Always after C2E2 we pack up the car and hit the road. Paying no attention to the bill from the hotel for parking and the stay.
Then we come down to Boystown and walk up to Joy’s. It’s a tradition!
Always after C2E2 we pack up the car and hit the road. Paying no attention to the bill from the hotel for parking and the stay.
Then we come down to Boystown and walk up to Joy’s. It’s a tradition!
Check out this Yelp review for La Sardine!
— Read on www.yelp.com/biz/la-sardine-chicago
We stopped in to Wax Wings on this rainy and dreary Saturday evening. The entire bar area is rustic. The classics play on the speakers, they have games available and Farmers benches to sit at if not at the bar itself.
Today they had just “Up In The Early” which is a 10% ABV Stout. It’s chocolate sweetness is a powerful brew in a snifter glass. The barkeeper was really friendly and suggested that as a microbrewery sometimes their supplies and their demand are hard to synchronize. I get that. I love these sorts of places and since Gonzo’s got absorbed by Saugatuck Brewing Company, this may be my destination pub, along with One Well.
Of course, Arcadia is under a murky cloud of mystery with the tax issues they’ve had. I think they are still open, but I don’t know that for sure. I haven’t been back there since their imminent collapse was reported by mLive, our trashy news service in town. They often times overreact and get wrong as much as they get right.
I’m looking forward to going back to Wax Wings when they have more to serve. So far, bravo ladies and gentlemen. You’re doing something right when you have stock contention. At least beer is being used up instead of dumped.
Just got back from the lunch buffet at Monelli’s in Portage. So much food, the prices are great and the food is pretty good, but it’s all carbs so this afternoon is going to be a bit of dragging anchor. Dear Keurig Wan-Kenobi, you’re my only hope… LOL!
I read this article about restaurants and their corkage fees. Mostly out of dull curiosity I found myself satisfied that I don't agree and there are delightful ways to avoid this entire argument.
But to the vex, paying a corkage fee is a custom where diners who supply their own wine pay the establishment money for the privilege. You have a choice, either pay the insane markup (feels a lot like a mugging) on restaurant wine or pay to bring your own. Either way you'll pay. The linked article even goes so far to comment that bringing your own wine is shaming the sommelier, because you don't like his offerings. So, you quibble with the quality of truncheon that you are mugged with. Ah. I suppose I've never found a use for a sommelier, and that's likely because it's a class warfare thing, sommeliers are great if you're a 17th century royal, otherwise be your own sommelier. Anyhow, the word indicates the servant who ran ahead and prepared a meal. In the United States, nobody runs ahead, unless it's a mugger waiting for you in an alley. So, sommelier, great. The article states that if you really want to be nice you should offer the sommelier a taste. This is amazing. The guy who marks up his swill 1000% gets honor? How about chased out with torches and pitchforks?
Yeah yeah yeah. Be nice. Don't be so grumpy. But why should a meal out spiral out of control and cost you way more than the “food” you are purchasing? The experience is usually the answer. You pay for the experience. So when it comes to wine, you are paying to “enjoy the services of a fine sommelier” or, really, paying for the opportunity to be screwed on price for a bottle of swill and think it's honorable – and defensible.
Partially this comes down to palate. You are paying a sommelier, and his palate to guide you. Because each palate is unique, like a fingerprint, what if you've paid 300 dollars for wine you detest? Instead you've brought a 3 dollar bottle of wine that you love. The sommelier is angry. They charge you a 85 dollar corkage fee as a matter of revenge for not being able to tear the alimentary canal out of the sommelier and staple it to your central nervous system. I mean really, this screams palate bigotry.
So the way out? Water. Fuck you and your worthless overpriced swilly “wines”. No corkage fee, no mugging, no obnoxious useless mugger behaving like a chimpy King Louis XIV court fop being all pretentious and galling over reprehensible palate bigotry. I never asked anyone to run ahead. So, screw off.
But then there is the setting too. “Fine Dining” is a euphemism for “Food Poisoning”, so in many ways that too is just so much of a waste of time and valuable resources. These self-puffed joints get grumpy and bent if you bring your own wine and so either pay their mugger to sulk in the corner or get your food to go and enjoy it at home with your own wine. Alas, you'll need a roll of TP too, so it's not like there is a win condition here anyways.
