It’s been a while since I went on a Slackerology rant, but car-free living has been on my mind again recently and instead of just speaking in confident, but speculative terms, I decided to crunch a bunch of numbers to support my argument.
When you ask someone why they don’t consider a car-free lifestyle, the primary reply is that the convenience and time-saving of traveling by car, versus public transport, is simply too valuable to give up. Well, to those people clinging to that belief, I’m about to blow your tutti-frutti little minds.
Let’s assume, as someone dependent on public transport, you ride the bus/train an average of four times a day, namely to and from work and then round-trip on one other outing (or two round-trip outings on Saturdays/Sundays). Let’s say that each time you take public transport, you spend an average of five minutes waiting at the stop. (Yes, I know that at 11pm on a Sunday you may occasionally wait 25 minutes, but all those times you wait zero to three minutes at 5pm on a Wednesday will even things out).
So:
4 trips a day X five minutes of waiting X 365 days = 121.66 hours per year that you ‘waste’ standing around, waiting for public transport.
Now, as for the extra time spent in transit on buses/trains versus your car, depending on the route, time of day, traffic and whatever walking you need to do to-from the stop/station, yes the journey on public transport will probably take more time than if you just hopped into your car. But exactly how much more time?
The walking time to/from public transport versus your car is basically a wash, because you would likely also have a long walk from the office/shop/movie theater/etc to wherever your car is parked, not to mention all the time you burn driving around trying to find a parking spot.
While some bus routes are sadistically slower than driving a car, others, privy to priority lanes for example, are just the same or faster. And, it’s safe to assume, trains will always be faster as they happily zoom under, over or through inching traffic. Being that this interval is kind of impossible to quantify, I’m just going to pull what I feel is a fairly generous number out of the air and say a (average!) journey on public transport will take seven minutes longer than if you were in a car.
4 trips a day X seven additional in-transit minutes X 365 days = 170.33 additional hours per year that you might spend in transit while on public transport than if you were in a car.
Combining the waiting-for-public-transport hours and additional in-transit hours, you could potentially lose 292 hours of your life per year if you relied solely on public transport.
There’s no denying that’s a lot of toe-tapping, non-thrilling time. That said, you car drivers will want to put down any delicate or spillable items you may be holding before I continue.
Now, let’s look at how many hours per year you work in order to raise the money necessary to keep your car on the road. First, let’s break down an annual car expense sheet (I’m doing both low and high end expense breakdowns, since everyone has different circumstances and expenses depending on city, daily driving distances, age, lifestyle, etc):
• Car loan payments = $4,200-6,000 per year ($350-500 X 12 months)
• Gas = $780-1,560 ($15-30 per week X 52 weeks per year)
• Insurance = $900-1,600 per year
• License tabs = $50-120 per year
• Maintenance = $300-500 per year (an estimated lump sum for oil changes, car washes, windshield wipers, one or two minor part(s) failures, etc)
• Parking = $200-2,400 per year (the startling high end is for people who pay to park in garages/lots both at home and at work, plus supplementary night/weekend parking at meters, lots, etc)
Low and high end totals come to $6,430 and $12,180 per year. Since very few people live at either of those extremes, I’m going to use the midpoint of $9,305 from here forward.
In order to bring home the $9,305 per year you need to keep your car on the road, you actually need to earn $11,631.25 pre-tax (which is 25% for those earning $33,950-82,250 per year) income. So, at a pay rate of $22 (average US hourly wage for 2009), it will take you 528.69 hours (13.22 weeks!) of work to earn enough money to keep your car physically and legally running.
And if you don’t have a car loan, or don’t spend that much money on parking or whatever, keep in mind that I haven’t factored in all the money you could potentially cough up paying for collision repairs, moving violations or parking tickets and, in some places, toll roads.
So, 528.69 hours of work minus the 292 hours you’d potentially spend whiling away on public transport, equals 236.69 surplus hours of free time you’d enjoy each year by not owning a car. That’s 5.92 theoretical 40-hour weeks of work that you wouldn’t have to perform.
Now think about your drastically reduced carbon footprint.
Now think about how many books you could be reading or TV shows you could be watching on your iPod while sitting on public transport.
