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Sorry This Is So Lame

Sorry it’s been so long - it was the compilers project that wouldn’t end, it just went on and on, my friend, some people started coding it not knowing what it was…anyhow you get the point. And all we’ve got is this bedraggled little story from mlive’s travel section about how the “key ingredient to Ann Arbor’s coolness” is its food. The News seems to have discovered the Fleetwood, which they characterize as hardly “spotless” in the same tone as when New York magazine discovered the grittiness of bowling in the 80’s.

50 Responses to “Sorry This Is So Lame”

Actually, it’s by a Booth bureau reporter based out of Lansing who probably was so excited to find such bohemian atmosphere here.
posted by RJ on March 11th, 2004 at 8:58 pm
I don’t know, I’ve never encountered a town this white-collar and high-income that had such mediocre restaurants - more to the point, the only thing I find consistently remarkable about AA’s food is how much one has to spend for a quality meal. Maybe this is just my out-of-town-ness showing again, or just a lack of familiarity with mlive’s subtle sense of sarcasm, but horrible digestive experiences after expensive meals are not “cool” to me.

Also, I was heartened to see that they noted the presence of the uniquely Ann Arbor market called Whole Foods. I guess I would think AA was cool for having WF if every other town in the country didn’t also have them.
posted by Nick on March 11th, 2004 at 9:28 pm
I’m going to suggest a few places cooler than the Fleetwood:

Kewpee’s: Lansing
Angelo’s: Flint
Lafayette Coney Island: Dee-troit City
Halo Burger: Flint (and others)
Olympic Broil: Lansing
Jumbo’s: Owosso (carpet on ceiling)

Just because it’s the coolest place in Annarbour doesn’t make it cool.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on March 11th, 2004 at 9:53 pm
Don’t get me wrong, A2 has some great restaurants. For the record my favorite AA restaurants are: Sabor Latino, Miki, Godaiko, Jeruselem Garden, and Dinersty*.

* V1, white rice, wanton = $4.23
posted by Steven B. Cherry on March 11th, 2004 at 9:57 pm
I love Sabor Latino, Jerusalem G. (mmm, kibbeh sandwich!), and Miki–the latter has the most elegant (and cheap) lunch special in town. And I buy so much raitha (wonderful cold yoghurt vegetable soup) from the guys at Mysore Woodlands that they made a special large size, at my request, just for me, which was very flattering. Overall this wide-eyed article reeks of being written by someone who knows nothing about the area. I kept thinking, “umm..yeah, I know…umm, yeah, I know.” Nothing new here…just a bit of filler fluff.
posted by Laura on March 11th, 2004 at 10:19 pm
Fiesta Mexicana in Ypsi blows Sabor Latino out of the water. And Miki is probably the best sushi in town, but it’s still overpriced and kind of mediocre. I really enjoyed the food at Blue Nile, but it’s exceptionally overpriced. Again, D’Amato’s was also good (Mom was in town) but also exceptionally overpriced. The only place in town I actually feel like I achieve the value-to-quality ratio I’m aiming for is at ABC. And woman cannot live on chicken ceaser salad alone.
posted by Alex on March 11th, 2004 at 11:05 pm
You’re right, Alex, if we include Ypsi resaurants, Fiesta M. is superlative…the food I’ve had there is so sensuously flavorful and delicious…about as far removed from Taco Bell as you can imagine.
posted by Laura on March 11th, 2004 at 11:18 pm
I’m sorry, but when visiting your quaint, cool, cosmopolitan town from my hometown of, well let’s just say it’s a big city, I am struck by the lack of good restaurants. Either I find low priced, mediocre atmosphereless ones, or overpriced restaurants that think they are all that.
posted by Anonymous on March 11th, 2004 at 11:40 pm
Krazy Jim’s. Sabor Latino. Angelo’s.

Don’t forget the Earl has a reduced price bar menu and happy hour and Gratzi has a half price special between 5 and 6 PM if you eat at the bar
posted by krusty klown on March 12th, 2004 at 6:48 am
When we moved here from New York, we were very struck at how cheap all the restaurants here seemed to be.

