INYO ON NOTICE

The following review, INYO ASS, SERVERS, is by my mother, Bonita Sigmundfreud. I would like to preface her commentary by describing the last and final experience Stavros and I had at this place.

It was the Friday of my first week at my new job and I worked a little late so I drove straight from work to pick up Stavros. We agreed to go Inyo over our preferred nearby Japanese joint, Sakana, for a change of pace. Also, we discovered that our favorite place Sakana is not so favoritey if we get anyone but our friend Delgado Activito as our waiter. We hadn’t been to Inyo for a long time and I can’t remember why other than having a vague memory of being annoyed by their loud and horrible music and also that they had a Victoria’s Secret fashion show on tv the last time we were there. My Japanese urge happens about twice a month and the previous week or so—Valentine’s Day dinner, in fact—we had gone to the fancier and spookier Shiro in Novi. 

(Review-within-a-review-within-a-review—Shiro was really fun. It is a giant antebellum mansion that is purportedly haunted. It was once a grand private home and it still feels like you’re at a huge dinner party at someone’s house. After dinner we went upstairs to check out the second floor diners and came upon an unlocked, unmarked door that turned out to lead to the attic. We snuck up in the cold and dark and crept around for a while before scurrying back down and slipping out the door under the disapproving eye of a passing busboy. This is a good place to go if you want to make a big impression. Pulling into the driveway at night and being greeted by a million windows ablaze on the face of a gorgeous old mansion like that is stunning. It’s also really good and not any more expensive than your average suburban sushi joint. There’s a very cozy little bar that was probably a small maid’s bedroom or something tucked behind the staircase—it looks like a train car. It is really perfect for a date.)

Anyway, we entered Inyo the way people normally enter public places—through the front door. In keeping with these people being wrong about everything they do in relation to the concept of service, they installed the hostess station at the back door, and the bartender who greeted us as we walked in acted like we had pulled the Milton Berle of boners by hoping to get seated from the front of the restaurant. 

 

 Stavros did not like this at all. We strode to the rear, past the way-too-deep-and-tall booths and were led BACK TO THE FRONT to be seated. I had to turn sideways to squeeze past the chairs of the table next to ours, which was occupied by what looked like a rapper and his posse. They actually had a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in a bucket on the table and appeared not to be eating but rather holding a symposium on public leisure.

Once in my ultra-cramped chair, I realized it had a very pronounced wobbling problem. I did a couple of test-wobbles to make sure it wasn’t going to right itself and finally dragged myself out of it and flagged a passing busboy.

“The chair wobbles,” I said. I began rearranging my chair with the one next to it and told him that it needed to be fixed. He smiled and nodded in the way people do when they don’t exactly speak English but are in the service industry in an English-speaking country.

“My good man,” I began, prepared to deliver a lecture on the importance of even chair legs. Sensing this, he whisked himself off to another part of the restaurant and I took my new chair.

As any first week on a new job is, mine had been trying, and I was very thirsty. 

 I looked over the wine menu for a millisecond and settled on the second-cheapest Pinot Noir then began scanning the room for our server, who had yet to make him or herself known to us.

Finally the hostess slid into view, clutching the elbow of a 15-year-old boy wearing lipstick. She gave him a shove toward our table and he glided over. What followed was one of the strangest performances by a waiter I have ever experienced.

Firstly, he did not have lipstick on, it turned out, his lips were just very plump and rosy, and he pursed them together a lot and twisted them around so that they appeared on different sides of his face and curled into sneers and basically just slid all over his face like a pair of worms while he spoke. This unsettling phenomena was enhanced by his borderline leering and theatrically seductive looks; lots of eyebrow waggling and peering-through-the-lashes and knowing glances. His voice also traveled on its own meandering road, going from deep-voiced authority to girlish trilling swoon.

“And have we had a chance to look at the menu?”

“Um, actually, I’d like to get a glass of wine first, thanks.” I told him what I wanted and he almost fainted from pleasure.

