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.

HONG WHA?????

My mother’s birthday fell on Memorial Day this year and since the only place open was the very bogue Bastone, we decided to hold off on going out to celebrate. Last Thursday was the first night we all had open, and my mother chose Hong Hua of Farmington Hills. When this place opened, I remember them getting a ton of ink and being touted as The Most Exquisite Place Ever so I was intrigued and looking forward to our dinner.

The parking lot was pretty full for 6:30 p.m. “They must have a hella rad bar in there,” I commented to my stepfather as we crossed the parking lot.

“Very good,” he replied, as he does to 99.9% of my remarks.

My mom had made reservations for 7 p.m. and said as much to the host when we walked in. He nodded politely and led us into the front dining room (past a sign reading “Proper Attire Requested.”) “It says ‘requested,’ not ‘required,’” I whispered to my mom.

“Obviously they didn’t see it,” she sniffed, gesturing toward a couple sitting to our right. I glanced down at my own torn dress and said nothing.

The host led us to a booth under a window with its shade fully drawn. I slid in and my mother slid in next to me with her giant handbag between us. “Can we move your bag?” I asked, and she picked it up to hand across the table to my stepfather.

“Let’s sit someplace else,” I suggested, realizing that the booth was just way too small for three people, enormous purse or no enormous purse, plus the unavailable window was making me feel even more trapped. The waitress showed us to a four-top which was much better. We ordered drinks and looked over the menu.

I was expecting something really daring inside, dishes I’d never heard of perhaps. Instead, I was staring down a list of items straight from the door-tag carry-out menu from China Buffet on Wyoming and 7 Mile. The waitress reappeared and we ordered—I got Szechuan Chicken, extra spicy, and a fried tofu in “pepper salt” appetizer—and before she left the table, she placed all our napkins on our laps for us, a step I felt she needn’t have taken as I was not really properly attired, after all.

While we waited, my mother informed me that she and my stepfather had recently instituted some cost-cutting measures. Among them, slicing their $14K annual wine budget in half, and contributing less to their favorite political organizations. As I considered spending $14 thousand dollars on wine each year, I gazed around the restaurant, which did not turn out to have a kickin’ bar at all, it was simply very crowded. I noted that none of the booths had three people in them, and concluded that seating us in one originally had been a slight of some sort but I wasn’t sure what it meant. Something racist, I’m sure. I folded the napkin the waitress had carefully embedded between my thighs and to kill time, went to the ladies’ room.

Hong Hua is laid out like Mickey Mouse’s head. We were in the main room, Mickey’s face, and the bathroom was off one ear. As I passed, I glanced in and saw that everyone in that room was Asian. What, they keep the round-eyes out front? I thought. What’s this about? A waiter carrying a huge tray with circular custardy jello-ish desserts maneuvered around me with a scowl. “Pardon me,” I murmured, “you racist!”

The appetizers had arrived by the time I returned, and I was depressed to note that the “pepper salt” on the fried tofu was neither peppery not salty, nor even in attendance as far as I could detect. There was a bed of pre-minced garlic, the type that comes in a jar, beneath the tofu along with a few pieces of jalepeno, and, failing all else, a small silver pitcher of plum sauce. My stepfather really enjoyed this appetizer, telling us several times that "this sauce is really delicious!"

I don’t even want to talk much about the entrees. My mother ordered some kind of shrimp/chicken in a “bird’s nest,” which turned out not to be the Chinese bird’s nest one normally sees on menus, that is, a real bird’s nest, an exotic delicacy. Instead, it was egg noodles deep-fried into a taco-salad bowl shape. My extra-spicy Szechuan Chicken was passable but I had to ask for a side of chili sauce as the dish itself was about as spicy as half-and-half. My stepfather loved what he ordered, which was some kind of beef with large slices of ginger. And when I say “large,” I mean like the size of a Dorito. He agreed to accept my leftovers to take home in the cheery bag pictured above as I knew I would never finish them.

On the way home, we were assailed by at least 25 motorcyclists racing down 696 at terrifying speeds. Of thematic interest: All bikes were rice-burners.

The best part of the whole evening was this fortune. I love typos!

GROSS

What the hell is this--a rice sandwich?

CAFE HABANA

Saturday morning broke crisp and clear. Stavros and I slept late, of course, and finally got up to make coffee at about 9:30. “Hey, I thought you said ‘late,’” you say. “9:30’s not late.” I know, I’m just pretending that we get up really early on weekends and get a bunch of stuff done like normal people. We don’t.

Anyway, before your rude interruption, I believe I was describing waking up and making coffee. As I lay in bed staring at Stavros, I considered breakfast options. I had visions of vegetables, salsa, spiciness. We’ve got to hit the Farmer’s Market, I thought. We should eat in Royal Oak. I remembered my dear friend Janis Beaglehole telling me that Café Habana had a decent brunch. That would fill my spicy hole, I thought, gazing thoughtfully at Stavros’s sleeping form.

Never one to argue, Stavros agreed to my Royal Oak plan. By some miracle, we were able to find a parking place right behind the restaurant as well as the additional blessing of hearing the oddest song in history while parking. It was some country-fried fellow talking about Buddy Holly, and the REAL story of what happened to him. I think. I can’t remember enough of the lyrics to properly Google it. However, it was very strange and anyone who knows what this magnificent number is should please leave the artist and song title in the comments, thank you.

