Month: July 2006

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Time for a Change

Where were you 27 years ago? Not yet born, about to graduate from college, about to get married, have your first child, first house, first meal at Benihana? Yes, it’s been 27 years since Benihana opened its doors in East Memphis, and, since then, generations of Memphians have eaten at this popular restaurant.

But now it’s time for a change. Last week, the restaurant chain unveiled “The Next Benihana.” While the restaurant’s pagoda-like exterior remains the same, the inside of Benihana has undergone an extreme makeover.

The first impression of the new interior is that Benihana has gone Starbucks, which is really no surprise since the design firm WD Partners was consulted. WD’s clients include Abercrombie & Fitch, PF Chang’s China Bistro, Marble Slab, and, of course, Starbucks.

Blond wood, bamboo green, stained glass, and stainless steel are dominant, which gives individual cooking/dining stations an almost outdoorsy feel. The former waiting area and karaoke stage have been transformed into a modern bar and lounge with slate floors, wood, and stainless-steel accents. The sushi bar is in the lounge, and there’s now an expanded sushi menu with express lunch and early-bird dinner specials.

Another change: no more karaoke. The food, the hibachi, the knife-juggling, and the shrimp-tossing are as you remember them.

Benihana is open daily for lunch and dinner.

Benihana, 912 Ridge Lake (683-7390)

For a rare treat, pay a visit to Wally Joe restaurant this weekend.

Wally Joe has gotten its hands on Yukon River King salmon, some of the finest and fattiest salmon in the world.

Yukon River salmon has been absent in the U.S. market for pretty much the past 30 years, when all of the harvest went to the Japanese market. Three years ago, however, the Yukon River King became available in the United States. Of the five species of Pacific salmon, Kings are the largest, with some weighing as much as 100 pounds and with fat reserves that can reach up to 34 percent, making it the richest-tasting salmon available. The season for this salmon is barely two weeks long, and this year it ends on July 10th.

Wally Joe prepares the King Salmon tartare with apple-wood smoked bacon, crispy potatoes, and cucumber tomato sauce or simply grilled with lemon and olive oil and served with Yukon Gold potatoes, asparagus, and truffle corn jus.

Wally Joe, 5040 Sanderlin (818-0821)

The Avenue Carriage Crossing goes to the Rocky Mountains with the newest addition to the shopping center’s dining choices: Firebirds Rocky Mountain Grill.

This is the second Memphis-area Firebirds Grill for the Colorado-based franchise. Firebirds has set out to offer diners the flavors of the American West, where the “wood fire of the cattle ranch meets the bold flavor of the Desert Southwest.”

That translates into wood-grilled salmon, Aspen sirloin (a center-cut, aged Black Angus sirloin lightly seasoned and fired over a wood-burning grill), a slow-cooked rotisserie pork loin that’s been marinated for 48 hours with honey, sage, rosemary, and juniper berries, and surf-and-turf combinations including filet, sirloin, baby-back ribs, lobster, shrimp, and salmon.

The look is reminiscent of a Colorado ski lodge — an open-air kitchen, exposed wood beams, and a stone fireplace in the bar and on the patio.

Firebirds is open Sunday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Happy-hour bar bites and drink specials are available Monday through Friday from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the bar and on the patio.

Firebirds Rocky Mountain Grill, 4600 Merchants Circle, Suite 101 (850-1603)

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Nerd Paradise

In the best scene in Wordplay, crossword-puzzle constructor Merl Reagle sits alone at his dining-room table with a pencil and a piece of graph paper. Many of us try to solve crossword puzzles, those enticing but frustrating blocks of blackened squares and open spaces yearning to be filled. But most of us have probably never thought much about how they’re created. So Reagle, a regular contributor to The New York Times crossword, gives us a lesson.

First he shades in a few boxes, giving his puzzle some shape and symmetry. Then he writes in a few key words he wants to build the puzzle around. Then he goes about filling in the rest, negotiating tricky letter combinations, trying not to work himself into an irresolvable corner, coming up with combinations of letters that he thinks are words but needs to consult a dictionary to be sure about. As much fun as trying to solve a puzzle may be, Reagle makes us want to try to make one. Especially when we later see the delight of celebrity crossword addicts like Daily Show host Jon Stewart and former President Bill Clinton when they try to solve Reagle’s puzzle.

