To go with Good Friday, which I don’t “celebrate” anyway, I decided to listen to the “Good Friday Spell” from Wagner’s Parsifal. It fits, at least, with my “P” theme — I finished Ten and moved on to Vitalogy today, though I’m only half way through.
Jen and Christoph are back in town, and Jen called him this evening, we chatted for a while about various things, Christoph came home, and we decided to all get dinner at this place down on Atwood owned, it seems, by the same folks who own/run Himal Chuli and Chautara — Dobhan. It’s located basically across from Monty’s Blue Plate Diner and it’s just east a few buildings from the Barrymore. There’s another Asian restaurant, next to the Barrymore, The interior is spacious, remodeled, and clean. The ceiling is high, the space between tables adequate, and there are tables, booths, and some seating next to the windows. There is a small bar in back, near the kitchen, and the wine list is sufficient for a restaurant of this size. They have a good number of beers by the bottle, but they, like most everything, are pricy.
Dobhan is more like Chautara than Himal Chuli in that regard, for Himal Chuli is the hole-in-the-wall, local-diner of ethnic food on State Street, in a way comparable to the Mediterranean Cafe and perhaps Buraka, but Chautara … only a few vegetarian dishes are around or under $10, and so it was here, too.
I got a chicken dish that involved ginger and saffron as spices and plenty of sauteed vegetables (peppers and onions, along with some wilted spinach), all perfectly cooked and sweet. It came with jasmine rice, and the waitress mentioned that if I liked spicy I should get some sauce on the side, which she brought me, and it was indeed hot — a little went a long way, and just sniffing it seemed to clear the sinuses, so to speak. It was a subtle dish, savory and sweet but not overpowering, though for $12.95 I would have gladly had a bit more volume. The salad served with an orange vinaigrette was refreshing, and the pomegranate wheat beer (Major Toms’s) was light and a bit sweet — good, but not worth $4. The service was friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful, but not always speedy.
After dinner we wandered to Monty’s, but it was just before closing time. Jen got a slice of pie to take home; I took a picture of a cute sign about what would happen to unattended children (they’d get an espresso and free puppy). Monty’s closes at 10, and it was 9:50 when we walked in. Thereafter we drove downtown and stopped at 4-Star. Christoph ran around the corner and picked up a couple copies of The Onion (for the coupon on page 21), and after much browsing of the offerings we each got our two movies.
Along the way we snickered at absurd looking movies, DVD cases, and the like. There is an Introduction to Scientology starring L. Ron, and in the New Release section every tenth movie seemed be gay porn. Must be a big month. I almost got Renaissance, which I asked them to order, and a couple other newer things that I wanted to watch were in, but in the end I went for entertainment and curiosity over quality, taking Slither (horror comedy …) and Archangel, which stars Daniel Craig, and is based on a Robert Harris (Fatherland — one of the best ‘what if the Nazis had won?’ alternate histories) novel. The Michael Winterbottom adaptation, Jude starring Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston was not available on DVD, only VHS, and I hope that is only a purchasing error on 4-Star’s part, not a reflection of what’s really available.
Some drunk undergrads came in, including a boisterous, relatively tall brunette who insisted upon giving lots and lots of movie advice to her male companions; Jen claims she heard Russian being spoken as well. When we arrived the latter half of The Matrix was playing; when we left it was a Bruce Lee movie. The guy in front of me, Sean, had a $2 late fee; to my left the woman had a free movie, but also $14+ in late fees, and, after the movies she got, sans-coupon, she owed about $19. $4.74 for moi.
Midnight, and time for my own Video Heaven.