Now think about what you could accomplish if you worked 5.92 fewer weeks per year.
Or think about the lavish vacation in Thailand you could take and/or how many bottles of really good wine you could buy with $8,305 (I knocked off the roughly the $1,000 you’d pay per year for a transit pass, which, I haven’t forgotten, will require 45.5 hours of work to pay for, so you only end up with 191 spare hours, or 4.78 fewer work weeks per year).
Anyone who’s every spoken to me for more than seven minutes knows that I reap the same warm, comforting feelings from the Minneapolis Skyway system as most people would experience on a quiet, tropical beach. Moving into a Skyway-connected building instantly transformed my outlook on Minnesota winters – in that winter was no longer my problem.
As such, I hatched this tribute video. [If you can't see the video, click here]
I had a lot of help making this video. Foremost thanks goes to Kaeti Hinck, who probably spent more time working on this thing than I did, and whose directing, editing and creative input significantly affected its overall awesomeness. Thanks also goes to actors Rachel Hunsinger and Jill Wigert.
As I soldier bravely forward into my third year of car-free living in Minneapolis, I’m marking the occasion with two earth-shattering pieces of information:
2) I’m giving away a slightly used Solio hybrid solar charger (a $49.95 value). Just leave a comment below for a chance to win.
First things first, this weekend’s Go Green Expo is for “Everyone interested in learning about environmentally friendly goods & services for use in modern everyday living.” Friday is the business-to-business stuff, but Saturday gets decidedly more interesting for normal folk wanting to learn more about green living and business. You can peruse the entire schedule here, but some of the more notable attractions include the latest in energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly products, a rock climbing wall and Segway tours. (What? You’ve never been on a Segway? Well, I rode one all over Paris, no big deal.)
There’ll also be interactive seminars featuring leaders in the green industry, local politics, and community organizations. The Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders are reportedly leading some sort of cheer for the Vikings Planet Purple initiative for sustainable business practices and renewable energy, then hanging out to sign autographs and pose for photos. Also, Ms Minnesota will be singing “It’s Not Easy Being Green”, with backing vocals by RT Rybak, Woody Harrelson and Lady Gaga. No really, Ms Minnesota will be there.
You can bring your old cell phones and chargers for recycling, and take part in educational sessions on green jobs, sustainable and fair trade design, green building, clean air and greening your business.
You can even bus your green selves to the event on Sunday for free with the Go Greener Pass (valid only on Sunday, November 8, 2009 from 9:00am – 6:00pm only).
Oh and full disclosure about that Solio hybrid solar charger, if you click the link, you’ll see that it was given to me for a product review with no return packaging or instructions for how/where to send it. That was two years ago. So, I’m giving it away!!! Just leave a comment below before 5pm CT on Friday November 6th and I’ll choose the winner in a random drawing. You must live in the Minneapolis/St Paul area or be willing to spring for shipping.
WHEN:
Friday, November 6th • 10am – 5pm
Business-to-Business Expo
Saturday, November 7th • 10am – 6pm & Sunday, November 8th • 10am – 5pm
Business-to-Business & Business-to-Consumer Expo
WHERE:
Minneapolis Convention Center
1301 Second Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403
(612) 335-6000 www.minneapolisconventioncenter.com
TICKETS:
The full weekend pass is $10 for adults, $5 for students and seniors (with proper ID). Children 12 and under get in free. Tickets provide access to the entire exhibitor floor, all panel & speakers discussions and can be purchased in advance at www.gogreenexpo.com or the day of at the ticket counter.
Starter:
Crayfish cake with remoulade and daikon micro green salad
Entrée:
Smoked and braised lamb shank with white beans, chorizo, cassoulet and roasted fire tomato sauce
Dessert:
Bailey’s chocolate shake with chocolate chip cookies and berries
Maybe it was the knowledge that I was eating the last of my Restaurant Week meals -nine in six days – a protracted, rapid series of (mostly) fantastic meal experiences that, until now, I haven’t enjoyed anywhere outside of Tuscany. Maybe it was that I had just choked down that god-awful pad thai at Comsos. Maybe it was simply that Sanctuary makes exceptional food. Whatever the case, our dinner Friday night blew our respective doors off.