And that’s one of the great things about Wordplay, a charming, modest documentary about people who make crossword puzzles and the “solvers” who are their audience: It makes thinking itself fun, exciting, and suspenseful.

Wordplay, confidently and affectionately directed by first-timer Patrick Creadon, begins as a bio-doc of New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, who took over editing duties in 1993, adding pop-culture answers and a looser framework to the venerable puzzle. But before he was at the paper of record, Shortz founded the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which is held every year in Stamford, Connecticut.

Wordplay‘s real subject, it turns out, is the 2005 tournament (the 28th) and some of its key competitors. Despite the presence so many celebrity puzzle fans (Clinton compares solving a crossword to grappling with global problems as president — you start with what you know and use that to figure out the rest), none of these notables is quite as interesting as the ordinary citizens who compete in Shortz’ tournament.

Wordplay‘s format is similar to the recent spelling-bee documentary Spellbound. We meet a few contestants in their home environments and learn about them, then follow as they all come together at the competition.

In this case, memorable competitors include Ellen Ripstein, a self-described “little nerd girl” who won the tournament in 2001 after many near misses. (Creadon includes archival footage of Ellen’s win, her frowning at the judges — “Are you sure? Are you sure?” — as applause erupts around her.) Ellen’s a mousy, nervous thing who likes to go baton twirling in the park and who remembers fighting back against an unkind ex-boyfriend who mocked her crossword obsession by asking, “What are you the best in the world at?” And then there’s Tyler Hinman, an astoundingly normal 20-year-old college student who constructs puzzles at his fraternity house and is trying to become the youngest winner ever.

Wordplay isn’t as emotionally engrossing as Spellbound. You don’t worry over these adults the way you do the kids. But it’s more inspiring. The tension and competition in Spellbound could be a little uncomfortable, and that movie never made you want to spell. In Wordplay, the solvers want to win, but the journey of solving the puzzle is more important. As is the fellowship with their crossword-addicted friends.

There’s something almost utopian about Wordplay‘s climactic gathering: In an increasingly dumbed-down and coarsened culture, here are dozens of smart, kind people enjoying each other and the literate, engaging puzzles they solve. Who knew nerd paradise was a hotel conference room in Connecticut?

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Yea, Bush! Way to go! I realize this is last week’s news, but I’m a great believer in giving credit where credit is due. By designating the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as a national monument, Bush has put one more level of federal protection around a vast spread of islands and irreplaceable marine life.

As he rather touchingly insisted, this IS a big deal — 140,000 square miles of water that contains more than 7,000 rare species. The word is the president decided to declare the area a marine sanctuary after watching a documentary by Jean-Michel Cousteau. The thought that it might be possible to move George W. Bush to action by something as simple as watching a movie came as a new thought to many who are dying to try it on other issues.

But the environment is an area in which a simple plea often moves Bush. For example, Ernie Angelo, who used to be mayor of Midland, Texas, and represented Texas on the Republican National Committee, sent a note to Karl Rove in 2002 complaining about an Environmental Protection Agency rule designed to keep groundwater around oil drilling sites clean.

Well, as you can imagine Angelo, an oilman, was not happy about this rule. In fact, he informed Rove, the rule was causing many in the oil industry “to openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity.”

Rove forwarded the note to the White House environmental advisers, demanding a “response ASAP.” So the rule finally took effect this month. But after intense industry pressure, court battles, and behind-the-scenes lobbying at the agency and in Congress, it’s more a hole than a rule. And guess what? It has no teeth in it.

Yep, Ernie and the oil industry got what they wanted: the end of the Clinton-era proposal to require special EPA permits for construction sites smaller than five acres as a way to keep groundwater clean. Imagine the immense burden that would put on the oil companies. Really, unless the Bush administration had taken this kind of special care, Exxon might suffer a drop in profits.

Next, we find the EPA has decided not to release information on 140 Superfund sites — these are toxic waste sites that present risk of exposure to those nearby. You might, if you hadn’t been paying attention, assume information collected by the government and paid for by the citizens would be, uh, public.

