Do *not* piss off the surrealist artist

Having a tiny craving for Mexican food, we headed on downtown to a trendy, cleaned-up kinda place that advertised creative Mexican cuisine. Frida should have been cool. It should have had decent food. A place named after a famous surrealist should at least be inventive. Right? Am I taking crazy pills?

The first clue was the fact that my margarita was poured out of a slushy machine. They didn't even make it? Tequila, orange flavored booze, lime, salt- DONE. Its not like I ordered the poma-tini with a twist of green tea flavored granita. Holy crap, a slushy machine?? Maybe it would be good, maybe they have a secret surrealist painter recipe. Nope. It was too sweet and too watered down. Perfect for half off specials and 'girls night' drunk fests, maybe the top shelf ones are actually made by real people.

The guacamole was just fine, and the usual chips and salsa were fine too. But the entrees....Drew had the seafood enchiladas with a creamy red pepper sauce and cheese. I had the mixed plate- pulled pork taco, cheese quesadilla, chicken enchilada with ranchera sauce.

Another bad sign: Upon seeing Drew's food, I asked if he ordered cheese whiz.

We actually split everything hoping that we wouldn't miss anything good. My pulled pork taco was dry on one side, and fell apart with moisture on the other. How can you mess up a cheese quesadilla? It was fine. The chicken enchilada was not too dry or too wet, it was just fine and exactly like any other one I've had. Drew's seafood enchiladas were odd in that we cannot identify a single bit of seafood in the dish. We are pretty sure it was there, but who knows what it was. The 'cheese whiz' looking sauce quickly dried and thickened into a gelatinous mess of off putting cheese/whatever. It tasted like cheese and fat, basically.

Overall, no thanks. If I wanted the same old tacos and fajitas with my large crappy margarita I can go to any number of places that are cheaper, there is no wait, and they have sombreros hanging on the walls. There is plenty of room for that, I'm more mad at Frida because I was hoping for creative, at least one or two things that were unique and/or high quality. I couldn't even discern a regional theme. Frida did have some revenge on us later that evening however, perhaps her spirit visits fire upon those who eat in the crappy restaurant that bears her name.

Hitchin' a Ride on a Crazy Train

Generally, when I think dinner theater I think of that scene in the movie Soapdish where a sad former soap star is reduced to playing Willie Loman to the gray and gumless all to the sound of silverware clinking. I thought that a murder mystery train ride in Southwest Florida might make for a calm night with some ok food and a nice murder. A hokey play title complete with hokey but cutesy characters, check. Five course meal, check. Me being the youngest person, check. near barroom brawl complete with bravado, check?

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, but neither does one expect a train ride to nowhere to host a group of about 12 40-somethings who were drunk when they came on board, then proceeded to chug down more crappy beer and wine, break into bad song (thanks ladies), then get belligerent when an older lady shushes them. It was largely the fault of one of the 'gentlemen' who seemed unable to moderate his voice or machismo. The shusher's son tried to break it up when Tourist McAmateur started in on the whole "We are just having fun, you must be a tight ass and hate yourself", then the drunk male posturing began. The poor staff hadn't seen anything like this, they kept popping their wide-eyed heads in but were in no state to stop it. Finally some wives, girlfriends, etc, stopped it. Then the naysayers moved cars and the rest of us had to deal with the continued bullshit, that was now tinged with the flavor of bruised ego. I kept hearing mutters of "he wasn't so big", and "we've got your back". Holy crap crazy people, if you need to spend your vacation shitfaced during dinner theater on a train; maybe you need to reconsider what you do on vacation. Or maybe I'm a tight ass and hate myself.

So the food: cheese spread and crackers with fruit. Followed by a creamy potato leek soup that was quite fatty but the size was small enough that it was just right. It was gentle and lovely. The next course was a salad; the general cucumber, grape tomato, greens type. The greens were not iceberg which was an unexpected plus, they were a spring greens mix. The drawback was that the tasty sesame oil oriental dressing was applied too liberally to the salad rendering me unable to finish the stronger tasting greens. The menu had a typical selection of a choice between beef, chicken, and fish. I chose the salmon with a light champagne dill sauce. The salmon was fine, the sauce not too overbearing. The rice dish and peas/carrots mixture tasted of the freezer or the box. A small chocolate mousse in an edible chocolate bowl topped off the meal.

Overall, the meal was better than expected for a dinner theater train. While the menu was not inspired or interesting; it was well done and I would recommend it. They also did have a kitchen on the train, likely helping the meals quality. As the staff told us that a situation like this had never arisen before, I think that maybe I was lucky in getting two shows for one on the crazy train.

Holey dough filled danger Batman!

