Restaurant Review: Wild Donkey Cafe

Thanks to Devra taking the Fuss reigns for the evening we were able to toddle over to the Wild Donkey Cafe after work, a new Mexican/Greek place a few doors down from Big Sky in the old TA's spot.

Before they opened I was inordinately excited by the prospect, caught up imagining what cryptic shape a hybrid Mexican/Greek cuisine would present the adventurous diner. I was mildly disappointed to hear the two would be cohabiting on the same menu sans crossbreeding in a sort of Two's Company arrangement. Even so, the Greek component was something new in town so I put it on my list.

The physical transformation of the space is pleasantly astonishing.
TA's was one of the grimiest, most wretched eating establishments on the Central Coast, an ongoing health code violation in want of a timely inspection. In contrast, the Donkeys visage is warm, appealing and open. Sandblasted brick walls, exposed beam ceiling, an attractive buffed concrete floor bisected with planks of pale wood. The whole front of the place is wood and glass French doors, waiting for more clement weather to throw open inviting arms to passers by. Four stars for presentation.

We ordered Greek, moussaka for the Wife and a Gyro with their Peasant Potatoes for yours truly with a side of flatbread for the table. Both were delicious, fresh and appealing. The bread was nicely seasoned and grilled and did yeoman work helping us stem the tide of moussaka. My gyro was a delight, and the yogurt sauce was perfectly seasoned. I'm generally skeptical of anything featuring dill, but here it was a fine accent without overpowering all other elements.

The potatoes were well seasoned and flavorful, although somewhat inconsistent in their crust- one was flat out burnt, while several others were a bit pale. The looked a bit like I'd made them myself, which is a problem when you're serving them to paying customers.

They've overreached a bit on seating- they don't have a lot of square footage to work with and have about three too many tables deployed. Navigating the floor is a challenge, even when it's only half full. They also need some sort of host station by the door to make a transition- coming in off the street you're basically walking into the back of a dining room, and a server has to navigate from the bar across the cluttered dining room to seat you.

The service was friendly and willing if a bit inexperienced- our ten dollars in change came back as two fives, which would have knocked a buck off her tip if we hadn't had some loose bills.

All in all a fine meal, I say check it out if you're in the mood for Greek.

Does playing gimp guarantee you an Oscar?

I missed the show this year, but I hear Colin Firth won for playing a guy with a speech impediment. Which got me thinking about the conventional wisdom that Oscar loves gimps. It scans as true, conjuring an Edward Hopper mashup of Rain Man & Forrest Gump hanging at the diner, but I've never paid it much attention.

UNTIL NOW.

Let's run it back to the 80's, roughly charting the era of corporate dominance in Hollywood.
And stick to Best Actor winners, since I'm lazy.

I'll just list the gimps to save screen acreage:

80's
Henry Fonda, old guy with Parkinsons.
Dustin Hoffman, the archetypal Rain Main.
Daniel Day Lewis, guy with cerebral palsy.

90's
Al Pacino, blind scenery-chewing guy.
Tom Hanks, guy with AIDS.
Tom Hanks, the archetypal Forrest Gump. Didn't realize those were back to back- yikes!
Geoffrey Rush, mentally ill pianist.

00's
Jamie Foxx, blind pianist
(and my God, what did Russell Crow get an Oscar for in Gladiator, looking stoic and manly?)

10's
Colin Firth, stuttering king


The Roaring 90's seem to have embarrassed Academy voters into self restraint, but King George has the 10's off to a blistering start.

We'll find out if Colin is a harbinger or an outlier of the new decade soon enough.

true customer tales

So, as I'm handing a phonebook to the mumbling ex-con below, another specimen presented himself at the counter. A balding stork-ish fellow carrying two boxes that have clearly been regurgitated back through the postal system.

Hey, I've got a story for you! My attorney went to jail in Colorado, he's JEWISH, and he asked me to get him some books on it so he could talk to the other inmates, you know? So I bought these books here the other day, not from you, but another guy, and I sent them to the prison. But they said nobody can send them books except Amazon.com, nobody else, I guess they have problems with people cutting out the pages and sticking things in there or something! So they sent them back, and I'm wondering if I can get a credit for them or something?

I dug through the boxes and only about half the books actually came from the store. I filled out a credit slip and handed it to him.

Hey, do you have any Anne Rice books? I'm reading JODI PICOULT and I can't stop reading! I can't stop! But do you have any Anne Rice books?

And this whole time the ex con has been hunched over the open phone book muttering emphatically but inaudibly.


If I don't update tomorrow, someone call the cops...

True Customer Tales

A sketchy pale dude with an ex-con vibe sidles up to the counter and starts a mumbling, almost uninteligible auctioneer's monologue, impervious to my attempts to interject replies.

It went something like this.

Ummmmm do you have street maps I need a street map it's okay I got one in the car I told that bitch to shut up I didn't like her drinking in my car no it's okay man that didn't really happen it's just a story but I'm a misogynist anway I guess I should just find a service station.

Long pause.

hey have you got a phone book i could look at.

"Sure." I replied, excited to finally get a word in.

Fuss takes Charge

So last night I'm in the living room trying to read and Fuss gets antsy and wants me to do something. His desires are often couched in mystery- he likes to see how far he can get with nothing but a sly look and endless repetition. "Dada? Dada? Dada?" and "Mama? Mama? Mama?" are his favorites.

He stood in the hallway, sort of leaning toward the bedroom and doing his chant until I had to acknowledge him.

"What! What do you want?"
"Dada...come-a the bedroom?" Big smile.
"For what?"
"Bed?"
"What about the bed?"
"Make-a the bed?"

The light bulb over my head flickers on.

"Oh.....you want to make a pile?"

"MAKE-A THE PILE!" he shouted, and tore off down the hall.

So that's what we did.

Keywords of the Week

closeout bale diapers warehouse direct

and

diane arbus mexican


Thank you, Internet!

Tattoo of the Week

Dude buying a stack of manga with foot-long Final Fantasy logo on his forearm.

That's totally going to get him laid in the rest home.