her about sausages, and her phlegmy reply, “You know sausages are gonna take a while,” which I thought might be her way of trying to talk him out of it. I felt a rising panic as I washed my hands so I’m afraid I can’t even describe the bathroom. I was preoccupied with getting out of there. It couldn’t be any good. People would be there. The grill and the appliances hadn’t looked clean at all, from what I glimpsed on my way to the can. Did she even maintain proper refrigeration? I left the bathroom fretting, and passed Stavros, who was about to enter the same room. “There’s only the one, honey,” I heard the old lady say. We made brief eye contact and I sent the telepathic message: “WE MUST GET OUT.”

When I returned to the table, I saw that “Anna,” which is who the old lady must be, had brought us water. I took a sip, noticing that it was obviously tap water, and old-tasting tap water, like it had been poured a couple of days ago, and there was no ice in it. Okay, I don’t have to have ice. I opened the menu and read the breakfast offerings. The left side had numbered dishes, and odd, old-timey prices. Like “#1—Cereal, coffee, and toast: $3.65” People go to a restaurant for cereal, coffee, and toast? As I looked for the regulation eggs & bacon plate, I heard “Anna” begin to cough. It sounded like she was trying to dislodge a bowl of gravy from her lungs. I looked up from the menu and thought, Okay, this is where I get off. The smell of the place wasn’t abating, either. It was stronger. Suddenly everything lost its charm. The ’50s cigarette machine in the corner. The pristine, time-capsule look of the place. The quaint menu. I turned to look for Stavros and as he approached, I saw the cash register behind him. “CASH ONLY,” it read. “NO CREDIT, NO CHECKS.”

“Stavros,” I said in a loud monotone, “They only take cash. I guess we will have to go someplace else.” I stood up.

“That’s too bad,” he said in an equally loud monotone, and without breaking his stride, walked past our table and out the door.

Once outside we hopped on our bikes and didn’t say anything until we were a half-block away. And then we laughed all the way to the Flytrap where Stavros ordered—SHOCKER THEATER—the waffles.

My good friend Anastasia Galoreski tells me that she goes to Anna’s once a month with her friend the lawyer because he loves it. This particular lawyer is also deeply enamored of Jayne Mansfield, however, so I wasn’t a bit surprised. She also told me that the woman behind the bar isn’t called Anna, her name is something else—Anna was her mother or something—and Anastasia said that she believes the old lady would be happier if no one ever came in. That explains the whole sausages-are-gonna-take-a-while comment, I thought. We figure she’ll die soon (sorry, with that cough, the next customer to walk into that joint is gonna be the Grim Reaper) and some hipster will take it over. Glad the mystery of Anna’s is over at least.

EMERGENCY BATHROOM AT THE BONGO ROOM

Forget my bullshit promises about Chicago. The most interesting thing that happened was when I tried to enter the emergency bathroom at a place called The Bongo Room. I don’t know what kind of horseshit the waitress was trying to pull when she pointed toward what looked like a closet door right in the middle of the restaurant floor in response to my “Where’s the bathroom?” I thought it was weird that they’d have a john right there next to a table, and I was kinda wondering why the lady with the baby agreed to sit there, also, leaning on the wall behind the door was a couple of brooms and mops and a chair, so when I tried to go in, I could only open the door about six inches. Trouper that I am, I turned sideways and attempted to wedge myself in and had one thigh fully through the gap when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a nice Hispanic busboy who was smiling—and not in friendliness, I assure you, this guy was laughing at me—and gesturing down a nearby hallway to a PROPER SET OF RESTROOMS. So thanks, asshole lady at the Bongo Room. I bet your Bongoing days are numbered. The food was okay, of course Stavros liked it because they had apple-cinnamon waffles with cherry-maple compote or something like that. One other quick thing about this “Bongo Room”—they open at 9AM and not a second earlier. This means that even if there is a line of people outside the door and the wind is howling up your hoo-ha and it’s 8:58 and the wait staff are all standing around picking their noses just inside the door and staring at you, they’re not letting you in.

A Non-Referendum on Chicago

There is no doubt that this shimmering city should rise above every midwestern metropolis for no other reason than the sheer fucking nightmare that traversing it is. More later.

Cafe Muse

Before they moved down the block to a larger space, Stavros and I really liked Cafe Muse. Their new location, next to the vulgarly named "Chaud Jeans," however, has been nothing but disappointment after disappointment.