Ann Arbor has a high ratio of restaurants to people — hence Garrison Keillor’s oft-quoted line about “doesn’t anyone here ever eat at home?” — and the restaurant market is fiercely competitive. How many Chinese restaurants do we have — fifty? No, it’s not New York, but it’s a lot better than what most small Midwestern cities offer.

If you’ve spent much time at La Fiesta Mexicana, and had your ears bent by the very talkative proprietor, you know that most of its patrons come from Ann Arbor. LFM’s owners deliberately found a site close to EMU in hopes that students and faculty and local residents would eat there — but they have gotten little support from Ypsilanti itself. Rather, it’s the Ann Arborites, without any good Mexican alternative when LFM opened, who were lined up out the door.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on March 12th, 2004 at 9:44 am
ABC’s food is awful. Had to give my two cents on that…though I hear they’re coming out with a new menu.

I think Old Town has the best food for the price. The Arena actually has some decent bar food too, but neither of those places are real cheap. Cafe Zola is outstanding although they’re pretty expensive for dinner (moderately priced for breakfast/lunch).
posted by James on March 12th, 2004 at 10:22 am
There’s a new mexican restaraunt that opened next to LFM in ypsi - has anyone eaten there yet?
posted by Shaun on March 12th, 2004 at 11:08 am
The Taqueria (spelling?)? It’s not very good, or at least wasn’t when I went. Not very much vegetarian food (which may or may not concern you) and they managed to be out of a lot (including tortillas for tacos) and the enchilladas we got sucked. Stick with La Fiesta.
js
posted by js on March 12th, 2004 at 11:48 am
La Fiesta Mexicana is palatable, and indeed is run by some wonderful and talented folks, but they dumb down their food (primarily by holding back on spices and peppers) to suit a midwestern “black ground pepper burns my tongue” crowd. They do serve some decent nopales, and they use the right queso (in fact, if they only had some fire in them, the rellenos would be top-notch).

Still infinitely better than Sabor Latino.
posted by Santa Fe exile on March 12th, 2004 at 12:32 pm
Or that horrible Don Carlos dump that serves Campbells tomato soup for salsa, and everything is served floating in Velveeta.

Worse than Tio’s even. [shudders]
posted by Santa Fe exile on March 12th, 2004 at 12:37 pm
Hey, js, I tried to e-mail you but it keeps bouncing.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on March 12th, 2004 at 1:18 pm
Hey Santa Fe,

Can’t you ask them for mas caliente at Fiesta?
posted by Alex on March 12th, 2004 at 1:36 pm
I didn’t mention La Fiesta because I don’t think it’s fair to compare Ann Arbor restaurants to that of Ypsilanti.

I was trying to give Sabor a fighting chance.

I left out Sottini’s, good sandwiches at a decent price.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on March 12th, 2004 at 2:25 pm
I haven’t been to Sabor since a waitress wiped her nose with the back of her hand and then asked me what I wanted.

LFM is a great place, and they will spice it up for you if you ask.
posted by tom on March 12th, 2004 at 3:15 pm
Howdy Alex,

you certainly can place requests at La Fiesta, they seem pretty open to such things. I was, unfortunately, engaging in yet another comparison of apples and oranges: Northern New Mexico cuisine v. that of Oaxaca, or wherever the LFM folks are from, by way of Ypsi. It is bound to be different.

I am in the mood to cut Ann Arbor a few breaks today.

Besides, I have become much better at cooking my own “Mexican” food over my three years here.

And I agree that Miki is the best of the worst, although Sushi.come can hold its own (seeming fresher fish at lower prices, at least for lunch).
posted by Santa Fe Exile on March 12th, 2004 at 3:16 pm
I refused to eat at a place with “come” in the title.
posted by Alex on March 12th, 2004 at 3:44 pm
not that I’m a prude or anything

ha ha ha ha
posted by Alex on March 12th, 2004 at 3:44 pm
That policy will probably serve you well in life; but in the case of Sushi.come, I’d guess the word has an innocent explanation. I really like the fact that it makes no rhetorical sense, or that maybe it only does so in Japanese. Plus they have given me free fish in mid-afternoon (after lunch rush), which i take to mean they are at least not refreezing it for the next meal — unlike Wasabi, where I have been served some questionable fish.

