Posts by Rémy Robert

At least we’ve still got Christopher Walken.

It’s not often that dining forays off College Hill actually deepen my appreciation for the stuff available to us through good ol’ BuDS, but a recent jaunt did the near impossible. I wanted so badly for Blount Clam Shack, the quintessentially New England outpost of fried seafood and 1950s kitsch, to be great. Unfortunately, these expectations proved lofty. Blount’s not awful; it’s just not worth it.

You may recognize the name: Blount is, after all, the supplier of those soups they serve at Jo’s and The Gate. Each year the locally owned franchise goes through some 800,000 pounds of clams, harvested fresh from New England waters, which make for an abundance of hush puppy-esque clam cakes, old-school fried clam rolls and whole belly clam platters. In addition to creamy New England clam chowder and its red Manhattan counterpart, Blount makes a Rhode Island specialty called the clam bake, which tastes like a beachfront cookout poured into a giant stewpot: potatoes, corn, chorizo and clams in a clear, salty broth. Don’t be mistaken; there’s other seafood, too — haddock here and there, scallops and a guest appearance from the lobster roll. They’ve even got a burger section, which is incredibly bewildering since 1) you’re at a clam shack and 2) you’re across the street from Rick’s Roadhouse.

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I can't believe it's not dairy!

This week at Amuse-Bouche, we’re shaking things up a little. A recent jaunt up Hope Street returned not one but two great finds in the grab-lunch-and-chill-out category. Three Sisters and its neighbor Wildflour are like Tia and Tamara or Mary Kate and Ashley (only a lot less annoying than either set of twins): They share the best things in common, probably have overlapping crowds, and seem the same on the surface, but deep down they’re like yin and yang. Three Sisters, a way-casual café, is known for its home-churned ice cream; Wildflour is vegan. Three Sisters is aggressively no-frills; Wildflour is bougie. Both sell themselves with that beautiful combination of freshly made foodstuffs, coffee and smoothies, free WiFi, and plenty of space for camping out. Only one problem: HOW TO CHOOSE?! Here’s the lowdown on both to help you decide. [Read more →]

Childish Gambino is better than you. This is not meant to alienate you as a reader — it’s just the cold, hard truth.

At age 22, Donald Glover was a comedy writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and a year later he was writing for 30 Rock. By 25, Glover had released two mixtapes as Childish Gambino, a name created with a Wu-Tang Clan name generator. Childish’s third album, “Culdesac,” included, among others, the undeniably swaggamatic “Freaks and Geaks” (see video above), which was eventually featured on a commercial for Adidas shoes and the computer screens of millions of drunk college kids trying to impress their friends. When Glover started a Twitter campaign to snag the part of Peter Parker in the new The Amazing Spiderman movie (#donald4spiderman), the tag got over 100 tweets per minute. Former president and chairman of Marvel Comics Stan Lee tweeted back his support. (Note: In the end the part did go to the guy with better hair.)

And when Gambino’s new album “Camp” got a pitiful 1.6 on Pitchfork? The internet exploded. Spring Weekend 2010 rapper Wale summed up the collective sentiment pretty nicely: “Pitchfork…we don’t believe u…u need more people …yall can’t talk bout this culture, cuz yall not part of it.” Word. Pitchfork is dumb. We all know they only gives perfect 10s to bands with cats in them.

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If you own a smartphone, you may have already fallen for the most addicting craze since Words with Friends. DrawSomething, a Pictionary-like game, has recently developed a cult following, with amateurs and artists alike bonding over the beauty of collaborative play.

We three bloggers thought it would be fun to interpret Brown through doodles, using DrawSomething as our artistic medium. For a week, we challenged each other to depict Brunonia-related words using the limited DrawSomething palette (hey, not all of us have enough coins for all those color expansion packs). We now present to you the fruits of our labor: a series of drawings, ranked from Easy to RISD, of what Brown looks like on DrawSomething:

EASY

SciLi

The interior designer of Rick’s Roadhouse has done his her phe’s job. Taking in the surroundings as we waited for our food, my Puerto Rican dinner companion sighed, “This is what I thought America would be like.” It’s basically a glorified dive: walls decorated with miscellaneous Americana trinkets — taxidermied deer; a painting of the Phillips 66 logo; huge f*ckin’ American flag behind the bar — and waitresses wearing shirts that say “Wanna see a nice rack?” There are no windows(!) and plenty of room (including a 16-top table). It’s self-consciously kitschy, tapping into a strange lowbrow nostalgia that might as well be written into the U.S. Constitution.

