Review: MIX Fest Opening Night

by riot

Last night I attended the opening event of MIX 23 (mixnyc.org), the annual New York queer experimental film festival.  This year's festival is being held at Theater for the New City, which is a venue that works very well for this event.  After the jump I'll give a brief review of last night's festivities.  I highly recommend checking out some or all of MIX's programs!

Blue Hill New York

By Brooklyn Bill

I had a phenomenal meal with Stash at Blue Hill New York Saturday evening. The food was amazingly fresh and delicious.

I started with a glass of 2009 Château Haut Rion Rosé. It was lively and refreshing and a good lead-in to all that followed.

One of the two appetizer amuse-bouche consisted of two baby carrots and two baby bok choys, unadorned and impaled on spikes on a wooden block like flowers on a florist's frog. I'm a farmers-market fanboy, so I enjoyed BHNY's flair for putting produce on a pedestal. And as I write this, more than 24 hours later, I still have the taste memory of that carrot on my tongue. The bok choy was a stellar specimen too, but if that carrot were a man, he'd make hunky Jon Hamm look like—oh, why not? I'll go there—Carrot Top.

The other amuse-bouche was a mini asparagus burger. I don't know what was used to flavor the chopped asparagus that stood in for ground beef, but it was heavenly.

For my first course, I got the Spring Vegetable Salad, which was a collection of fresh produce in a bowl with a delightful golden dressing.

For my second glass of wine, I got the 2004 R. López de Heredia Viña Cubillo, a blend of tempranillo, garnacho, mazuelo and graciano. BHNY's wine list separates its offerings into various style categories, which I find extremely helpful. This wine is classified as "smooth and earthy." Other styles include "ripe and luscious" and "big and bold" for reds and "crisp and bright" and "elegant and round" for whites.

A QNY Restaurant Review: Má Pêche

By Brooklyn Bill

I had my first dining experience at a restaurant in David Chang's Momofuku empire yesterday. My friend and co-worker Joyce and I enjoyed a terrific late lunch at the brand-new Má Pêche.

The surprising highlight for me was the Chou-Flour Chiên, fried cauliflower flavored with curry, mint, and fish sauce. That was one of two small plates Joyce and I shared to begin the meal. (It's on the left in the photo.) I'd love to have a big bowl of that in lieu of a bag of popcorn the next time I go to the movies. The other small dish was Côtelletes de Porc, pork ribs in a magical lemongrass caramel sauce.

QNY Wine List: A Delicious Sauvignon Blanc

By Brooklyn Bill

On Saturday, some friends and I enjoyed a wonderful sauvignon blanc from New Zealand's Marlborough wine region, which is known mostly for its SBs. (And to a much lesser extent, for its king shag, which sounds like a royal fucking but is actually a rare seabird.) It was the delicious 2009 Fairhall Downs, which I found to be quite lively and citrusy. (I have to admit that I failed to detect the "suggestion of box hedge.")

I find that Marlborough SBs are among the safest of wine bets when I'm buying an unfamiliar label. The only characteristic that throws some of them off for me is a strong green-pepper flavor. Thankfully, the Fairhall Downs lands on the thiols end of the methoxypyrazine/thiols SB spectrum.

The sticker price was $16.99 at Shawn Wine & Spirits. I'll be picking up more.

A QNY Theater Review: The Addams Family

By Brooklyn Bill

On Tuesday, Joyce and I caught a preview performance of The Addams Family, and it was more fun than a barrel of dead monkeys.

The show wasn't 100 percent awesome. As Joyce pointed out, Morticia's plot line about becoming dissatisfied with her life and her marriage to Gomez seemed totally out of character. Indeed, almost all of the plot threads were about love problems, which I know are a staple of musicals but don't seem like a great match for a musical about a creepy family that adores the macabre and despises anything sappy. And not that many of the songs were big winners, at least at first listen.

But TAF provided a ton of laughs. The sets were breathtaking. (Though I have a nit to pick about the visible bar holding up the giant, dazzlingly gorgeous Moon in some scenes.) And let's face it, Bebe Neuwirth was born to play Morticia.

Theater Review: The Pride

Posted by David

This past Saturday I attended a performance of The Pride, a new play by Alexi Kaye Campbell directed by Joe Mantello, and part of the Manhattan Class Company's (MCC) current season. The production features Ben Wishaw, Hugh Dancy, Andrea Riseborough and Adam James.

Update: This play has been extended through March 28th.

A QNY Restaurant Review: Highlands

By Brooklyn Bill

I had dinner last night at newish Scottish gastropub Highlands in the Village with buddy Lou. The entrées weren't anything to blog home about, but I loved everything else about the meal, including the wonderfully charming but rather dark space. (Hence the lack of any food photos in this post.*)

I started off with a Sweet Ginger Brown cocktail, which—in Highlands' incarnation—consists of "Pyrat XO Rum, muddled lime, ginger, and brown sugar." Well, raise me kilt and check out me stone puts, was it ever good. I have to try whipping up some of these drinks at home. Preferably when these fellows are over for a visit.