Hmm getting hungry now.
posted by Santa Fe exile on March 12th, 2004 at 4:09 pm
Krazy Jim’s is vastly overrated. I’ve gotten better and cheaper burgers at the roach coach parked near campus at my undergrad. Ann Arbor might have 50 Chinese restaurants, but they’ve been at best mediocre compared to what I could get back in my small midwestern hometown. All the BBQ places are in Ypsi, and none of them are all that great. Ann Arbor has a lot of restaurants, but lacks in quality.
posted by g on March 12th, 2004 at 4:17 pm
i’d rather eat taco bell than tios, that place has gone way down hill in recent years.
posted by Dan on March 12th, 2004 at 4:38 pm
Although in general I have a pretty low opinion of AA restaurants (with the exception of the Earle, the Gandy Dancer, Eve, and Pelagos, which don’t really fit into my student-level budget), and I’ve been too busy/lazy to get in my car and explore Ypsi, one pleasant surprise I got upon moving here was finding that good ingredients are actually pretty easy to obtain. Hiller’s and Busch’s are often good sources of fresh fish and good produce - far above my CA-heightened expectations and certainly better than I got in Pittsburgh. If there is an upside to the food situation in AA, it’s that this is really an ideal place to develop your cooking skills.
posted by Nick on March 12th, 2004 at 5:23 pm
I give the Produce Station a thumbs up for quality ingredients as well. There’s some butcher in Kerrytown my friends were saying was good too, but I haven’t been.
posted by Alex on March 12th, 2004 at 5:35 pm
More votes for Sabor Latino, JG, and Godaiko here.
posted by Ryan on March 12th, 2004 at 6:10 pm
Heh. I understand, AAIO. Did I miss you? We’ll sort this out, I’m sure.
As far as things go, La Fiesta will spice things up, and El Sabor has been harder to justify with their price increases. I worked at Tios for three years (on Huron) and all of the staff simply trades food every night with other restaurants. When people who work there hate it, it’s a good sign that the food isn’t worth it.
But really, if you’re so desperate for good Mexican, drive down to Xochimilcho’s in Detroit. Fantastic and cheap. And they make that cactus omlette that’s so good.
What I do like about Ann Arbor is that it has good Thai restaurants. Don’t believe the hype about the Old Siam, it’s overrated and sucky. But the one in Braun court is decent, if kind of middle-of-the-road, and both the Siam Square and Tuptim are excellent (Tuptim moreso, but more pricey). Neither of them can touch Bankok Palace in Farmington Hills(?- off Telegraph, around 12 mile), but that place only wins on food (not atmosphere). And I say this as a guy with 200 baht in my pocket right now.
Oh, and the Aut Bar has the best Ruebens in town (even their Tempeh Reuben). Hands down.
js
posted by js on March 12th, 2004 at 7:09 pm
I had 6 written down…not sure which time was right, now. I got some reading done. E-mail me when your e-mail works.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on March 12th, 2004 at 9:53 pm
sushi.com pre-slices their fish. I’ll pass.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on March 13th, 2004 at 1:34 am
Xochimilcho’s was one of the highlights of my years in Detroit, and it was indeed fantastic and cheap. However, since then it has been “discovered”. You can’t just wander in off the street and sit down: it’s an hour or more wait. And a fast-food style lobby was added to what used to be an unassuming storefront building. And it’s not cheap anymore.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on March 13th, 2004 at 10:06 am
Anything other than Mexican food?
posted by Anonymous on March 13th, 2004 at 11:04 am
What the fuck is up with some people’s obsession with Zingerman’s? Really, what is so great about it?
posted by Random on March 13th, 2004 at 11:30 am
I’ve been going to Xochis since I was a kid. It’s still cheaper than most Ann Arbor food, and I’ve yet to have any sort of a wait for tables. Granted, I might be going there at odd hours (usually after a ballgame or a show, or right before one), but I’ve never waited over five minutes.
Do you know of any other places that good in Mexican town?
(And you other anonymous poster- didn’tcha see me writing about Thai? There’s good Thai here too.)
js
posted by js on March 13th, 2004 at 1:34 pm
Bev’s Caribbean plantains are pretty good, and as I also mentioned, Blue Nile is good for Ehtiopian if you don’t mind paying too much for it.
posted by Alex on March 13th, 2004 at 1:45 pm
Yeah, Alex, the butcher in Kerrytown is supposed to be really good. I’m a vegetarian, but they were really nice and used to give me bones for my dog for free, so I’ve always had a soft spot for them.
posted by Anna on March 13th, 2004 at 7:00 pm
Bev’s is excellent, but SLOW AS HELL. Still, she says that’s because she’s Jamaican, and there’s no hurry in Jamaica.
(Used to live next door to her out here in Arrowwood. She’s great fun, as is her husband Mike.)
js
posted by js on March 14th, 2004 at 11:52 am
She is kinda slow, but calling in your order in advance definitely helps. Is there anyplace in this town to get good pierogi?
posted by Alex on March 14th, 2004 at 12:04 pm
Don’t think so, Alex. I’ll try to keep you in mind when I’m consulting in Pittsburgh this summer - anyone have a gigantic cooler I can take to the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern?
posted by Nick on March 14th, 2004 at 3:14 pm
Eh, I go back to PA often enough to get pierogis I suppose. Although I definitely ate more of them in NYC in Little Odessa. Seems like there are enough Eastern Europeans around for there to be _someplace_. Maybe I’ll start a cottage industry…