At least the water is chlorinated, so you at least have that basic thing to go on… Always remember to tip the angry sulking mugger too. He really wanted to bash your brains out and rifle through your pockets for loose change.
I'm honestly surprised they don't have a $50 charge for a glass of water. Seems like they've followed a theme and left out a gloriously glaring exception. After all, this is Fine Dining! LOL.
Ever since I arrived in Kalamazoo all those years ago I’ve always noticed this blight on East Kalamazoo Ave as you approach the downtown region. Oh God No, what the hell is that?!? Turns out it’s Bell’s Brewery. It looks like an abandoned industrial ruin, fences, the hint of brewing tanks behind filthy windows, serviced by a incredibly tiny parking lot which is marked for company use only. It’s strange because there is a big yellow sign advertising things that sound like musical acts. So there has to be an inside, obviously. It’s the dead last place I ever wanted to go mostly because I couldn’t figure out how to approach it. The outside looks awful, it’s filthy, barbed wire fences, no parking at all, and East Kalamazoo is a one way, so if you miss it, well, screw you, you’re shit out of luck.
Years went by, I assumed that there was something there, but seeing Bell’s from the outside I always figured it was a dive. A nasty wretched filthy dive. Then I started hearing about how Bell’s is supposed to be this incredible world-renowned microbrewery. Family members ask about it, where I am in relationship to Comstock, MI. It’s, uh, I suppose a town, it’s just down the street. I assume it’s a town at least. I’ve been there a few times, it strikes me as being sparser than Cortland, New York and that’s embarrassingly sparse. Oh look, they have an intersection, yay.
Then out of curiosity I bought a six pack of Two Hearted Ale thinking it was rated very highly, so why not give it a shot? Oh my god. It was the first time I hate-drank a six pack. I couldn’t endure the notion that I had wasted money on that swill (oh, and god, was it awful, unpleasant is a huge understatement) and so I put Bell’s, and all it’s delightful whatever in the list of “Maybe someday, if I find the Wardrobe to Narnia…” and it became just another blighted eyesore that contributes to the general dilapidation that is downtown Kalamazoo. It needs a good solid tornado to improve.
So, years go by and I don’t think of Bell’s at all. Every once in a while people mention meeting people at Bell’s and I always ask “Does it have an inside? I mean, something you can go into?” and they look at me funny and assume that I’m being intentionally odd. No people! I don’t think it HAS an inside! Not for people at least! And I let it lapse. Wondering whats beyond the Wardrobe to Narnia occurs to me every time I pass it heading to work on East Kalamazoo.
Anyways, between a lot of not-thinking-about-Bells and now I joined a cycling group that heads out all over the northeast part of Kalamazoo every Tuesday. A nice bunch of people, I don’t know any of them at all, but nice enough. I get my exercise in, I get a path to follow, and I get people to bike with, at least in general. After the biking they customarily go to Bell’s for beer. Cue the double-take. People who have… wait for it… **been inside**. It’s like spotting Mr. Tumnas for the first time and expecting to hear a bleat and the clickety-clack of little hooves. So today we were headed up to Gull Lake, sort of, and then back. I got home, fed my cats and then got my license and my bank card and headed out. I asked Google Maps to get me to Bell’s, thinking that it might lead me to the Wardrobe (baaah), no, not really. I ended up standing in a lot too tiny for my big SUV, festooned with industrial debris, you know, the “No way this is habitable for human beings” itty-bitty parking lot. Not for customers. I seriously doubted, even at this point, that there were customers at all. I mean, Narnia folks, Baaaah. So I turned down the next street and figured that the Wardrobe might be on the other side. But there is nothing on the other side but ugly train tracks, mostly a nasty railyard which serves the most annoying feature of Kalamazoo. A train runs through it. Annoyingly so, and poorly too. Amtrak. Yay for sitting in piss, but I digress. There is nothing back there but rotten out abandoned warehouses, potholes, the saddest field of brickwork that used to be the street, it pokes through sadly every once in a while, when the rotten out asphalt just can’t hack the punishment. That’s it! It’s just rail controls, street crossing barricades, brownfield, debris, urban decay… oh my fucking god, it’s the god damn Wardrobe to Narnia! There it is. It’s a parking lot, bigger than you think, but not marked, so maybe you’re going to be towed, maybe you aren’t. Is it for employees? Are there employees? This whole time I seriously doubted this was a real place. I honestly figured Bell’s had grown softheaded and thought that maybe the train-that-doesn’t-run-through-here-anymore may pick up kegs of their beer. Sort of like a really depressing alcoholic Polar Express. If you look very carefully, and you walk around the building you see the entrance and, well, there I stood. 15 years of living in this wretched place and I finally found the fucking entrance to a place I thought was a local urban legend. Bell’s Eccentric Cafe. Oh, hello Mr. Tumnas. Nice seeing you! Baaaah!