I know I’ve already awarded five “Oh Gods” out of five to othermeals that had barely perceptible downsides, but, no disrespect to those deserving venues, when the bar gets raised such as it was at Sanctuary, you’re forced to think back and wonder if perhaps you had been a bit to hasty awarding a perfect score previously and maybe you should have allowed for a short period of contemplation before writing those reviews. Or at least waited until total sobriety. Well, the past is the past, and the present is now and the future is when alien archeologists uncover this blog post and wonder about this so-called ‘God’ that I keep referring to.
Flouting the implicit spirit of Restaurant Week, Sanctuary had only one fixed priced menu to choose from. This lack of variety probably caused some people to take pause (i.e. me, though I was coerced into going anyway), but then those people would have been tragically screwing themselves out of an outstanding dinner.
The crayfish cake was, in two words, kick ass. After exactly four chews, my companion said “This is what Sea Change should have done.” (Burn!) It was meaty and held together well without being soggy and there was a pleasing little hint of spice at the end. The remoulade was just a little to mayo-y for me, though pretty much everything with mayo in it is too mayo-y for me. My companion assured me that it was superior. We both ended up eating this cake as if it were the last crayfish on earth –one sliver at a time, savoring every morsel, desperately trying to commit every facet of it to our permanent memory banks.
The lamb shank was the largest either of us had ever seen. Seemingly slow cooked in something wonderful for about 12 hours, the oozing, juicy meat shredded right off the bone, without so much as a single sawing motion from a knife. This raised the question of how they were able to transfer this exceptionally delicate shank from the pan to the plate without it completely falling apart due to the force of gravity. The chorizo was a nice touch, but there wasn’t much of it and, compared to the religion-changing taste of the lamb, it really only played a minor role. I’m not a huge fan of beans, but the white beans almost completely took on the flavor of the roasted fire tomato sauce, virtually erasing my usual texture qualms.
The Bailey’s chocolate shake was as rich and yummy as one would expect of anything with the word ‘Bailey’s’ affixed to it, with the added advantage of the chocolate chip cookies and berries that tasted equally incredible, whether eaten on their own (me) or liberally dipped into the shake (companion).
When asked for final thoughts on the entire meal, my companion responded with an emphatic “F*ckin’ A”. Truer words have rarely been said.
Oh wait, there was one quibble people should know about when eating at Sanctuary, particularly in cold weather: the temperature in the front quarter of the restaurant temporarily, but instantly, dropped about 15 degrees every time anyone opened the door. And it was only in the 40s Friday night. Anyone unlucky enough to be seated near the door in the dead of winter had better be able to work a knife and fork while wearing their choppers.
I’m awarding this dinner the most resounding five “Oh Gods” out of five of Restaurant Week.
Starter:
Lobster Bisque – Chive Crème Fraîche, Red Pepper Croutons
Entrée:
Cosmos Pad Thai with Chicken – Rice Noodles, Peanuts, Cilantro, Fresh Lime
Going from the best meal of the week to the worst in a mere 16 hours was not a pleasant experience. The physical and emotional trauma was so severe that I’m now seeking treatment from both a chiropractor and a hug therapist.
I’ll start with what was done right. Like the dinner I’d had Sunday night, soon after arrival we were presented with an amuse-bouche of a single shrimp and penne with a dribble of a balsamic reduction. Thoughtful, cute and tasty.
While considering the Restaurant Week menu, our table of four mused out loud if we could perhaps substitute a second starter in place of our entrées. Cosmos’ starters were all winners. My lobster bisque, despite the curious absence of tangible lobster, was thick, warm and spicy. Pretty much exactly what you’d like on a cold rainy day in October. Even better was the grilled quesadilla duck confit, with cilantro, mango salsa and poblano aioli. Duck confit seems to be everywhere lately and I’m not complaining. A few weeks earlier I’d had what might have been an almost identical duck quesadilla downstairs at Bradstreet Crafthouse Resaurant (Same kitchen? Anyone?). Both were commendably non-greasy and the mango and aioli were subtle, yet effective touches. However, the spiced basil shrimp with ginger garlic sauce was the hit of the table. The colors and textures were pleasing, the spice was perfect and the sauce was both distinctly Asian, but again, a perfect core-warming flavor for a cold and damp day.