But definitely bring me back a couple cases of 20 oz. Straubs. Pittsburgh is lovely in summer.
posted by Alex on March 14th, 2004 at 4:28 pm
I second the mention of Eve as a good restaurant. Pricey, but I don’t even feel like I’m in Ann Arbor when I’m there, so it’s worth it. Bella Ciao is wonderful too, especially on a quiet weeknight. And Yotsuba (at Carpenter and Hogback) is a good place for sushi.
posted by Kristi on March 15th, 2004 at 8:48 am
Piorgi? Amadeus. Run by Poles, with decent entrees and excellent deserts. Little pricey, but authentic. I haven’t eaten dinner there in years, but going in after a meal on a date is usually a good way to impress (piano music, brandies, fine cakes etc.)
js
posted by js on March 15th, 2004 at 10:28 am
Another good ethnic restaurant not yet mentioned is Ayse’s Cafe, at Plymouth and Upland, across from the entrance to N. Campus (I forget the name of the little mall there). Good Turkish food, reasonably priced. Ayse’s is pronounced AY-shuh’s.
posted by tom on March 15th, 2004 at 2:54 pm
JESUS! I would PAY to eat dog shit before I ate anything touched by anyone in your nasty fucking town.
posted by DetrOIt on March 15th, 2004 at 5:08 pm
Well, see, that’s why you live in Detroit. Where you CAN pay to eat dog shit.
posted by js on March 15th, 2004 at 8:26 pm
If you’re willing to pay to eat dog shit you keep it way realer than I do.
posted by Nick on March 15th, 2004 at 8:33 pm
The GG Allin diet?
js
posted by js on March 17th, 2004 at 1:07 pm
I hail from Cleveland, where every Friday is fish and pierogi night, and the pierogi were hand-made. I’d say that Amadeus is the closest Ann Arbor has to offer to a true pierogi.
posted by smoovek on March 26th, 2004 at 3:38 pm
Did you know that LFM and Taqueria Juilosica (spelling is off) are owned by the same person. I think both restaurants have great authentic food (better then in Detroit), good value and it is in Ypsi. I have to agree with most peoples post that Ann Arbor restaurants are subpar and I would prefer to eat in Ypsi any day then in Ann Arbor. Nicer atmosphere, better service, better price and most important less pretension.
posted by Alison on May 19th, 2004 at 12:17 pm