I wasn’t dressed for this place. I was hot and sweaty and I looked kind of disheveled. I had talked myself into going even though I don’t really have the money to spend and the gasoline I burned up getting there was a very tiny black cloud hanging over my head. The people pouring out were brightly dressed, tourists, hipster trash, and downtown people. Even walking up I felt awkward. Then I entered. There was a gentleman sitting by the entrance and he looked at me and I glanced at him. I thought it was strange that he was just sitting there, and since I didn’t think anything about it, I just walked right past him. Turns out, maybe, he was a door something or other checking patrons licenses, at least that’s the gist I got when I turned around on my way out. He didn’t seem to be important, just kind of “this guy by the door”. Honestly the thought was that maybe he was using his phone, or something else, but that I should have approached him wasn’t even anywhere in my head.
Then it hit me as I looked around. It was several things all at once, actually. There was this overwhelming social anxiety – I knew absolutely nobody at all. I didn’t know the shape of the interior, and I walked past what appeared to be a beer hall and then further down to a door that didn’t appear to be for customers, and on my way back, I happened to notice a beer garden patio on the other side. I peered through the window and saw elderly people and strangers. Giant swaths of strangers, strange faces… then I felt an overwhelming urge to escape. I had to go. I didn’t have the money, I didn’t know if the biking group that I was supposedly going to join were actually there, and even if I did, I only know the owner of the establishment and only just first names. I was weighing everything and I felt like I really didn’t belong there. I was woefully under-dressed, I was running a risk of drinking beer on a empty stomach which would have really complicated my trip back home, plus the notion that I wasn’t going to really get out of there without spending $30 to $50 for beer I don’t really care for and people I don’t know in a building that really might have been Narnia. Baaaah!
I’m not a bar person. I really don’t like big group things surrounded by strangers, and I only put up with those situations because I don’t want to be that guy that clogs up the works for everyone else when they want to have fun – but it’s never really fun for me. It’s expensive. It’s nasty. It’s dirty. It’s smelly. Oh god, I’d rather just flee. And so I did. I fled from Bell’s. I didn’t have the heart to even make eye contact with the guy at the front door. Maybe he was a bouncer, maybe he wasn’t, maybe he was just sitting there – who the hell knows? Exit was the only thing I wanted and I walked back to my car, cursing the burnt fuel to get me to this boondoggle of an experience and thankful that I decided against “making the best of it” and staying. It would have been really awkward. Throw alcohol on top of awkward and I might as well be an albatross. Squawk!
So, I’ve been to Bell’s, er, Narnia. Yes, it’s probably a nice place. I’m sure it’s wonderful and I’m sure I am missing out on something, but in the end, I’m okay with that. People who like beer seem to regard it highly, and also in that, good for them. I don’t think it’s for me. 15 years and finding it finally has scratched off an item on my “Whatevs” list, so for that, a tepid yeh.
I can’t really afford the place. I can’t afford their beer. I can’t afford the gasoline it takes to get there and back and I don’t know a soul in the place. So, we’ve learned where the Wardrobe is and at least now I know it’s not for me. At least I can go back to my comfortable notions of before, that it’s just a run-down industrial pit and there is nothing on the other side but filthy blighted railroad.
Baaah.