Lou had been to Highlands twice in the past couple of weeks. I asked him whether he'd tried the haggis. He hadn't ordered Highlands' haggis, but he'd eaten that more-than-a-wee-bit-unusual dish in Scotland once. He knew it had some pretty gross stuff in it, so he ate it without asking for the specifics. I'd already looked up haggis on Wikipedia, so I wasn't going to be able to fool myself into thinking it was oats mixed in with some other innocuous stuff.

I went for the baked cod, and it was pretty boring in flavor. Though I guess if I'd wanted something really interesting, I would have gone with the dish that's cooked in a sheep's stomach. I really enjoyed the bubble and squeak on the side. Lou let me try some of his lamb shank, roasted potatoes, and Brussels sprouts. I think it's safe to say I enjoy Brussels sprouts more than most people, and these were terrific, as were the taters. Lou and I both thought the lamb was just OK, though I should note that it's generally not a favorite of mine.

A QNY Theater Review: Chekhov Lizardbrain

Posted by Brooklyn Bill

On Monday evening, my buddy Jack and I went to see Chekhov Lizardbrain, an entertaining and unusual play inspired by Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters and the life and work of autistic livestock-behavior expert Temple Grandin. It was created and presented by Philadelphia's Pig Iron Theatre Co. and is back in New York as part of the Under the Radar Festival after a critically acclaimed run here in fall 2008.

The play is about a socially awkward botanist named Dmitri who has a more-confident alter ego named Chekhov Lizardbrain. Dmitri has bought a house in his hometown of Oswego, New York, after having gotten a Ph.D. in Portland, Oregon. The house belonged to childhood friends of Dmitri's, three brothers named Peter, Nicholas, and Sascha. Dmitri is trying to remember as much as he can about what led up to his purchase of the house, whose heater has failed in the dead of winter. In the majority of scenes, the brothers wear long underwear, top hats, and fake mustaches and act out fantastical versions of events; in Dmitri's more-realistic recollections, the guys wear regular clothes and work out their real-life family conflict: The two older brothers, who have moved away from Oswego, have to convince Sascha to sell his third of the house he's lived in his whole life, including while caring for their ailing parents.

The actors were all great, but extra praise must go to James Sugg, who earned an Obie for his performance as Dmitri/Chekhov Lizardbrain. He passes seamlessly between his two oddball characters.

QNY Wine List: A Fantastic Local Chenin Blanc

By Brooklyn Bill

I enjoy a dry chenin blanc every once in a while when I want a break from reds or when the main course for dinner calls for something white. I started drinking a lot of CBs from the Stellenbosch region of South Africa with my friends Bob and Jen not long after I moved to the city and into their apartment building. By accident, I hit upon a Stellenbosch chenin that we all really liked from a winery named Simonsig. (I wrote about that wine back in the early days of Hawleyblog, when I had no freakin' clue about photos.)

I'm always on the lookout for more good chenins labeled with that grape name (for U.S. and South African wines) or with the Vouvray appellation (for French ones).* And I was particularly excited the other day to see the 2008 Paumanok Chenin Blanc at Red White & Bubbly. I'd read in Lettie Teague's column in the December issue of Food & Wine that she considers this bottling, from the North Fork of Long Island, to be the finest CB produced in the U.S. (Eric Asimov of the New York Times is also a fan; he calls it "one of the best American chenin blancs around.")

The Paumanok cost $26, more than I'm used to paying for a CB. But it was an absolutely delicious, classic CB with aromas and flavors of citrus and pome fruits and honey and honeysuckle. I will definitely get more.

*There are other appellations in France's Loire Valley where CB is the predominant white grape used in wines ranging from dry to very sweet, but I haven't experimented with them. And Vouvray seems to be the most commonly available here in the States.

A Queer New York Review: Avatar

By Father Tony

I have been cinematically dazzled by the likes of The Wizard of Oz, King Kong, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, ET, Titanic, and Jurassic Park. Yesterday, I saw Avatar in 3-D and I am afraid that I may never again be thrilled by special effects that will surely limp compared to what has been delivered in Avatar. I highly recommend seeing this in 3D.

I loathe and avoid reading reviews that explain a movie and being subjected to trailers and stills that skim the best moments and use them to tease you into the theater. All I knew about Avatar was that it is supposedly visually fantastic. I was skeptical. Would I feel anything for animated blue aliens and more rampaging dino-beasts?  Surely, I'm not the most jaded of movie-goers, but I am not easily pleased as an audience member.