FOOD REVIEW: Chico's Restaurant (Highland Park in Los Angeles)

One of my favorite dishes are the Shrimp Tacos at Chico's Family Restaurant in Highland Park. They cost $3.75 each and are full of grilled shrimp, grilled onions and peppers and have slices of avocado and sprinkles of parsley on them. They are served on two corn tortillas each and radishes and lime are offered as garnishes.

I have had some of the other tacos at Chico's and they are okay, but the shrimp tacos are increible. If you are in the Highland Park area I strongly recommend you stopping buy and trying Chico's Shrimp Tacos! (Here's a hint, you can call ahead and they'll be ready to go in 10 minutes.)

Name: Chico's Family Restaurant.

Location: 100 North Avenue 50, Los Angeles, CA 90042.

Contact: 323-254-2445.

Visit: August 10, 2011.

AMBIANCE: B+.

SERVICE: A-.

VALUE: A.

FOOD: A+. 

OVERALL: A- (3.917/4.0)

MOVIE REVIEW: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

The Other Half and I have seen all of the Harry Potter movies, and I have read all the books. The final installment in the movie franchise is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, which was also released in 3-D. I wasn't that enamored with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 but since I had read the books I knew that more than 2/3rds of the action in the book was going to happen in Part 2. We decided to splurge for the 3-D since it was the last time we would be seeing a Harry Potter movie in the theaters plus it was garnering rave reviews from most critics (96% on Rottentomatoes.com). 

Surprisingly, the last movie in the Harry Potter series is also the shortest in the series, coming in at a zippy 130 minutes. Also, another surprise about this installment is that it is basically a war movie. There are two competing armies, a large one on behalf of the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort and a small one on behalf of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, called Dumbledore's Army. This movie is so different from the early Potter films which were filmed with the hijinks of school children and featured games of Quidditch.

For the last two movies we have been following the quest of Harry, Ron and Hermione as they chase down magical objects called Horcruxes, which contain the soul of Voldemort. If the horcruxes are destroyed, Voldemort will cease to exist. We think that there are six horcruxes, but one of my major quibbles with the the movie adaptation is that it doesn't really do a very good job of keeping the audience on track on how much progress is made on destroying all of the horcruxes.

Another aspect of the story is that when the audience discovers that Harry Potter must die (spoiler alert) we also see that he has the Resurrection Stone, but Harry drops the stone to the ground instead of carrying it with him to his death. It's unclear to the audience (or at least, me) why Harry couldn't just use the stone to die and then be resurrected and the movie doesn't do a good job of answering that question either.

There are several things that the film does do very well. I did think the 3-D effects were used sparingly but very effectively. Alan Rickman, as always, is excellent as Snape, although some have complained about the nature of his character's demise. My favorite character has always been Hermione, and Emma Watson plays her well. Daniel Radcliffe has most definitely grown into the leading role of Harry Potter. Rupert Grint has also grown, and is no longer cringe-worthy.

Overall, the final movie in the series works well as an action film and also has an excellent pay off for those of us who either read all the book or saw all the movies (or both). It is doubtful we will see a more successful adaptation of successful fantasy novels into successful fantasy films in my lifetime.

Title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.
Director: David Yates.
Running Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.
MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content.
Release Date: July 15, 2011.
Viewing Date: July 17, 2011.

Plot: A.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A.
Impact: A+.

Overall Grade: (4.0/4.0)

MOVIE REVIEW: Beginners

Eschewing the appeal of spending two hours in the dark watching the pulchritudinous Ryan Reynolds in form-fitting costumes in Green Lantern, the Other Half and I decided to see the art-house film Beginners at the Laemmle's Playhouse 7 instead.

 Beginners is a very small film which has been getting quite good buzz (an 82% rating on rottentomatoes.com). It has a pretty acomplished cast, including Ewan MacGregor (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds) and Christopher Plummer (The Sound of Music). Plummer plays Hal, who is the father of MacGregor's Oliver. After 44 years of marriage Hal, at 75 years old, tells his son that he is gay and no longer wants to be theoretically gay. When the movie begins Oliver is in mourning for Hal, who has died from liver cancer a few months before after having spent an unspecified amount of time dating Andy (Goran Visnijc from E.R.) and enjoying the "gay lifestyle" with a group of dozen or so senior gay men. This entails having a movie night (watching The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, dancing in clubs to loud house music, having fabulous dinner parties and various excusions around Los Angeles). Oliver meets Anna at the very first party he has been dragged out to by his friends since his dad's death and it happens to be a costume party. He goes as Sigmund Freud, complete with a wig and lots of tweed, while she appears to be a mime and allegedly has laryngitis and can only communicate through written notes on a pad. The first thing she writes is "Why are you so sad?" This is a very perceptive remark and marks the beginning of their relationship.

As an Angeleno, Beginners is a fun experience because it is shot all over the city and one can watch the movie trying to figure out exactly where they shot what. Besides the geographical hook, Beginners is anchored by a pretty affecting performance by Christopher Plummer, who is now over 80 years old and playing a younger man. Shockingly, Plummer has only been nominated for an Oscar once. I suspect he will be nominated and may even win for this role, depending on the competition, of course.

The best parts of the movie usually involve the presence of the Jack Russell dog Arthur, who actually gets subtitles detailing his thoughts about the actions of the humans around him. The plot is centered around three "love stories": Anna and Oliver, Hal and Andy and Hal and Oliver's mom.