“This isn’t a question of left or right,” said California senator Barbara Boxer. “This is a question of right and wrong.” According to the Los Angeles Times, “The EPA said that it had blocked only information related to law enforcement and that the public had access to all relevant health-risk data for the sites.”

That’s the kind of sentence reporters try to write with a straight face. Actually, what the EPA is keeping secret is how much money and time it will take to clean up the Superfund sites. Why? “Republicans said Democrats want to manufacture a political issue, and noted that Senate tradition had long prevented the release of sensitive information,” said the Times story. What political issue? The reinstatement of a “controversial tax” — i.e., the Superfund tax on chemical, oil, and other polluting companies.

In case you haven’t been following this, the Superfund is broke and has been largely inactive for four years. The fund was allowed to run dry when Congress failed to renew the tax on polluters. You may not believe this, but the oil and chemical companies complained mightily about being asked to pay for the cleanup of messes they had created. What a concept.

Other environmental controversies continue to simmer all the time — out of sight, out of mind. Just one more regulation chopped here, just one more law changed there, just a little information hidden.

But do be sure to give Bush credit for declaring the already protected Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a national monument. That’s a good thing. Is there an election anytime soon?

Molly Ivins writes for Creators Syndicate.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Candy Date

Fly on the Wall would like to congratulate the Tri-State Defender for rising above easy racial clichés and taking its role as the voice of Memphis’ African-American community so seriously. We were particularly impressed by a front-page headline asking if 9th District congressional candidate Steve Cohen was “White Chocolate” or an “opportunist.” All this time we thought he was either café au lait or vanilla fudge.

Overstatement

Commenting on the 72-foot, Christianized Statue of Liberty erected by the famously nipple-shaped World Overcomers Church at the corner of Kirby and Winchester, WMC-TV newscaster Ben Watson breathlessly announced, “It’s like a piece of New York in Hickory Hill.” The newsman didn’t mention the irony of re-imagining Lady Liberty as a theocratic icon or of making a graven image of the Ten Commandments. He did point out Pastor Anton Williams’ Christ-like concern for tourism and commerce. According to Watson, Williams hopes the statue will inspire people “not only to pray, but to pay.”

Grace Landing

Writer/director Brian Jun, whose Steel City was nominated for the grand jury prize at January’s Sundance Film Festival, is planning to make a biopic about Jeff Buckley, the clarion-voiced singer who tragically wore his boots for a swim in the Mississippi River and never came out again. We can’t help but wonder who will be tapped to play the Grifters, the local musicians who befriended Buckley on the road and inspired him to move to Memphis. Is Keanu Reeves’ band, Dogstar, still together?

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

No Time for Soccer

It has been noted ad nauseam that Americans just haven’t been all that into this year’s (or any year’s) World Cup soccer tournament, currently being held in Germany.

Reuters has piled on now too, deriding American soccer interest, claiming that, “whereas spontaneous soccer breaks out on Rio and Cape Town beaches … you will not see youngsters kicking around a ball on the streets of Philadelphia or Memphis.”

Oh, and we suppose it was something other than our city’s rampaging soccer hooligans that tore down Crump Stadium last week?

Categories
News

Tom Waits is Coming to Memphis

The cult-fave songwriter, hipster god, and pretty fine actor will play The Orpheum Friday, August 4th, as reported by PitchforkMedia.com and confirmed to the Flyer by an Orpheum representative. “We need to go to Tennessee to pick up some fireworks,” Waits says in a press release to explain the Southern leg of his tour. Waits will play Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium the next night. We got him first. Take that, Nashville! Read more here. — Chris Herrington

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

GADFLY: Living in a Parallel Universe

I will occasionally
tune in to

C-Span to see what tragi-comedy is being played out on the floor of (and
it’s usually) the House of Representatives. So it shouldn’t have surprised me to
see one of Tennessee’s own, Zach Wamp,

make an appearance on the floor of the House during the recent “debates”
about whether the U.S. should “cut and run” or “stay the course,”to utter two
amazing statements. The first was an echo of what, by the time Wamp uttered it,
had already been a thoroughly discredited statement by Senator Santorum, namely,

that WMD’s had suddenly been discovered in Iraq. 