The roadhouse theme comes through in the menu, too, which boasts sections like “Start Your Engines!” for appetizers and “Hit the Highway” for catering. It’s also reflected in an aggressive disdain for health food: the veggie burger is named “Burger for Bad Hunters,” and of the five salad options, two contain bacon, one contains steak and “fizzled corn tortillas,” and another is made up of iceberg lettuce. Do not order a salad here. It doesn’t make sense and everyone will probably laugh at you. Stick to what Rick’s knows best and we’ll all be happy. [Read more →]

Ambience complete with giant metal pole.

With the proliferation of websites that bring restaurant reviews into the sphere of social networking (Yelp! Chowhound! Urban Spoon! Amuse-Bouche! food blogs everywhere!), bougies and trolls alike are mere keystrokes away becoming the next great food critic. Unadulterated praise is boring, and we at Blog will be the first to say that it’s fun to be snarky when snark is due. So a restaurant named Pakarang Exquisite Thai seems almost to be a challenge, a dare with two possible outcomes: either a truly exquisite meal or the easiest prey imaginable. (Full disclosure: it’s very easy prey.) Investigation was due.

From its post down on South Main, Pakarang attracts lots of people in suits. It’s got a similarly corporate-looking dining room: sprawling, with nondescript furniture, a vast unmanned bar, and strange aquarium-like wall decorations. In these ways, it’s the polar opposite of Sawaddee, the Thai place on the other side of College Hill, whose dining room is roughly the size of an Escalade. What they have in common is that they both fill up at lunchtime — all that space serves Pakarang well. Service is conducive to business lunches: attentive and quick but not all that personable, the waitstaff make it easy to chow down, go over the latest numbers, and GTFO (to your cubicle… or your 1:00 class). [Read more →]

OPEN SESAME

Having just come back from Paris, the land of American-loathing (and self-loathing), I’m well acquainted with negative stereotypes surrounding the land of the free and home of the brave. Unabashedly greasy foods are at the top of the list, so Ugly American‘s name, while marvelously apt, doesn’t leave much to the imagination.

The menu contains renditions of nearly everything in the canon of lowbrow American nosh. The sandwich category is duly represented by the likes of pulled pork melts, BLTs, and beer-battered fish. There’s also a handful of hot dogs — including one, The Godzilla, that combines chili, caramelized jalapeños, and pepper rings in one overwhelmed bun — that are good but not great, with too much bun and not enough dog. Prices are incredibly fair, with sandwiches cheaper than those at the Blue Room (a grilled three-cheese is $3!) and the priciest hot dog weighing in at $2.75. But let’s not joke around. If you go to Ugly American, you must get a burger. [Read more →]

It’s easy to get cozily complacent in the bubble that is College Hill, and for good reason — we have pretty much everything we need, from hip/creepy coffee shops to multiple Irish pubs to the GCB. But Blue Room muffins can only satisfy a sweet tooth for so long, and those cake pops at Starbucks are freaking weird. That’s where Pastiche comes in. Tucked away on a back street of Federal Hill, it’s a whole new world from our collegiate haven… Evidently, a world filled with fancy cake.

The chipper yellow awning and blue-trimmed storefront are reminiscent of cafés on the cobblestone streets of quaint European villages. A dining room that seats about 25 is flanked on one side by a working fireplace and mural of the Italian countryside, on the other by dessert crazytown. A big glass display case contains made-in-house cakes, which are sold whole or by the slice; trays and shelves and towers spill with more treats. Welcome to your dream. [Read more →]

So. Much. Butter.

It’s hard to think of a less informative name for a restaurant than “Not Just Snacks” (a few ideas: “Cuisine”; “Sustenance”; “Eat Here So We Don’t Go Bankrupt”), but that’s exactly what one restaurant up Hope Street calls itself. A few more pertinent details: it’s Indian, BYOB and open everyday for dine-in or take-out. And, no, it’s not just snacks, although there’s a big display case of ready-made samosas and such right when you walk in the front door; the restaurant also offers a full lunch and dinner menu. An annex market across the street, Not Just Spices, sells specialty Indian groceries.

Clearly these guys want us to know that they’re more than meets the eye… but how much more, exactly? Perhaps more pressingly, what makes this place stand out from Kabob & Curry and Taste of India, both of which provide much more convenient ways to satisfy our masala cravings? For starters, it’s cozier, with a distinctly no-frills, mom-and-pop feel. The brightly lit dining room is more classroom-y than it is ambient, with hilariously kitschy murals of India on the walls to set the mood. [Read more →]