We walked into a half-full room. Or half-empty, depending on your attitude. If you’re a dour son of a bitch, you would have thought the place looked near-empty. I, however, noted simply that all the tables I wanted to occupy were taken and thus the capacity registered at 50% full and 100% assholes for taking all the good tables. So we had to take one on a bit of a riser near the kitchen. This turned out to be okay because at least we had a window and got to watch the swarm of cops who began circling the area about a half hour later. But I digress.

Our waiter, one of two serving the room, was a blandish youth with a vacant expression. He brought us coffee and water and returned a few minutes later to take our order. I’d decided to get one of everything from the “sides” menu, which together would be the equivalent of a basic breakfast at any other restaurant. Eggs, potato, toast, bacon. I asked the waiter what, exactly, was “Cuban toast.” He stuttered, “It’s…it’s toast, just toast, white bread.…” Okay, I told him, put me down for one. I also added a side of black beans and some chili sauce the waiter claimed was “spicy.” Stavros ordered something consisting of eggs, peas, and possibly black beans. He’s far more daring than I.

While we waited for the food to arrive, I browsed idly through a copy of the free Latino newspaper. “Oh, look, Stavros: ‘Elephant Family to Dine on Abandoned Children,’” I translated. Eventually we grew tired of reading foreign news stories and Stavros attempted to hack into the restaurant’s sound system using a nifty iPhone app he downloaded last weekend. After several fruitless attempts, I suggested we resort to the TV-B-Gone, a little universal remote that hooks onto your keyring and turn off any TV within 15 feet or so. “Is that a TV?” I asked, craning my neck to peer around a corner.

Finally the waiter arrived with our brunch. I have to say it looked a lot better than it tasted. The potato component was essentially mashed potatoes with minced onions and shaped into a disc and deep fried. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But it really wasn’t. The inside was too gluey and the outside tasted exactly like onion chips from White Castle. The bacon was slightly undercooked but not as horrifically so as served by those rat-bastards at Café Muse, so I won’t complain too much about it. The “Cuban toast”? It was half a small baguette sliced lengthwise and toasted to point of light crispness, then left unbuttered or in any way adorned. There was no butter on the table so presumably this is the way the Cubans like their toast: dry and tubular. The “spicy” sauce was so bland I was worried that I had blown out my tastebuds on wine the night previous. “Try this,” I said to Stavros, who was having much better luck that I. “It’s good,” he said. “This is all really subtle; I like it.”

Hrrrmph. I tried the black beans. They were good once I added a lot of salt. Oh, I must mention this: At Café Habana, they use those terrible salt grinders. I hate those. That’s too much for tabletop use, in my opinion. I ate what I could, chewing dutifully on the flavorless bread and admiring Stavros’s ruggedly handsome visage. Around this time was when the cops began their siege. One after the other, they passed our window. “I’m going to go see if they need any assistance,” I told Stavros, and got up from the booth, hiked up my jeans, and stepped outside. A lone cruiser crept around the lot we’d parked in, and a couple more rolled slowly past me on 5th Street headed toward Main. I scanned the terrain for guys in ski masks hunched behind dumpsters but failing to see anything except a gaggle of middle-aged women in “Race for the Cure” t-shirts lumbering into a minivan, I went back into the restaurant.

Stavros was in the final round of his eggs-and-peas mess, so I looked around for our waiter. He was over by the restrooms, carrying a broom and dustpan with an odd look of bliss and tranquility on his face. I started to raise a hand but he was obstinately refusing to notice me, even peripherally. I turned around and saw the other waiter sitting in the booth behind us, folding napkins around silverware. “Excuse me, can we get our check, please?” I asked.

He looked around, saw our waiter. “Sure,” he said, getting up and looking irritated and amused at the same time. “He’s…uh, he’s a little under the weather. I think he ate something bad,” he added unnecessarily. Well, that’s just terrif, I thought. Our waiter’s got the shits. Then I recalled the beatific expression on his face, and decided that he was stoned. I felt better, but not a lot, and Stavros paid and we left. Normally I would conclude our story here but one funny thing happened at the Farmer’s Market that I must report.

First of all, I was disappointed to find that the majority of their produce was lettuce. About a million kinds of lettuce. Everything else was only available in embryonic or infantile versions. Of course, moron, you’re thinking. It’s May. The Farmer’s Market isn’t the grocery store. Fine, okay, I forgot. Sue me. Lucky thing, I love lettuce. So we’re wandering around with our lettuce when we bump into some guy he knows.

“Hey, Stavros,” the guy said. I turned around. The guy was with a woman; we smile weakly at each other without speaking.

“We see each other all the time!” the guy continued. I look at Stavros.

“Yeah, we…see each other…from time to time,” Stavros agreed. Well! This is certainly an exhilarating reunion! I take Stavros by the hand and we move toward the Praying Mantids display (“Guaranteed to Fix Your Insect Problem—200 Live Praying Mantids, Should Hatch By July!”).

“That guy never introduces me to his wife,” he grumbled, totally unaware of the strangeness of their conversation. “Don’t get those,” he added, nodding toward the Mantids. I took his hand and we left.

I’m going to go back next weekend for the Mantids.

STAVROS'S HOTDOG MASTERPIECE

Stavros made these two beauties for dinner last night. The buns were brushed lightly with olive oil, then sprinkled with garlic powder leftover from a "Chex Mix at home" experiment. Then both sides of the inner buns were brushed with Gulden's spicy mustard and ketchup, atop which the Ball Park beef frank was placed along with one pickled green bean, sliced Roma tomato, and a squiggle of yellow mustard. Stavros is a genius.