Our last and probably final visit took place last Saturday. We arrived at about 11:30, prime weekend breakfast/brunch time. There were several people crowded into the vestibule and not knowing if they were all in the same party, I marched ahead of them to give my name to the hostess. No employee of Cafe Muse took the least notice of me and instead seated four people who'd been at the front of the line. Finally the hostess returned and two women who'd been next in line stepped forward and informed me that excuse me, I think we were before you. You think? Really, I thought there was a breach in the time-space continuum and we were before you but appeared to arrive later. Well, I was embarrassed and said that I'd only been trying to give our name to the hostess but I don't think they even heard me. How was I supposed to know all those people weren't all part of some overlarge mass breakfasting group? At any rate, it's a good thing they were before us because they got a little table just in front of the vestibule that I've had before and it's really too close to the tables around it which disturbs me. Besides, I wanted the high-top in front of the window that we've never been able to get. Actually it's not in front of the window, two "comfy" chairs and a little table are in front of the window and the table is about five feet from the window. This puzzled me, because when and by whom would that area be used? Why not put another table there? They clearly have no aversion to closeness and jamming people in next to each other at Cafe Muse. Another thing that gave me the willies was the busboy's attention to polishing our table before we took it. I don't mean wiping down. I mean polishing. I thought I was watching Kustom Kar Kommandos the way this fellow was making love to the tabletop.

We sat down and coffee and ginger ale (for me) was ordered and we looked at the daily menu. Cafe Muse has its regular all-the-time menu, then a daily list of special dishes. I didn't feel like having breakfast, plus the last few times we'd been in my toast wasn't toasted and the bacon was on the alive side, so I ordered the turkey burger, which of course I had to ask for sans avocado (bogue, bogue, bogue!). It was supposed to come with "tomato vinaigrette," of which I was naturally suspicious, but I assumed it would be on the side so I held my tongue on that account. The waitress inexplicably asked if I wanted ketchup or mustard, which in retrospect I guess was her way of letting me know they were out of the dressing, because there was none when it arrived. But anyway, I'm skipping ahead. I told her I'd like yellow mustard please. I have have to be sure to say yellow mustard in restaurants because they so often try to fancy the joint up by giving you Dijon, which is good in salad dressing and spaetzle and stuff but not on a sandwich, for God's sake. Gross. I also requested the chips versus the daily salad on the side, because the daily salad was something like barley with pieces of fruit in it or some sweet concoction that sounded revolting. I also asked for a pickle and was told that they have no pickles at Cafe Muse. Stavros ordered the French toast with some kind of fruit. He likes pancakes and things like that but I can't eat anything sweet in the morning. And on the weekend I consider it morning until about 2PM.

Our drinks arrived, brought by a very stoned-seeming waiter. He had a look of bliss that one doesn't see often on the face of one in the service industry. Come to think of it, he was also the table polisher. Hm. Normally I don't order pop but I daresay I am capable of detecting carbonation, and this ginger ale, I'm sorry to report, contained none. I decided to drink it anyway because I felt that by barging to the head of the line then making all sorts of demands regarding the preparation of the turkey burger hadn't endeared me to any of the staff. Also Stavros asked for water when we ordered and I assumed that the request had registered with the waitress and that its arrival was imminent should I choose to eschew entirely the ginger ale. Well, guess what, ladies and gentlemen? No water was brought. Waitresses and waiters (I will not say "servers") milled hither and nigh but none would look in our direction despite Stavros's vain attempts to catch someone's eye.

In our ongoing waterlessness, we drank our drinks and commented on the surroundings. Stavros is particularly smug about a blow-up of a wine bottle label bearing the word "Chateau" followed by his last name, Papanastasiou, which hangs framed in the vestibule. "I can't believe they don't have pickles. What kind of a place doesn't have pickles?" I asked him.

"Maybe because pickles aren't French," said Stavros. French? I thought. What's that got to do with it? Then it dawned on me that Cafe Muse was trying to be a French place. It certainly accounted for the "Chateau Papanastasiou" wine label and the gaudy curtains hanging in the vestibule. "Perhaps," I replied.

Finally the food arrived. No water, of course, and Stavros repeated his request. "Sure," said the waitress before disappearing into the teeming mass of waitstaff attending to the every whim of all other patrons, including the two guttersnipes who'd had the gall the insinuate that I'd been trying to cut ahead of them. Those two, I happened to notice, ordered three sandwiches. Well, maybe they split two orders and had three plates but still. It didn't look good.

I was initially pleased to note the absence of the mysterious "tomato vinaigrette," but upon removing the top bun of the burger, saw with dismay that the lettuce atop was coated in a creamy-looking substance that may or may not have contained cream or (shudder) mayonnaise. With the tip of my knife, I edged the slimy greens off the burger and flipped the two tomato slices over and over to be sure none of the matter had contaminated them as well. They looked clean so I slathered a healthy amount of yellow mustard on the bun and assembled the burger. I'm not gonna say it was horrible, but it was pretty dry and flavorless. Those who prefer beef burgers will likely claim that such is the nature of poultry burgers but I have made them at home a million times and it's really not that hard to make them juicy and flavorful. This one bore all the hallmarks of being pulled directly from the package and grilled till it was Cajun (i.e., burnt and dried up). Still, it was edible. The chips turned out to be of the very thick salt & pepper variety (French-style, perhaps) and provided excellent relief from the blandness of the burger.

