438 South Prospect Street, Burlington, 656-4664
This week, my feature in Seven Days focuses on Vermont Kosher, the new kitchen that provides food for observant Jewish students around the University of Vermont. Sunday through Thursday, students and community members alike can grab a Middle Eastern-style kosher meal at Redstone Unlimited Dining. I was so impressed with chef Rachel Jacob's food, I wanted to see what else was available at the newly renovated cafeteria, formerly Simpson Dining Hall.
For an old fart like me, the LEED-certified space seemed impressively techie at first. Nonstudent diners enter and pay $10.35 at the door. From there, they head to the FÖD (Food on Demand) ordering system, a line of touch-screen computers at which diners choose what they'd like to eat. They can then elect to be sent a text message when the food is ready, or just keep tabs of their order number on one of the dining hall's TV screens.
I chose the latter, which did not keep up. When my food was up, the numbers on the screen were still two hundred behind those actually being served. The waits were also surprisingly long. Cooks labored over several of the same dish at a time, before moving on to the next one. If your selection is toward the end of the rotation, you might be standing in line for a while.
While I waited, I hit the salad bar next to the kitchen. In a nice touch, there were regular salad fixings on one side, and all the ingredients for a specialty salad on the other. I chose to assemble the latter, combining spinach, mandarin oranges, cranberries and lo mein noodles, all dressed in a surprisingly zingy, herbaceous balsamic vinaigrette.
By then, my selections were ready. And the chicken-pesto panini was totally worth the wait. The chicken was not only moist, it was actually juicy, and dressed in garlicky pesto. Tomato slices and a chewy, salty slab of fresh mozzarella tied it together. I would have been happy with the sandwich even at a "real" restaurant, though I do deduct points for curly fries.
Another potato dish also fell short of impressive. Though I liked the inclusion of a small cup of sour cream on the side, and the cheese was suitably bubbly, the potato skins lacked crispness. The slightly bland chunks of potato also appeared to be covered in something more like Bacos® Bits than real bacon.
In the realm of cured pork products, the penne with spinach, peas and pancetta was more successful, though the cream sauce that dressed it was disappointingly one-note.
The kung pao chicken, one of several Chinese dishes available last night, was quite the opposite. The dish packed a wallop of flavor that included long-lasting, lip-burning spice. I have a friend from Chongqing who cooks a fabulous, from-scratch kung pao. The only major difference between this and hers is that the chicken at Redstone was fried. The carrots and celery were crisp and fresh, and even the little balls of fried chicken were meaty. I dare diners to find a spicier, more flavorful kung pao anywhere in Burlington.
By the time we were done trying the disappointingly healthy-tasting vegan parmigiana and a slice of flatbread with Bolognese sauce, most of the desserts were picked over. There were still the diner-style Jell-O cups at right, but I prefer red and blue to the citrus flavors available.
Instead, I grabbed a chocolate cupcake, topped in Christmas-colored sprinkles. The huge mound of vanilla buttercream on top was as buttery as I might have hoped, but the cupcake itself was dry and burned in places.
There were highs and lows in the offerings at Redstone, but the highs were higher than I might have expected. All the same, if I were studying at UVM, I might take at least a few nights a week to eat kosher.
Alice Eats is a weekly blog feature devoted to reviewing restaurants where diners can get a meal for two for less than $35. Got a restaurant you'd love to see featured? Send it to alice@sevendaysvt.com.
This week in movies you missed: Kevin Smith takes on the Westboro Baptist Church by making it the horror in a horror movie.
What You Missed
Somewhere in redneck America, three teens (Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner and Nicholas Braun) are trying to get laid. They connect online with a much older woman (Oscar winner Melissa Leo) who invites them to her rural trailer with the promise of a simultaneous foursome (don't ask). When they arrive, the unwary horndogs quickly find themselves prisoners of the Five Points Trinity Church, a notorious local sect that waves hate-filled signs at gay and military funerals.
As if that weren't disturbing enough, out of the public eye, the congregation's tastes run to assault rifles, cattle prods, Saran wrap and ball gags. This Hostel-type teenage-nightmare scenario quickly mutates into something else, and then into something else again when the feds, led by John Goodman, storm the compound.
Smith is careful to have a character mention the actual Westboro Baptist Church, so as to make clear that Five Points is only inspired by those zealots. According to one of the WBC members who picketed the Kansas City screening and appear in "Making of" footage, however, he probably shouldn't have bothered: "We don't care."
Why You Missed It
Last year at Sundance, Smith announced that, rather than sell Red State to a big distributor, he would put it in theaters himself. (His entire anti-Hollywood-business-model diatribe is included in the DVD extras and is interesting viewing, even if you find Smith a blowhard.)
Smith took the movie on the road to 15 theaters nationwide, where he earned about $1 million. None of those theaters were in Vermont, nor were we included in September's brief conventional theatrical release.
According to Smith, he's already made back the film's $5 million budget via the California tax rebate, foreign sales and DVD rights — and he did it without spending the usual $20-plus million on slick, misleading marketing. Nice, though perhaps not the most viable model for a filmmaker who's not Kevin Smith.
Should You Keep Missing It?
Every fan of cinematic curiosities and one-of-a-kinds needs to see Red State. That doesn't mean it's actually a good film or does what Smith hoped it would do. But whatever you think of it, you can't deny it's in a category of its own.
Smith was right to distribute the film himself, because it's painful to imagine marketers trying to squeeze Red State into a form that would lure people to theaters in that all-important first weekend. You think the Drive trailer was misleading? Now imagine showing up for a wacky comedy from that Clerks guy and finding a movie with no protagonist, no definite genre, characters dying randomly and bloodily left and right, a long sermon right in the middle, and satire aimed at everyone.
