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What and Where:

Bezzy’s | 20 N. Washington Street | Ypsilanti, MI | 734-485-9625

Ratings (1=terrible, 5=mind-blowingly great)

Comments

• It’s been a long time since I wrote any restaurant reviews around here.  I don’t completely know why; it’s not as if I stopped going out to eat.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing around with Yelp a fair amount lately.  Anyway, Annette and I went out tonight and started talking about reviewing restaurants again, so here I am.
• Basically, it’s a breakfast/lunch/coffee shop sort of place, though they are to 7pm.  I guess I don’t see it as a place for dinner.
• I’ve only been for breakfast for a couple of times, and all I can tell you for sure is that the various versions of French Toast they have are insanely good.  Baked and sweet and nutty (pecans), it’s excellent and it is not a crazy sized portion, either.  Highly recommend.
• Generally, this is a lunch place for me.  I really like the Avocado BLT a lot, but they always have great soup (pretty much changes every day), so I like to get either the half-sandwich and soup or the salad/soup combo.  I’m partial to the Beezy’s salad.  Get an extra plate though– it’ll make eating the salad a lot easier.
• Great coffee– they carry the Intelligentsia Coffee, which I think is fantastic– though I only get coffee (no espresso drinks).  The wifi is okay (Ypsi Free Wireless), but that’s okay (or not?) because it’s not really a good place to work for a long time.  It is kind of a coffee shop, but more a cafe, if that makes sense.
• Oh, parking-wise:  take a look at the map and park behind.

I’m watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on the Food Network, and let me go ahead and apologize for that. My only excuse is that there really isn’t anything on Monday nights. In any event, one of the restaurants that Guy et al are featuring tonight is Richmond, VA’s The Village Cafe. I must say I am a little flabbergasted, and I’m feeling a little old.

Now, I moved away from Richmond a long LONG time ago– 15 years ago– and I am aware that things have changed around there. In fact, even the location of The Village changed; sometime right before or right after I moved (I can’t remember), it moved from across the street– Harrison Street, that is. It stayed on Grace Street. In any event, when I first moved to Richmond (gulp) 20 years ago, I lived about 2 blocks away. This was before VCU bought up a lot of the property around there and expanded toward Broad Street. In those days, the Village had pretty decent food but was still a skanky dive. I mean, it wasn’t completely and utterly scary, but it was right across the street from a porn theater (for the youngsters out there: pornography used to be in public theaters and not readily available on the internets), there was some much more scary bars down the street one way, and there was an intersection notorious for crack dealers and transsexual hookers in the other direction.

In short, the Village was not exactly a, um, wholesome destination. In fact, since I generally ate there after more than my fair share of “party beverages,” I cannot accurately attest to the quality of the food one way or other, at least not with a clear or completely sober conscious. Further, in the handful of trips I’ve made back to Richmond since I left for PhD studies (since Annette’s parents moved in 1998 or so, I think I’ve been back briefly twice), the Village is not even remotely on the radar. I realize that area of Grace has improved quite a bit in the last 20 years and the Village Cafe looked at least a bit cleaner on TV this evening, but Annette and I have so far have made Joe’s Inn our Richmond Fan restaurant visit.

So maybe the Village Cafe is really good right now. Or maybe not. After all, Guy and his little show featured Blimpy Burger not to long ago, which is far from my favorite place to get a burger around here. But regardless, it brought back some memories. Maybe we’ll stop by the next time we’re in RVa.

I don’t know if I should be starting my Las Vegas narrative at the end like this, but I will anyway since it’s what is on my mind right now:

Annette and I decided to do carry-on luggage for this trip to keep it simple, and it was working great until we tried to go through security here in Las Vegas. I bought a couple snow globes to add to my collection– yes, I collect snow globes– and thought nothing of them crammed into my luggage. Apparently, TSA had other ideas. They told me that snow globes count in the liquids ban for carry-on luggage, and I was given the choice of either checking my bag or mailing my snow globes back home.

I opted for the checked bag route, and I was escorted around back toward the gate by a TSA person, who was perfectly pleasant about it all. “Snow globes,” I said to this woman. “Really?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” she said. “They tell us we’re supposed to be on the look-out for them, actually.”

“Yes,” I said, “because if we are allowed to pack snow globes in our carry-on luggage, then the terrorists win.” She kinda smiled at that. And a quick google search reveals I’m not the only one who thinks this about the TSA crusade snow globe purge, either.