Back in 2010 there was a new hamburger shop opening up to much fanfare. The place was called SmashBurger and I wrote a review of the establishment. I didn’t like their food and now I have reason to not like them for anything else. According to this article the owners of our local SmashBurger are homophobic bigots.
So, wretched food and hate?! Golly, missing that will be a joy! If you like this place, I seriously ask you to think about where you buy things, and who you support with your money. Culvers is just a few miles down the road, you can get better food, cheaper, without the hate.
We just returned from a late lunch at Sliders Burgers in Kalamazoo, MI. I was aware that they were coming when a Kalamazoo twitter personality mentioned two new businesses occupying Campus Pointe Mall several months ago. When they made the announcement my first response was “Oh god no, they are going to inherit the curse…” as Campus Pointe Mall is cursed with failure. This location has suffered some rather breathtaking churn over the years with eateries popping up and then evaporating. Over and over again. So, here we are, once more.
We left Barnes & Noble on Westnedge Avenue in Portage at 2pm, took 94 to 131, then Stadium to Drake then to W. Michigan. I thought it was the most direct route and I wanted our first time there to be together so we could discuss this review before I put words down about this restaurant. The idea was that we shouldn’t have any problems because it was 2pm, the lunch-crush should have been over by then and we could get back before my partner needed to return to work an hour later.
This restaurant, Sliders Burgers is on the end of a series of storefronts, parking is never really a problem. The parking lot of Campus Pointe Mall is terrible, but that’s something everyone knows. The lot is full of front-end-eating potholes, it’s not that your wheels get swallowed by them, it’s that your front-end gets swallowed by them. The parking lot looks like a shelling range. The management company that runs that “Mall” really should be ashamed, but it’s not the fault of the restaurant itself. After parking we spied the layout, which is like any burger joint and best resembles Five Guys little cousin. We walked in, everything seemed fine until we got to ordering. I pretty much knew what I was after, they have meals organized by number and I wanted a “Number One”. I had to ask for it twice, and then had to struggle with what toppings I wanted. These are sliders, these are tiny burgers. They say that their burgers are 5 ounces, but that’s pre-cooking weight, the honest value is likely 3 ounces in presentation. The toppings were disorganized. There are three onion options in their free topping range and it’s annoying to have to specifically identify each topping you want. When you are ordering in this situation speed is of the essence. The food is quick, the ordering is quick, the cashout is quick. Quick quick quick. Customers, like I had to, had to battle out a list of toppings, most of which I didn’t care about. What is worse is that my toppings were random and included some of their premium options like bacon that I didn’t ask for, but I’m not picky. The order failure was really disappointing. On our way back we got to talking about the toppings problem and came up with an idea. Put the caramelized onions on the premium list, then chop the white and red together. That would simplify the free topping list and then, much like Five Guys, you could say “All the free ones” and not have to stare into a blank face just blinking at you and asking you to itemize which ones you want. I told you what I wanted, alas, there is no convenient way to do that. So there we were, a lunch for two, a number one and a number four for $18.48. The pricetag surprised me. In comparison to other lunch possibilities this was expensive. More expensive than Five Guys, and even more than Culvers. Then we sat down. That was pretty much the end for me. I was annoyed at the order counter and the table was a weeble-wobbly piece of cheap junk. It was a square panel of plywood painted with a stand screwed into the base. I tested another random table on our way out and that table too was just the same. Annoying. Then we were waiting for our food, the kitchen performed a monumental whammy in serving someone who came in after us before us. At first we thought it was simply a matter of a smaller order until we noticed that it was bigger and was a dine-in and carry-out versus just a dine-in for us. Alas, bygones. We got our baskets and Scott didn’t get his fries. We were running out of time, since it took the kitchen about 12 minutes to prep what we ordered. It should have taken 3-6 minutes, tops. As for the food, it was acceptable. It wasn’t anything worth repeating and the fries were okay.
I won’t castigate Sliders Burgers the same way I did for Smashburger, but the comparisons are still valid. You get a cheaper and better meal on stable tables from Five Guys and even cheaper still at Culvers. One thing to keep in mind is that Sliders Burgers targeted audience is only partially me. They are targeted at the student population that is clustered right near them as Western is concentrating all their efforts on treating downtown Kalamazoo like a leper colony. Every development is on the other side, where nobody is, but if you build lots of “Apartments” and “Dorms” then voila, you’ve got a new area ripe for commerce with companies like Sliders Burgers. What about downtown Kalamazoo? It’s best left to Portage tossers and tragically ironic Hipsters.