Which brings us to the end of the good parts. Cue the funeral dirge.
Having had both a great brunch and dinner here on previous occasions, I was more than a little disappointed at the unanimously underwhelming lunch entrées. My pad thai was almost distressingly unexciting. I’ve had better at, and I’m not kidding here, Noodles and Company. Though, my mouth was still slightly ablaze from the spice in the bisque, the noodles seemed virtually tasteless on their own. The veg had been spiced up, but there was so little of it on the plate that mouthfuls of noodle were blah more often than not. (To be fair, one companion had gotten the veggie pad thai and reported that hers was very spicy, though hers strangely didn’t have any peanuts). Finally, the chicken, matching the rest of the plate, was plain and forgettable.
The seared walleye with wheat berries, dried cranberries and goat cheese, with a champagne vinaigrette was the meager highlight. The small-portioned walleye was pan-fried and pleasingly salty. The wheat berries were light and healthy and the cheese was a paradoxical mouth-humper, tasting like a show-bred combination of brie, goat and blue cheeses. It was like an oral defibrillator, comparatively shocking to the taste buds compared to everything else on the entrée plates.
Finally, the “601 Club”, a towering Dagwood Bumstead-sized sandwich with smoked turkey, smoked bacon, lettuce, tomato, mustard and mayonnaise on brioche, was declared to be “a perfectly adequate rendition of a club sandwich,” but far short of living up to the Cosmos repute for galloping excellence. Indeed, my companion confided that, while it was just fine, she probably would never order it again.
All of this disillusionment was underscored by a one-man, singing and dancing cabaret of terrible service. Our server, a native French speaker, had plainly decided to preserve his home country’s cultural fondness for bored dispositions, lackadaisical work ethics and aptitude for ignoring patrons for ridiculous periods of time. The interval between receiving our menus and actually getting the opportunity to order went on a little too long, but that paled in comparison to the marathon wait for him to collect our dishes, then again to bring our bill, and finally the futile wait for him to process the bill. After an intolerable amount of time (one person in our party had already left so as to not miss a conference call), we reluctantly collected our credit cards and ponied up the exact amount of cash just so we could get on with our lives. By the time we got out of there, we’d been sitting for nearly two hours – for a two course lunch. In a half-empty restaurant. Bloody ridiculous.
Once again, the showcasing, out-reaching spirit of Restaurant Week appears to have been completely disregard in favor of reluctant acquiescence, which, not surprisingly, led to inconsistent and lackluster food.
Entrée:
8 oz Porcini Filet Mignon, with Porcini Rub and 12-Year Balsamic
Dessert:
Flourless Chocolate Espresso
I have never been to The Capital Grille for dinner, only lunch. So I have never seen it in all its booming, arrogant, messily drunk, after-dark, pre-show glory. My companion reported the that the ladies room was filled with a primping, gold-digging horde, swaying so badly that they could barely wash their hands. That was amusing. The party room full of loud, fat businessmen directly across from our table was not. Every time a server went through the sliding doors, they would make sure to close them, but 30 seconds later someone from the party would stagger out to hit the head and leave the door wide open. They hooted, whooped, drank cheap domestic beer and called each other juvenile names. And that was before the tray of tequila shots arrived.
I remarked that party rooms such as these in nice restaurants should have a two door noise buffer system, like at firing ranges, to spare the well behaved folks eating high-priced meals from the commotion. My companion one-upped me, offering that perhaps the room would be better utilized if it were set up on a moving platform near an open window so people could whip stuff at its occupants, carnival game style.
Our server’s heel-clicking decorum was broken up with peculiar spurts of brute informality, which I’m sure plays well with the loud, fat businessmen, especially after the tequila, but this behavior only succeeded in unnerving us into being the most low-maintenance table in the joint. His service was indisputably beyond reproach and he checked in on us no less than five times during the meal, inquiring how he might improve upon our dining experience, but we always declined, as to do otherwise would have required him to come back and talk to us some more. He was like the love child of Lurch from the “Adam’s Family” and Frank “The Tank” Ricard from the movie “Old School.”