“Oh, excellent choice!” he hissed in ecstasy, hugging the wine menu to his breast. “I just had that one yesterday and it is—so—delicious. Excellent, excellent!”

“Can I have the menu back…I…might want…”

“Of course, of course!” he cried, handing it back. After remembering to ask Stavros for his order, he fled, leaving us finally able to make eye contact.

“Good grief, what a screwball,” my Stavros said, looking even more like the manliest creature alive.

Within seconds the screwball with the screwy lips was back with drinks. He presented mine as if it was a diamond tiara and I was Elizabeth Taylor.

“Thank you,” said I, pouring the entire glass down my throat at once. “Very good.”

“Have we decided?” he fluttered.

I’ll save some time here and tell you that the food was mediocre and I had to send something back. Old Fluttery Eyes did not offer to bring me a replacement. Instead he looked pityingly at me when I told him I was rejecting it, as if it bespoke an irredeemable flaw within my palate that I could not enjoy waterlogged spinach.

  

Other annoyances include conversation between the lead rapper and a waitress who was opening yet another bottle of champers for him and his crew. He was temporarily alone at the table, his boyz all scattered about the bar or outside smoking, and he was obviously taking the opportunity to practice his smooth operations.

“And then you just pull out the cork like this…”

“You Japanese?”

“No, I’m actually half Korean and half American…anyway, you pull the cork…”

“You look aright for Korean. You like champagne?”

“Oh, um...hee hee…I don’t really drink..”

“Oh yeah? I bet you like champagne. S’all bubbly…taste real sweet.”

At this juncture I vomited into my handbag and we left. A few weeks later I told my parents the story and what did they do? They raced right out to Inyo.

INYO ASS, SERVERS

By Bonita Sigmundfreud

My husband and I went out to Inyo last Wednesday, March 10^th, for a drink and perhaps dinner. We got there around 5 pm. As usual at that hour, no one was behind the bar and a lone waiter sat and folded napkins at the front window. I sat at one of the window tables while my husband drove around back to find a parking place. A server came and offered me a drink and menus almost immediately, but after my husband came in, found me and sat down, we were ignored—until I looked over at the waiter folding napkins. He at once came to our table, took my husband’s order, and brought a drink.

This is typical Inyo at that hour of the day. The televisions over the bar are on, the music plays, but hardly any staff members are around. Why is there no bartender? 

Why do servers habitually gather into a small group to chat at the service area of the bar, while people are sitting and waiting at tables in the front of the place? 

It is all the more noticeable because servers are overly attentive to diners, who sit in booths at the back of the restaurant. The problem there is to get through more than three or four bites without someone asking whether everything is all right. The first time, it’s fine, even the second, but the pleasure of being looked after pales quickly afterward.

My impression is that management is not spending enough time at Inyo to know how people are performing their jobs. There is no excuse for leaving the bar unattended for longer than a restroom break during operating hours. Servers clearly realize that customers are waiting for service at the front and ignore them. Hasn’t anyone told them that drinkers frequently turn into diners? 

And that tips are calculated with service in mind?

The food is very good and well-priced. But Inyo needs to correct what is becoming a worsening lack of service. The few true professionals there need the support of their colleagues, and customers need reasons to continuing patronizing the place. 

GUEST POST--LUCY BLUMPKIN GOES TO ANN ARBOR

Today's guest post is from Lucy Blumpkin.

Dropped into downtown Ann Arbor after a long hiatus to see a show.

Memories of past dining experiences arose pleasantly as I juggled time and location issues. Many options swirled but one rose to the top like a plump olive in a martini, The Grecian Pizza joint two or three doors down from The Michigan Theater.