We’ll give this place one more shot, just to be fair, but if you can’t deliver in less than 10 minutes at 2:30pm on a Saturday with an effective empty restaurant except for a handful of patrons there are some problems. Nothing I’ve identified is a business killer for Sliders Burgers, but much like Smashburger, they would have been better served by a soft open with a select customer base to shake out the problems first, before opening to the public.
So, tentatively we’re going to go with a 2.5 out of 5 for Sliders Burgers in Kalamazoo, MI.
Areas of improvement:
1) Overhaul topping selection, let the picky be picky, let the quick be quick.
2) Your tables are fit for incineration. They are no good. Buy real tables.
3) You may benefit from a number system instead of names.
Good Luck!
Several weeks ago Scott bought a Groupon for a new restaurant we had never even knew existed. It’s called “Seasonal Grille” and it’s in Hastings, Michigan. We had no clue as to where Hastings was as we’ve never been there before. Turns out that it’s on M–43, which is a rather circuitous state route here in Michigan. We live just off Gull Road and as it turns out, Gull is also known as M–43. We followed the road along, from Kalamazoo to Richland, then to Danville and finally to Hastings. Parking was not an issue as Hastings was about the same size as Parchment, MI – which is to say, very small. It reminded me a lot of Cortland, New York. The restaurant itself is on a corner lot and is very bright inside and has a lot of windows, making the approach very easy for us. The Groupon was a half-off deal for a bottle of wine, an appetizer, and a main course.
We were greeted promptly and seated as it was rather late, later than most people would dine so the atmosphere was more intimate and relaxed than it otherwise would have been if we had arrived during the dinner rush. The interior is modern and spacious with a well-stocked bar which serves as a large island in the center of the establishment. The first thing I noticed was the interior lighting. I’ve had a standing issue for quite a long time with most restaurants, including all of them in Kalamazoo, that restauranteurs believe that subdued lighting lends ambiance. It’s irritating. It’s not ambiance if you cannot see anything because it is so very dim inside! It was a delight to finally find a restaurant that pumps up the ambient light as well as features strong but well-diffused lights over each table. When one eats, you taste first with your eyes. Being able to see things, being well-lit, this is totally refreshing and I cannot express how much I approve and enjoy this dining environment. Other restaurants can take a page from Seasonal Grille when it comes to interior design and especially their generous lighting strategy.
We shared a large meatball appetizer which was about the size of a baseball. It was well cooked and had a very fine texture which we both commented on. The presentation was very nice and the speed from the kitchen was exactly what we expected. It wasn’t rushed out, and it wasn’t late, it was just right. There was a little fumble with our wine order as the bottle we selected was found to be out, but switching to another varietal wasn’t a problem. We both had ordered their “Taste of Italy” which was listed as Manicotti, Lasagna, and Chicken Parmesan for $14.95. This was one of their most expensive dishes on the menu and the price was another huge surprise. The order was finished by the kitchen and arrived, everything was piping hot and fresh and the colors, the texture, the taste, and the presentation were all spot-on. I still am shocked that they priced out that dish to $14.95. The prices, we both commented as we ate our meal, were remarkably low considering the quality coming out of the kitchen. I would have expected a price point around $16.95 to $18.95. That a good meal for such a great price can be had locally is quite nice. For dessert we decided to try their Cannoli. The presentation on the desert platter shows one cannoli, however the order is for two. We really ordered too much but the quality was still excellent, and since it wasn’t included in the Groupon that was priced out separately as it should have been.
Overall I was quite impressed with Seasonal Grille. It is a rather lengthy drive from Kalamazoo, but it is uniquely positioned, as it’s roughly half-an-hour from Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Lansing. If you are looking for a new place, or maybe find a new favorite place, I really recommend this restaurant for consideration. Hastings may be sneeze-and-you-miss-it, but this particular establishment certainly is not.