Remember Colorforms? I do. They were those reusable sticker sets that came with a slick cardboard background and sheets of thin, flimsy vinyl with shapes, characters, scenery — anything really — printed on them. Say you liked Superman. You bought the Superman set, punched out all the characters and stuff…
It was the Christmas lights that messed me up. The tiny glass ornaments lit from within. The tinsel. The light-up motorized reindeer standing beneath the abbreviated spiral leading up to the rotunda — unused these days except under special circumstances, dark, the chairs all stacked and set aside. The decorations…
Under normal circumstances, news that a diner — a good diner, one with some age and enough funk and grunge to gladden my blackened little Rust Belt heart — had redecorated would really piss me off. Why? Because “redecorating” is often a code word for repackaging or repurposing, a polite…
I know how Thai food tastes when eaten with the fingers in the back seat of a Toyota Celica parked facing the wrong way down a one-way alley, windows up, lights out, the air thick with stale pot smoke. I know the smell of it — full and exotic –…
At six months, Bistro Vendome still has the potential to be a great spot. It has all the necessary elements — a perfect little space with a garden patio tucked away off the street; a talented chef-owner, Eric Roeder, who comes with a pedigree full of names like Gray Kunz,…
In Japan they’d say it’s otaku, or maybe a by-product of otaku — that passionate, blind obsession with something long gone, something that maybe never existed at all. At Brasserie Rouge (see review), Leigh and Robert Thompson have created a place more real than reality, a reproduction that’s not just…
We were saying our goodbyes. Laura was inside with her mother, doing the last-minute traveler’s waltz of checking tickets and departure times, making sure everyone had their jackets, collecting books that had been shoved up on shelves, fussing with the cats — doing any and every little thing that could…
It started with cheese and ended with a chicken suit. In between, I decided to start a revolution, found myself in three different chain restaurants and almost took a swing at Jesus. It was a weird week, and here’s how it shook out… Friday –hearts and minds: By my second…
You know one thing that bugs me about the French? Their cigarettes. Gitanes, in particular. Their boxes are too big; they burn funny; and they taste like a pile of burning hair. But the Frogs love ’em and are absolutely convinced that Gitanes are the best smokes on earth. Know…
At Hapa Sushi (see review), you don’t have to worry much about rules. Don’t sneeze on your neighbor’s edamame, don’t lick the help, don’t stick two chopsticks in your top lip and pretend you’re a walrus (they’ve seen it before, Shecky, and no one thinks it’s funny). If you can…
By the third time I’d driven past the construction site, the workers were getting suspicious. The fourth time, they waved. I was beginning to wonder if mocking motorists was their job, if the building site at First and Josephine was really some sort of day-vacation spot for burned-out roughers and…
There’s a colossal amount of stuff I don’t know. Seriously. A lot. And I’m not talking about the specialized, esoteric knowledge that only a few specialized, esoteric people possess. I’m not talking about being able to translate dead languages, suss out the weight of distant stars, or speak at length…
Key West today is not my kind of place. For starters, while I love the ocean, I’m not a beach-community kinda guy — not a guy tuned to that Endless Summer, quasi-Caribbean, Jimmy Buffett-and-a-strawberry-daiquiri vibe. Trust me, the last thing any of you nice people want to see is my…
I was sitting at my little two-top lonelyheart’s table at Brewery Bar II, nursing an afternoon beer and waiting to hear the perfect song. Something deep and meaningful. Tom Waits, maybe. A cut off Nighthawks at the Diner. Or maybe something from Springsteen’s Nebraska. What I got instead was Poco’s…
The original Brewery Bar closed right around the time I was born. What information I have about its glory days comes mainly from historical documents, Web archives and the spotty memories of its habitués. It was a beer-soaked neighborhood watering hole that took up residence in the old Tivoli brewery…
Okay, so you’ve got this great concept for a nightclub — an Austro-Bulgarian hip-hop joint, some all-Japanese speed-metal sushi bar, whatever — but no place to set up shop. Well, I’ve got good news for you: a zillion square feet just opened up in a prime location at the Denver…
Here’s some advice for all the aspiring chefs in the crowd. Want a cinch gig in the kitchen? Go to Switzerland, the home of fondue-style cooking. If there’s an easier path to cash for a chef than setting up a fondue joint, I haven’t heard of it. That’s because no…
They came in the dead of night, ready for war, in a rented minivan. They wore rubber gloves, hats, surgical masks and special-issue combat Birkenstocks, forsaking their customary Phish concert T-shirts and Guatemalan peasant dresses for basic black — the formalwear of today’s fashionable domestic terrorist. They marched in grim…
It’s Saturday night and it’s raining — long, vicious sheets of water not just falling, but slapping the ground as if the pavement had said something nasty about the rain cloud’s mother. I’d made the dash from my car to the door in a scuttling hunch — the way you…
This just in: Griff’s Burger Bar at 742 South Broadway, for which I just professed my undying love (“Cheeseburgers in Paradise,” October 2), is no longer serving, well, anything. Early last Friday, just a day after my review hit the stands, Griff’s caught fire. It started in the kitchen, quickly…
Oh, I like this. It’s like having dinner in L.A. or something.” I blink, look around the room. “What?” “This place. I like it. It feels like we’re in L.A.” “Or something,” I reply, then lapse back into silence, feeling shifty and uncomfortable while trying — and succeeding, at least…
Friday is catfish day at Caro’s Corner (see review, page 71), where five bucks will net you a dozen nuggets. Besides burgers and the odd order of fries, catfish is the only thing that Jeffrey and Linda Patterson — Caro’s cooks, owners and sole employees — offer on their menu…