Apart from these memorable distractions, this was the best meal I’ve had all week. It didn’t start off with much gusto. My Caesar salad was, you know, a Caesar salad. There’s not a whole lot one can do to make an unforgettable Caesar salad unless they top it off with gold leaf and a hearty slice of a beluga whale’s sex organ. My companion likewise reported that her “Field Greens, Tomatoes, Fresh Herbs” was perfectly competent, and the plentiful blue cheese was much appreciated, but it wasn’t spectacular.
Then all hell broke loose. Lurch-Frank handily sold me on the filet mignon, going into drooling detail about the porcini rub and 12-year old, barrel-stored balsamic. As you can see, this thing was so amazing that it needed two pictures to do it justice. It was the size of my fist. The rub and some unadvertised pepper made the edge a little tough and crispy, which briefly made the cut of beef seem less than idyllic. But as I carved ever further into the center of this beautiful mass, I found that I was dealing with beef that was the consistency of pudding. It was very nearly melt-in-your-mouth tender. Unlike the almost as excellent cut of beef from the previous evening at Cavé Vin, this hunk hadn’t been marinated in any way. It was pure beef, unadorned, standing naked for judgment. And Leif said it was good.
Complimentary sides accompanied our meals – a plate of mashed potatoes with the option of adding garlic (yes, please!) and cauliflower that had been marinated in a curious concoction that made it, as my companion eloquently put it, “more interesting than cauliflower has ever been before.”
My companion’s lamb chops were impossibly tender. That’s right, it was tender impossible. I couldn’t have been more amazed by the texture if Ethan Hunt himself had broiled it, then delivered it to the table by crashing through the roof dangling from a helicopter rappelling rope. The cherry mostarda was a distinctive, borderline peculiar taste, but it was also an uncannily perfect pairing.
Then, the ultimate: the mother humping Flourless Chocolate Espresso. Smooth enough to polish the Hubble lenses. Rich enough to bailout AIG. Strong enough to melt lead. And taste buds. No really, I’m pretty sure it melted patches of my taste buds. But it hurt so good. The espresso and chocolate were so powerful that I, one of the world’s most chocolate fixated people, could barely finished it. I have never known anything like it and I think it is my one true love. After wine. And boobies.
My companion’s distaste for coffee-flavored anything left her no choice but to order the very competently made crème brulee. About as impressive as crème brulee can be, which is to say, not that impressive. Maybe it needed more beluga vagina.
My forgivably ordinary Caesar salad aside, this meal shattered all expectations. Words failed me by the end of the meal, though this had a lot to do with my still-sizzling taste buds.
I’m awarding this dinner five “Oh Gods” out of five. And a bonus “kill me now”.
Starter:
Escargot – roasted garlic cream sauce and fried parsley
Entrée:
Steak Frites Top sirloin – pommes frites, roasted shallot and veal demi glace
Dessert:
Tres Leches – three milk cake with whipped cream frosting
“You look familiar,” Cavé Vin’s owner said as we stepped up to claim our table. We love being recognized by restaurant owners, never mind that we had been standing in that exact same spot not even 48 hours earlier, with identical wide grins and googlie eyes in anticipation of his kitchen’s beguiling Restaurant Week menu. Plus, if I may say so, I have unforgettable googlie eyes. And I might have been wearing the same pants.
There were no offers of generous, free wine samples this time, but as one person in our party didn’t drink and I was still recovering from a bout of self-diagnosed ‘Wine Flu’, it really wasn’t missed. Indeed, I can’t remember the last time I had such an incredible meal that wasn’t substantially lubed up with a carefully considered wine pairing. I couldn’t have planned it better, really. Not only did I have three companions ordering cooperatively this evening so I could get a gander at most of the remainder of the menu, but pretty much everything was prepared to stuttering perfection. It was a critical mass of awesomely goodness, that one usually needs to board a transatlantic flight in order to attain.