The ridiculousness
of Santorum’s eureka moment was established by, of all sources, Fox News, which
was told by the Defense Department that Santorum’s “WMD’s” were
“not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.” Not willing to let facts
interfere with fantasy, Santorum stuck to his story, and found a witting shill
in his House counterpart, Mr. Wamp, who

reported on the re-discovery of Sarin gas in his floor statement.

Never mind that the
gas they referred to was so old and so degraded the only thing it would do to
anyone who came in contact with it was give them the equivalent of a sunburn, or
that David Kay, the man in charge of finding WMD’s in Iraq characterized the
Santorum “cache” as being

“less toxic than most things people have under their kitchen sink.”
Ideologues like Santorum and Wamp never let facts get in the way of their
agendas.

As another example
of that fact blindness, Wamp also made the following statement:

You cannot convince me that there were not connections
with al Qaeda operatives and  Saddam Hussein.

Well, at least he’s
honest. Don’t bother him with facts. Don’t bother him with

admissions by the Bush administration that there was no such connection, or
with
the determination by the 9/11 Commission that there was no such connection.
Zach Wamp knows better. People
like Wamp never let reality intrude on their fantasies. I’ll bet Wamp still
believes there is actually a tooth fairy and an Easter bunny.

But the

even more bizarre statement came from Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who weighed in right
after Wamp (after paying tribute to Wamp’s statement, which he called a “gem”).
What he said was:

…[T]hey
[the U.S. military in Iraq] are an all-volunteer service. And not only that,
they are people that have all volunteered for this conflict, because this
conflict has gone on long enough that everyone had a chance to re up. So
everybody that is in uniform got to consider the current state of conflict
globally, and they signed back up again in numbers far larger than ever
anticipated. They said, I am going back for a second tour, I will go back for a
third tour, I will put my life on the line, and I will certainly put it on hold
for a year or more to give the Iraqi people a chance at freedom.

Hello! Earth to
Congressman King. What rock were you hiding under when something called

“stop loss” was loudly trumpeted?  Are you really oblivious to the fact
that, far from “re-upping,” tens of thousands of our troops who were, if you’ll
excuse the expression, dying to come home, were instead reduced to indentured
servitude because the military (surprise, surprise), contrary to your glowing
paean to successful recruitment

couldn’t meet its recruitment goals? Have you heard of the

thousands of National Guard and Reserve troops who found themselves in Iraq
when what they thought they’d be doing (and what they were desperately needed
for) was helping out in

floods and other disasters stateside.

Sadly, these kinds
of irresponsible statements are made on the floor of the House (and yes, the
Senate too) every day those august bodies are in session (which should make us
thankful they’re

in session so infrequently), with little immediate consequence for the
cretins who utter them. With any luck, though, Messrs. Wamp’s and King’s (among
others’)

accountability moment will come on November 7, 2006.

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Categories
Politics Politics Feature

News from an Alternate Universe

Due to his never-ending researches, The Gadfly (who happened upon a strange passage in The Congressional Record) chronicles the bizarre discovery by Tennessee’s own Zach Wamp of WMD’s in Iraq! Real ones? Well…nope. For more news of Rep. Wamp’s less-than-excellent adventure, go to Political Beat.

Categories
News

Holy Crap

You knew it had to happen: National attention would turn to Memphis because of the absurd desecration of the Statue of Liberty being done in the name of “Christianity” by the World Overcomers Church. The New York Times reports on Memphis’ newest public “art” with a certain skepticism. You can almost hear the reporter biting his tongue to keep from laughing out loud — or is it gasping in amazement at such chutzpah?

Categories
News

K-Fed V. J-Tim

Ever wonder which of Britney’s boy toys would prevail, you know, if it came down to a fight? Without their respective posses and hangers-on, that is? In the most recent episode of MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch, Kevin Federline takes on Memphis homeboy Justin Timberlake. We haven’t seen it yet, but we’ve got our money on Justin (You just know all you’ve got to do is pull on those skanky dreads and K-Fed will be down for the count.)

Also on the bill are Gwen Stefani and Missy Elliott and Shaq versus Kobe. To see the highlights, go here.