Stavros seemed displeased with his fruity French toast as well. "Taste this," he commanded, spearing a triangle of what looked like pineapple. The look on his face didn't scream "IT'S SO DELICIOUS," so I said no, and he didn't press it, his manners being slightly better than mine when it comes to criticizing food while still in the restaurant.

We paid the bill and vowed never to return. And not that I need tell you, but the water never came.

TOWN TAVERN

Stavros and I had an early Friday dinner at Royal Oak's Town Tavern recently. It was fairly crowded for 6:30, but once inside, we realized it was because everyone in there was old. Or they had kids. Or they were dining exclusively on booze. Nonetheless, the room was pleasantly full, and aside from the odor of fish that greeted us as soon as we opened the doors, the room itself was quite nice-looking and well laid out. Booths in the middle, high-tops in front and low tables in the middle and along the walls. We chose a high-top for two along a mirrored wall because Stavros likes to look at himself frequently.

The waitstaff were upon us at once, which was nice because Stavros and I were very thirsty. The day's specials, all fish (which accounted for the parfum de poisson), were written on two blackboards, one thirty feet away behind some hostessy-types, and one on the wall next to the mirror reflecting Stavros's undeniably striking visage, which I was able to read aloud to him by contorting my body into a spiral and leaning backward slightly. 

Since I am so picky, I chose the one entree I wouldn't have to decimate to make edible, the pan-seared turkey. Stavros ordered the grilled swordfish. We both asked for the house chopped salad. When the drinks had been brought, so too was a bread basket. "Crazy Bread," pronounced Stavros, and I peered into the deep wire basket and saw that yep, it was basically Crazy Bread, albeit short Crazy Bread. Since I hate cheese I was put off but Stavros ate a piece and didn't make a face or anything so I assume it was decent.

Within moments of ordering, possibly fewer than five, the waitress returned with the salads. I was pretty startled as the quickness, and said so, and she quipped, "Well, that's what we're pretty much known for!" I wondered about this, since the Town Tavern didn't strike me as the sort of place to go if you're in some ass-on-fire rush, but maybe the idea of a super-hasty dinner appeals to their clientele. So we ate the salad. It was as advertised: chopped. Chopped Romaine, chopped red onion, chopped cucumber, and chopped tomato. All very tiny pieces in a mustardy vinaigrette. Oh, and garbanzo beans. It was good, but the plate was chilled, which I hate. I understand most people want salad that will freeze their fillings (don't they?) but I happen to prefer something a little closer to room temperature, and since everything is done at breakneck speed at the Town Tavern, I hardly think a room-temp plate would interfere with a raw vegetable experience. Especially since there was about one cup of salad on the plate. How long could it take to eat? Anyway, it was still good. I just have a thing about a chilled plate.

The entrees arrived as soon as the salads were whisked away (surprise!). They certainly looked nice. Stavros's grilled swordfish was atop a pile of stir-fried bok choy and a spoonful of some kind of pineapple salsa was on top of the fish. Three lumps of deep-fried basmati rice/coconut fritters sat adjacent. I asked for a small bite of the fish and of course some blackish vein or something came off on the piece I took and frankly, that was enough to put me off, but I tried it anyway. It was a bit dry. The coconut fritter was decent--mildly sweet and squishy on the inside and crunchy on the outside. Stavros remarked that the fish was indeed dry all over and the whole affair could have used more of the "sauce." 

My turkey was not exactly what I'd had in mind. When you think "pan-seared turkey breast," don't you think of some nice thin fillet, maybe with some brown skin? That's what I thought. But no. It was three or four thick triangles of breast meat that had been sauteed, skinless, and presented around a glob of mashed potatoes (which were VERY good with bits of fresh sage rampant) and a tablespoon of tart, fresh cranberry relish, which was also good and I don't normally like cranberry sauce. On top of the turkey being a bit of a drag, the "gravy" was an abomination. I understand that "pan-searing" these great skinless chunks will result in zero juice from which to make gravy, but it can be managed. What curled in a big gelatinous C around the perimeter of half my plate was like half-melted caramel-colored jello of no discernable flavor. Actually I thought it tasted vaguely of my ultimate food nemesis, cheese, but I know there could have been none present. Stavros agreed that it was vile. I finished before he and I have to tell you now that the waitress committed what I consider to be the biggest sin in food service: She tried to take my plate away when Stavros was still eating. I wouldn't let her. Don't do that! I know you're in a hellsapoppin' big hurry to get us out of there so you can race someone else through dinner, but leave my goddamned plate on the table until everyone is finished! No one wants to be the only person left eating. 

We did not order dessert but I believe they had the standard four chocolate things. They did also have Ray's ice cream in special flavors, maybe daily. I think the night we were there it was coffee. Sick! 

Other items of note:

• The ladies' room was pretty nice and clean

• I don't think they allow smoking