I went for the escargot as a starter. It was by far my biggest risk of the week. I’d never had escargot before and the numerous you-love-it-or-you-hate-it stories I’d heard from other people had made me powerfully curious, yet just a touch uneasy. Well, being that there was no mustard, pickles or olives involved, I worried for nothing. It was only moderately chewy – I actually enjoyed the texture – and the singular way that it fused with the roasted garlic cream sauce incited the first audible ‘oh God’ of the evening in record time.
The other starters at the table were the highly addictive and dangerously filling “Garlic Frites with aioli”, an encore appearance from the “Beet and Roasted Fennel Salad Dijon vinaigrette”, again, loved by all except me, and the “Mixed greens, warm goat cheese, roasted grapes, hazelnuts and red wine vinaigrette”, the only starter to not visibly impair the diner with transcendent pleasure.
Now if you’ve been reading carefully, you know I lean towards the meat. Any meat. If it ever ate, slept, shat, fornicated and/or moved under its own power, I eat it. Which brings us to beef, my favorite meat. What with my meager income, I don’t get to eat a lot of beef in general, so when I get beef I get excited. When I get good beef, I get euphoric. When I get great beef, well, I go straight home and I write a 100 word, babbling digression about how much I love beef.
Cavé Vin’s top sirloin was the motherload. Nearly two inches thick at its center, tender, juicy, meaty and perfectly prepared. The veal demi glace was one of those show-stopping concoctions that I’ve tried and failed to recreate at home countless times. I fell into a reverie at the first bite and I was nearly half way through before I snapped out of it and remembered that I had the roasted shallot and fries to attend to. I had all but stopped talking to my companions. This was the kind of beef that I only get about once a year and I wasn’t going to mess it up by trying to talk and savor at the same time.
And it wasn’t just me, my companions also had all-consuming entrées that had temporarily reduced them to distracted mumbling. The “Chicken Breast Prosciutto Fontina with sautéed vegetables and tomato herb sauce”, which I sampled from liberally, poked an entirely different area of my brain’s pleasure center, but with similar gratifying effect. The wonderful sauce had saturated the juicy chicken and all the festively colored veg, so pretty much everything tasted like rapture. The “Lamb Shank Potato Puree, mirepoix, gremolata and lamb demi” reappeared and was of the same fall-off-the-bone, non-greasy perfection as Monday’s effort. Only the “Pork Loin Chop Fingerling Potatoes, roasted peaches and bacon with balsamic and orange reductions” didn’t ring bells, due mostly to, as the diner readily admitted, personal texture preferences. Though the micro bits of bacon hidden in the sauce, the roasted peaches and the herb rub on the pork itself were all given high praise.
I finished with the Tres Leches cake, as did another at our table and we both agreed it was about the best we’d ever had. My other two companions ordered the plum ginger sorbet, that was loved for being “tangy, tart and gingery,” adjectives that have also, incidentally, been used to extol my exquisite booty.
I’m still a little bit in awe of the entire meal and I’m moving my stock around (I only have just the one in “Curse Words from Around the World” refrigerator magnets) so as to hopefully fund another meal at Cavé Vin in the very near future.
I’m awarding this dinner five “Oh Gods” out of five! Woo hoo!!
Entrée:
Linguini with clams, rock shrimp, tomato, oregano and garlic
You don’t get much (i.e. any) choice on Sea Change’s lunch menu, but then it’s hard to argue when presented with the opportunity to sit for a $10 lunch in such a venue. Equally, as I suppose a reasonable person would anticipate, a bargain meal like this is unlikely to showcase much of the kitchen’s aptitude and, in my dotage, my flagging capacity for reasonableness is apparently becoming a problem.
We were the first lunchers in the door at 11:30 and seemingly caught the staff still in final prep. A freak clash of acute Minnesotaness both kept us from advancing far enough into the restaurant to find the host’s table (other side of the bar) and the timid hostess from signaling her location, so as to rescue us from dithering at the door. Once seated, things improved. Our server had that somewhat annoyingly placatory speaking tone that one tends to develop when one spends her days catering to easily wronged, demanding rich people who get no greater joy in life than uttering the words “I want to speak to your manager”. However, she was also achingly cute (Pacific Islander complexion – humuna humuna), in fact “too cute” according to the female half of the table, but she was all eyes, checking our water/iced tea levels seemingly every 60 seconds for the duration of the meal, so the male half of the table forgave her appeasing mannerisms.
