Crazy or Crazy-Awesome?

Thin Mint Julep

Crazy or Crazy-Awesome?

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy Cupcakes

Tastings has a new lunch special until end of May

You get three options:

Soup and a Half
Choice of Cuban or Chicken Sandwich and Traditional Fish Chowder or Butternut Squash Soup
or
Chef's Daily Pasta Special
Your server will tell you about the day's fresh ingredients.
or
Full Sushi Roll with Soup or Salad
Full Sushi Roll of choice with Miso Soup or Japanese Salad

Pretty great deal considering Tastings is supposed to be really excellent, but is definitely out of my price range.

Someday I Want to Try...

a durian.

It's a fruit from Indonesia and Malaysia that looks like yellow custard inside and a Medieval instrument of torture outside. Pregnant women and people with high blood pressure are traditionally advised not to eat it. Even more imposing is its odor. The ever-quotable Anthony Bourdain claims: "Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother." This gives you an idea of how hard the flavor of durian is to describe. Some food writers or naturalists have said it smells like stale vomit, like rotten onions, and like turpentine. Anthony Burgess said is was like eating raspberry custard in a bathroom. This from the man who brought you A Clockwork Orange.

Something so indescribable can only be understood if experienced.

SEA offers a durian smoothie (and lots of other better-tasting fruit flavors), but the two times I've had the chutzpah to order it, they were fresh out. Hard to believe, I know. Despite one of the employees telling me it will make my breath smell for days, I will not be deterred in my quest. Asia Market on West Henrietta Road may just be the place...

Great Drinking Stories in History

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/10558

Le Tour de South Avenue

South Avenue is the heartland of the South Wedge neighborhood. For a good six blocks, it houses a collection of restaurants and bars on both sides of the street. Among those are Equal Grounds (an LGBT coffeehouse), Mise en Place (a gourmet grocery store), Open Face sandwich eatery, Solera wine bar, Coffee Connection, Hedonist chocolates, and further down-- Cheesy Eddie's cheesecakes. If you slightly veer off South onto Gregory, there is also the Keg, the German House (a concert venue), the Mez (a coffeehouse), Small World bakery, and Tap and Mallet. The whole tour is a short walk, if you're lucky enough to find a parking space.

My personal favorites on the tour would have to be Cheesy Eddie's and Lux. Lux is at 666 South Avenue, and they have embraced their address, featuring bold red walls and devilish decor. They have a large backyard with picnic tables and a fire pit. You can find people back there pretty much year-round. They also have $1.50 PBRs and $3 Pabst Smears (a PBR and a shot of well liquor). On many nights they have specials like free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or pizza, grill your own burger, arts and crafts, or they show movies. They also have an extensive board game collection. And a cigarette machine that dispenses candy. And chalkboard walls in the restrooms so you can grafitti without the guilt. There's also a pool table. They pretty much thought of everything.

But before you plunk down a $10 to go wild on the PBRs at Lux, you should probably have some dinner. Especially since Lux doesn't open until 9 on the weekends. On the other side of the major intersection with Gregory is Beale Street Cafe, a restaurant decorated like Mardi Gras, but slightly less cheesily than Bennigan's. I always try mightily to ignore the flaw in logic that Beale Street is a street of blues bars in Memphis, not in New Orleans. They serve Cajun food and pit-smoked barbeque. I am continually disappointed in po' boys outside of Louisiana, and Beale Street is no exception. And since I was spoiled on my daddy's barbeque growing up in South Carolina, I don't even bother to try Beale's. So I had long ago dismissed Beale Street's food, though I liked their laid-back atmosphere, their classic rock soundtrack, and their extensive cocktail selection. However, I recently had a slight reversal. The wings at Beale Street are quite phenomenal.

As pictured above, you can see that our waiter, be it out of confusion or love, sprinkled some of their Cajun dry rub on our medium wings. They usually just use a slightly sweet buffalo sauce, and they have dry wings with the Cajun seasonings as well. But when those forces combine-- it's the Captain Planet of chicken wings. It makes me hopeful that other places where I've had blah experiences can also redeem themselves (I'm looking at you Little Venice).

Mamasan's

Mamasan's is located at 2800 Monroe Avenue, right across from the Pittsford Wegmans. It is a fairly large, mid-scale Thai restaurant. Most noodle or rice dishes are in the $10 to $16 range, with the option of adding tofu, chicken, pork, beef or shrimp. The service is incredibly quick and I've never seen it busy.

Mamasan's was a god-send one night when nothing seemed to suit us and it was already 9:00 pm. We had been meaning to try it out, but I thought the outside looked kinda fancy. The inside has definitely been decorated by a professional (with kind of odd, modernistic, space-station tastes), but it's not high-brow.

This photo is of Mamasan's noodles, which is a favorite for its sweet sauce (I think it's a better Pad Thai than their Pad Thai, which is probably better than any other Pad Thai in Rochester). All the dishes have tons of vegetables and you can even add more for an extra $2. The Thai curry is another favorite.

The spring rolls were too rubbery, and I haven't managed to experiment with some of the other dishes yet. The sodas don't have refills, but they do offer a decent selection of beer (including Thailand's Singha) and wine.

Final Word: with fast service, plenty of options, and fresh-tasting food, it's well worth price.