It could be a great film if that satire was fresh. Smith seems to have been aiming for something like Alexander Payne's Citizen Ruth, where no one, whatever their stand on the central issue, gets off scot-free. The problem is, he's not revealing much we don't already know or haven't already seen on-screen about the profound craziness of the WBC, the stupid horniness of teenagers, the incompetence of rural law enforcement or the dark side of the government's "war on terror."
The movie is bloody, gritty, chaotic and profane, but I didn't find it genuinely subversive — i.e., likely to challenge the presumptions of its audience. With one huge exception: Michael Parks' performance as Abin Cooper (pictured), the looney Five Points pastor.
In that long sermon mentioned above, Parks does something clever and original: He makes the Fred Phelps stand-in appear nice. Charming. Charismatic, but not in the traditional oily, booming TV-evangelist way. Cooper comes off like a sweet old fellow shooting the breeze about salvation and damnation with his family/congregation in between cute asides to his grandchildren. In the background of this folksy family scene is a teenager imprisoned in a cage and begging for his life. That's the twisted stuff of which cult horror is made.
According to Parks (again, in the "Making of"), he didn't base his performance on the actual Phelps; he made it softer, more Southern-accented and more likable. And it's all the more chilling, given the way the character enacts his convictions. I'm a fan of crazy-preacher performances, and this is one of the greats.
But does Smith shed any real light on why people join the WBC? Or how we should respond to their provocations in real life? I didn't find that he did, but I'm interested in what others have to say.
My shoehorned-in "Breaking Bad" reference: Not even shoehorned this time. Anna Gunn (Skyler) and Matt Jones (Badger) appear in the movie as Angarano's mom and a sheriff's deputy, respectively. Glad to see Badger got himself some gainful employment on the other side of the law.
Verdict: If you're going to hate this, you already know. Otherwise, check it out. One caveat: Though Smith calls it a horror movie, don't expect to be scared.
Other New DVD Releases You May Have Missed:
Each week I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.) Next week: Attack the Block, which some are calling the most entertaining film of last summer, and certainly the best film of last summer involving an alien invasion.
This week in new DVDs, a multimillionaire comedian is "unemployed" and wants your sympathy, and yes, he does appreciate the irony.
Each week I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.) Most of these movies never hit our big screens. Maybe they lacked broad audience appeal, or maybe they languish in what AV Club critic Nathan Rabin calls "Straight-to-DVD Purgatory." Either way, I hope they'll surprise me. Welcome to Vermont, where the art house and the grindhouse are our house.
What You Missed
In early 2010, Conan O'Brien left his plum spot hosting "The Tonight Show," not exactly by choice. In order to bring back Jay Leno, NBC gave O'Brien a hefty compensation coupled with a legal requirement to stay off the air waves (including the Internet) for the next six months.
The ban apparently didn't extend to Twitter, where O'Brien opened an account and announced his 44-stop "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour." It quickly sold out. Now Rodman Flender's documentary offers a backstage view of the tour, along with clips from the stage show itself.
Why You Missed It
According to Box Office Mojo, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop made it to a total of 24 theaters, not including any of our multiplexes, and grossed under $300,000 domestically. (If you're up north, you can also see it this week at Catamount Arts.) Seems most of Conan's fans were waiting for the DVD.
Should You Keep Missing It?
Is this doc for fans only? No. Is it an embarrassing famous-person pity party like Joaquin Phoenix's little hoax I'm Still Here? No. But neither is it one of those brilliant backstage documentaries that reveals enough about art and fame to fascinate even viewers who don't give a crap about its subject.
What it does reveal about O'Brien is interesting enough to keep you watching, even if, like me, you've barely followed Conan since his early years on "Late Night," where he came off as a depressive man trying to host a party, and gradually turned that hang-dogness from his weakness into his comic strength.
Can't Stop shows O'Brien still alternating between pessimistic contempt for everyone (including himself) and manic eagerness to perform (hence the title). He complains about signing autographs and interacting with fans, then insists on doing it anyway. When someone tells him a show was "amazing," O'Brien informs the camera that his natural response to the praise is "What was wrong with all the other ones?" He's not a glass-half-full kinda guy. And, onstage and off-, his bitterness and humiliation regarding the NBC situation are no joke.
If you're curious about the backstage lives of famous comedians, Can't Stop is a good bet. (O'Brien's interactions with his laid-back assistant, who weathers his moods with ease, are especially interesting.) If you want to laugh ... well... I've never been a huge fan of O'Brien's more scripted material, and the clips we see from his show aren't that funny. He actually spends a lot of the tour fronting his band in classic rock covers, sometimes with real rock stars helping out. A good time, but not groundbreaking comedy.
Verdict: In an excellent July AV Club piece about O'Brien and his ratings-troubled new show, Scott Tobias really nailed the problem with this documentary. Can't Stop can't handle or even acknowledge "the enormous disparity between the Conan it’s promoting and the far more troubled Conan that it’s actually documenting," he writes, before arguing that O'Brien is finally finding his post-NBC groove.
Indeed, if I learned one thing from the movie, it's that multimillionaire comedians do shit work, too. (The sequence where O'Brien and his staff have to race to come up with patter to introduce artists at Bonnaroo is a good example.) But, hey, at least he's well compensated compared with, well, most of us.
Other New DVD Releases You May Have Missed
Meek's Cutoff (read my review)
Hesher (Natalie Portman plays a drab grocery store clerk; Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a super-cool slacker dude. Seems wrong somehow.)
Incendies (Two Canadians investigate their Lebanese mother's dark past after her death.)
Bill Cunningham New York (A respected photographer snaps his way around NYC.)
Vidal Sassoon: The Movie (The 81-year-old designer gets his own documentary.)
Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking (The actress/writer tells her comic life story in HBO's version of her stage show.)