Our chilled potato soup arrived quickly, with the unadvertised flourish of a couple baby clams and a sprinkling of roe. It was smoky, reminiscent of bacon, and thick, but otherwise minimalist and rather unexciting, even after I thoroughly showered it with ground black pepper. It was undeniably an interesting take on potato soup, but we were both generally underwhelmed. Though pureeing potatoes for a popular lunch special is the modern equivalent to shucking enough corn for 50 hungry cowboys, there was a distinct feeling that it had been absentmindedly slopped together in between vastly more important kitchen responsibilities and/or half watching last night’s Tivo-ed “The Biggest Loser”.
The boredom of the soup was exacerbated by the prolonged interval between courses, but when it finally arrived I found the linguini to be a satisfactory recovery. I loved that it was light, just the right portion, and the clams and rock shrimp weren’t overpowering. The tomato, oregano and garlic in oil was done in classic Italian simplicity. My companion was less enthused, offering that the dish was of the caliber that any kitchen hack could whip up at home in under 12 minutes (though, obviously, with substandard ingredients).
Allowing for the crabby, debatably over-fed quotient at the table, in the grand scheme the meal was merely just fine. Maybe something approximating a good deal if it were a regular lunch special, but it felt like a feeble effort for Restaurant Week (much like this whole review).
I’m awarding this lunch 2 and 1/2 “Oh Gods” out of five.
Starter:
Crab and avocado terrine with roasted peppers, chili oil, and tortilla chips
Entrée:
‘Mero’ – Proscuitto wrapped grouper stuffed with crab meat, with roasted garlic mashed potatoes, saffron butter sauce, sautéed spinach and mango salsa
Dessert:
Churros with chocolate ganache and cinnamon ice cream
Choosing Café Ena wasn’t as easy as it should have been. Having apparently been dishonorably discharged (just ahead of La Belle Vie) from the Institute of Reasonable Information and Thoroughness, the menu they submitted to the Restaurant Week web site was just a liiiiittle bit short on details. Indeed, the entrées section starts and ends with only two nonsensical, maddeningly inadequate words: ‘Mero’ and ‘Lomo’. Actually, there’s three words if you’re feeling generous and count the ‘or’ that someone thoughtfully stuck in between.
That neither of these useless words appear on the full menu on Café Ena’s web site further annoyed me. However, regular Café Ena patrons convinced me that it was imperative I eat there, so reservations were made.
Thankfully for all, someone took the time to expound on ‘Mero’ and ‘Lomo’ in the printed menu that was presented to us upon arrival and it is my pleasure to report that, apart from the especially uncomfortable waddle home, there was very little to complain about for the rest of the evening.
My crab and avocado terrine was exceptional. I hesitated as I’m one of only six or so people on the planet that don’t really care for avocado, but combined with the crab, the tang of the roasted peppers and the subtle, delayed ‘pwang’ of the chili oil and I couldn’t have been much happier.
My companion fell on her mixed greens tossed with fresh pineapple, sliced mango, cucumbers, and panela cheese in a citrus herb dressing, consuming them hastily with little commentary, apart from some intentionally tongue-in-cheek, cliché-riddled comments about “an explosion of citrus flavor dancing across my tongue” that I didn’t give her the satisfaction of writing down. It featured many of her perennial favorite ingredients (mango, pineapple, cheese) looked fresh as hell and there was nary a shard of greens left when she finished, so either she loved it or there’s someone in a parallel universe somewhere who got too close to a decompressing rip in the cosmic curtain and now has salad on their head.
It was a difficult decision, but I settled on the so-called ‘Mero’. My trepidation over white fish two nights in a row was over-ridden by the presence of the crab and prosciutto. It took a few experimental bites of the grouper combined with various ingredients to figure out that an eye-roll into the back of the head could be achieved by carefully including a morsel of every element into each forkful. Not an easy task, but I applied my Norwegian ninja hand-eye coordination and was suitably rewarded.
