By now I have eaten upstairs at Dashi a couple of times – everything I have had has been delicious, although it’s like Mateo in that you can drop a LOT of money fairly quickly. Small plates, indeed. Although I think that one could probably make a pretty entertaining meal just on the yakimono skewers – the brussels sprouts are delicious, and a couple of those plus a bunch of chicken livers would only be [still kind of absurdly expensive at] around $20. It’s not a nightly joint by any means. At least not for me.
The lines out front for ramen have persisted, and have persisted in being insane. I suppose there are some people for whom lining up is a fun experience all its own. I was talking to a Dashi staffer who said “when are they going to realize that it’s just noodle soup!?” and, well, yeah.
In any case: If you hit the upstairs by around 5:40 or so, you’ll be good to go. You’ll get to snicker at all the people lined up out in front of the ramen side, and beat them upstairs & get a seat. Once the host downstairs has made it through the line, taken names & handed out approximate seating times, the line-standers all head upstairs, so there won’t be any seats left upstairs by around 6:00.
Get the pork belly tonkatsu. You won’t be sorry (assuming you eat pork).
In other Durham restaurant news, there was some controversy about some remarks made in an interview by a famous local chef about her new venture, her first in Durham. Some of the quotes made it sound like she saw her venture (a hotel restaurant and rooftop bar) as filling one or more niches that are [apparently, according to her] presently entirely unfilled in Durham.
Some folks, including me, took issue with that suggestion. There was discussion on The Internet. I was, as per usual, probably more hyperbolic than necessary.
It was kind of unfortunate, particularly since she’s hardly the clueless bloviating rich capitalist developer type. Divorced from the context of her life & her other work and what her actual intentions quite possibly actually are, though, it kind of rubbed people the wrong way. Especially those people who have spent years of their lives filling the niches that her quotes implied were presently unfilled.
I suppose it’s an object lesson in how not to give an interview, which is to say that an interview with the press is NEVER a friendly conversation. It’s a battle: with the interviewer, and with your own brain. You have to step far enough outside of yourself to be able to view the whole thing in a broader context. This is one reason why I generally don’t talk on the record with the press. I can’t be trusted, and if I can’t be trusted, I’m pretty sure my interviewers couldn’t be trusted either.
[And yeah, as weird as it may sound, people still occasionally want to interview me for stuff. No, I don’t really understand it either.]
Anyway. I heard from some people about some things that I said. It is weird to be getting yelled at by one group of people, while being quietly congratulated by another group of people. At least the two groups didn’t have any apparent overlap.
Thanks to some generous friends, we got to see John Waters at the Carolina on Friday night. He started out the show so wired up and fast-talking that it took a bit to even lock onto his wavelength enough to be able to understand what he was saying.
Once I did, it was similar to the last time I saw him: one part random standup-style riffing, one part gleeful discussion of obscure sexual fetishes and their terminology, one part narrative of his movie career, one part general autobiography. Plus some talk about hitchhiking, since that’s kind of his current project. It was intermittently hilarious and hugely life-affirming. Plus of course that lovely Baltimore accent that comes out on certain words & phrases.
Saturday we saw A Most Violent Year, the third entry into what is shaping up to be the most remarkable early-career arc of this century. Writer/director J.C. Chandor has made three features thus far: Margin Call, a fascinating, claustrophobic look at the destruction of an investment bank over the course of one night; All Is Lost, the stunning, nearly-wordless shipwreck movie starring Robert Redford; and this new one, about one early-80s month in the life & career of a rising star of the heating oil business in New York.
A Most Violent Year is part character study, part suspense/thriller, part gangster movie. It’s like a movie that’s taking place just outside of the periphery of the Godfather Part II. Abel Morales wants to succeed on the basis of his own talent, or wants to deceive himself into believing that he has. Oscar Isaac & Jessica Chastain are both amazing.
So of course it wasn’t nominated for any Academy Awards. How many consistently amazing movies will this guy have to make before his peers acknowledge him?