Category: Uncategorized

What and Where:

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

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

Tastiness: 4.25

Service: 3.5 (though see below)

Price (1=super cheap, 5=super expensive):5

Value:4

General vibe: 4

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.

I’ve seen these sorts of stories/videos about the offices that Google has around the world before:

They are inviting and cool and groovy and everything, and believe me, I’d rather work in a space like this than the shit-hole that is Pray-Harrold Hall. (BTW, if you the time, do follow that link to the “EMU Historic Tour” entry on Pray-Harrold. I think its pretty darn funny. Notice the “earlier”– presumably when they building opened in 1969– picture is not a whole lot different than the “today” picture, except that it looked a little more shiny in ’69. It’s like that on the inside– once shiny and new, and now kind of overcast and harshly lit. And the architecture style described as “International;” is that code for “Orwellian?”) Education at all levels might work better if it was a bit more playground-like, though frankly, I’d settle for just a window, a reasonable heating/cooling system, and a space that didn’t smell like old building.

But as inviting and cool and groovy and everything that this Google office actually is, I have to wonder if it would actually be a good place to work in the long-run. I am sure that someone has done some kind of study or analysis of this, how spaces in these “don’t be evil” corporations like Google actually are kind of, potentially at least, evil. One obvious draw-back of this design is that it’s set up this way so you never have to or want to leave– all the toys to play with, the slides, the exercise facilities, the free food, etc. Besides the fact that this is also the premise behind prison– though prison is obviously a lot less comfy and a lot less voluntary– isn’t this a problem for people who have families and lives outside of work? And don’t companies like Google want workers who have some kind of outside of work lives? Or if they don’t want those kinds of workers, isn’t that kind of a problem?

I have to wonder if I could get anything done in there. If I had to work there, I’d be the old man yelling “hey, turn down you damn X-box and stop playing ping-pong– I’m trying to freakin’ WORK here!” Damn kids…. And thank you, but stairs and elevators work better for me than poles or slides in going from floor 2 to floor 1.

Woman sits on boyfriend’s toilet for two years. I can’t really add to this.

Via elearnspace comes this link/news, “Morality under threat as science debunks our sense of free will.” Isn’t that just swell.

Actually, it seems a little more complicated than that to me. Here’s a passage:

Thirty students answered maths problems on a computer. A feigned technical glitch meant that they had to press the space bar each question to stop the computer from giving the answers away. Crucially, before the test, half the students read a passage from the late Francis Crick’s book about consciousness, in which he argues that free will is an illusion. These students pressed the space bar less often than the students who hadn’t read about free will – in other words, they cheated more.

Okay, but wait– what if the students who read this passage and “cheated” more weren’t so much cheating as they were saying “Oh yeah? I’ll show that Crick dude. I’ll do whatever the hell I want with this and skip the space bar. No free will, my ass!”

I was in Costco today, which is a store I enjoy because they have good products, good prices (if you know what to look for, at least), and they are not Wal-Mart. I also like Costco for the samples. But today, I saw a, um “display” but not exactly a sample I was that interested in.

Dog food.

I kid you not.

This sample hawker was standing behind her table/podium thing, and on it was a single can of dog food, opened, with a plastic spoon sticking up in the middle of it.

I didn’t try any.

Okay folks, I’m closing up Steve Krause’s Unofficial Blog. The time has come. So now, join me at my new “mega blog,” stevendkrause.com Update your links, etc.

Oh, I’m not giving up blogging– that’s not it at all. I’ve just decided to merge this blog with my unofficial blog and have it all together at stevendkrause.com Update your links and go check out the new space!

I was in the Food (W)hole today, picking up a few things after a satisfying (well, for me) workout at the rec center, when I spotted what seemed to me to be a just brilliant shopping idea. I saw a woman with a laptop open and sitting in that seat where the baby would ride. She was online (the Food [W]hole has free wifi) and in the midst of a chat session, but it just seems obvious to me that this would be a fantastic way to shop for groceries/plan a menu. Log in, check out some recipes, and plan your shopping accordingly. Potentially pretty cool, huh?