My companion went for the ‘Lomo’, which turned out to be a “herb crusted grilled pork tenderloin with garlic mashed potatoes, and grilled asparagus in a guajillo shallot demi glace”. She was smitten with the perfect combo of sweet and savory. The pork was tender and peppery, while the caramelized shallots and asparagus had married well with the demi glace. I was once again called upon to use my super power, bestowed by your yellow sun, to finish other people’s meals. Though everything my companion had said about the Lomo was true, I’d already been enslaved by the Mero and will likely join its 2012 presidential ticket.
The meal had started out great and progressed onto epic, so it pains me to report that my dessert, comparatively, was only ‘meh’. It’s been years since I’ve had them, but the churros were just… churros. Sugary and flaky, but that was about it. In fact, the liberal coating of sugar virtually erased the highly anticipated taste of the chocolate ganache. The cinnamon ice cream was wonderful, however.
My companion enjoyed her dessert, the lemon pie, quite a bit more, being that it was accompanied by mango coulis (ding!) and vanilla ice cream. Not normally being a fan of lemon desserts, I nevertheless tried it and I too was surprised by how much I liked it. It wasn’t too overpowering or sweet. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I’ll choose chocolate over lemon. This was simply one of those times when I chose wrong.
I’m awarding this dinner 4 and 1/2 “Oh Gods” out of five.
Entrée:
The Grille’s Signature Cheeseburger with Truffle Fries
Dessert:
None, apparently.
My seven regular readers and both friends will recognize the entrée in today’s lunch. They’ll recognize it because this is something like the squillionth time I’ve had it and it never fails to elicit a reaction in me not unlike nitrous oxide or Natalie Portman from that scene in “Closer”.
This isn’t the kind of burger that you idly think, “Oh, I think I’d like a burger today”. You go to Old Chicago, when that happens. No, this is the kind of burger that you wake up needing. Notice I didn’t say ‘wanting’. This is the kind of burger where a good first impression really dictates the meal, so once you’ve resolved to eat it you call in sick at work, pull down the shades, play some sexy music and spend two hours washing, shaving (paying particular attention to the bikini line, just in case things go really well), primping and dressing, while intermittently standing in front of a mirror to practice your smile, devilish eyebrow arch and cutest laugh. This is the kind of burger where you steal its mailbox key while it’s in the bathroom, so you have an excuse to call it before noon the next day pretending to have found it, so you can see it again after work – preferably at your place, with an open bottle of tequila, latex ready to go, three flavors of lube, the trapeze just how you like it… Oops, I took it too far.
First there was the matter of the clam chowder. This can’t be right, but strangely I can’t recall ever eating clam chowder before. If I did, it obviously wasn’t memorable. This wasn’t especially pulse-quickening either, for that matter, but after a little added zip of black ground pepper it was a very decent starter. For some reason, it seemed to get more flavorful as I got nearer the bottom of the bowl, though I’m also one of those people who shows “flu symptoms” after getting a flu shot, so there’s that to consider.
My companion’s “Field Greens, Tomatoes, Fresh Herbs” was, for starters, very pretty and generously portioned. The tangy dressing did its thing, the gorgonzola was “to die for” and the cherry tomatoes were very fresh. If you’ve read my last two Restaurant Week posts, it’ll come as no surprise to hear that I didn’t bother tasting this.
My companion’s “Seared Citrus Glazed Salmon” was a homerun. The fillet was about as massive as I’ve ever seen in a fine dining setting and the citrus sauce not only jazzed up the fish brilliantly, but also gave a bit of help to the otherwise ho-hum steamed asparagus and the excellently crisp beans. My companion reported that the salmon tasted relatively light for being one giant helping of protein, but evidently not light enough for her to finish it all. With her dignity in jeopardy, being ever the gentleman, I threw myself over the remainder of the salmon and once again saved the world.
Despite saying otherwise on the Restaurant Week web site, there was no dessert included with the lunch menu. Not that either of us had the room, but I had my little heart set on the Flourless Chocolate Espresso Cake. Thanks a lot Obama.
I’m awarding this lunch four “Oh Gods” out of five.
It’s been a while since I went on a Slackerology rant, but car-free living has been on my mind again recently and instead of just speaking in confident, but speculative terms, I decided to crunch a bunch of numbers to support my argument.
2) I’m giving away a slightly used 