Bagels. Schmagels. Growing up in the South I had grown accustomed to bagels being chewy, fairly flavorless pieces of dough whose sole purpose was to civilize the consumption of cream cheese. After all, spreading cream cheese on a bagel is certainly more dignified then burying one’s face in a tub of creamy evil and going to town. However, during a brief visit to NYC in the spring of 2000, I learned bagels did not have to be bland, with hard exteriors and gummy interiors but could be just as good as the cream cheese that comes on/in/with it. Unfortunately, these bagels were hard to find even in a major metropolitan area like Atlanta. All too often the bagels needed serious toasting to eliminate the gumminess and stale flavor. When we moved to Madison I heard some locals praising Gotham Bagels , but assumed I would still just be keeping my face out of the tub. I was pleasantly surprised to find this not to be the case.

From poppy seed to everything, their bagels have a firm, almost crunchy exterior, with a tasty, chewy, but not gummy interior. These bagels require no toasting and are so fresh and warm first thing in the morning that they’ll melt the cream cheese a little bit, which is so good it makes me want another. Speaking of cream cheese, the folks at Gotham typically have 5 or 6 cream cheeses available but stick to the plain or salmon cream cheese. The other spreads are not bad but don’t really add anything to the experience. While the plain cream cheese is fine for a normal breakfast the salmon cream cheese is a delicious smoky, salty, decadent treat for special mornings. In addition to great bagels they feature Fair Trade coffees which they actually know how to brew properly. Gotham also has a number of deli items and sandwiches which hopefully I’ll get around to trying, but for now I still can’t get over how good these bagels are. In a world of Einstein’s and Panera’s it is good to see a place like Gotham raising the bar…and besides its named Gotham. How cool is that!?! -Drew

First Impressions: Madison

Ah Madison, Wisconsin: land of cheese. And beer. And large gray snowdrifts leftover from the fabled 'worst freaking winter' evah. Its been one whole week since we've set up house (kinda) and wandered the town searching for food.

Weary Traveler: Our pick so far for best stumbling distance pub. Small but local craft beers on tap, the Lake Louie stuff is awesome (the scotch ale is dreamt about already); and the food is pretty above average. The goulash had some incredibly good quality beef chunks in its tasty goodness, the ahi tuna and reubens were also of equally good meat-quality. No cheap crap here. The menu is not terribly diverse or inventive, but the weekday ambiance and cool bar-sitting factors make this one a contender for us.

Great Dane Pub: Very tasty beers at this brewpub, the stouts and cask conditioned ales are big winners, but the porter was much too bitter. We shared the eviiiiil mac -n-cheese and a salad initially; very good move on our part as the mac n cheese is super fatty and rich. The second trip at the much better downtown location had use trying some faux-mexi dishes which later...errr...backfired on us. I personally was pretty much more interested in the beer, and I was not disappointed.

Angelic Pub: While they don't actually brew beer on site anymore, the Ale Asylum stuff was pretty nice. The Big Slick stout and Nutbrown Ale were both pretty nice, and the taps are fairly diverse with odd inclusions like Miller and Chicago's Goose Island along with the local stuff. The bar is huge and full of very very bad girly liquor; causing me to imagine that this place so close to campus is serious amateur hour on weekend nights. The beer-cheese-sausage soups was very rich and filling, and the local veggie burger with unique pub fries was the perfect thing to split for a filling but not overly fattening lunch.

Blue Plate Diner- In one of the older neighborhoods down the road, Drew picked out our very first breakfast experience in Madison. Cute diner with plenty of veggie selections (duh its Madison) and freaking MALTS!!!! The gluten-free nut milk french toast was rockin, fresh bananas to top off the most interesting tasting 'fronch toast' I've ever had. It tasted strongly of cinnamon and the nut milk gave it a tart flavor that cuts the usual cloying sweetness of french toasts. We also split a homemade corned beef hash with scrambled eggs and a decent biscuit. I've never had hash that wasn't formerly surrounded by steel, so this real beef freshness was a treat. The coffee was not bad either, a real plus considering that most breakfasty places in ATL had shite for coffee (burned grinds Pastries a go-go I'm talking to you!).

Himal Chuli- Small cash-only Nepalese place on what I consider the most tragically hip (or hippie?) street in Madison. Never having Nepalese food, we found out it is very similar to Indian food and we just had the daily veg tarkara with warm, thick roti bread. The cauliflower and eggplant tarkaras were full of coriander, garlic, and tumeric in this tasty Nepalese style curry. We also had the chiya (tea) to round out our nice veggie lunch.

So while Madison is totally awesome for veggie/vegan/whatever dietary restrictions you have: so far, I've been enamored of the super fresh, quality beef. Sure, I could have bought swank stuff in Atlanta anytime, but for the local pub to have better tasting beef than other comparably priced places is a cause for me to eat a little more meat heavy.

*photo courtesy of cooltownstudies.com