Happily, that was the biggest hassle of the trip– well, so far, since I am writing this in the Las Vegas airport and not at home. There is that whole “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” spiel, but since I am actually still in Vegas, enjoying the free wifi, and I have some time to kill before the flight, I thought I’d give a run-down of the trip.
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What and Where:

Logan | 115 West Washington | Ann Arbor, MI| (734) 327-2312

Ratings (1=terrible, 5=mind-blowingly great)

Comments

• This review was prompted by yet another event during my annual birthday week. The surprise I mentioned before turned out to be a special fixed/wine tasting menu. But Annette and I’ve been here several other times before, too.
• When this place first opened up a few years ago, Annette and I both thought that it was going to last a week. It has kind of an alarming color scheme of oranges and yellows, the menu seemed a little all over the place, and it is rather expensive. Who the heck is gonna go to this place? we thought. Tells you what we know. It’s been there and been getting good reviews and good crowds since it opened.
• Across the board, the food is excellent. They’ve got a fennel salad that has to be tried even if you don’t like fennel. They’ve got a pork belly appetizer that is super-duper rich and delicious. It seems to me that we’ve almost always had some kind of special for a main course, and while I can remember some things being better than other, I can’t recall getting anything that was less than “pretty darn good.”
• Last night, we were at one of these special food paring with wine sort of meals that was really over-the-top, but I suspect some of these things will show up on regular dinner menus: perfectly cooked and unbelievably clean mussels with a saffron foam, sweetbreads with various garnishes (my first time with those, and I am sure I will order them again when I’m in a fancy eatin’ mood), the previously mentioned pork belly dish, rabbit in pancetta (sorry Troy and Lisa), and a very interesting ginger flan.
• Wine is a big deal here. They don’t have the biggest wine list in town– that would be The Earle, I think– and they aren’t about “good values” in terms of the prices. But the wine guy (Kevin) knows his stuff and he’s quite friendly about it all, too. Needless to say, the wine last night was great.
• Interestingly enough, the lunch at this place is similar but different. The fennel salad and the skate are on both menus, but most of the items are (logically enough) more lunch-like. But the food is just as good and the prices are considerably less, so lunch at Logan is a sensible way to check it all out.
• If I had any complaint, I guess it would be that while the service is good, it isn’t as good as the rest of the place. Last year for my birthday, we were in New York City and we went to Babbo, and one of the things that was really remarkable about that place was the unbelievable level of customer service. Now, Logan is in the same general price range (well, Babbo is a bit more expensive, but it’s in NYC), bu the wait staff service and the like is just a notch or two less than it should be. But it’s still darn good.

What and Where:

Achilles Restaurant | 3075 Packard St | Ann Arbor, MI| (734) 971-2020

Ratings (1=terrible, 5=mind-blowingly great)

Comments

• An occasional feature of my unofficial blog was restaurant and coffee shop reviews, and while I haven’t been going out much lately and I am likely to be going out even less in the near future (as I get more serious about dieting, finally), I decided on a whim today to stop at the unlikely Achilles Restaurant, in part to start the reviews for the quasi-new blog.
• I was also motivated to eat here because of the signage at this place. I tried to take a picture with my cell phone, but it was no use (I am very much looking forward to the day when I can ditch this phone for a better one, but I’m afraid that’s at least two years off). The red awning around the front of the place says BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER on one side of the front door and GREEK AMERICAN MEXICAN on the other (because someone just might be in the mood for any kind of Greek American Mexican meal at any time of the day). There’s also a sign out front with changeable letters intended to advertise specials that has said the same thing for at least six months:
  
  NEW
  MANAGEMENT
  WELCOME
  
  I believe what they are shooting for here is “Welcome the new management,” but it sounds to me more like a request, as in “New management would be welcome at this place.”
• Sadly, Greek/American/Mexican food at Achilles turns out to be your typical coney island food, which is to day Southeast Michigan for “diner.” I think most of these places get their menus from the same warehouse someplace. When I asked about a favorite between the cheeseburger and the chicken gyro, the waitresses disagreed. I went with the chicken gyro. The sandwich was the definition of “okay.” It came with passable a salad, which, once I picked out some of the more questionable parts, was pretty good, and some also “okay” french fries.
• The inside of the place was neat and tidy, though there was a smoking section. I didn’t get too much of a whiff, but smoking sections are still always a downer for me, even in diners. The only person smoking in there while I was eating was this guy who looked to be about 104.
• The waitresses were very nice and the service was prompt. Perhaps this was because of the welcomed new management; perhaps they were aiming to please in order to encourage whatever new management were to happen to come in to feel welcomed.
• All in all, it was one of those experiences that I had so I can now say to people “hey, I’ve been in there.” I probably won’t be back, though I will also admit I am not really a connoisseur of diners/coney islands to begin with. Maybe I should have gotten the cheeseburger, or one of the hot dogs….