Rolling into town, I soon realized what a few months absence could do to a place. All the old standby eateries I recalled from the old days of loafing in Ann Arbor were strangely missing. These landmarks were the foundation of my navigation in the city, and I was soon befuddled as to where I even was. Seva, the veggie haven was still there. But where I knew the Grecian should have been, was literally a new block of architecture. Gone was the brightly lit, linoleum-floored haven that had supplied beers, thin slices and good antipasto before concerts gone by. Gone, in fact, was the pay phone outside that had heard so much of my useless chatter in the days before the pocket tele.

Parking hadn’t changed, and my date Jesse Sheafer drove around for 10 minutes, finding street parking in the residential area near Ann and Thayer. Amazing historic homes being ripped apart by students trying to load kegs in the window. Or so Jesse reasoned based on days visiting friends here as an undergrad.

Walking into town, we searched for a non-franchised establishment. Considering the scandal when Starbucks took over the corner of Liberty and State, the coffee shop now seemed like an old friend with Cosi, Buffalo Wild Wings, Potbelly and the like budding up like a teen blemish.

Then we walked by a cavernous place, all pale wood, high ceilings and sherbet silk fabrics. The delightful menu on the door declaimed it a place where you could relax, feel at home and enjoy food in good company (or something as granola crunchy.) Nuff said, we went in.

The thin, knit capped mild-mannered host may as well have said “Welcome to Ann Arbor” as he led us to a roomy booth with warm lighting and large menus. The next two things that happened were testament that they saw me coming and were prepared. First, we were instantly served large delicious glasses of water with ice. And second, the easy-to-find restroom (below street level, A² style) was delightfully warm.

The large bar area was festooned with students, and my eye instantly registered the sweet potato fries, thus beginning my wish list.

The menu offered interesting subsections such as Small Plates, Sides and Hand Helds along with the usual Entrees and Sandwiches.

Another thin young man walked up and offered his services as our waiter. With his soft manner, he was instantly likable and when he came back later smelling slightly of smoke, I liked him even more.

As is my wont, I made a menu choice then changed my mind several times until the waiter arrived to receive my questions.

“Tell me about the Caribbean Fish Taco’s, are they good?” I began.

“Oh yes, they are very popular at lunch,” he delivered back. This being dinner, I naturally slid the tacos into the maybe category.

“What about the lobster BLT?” I prodded

“We get a quite a few orders for that,” he said ambiguously.

LBLT was dead.

“What other fishy sort of things do you recommend?” I asked as if I were just asanxious as everyone to come to a conclusion.

“The seafood with pasta has this amazing white wine sauce…” he started to say, before I waved him off with disinterest.

“What about the butternut squash ravioli?” I tried.

He brightened, “That’s my absolute favorite thing on the menu.”

I had finally worn him out.

After a few minutes of contemplation to

imply that I had my own mind, I proceeded to order the ravioli.

“Oh, can we have the sweet potato fries as an appetizer?” I said, gratuitously including my partner.

Jesse made an easy getaway, ordering a cob hand-held and a bowl of the tomato bisque.

The soup was the first to arrive, and we explored its basily-garlic goodness, noting its similarity to that of Win Schulers in Marshall, Mich.

The fries did not disappoint, lightly flour-coated and fried to a delightful crispness, served with a creamy red pepper sauce.

Jesse enjoyed his wrap, while eyeing my bumpy brown dish suspiciously.

I sliced into the ravioli pillow brimming with squash, and slid it through the cream picking up walnut pieces and bits of sun-dried tomato along the way. It melted in my mouth. I ate in rapture until sharing occurred to me, but my offer was politely declined.

Knowing I wouldn’t be taking any home I ate too much, having been raised in the clean plate school of dining. I forced a bite on the reluctant Jesse, who humored me, then was more than pleasantly surprised. He too overindulged.

Sava’s posted promise did not disappoint. The experience in fact, gave me a tiny shred of hope that maybe the Ann Arbor I’d feared so changed, was simply evolving, it’s core individuality still intact. The card I grabbed on the way out confirmed my hunch; in addition to the vitals, the card read Life I love you, all is groovy.

Sava’s Cafe

734-623-2233