The movie is quite affecting and well worth seeing.

Title: Beginners.
Director: Mike Mills.

Running Time: 1 hours, 44 minutes.

MPAA Rating: R for  language and some sexual content.

Release Date: June 3, 2010.

Viewing Date: June 18, 2011.

Plot: B-.

Acting: A-.

Visuals: A-.

Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: (3.5/4.0)

BOOK REVIEW: The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

Richard Morgan has made quite a name for himself with his science fiction novels, winning several prestigious awards for his books Altered Carbon (2003 Phillip K. Dick Award) and Thirteen/Black Man (2008 Arthur C. Clarke Award). 

I have greatly enjoyed reading his Takeshi Kovacs novels, Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies.

The Steel Remains is Morgan's first fantasy novel, and it is pretty terrific. It is the first book in a series that is now to be called A Land Fit for Heroes. There are three main characters, Ringil Eskiath, Egar Dragonbane, and Archeth Indamaninarmal. Ringil is a war hero, the no longer young scion of one of the most important families in the city-state of Ishlin-ichan and a talented swordsman with a famous blade called Ravensfriend forged by aliens. Ringil also happens to be openly gay, which is not accepted culturally or legally. As a gay reader of the book, I was thrilled by this aspect of the character and the book. It is a huge credit to Morgan that he decided to make the most important character in the book, gay, and as a straight author included remarkably well-written (and explicit) sex scenes between this gay character and other men. This aspect of the book has been remarked upon (not often favorably) by mostly straight reviewers. The fact is that explicit sex scenes have been a part of all of Morgan's books that I have read and enjoyed, but as a gay reader I have grown accustomed to reading past those paragraphs. I completely applaud Morgan for creating a lasting (and compelling) work of fiction which will affirm gay readers of fantasy.

Egar Dragonbane and Archeth Indamaninarmal are the other two main characters that complete the trio of veteran warriors who get point-of-view chapters in The Steel Remains. Egar is a huge, muscular "savage from the North" who is well-known for killing (not one, but two) dragons. Archeth is a Kiriath-human "half-breed" who is over two centuries old but who was left behind when the aliens left the world. Archeth is also a lesbian, giving The Steel Remains not one but two main characters who are sexual minorities.

Unfortunately, although the reader might expect the story to be built around this heroic trio, it really is centered around Ringil, and although we get some, we don't get a full understanding of Egar's and Archeth's character. This is fine with me, because Ringil is pretty interesting and compelling a character as created by Morgan. Ringil does have some similarities to Takeshi Kovacs in that they are both extremely adept at meting out violence and they both seem to enjoy bravely picking fights against more powerful foes. They are also not exactly sweetness and light to be around, and have a generally jaundiced view of the world.

The plot of The Steel Remains is not as intricate as Morgan's science fiction masterpieces, but what Morgan does well is provide the setting, background and atmosphere of his novels which make them a fascinating and enthralling place to spend hours of your time. The basic outline of the plot here is what happens after Ringil is asked by his mother to find a cousin who has been sold into slavery and discovers that the criminal elements of the city have been employing an incredibly powerful ghost-like figure called a Dwenda. Ringil, of course, can not resist following the trail of clues to find his cousin regardless of how far afield it takes him or how dangerous the path is.

The Steel Remains  is highly recommended, especially for gay readers or fans of adult fantastical novels.

Title: The Steel Remains.

Author: Richard K. Morgan.

Length: 432 pages.

Publisher: Del Rey.

Published: January 20, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A-.

IMAGERY: A.

IMPACT: A+.

WRITING: A.

FOOD REVIEW: Blue Dog Beer Tavern (Sherman Oaks, CA)

Exterior of the Blue Dog Beer Tavern

Twice-fried french fries with a bacon cheese burger

Vertical view of bacon cheeseburger and fries

As I continue my exploration of the best burgers in Los Angeles I was dragged into the valley for a plant-related errand by the husband so we decided to check out Blue Dog Beer Tavern in Sherman Oaks. Blue Dog Beer Tavern was mentioned in the now seminal LA Weekly article 30 Burger n 30 Days.

I had the Blue Dog Burger (Grilled Mushrooms, Bacon and Caramelized Onions topped with Swiss Cheese and Root Beer Bourbon BBQ sauce; price: $12) with the House Fries. Both were absolutely excellent.

The burger was medium-rare, perfectly juicy and well-maintained with a large toothpick through each half. The fries were crunchy (probably twice-fried), with the skin-on and maintained their temperature well. They went well with the BBQ sauce (provided on the side) or the basic ketchup provided.

The Other Half had The Burger with Cheese, $10 which he also enjoyed. If you're ever in the Sherman Oaks area near where the 405 intersects with the 101 I strongly recommend you stop by and have a burger at the Blue Dog Beer Tavern.

Name: Blue Dog Beer Tavern.

Location: 4524 Saugus Avenue, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403.

Contact: 818-990-2583.

Visit: May 30, 2011.

AMBIANCE: B+.

SERVICE: A-.

VALUE: A-. 

FOOD: A. 

OVERALL: A- (3.667/4.0). 

FOOD REVIEW: Yujean Kang's (Pasadena, CA)

exterior of Yujean Kang's restaurant

Steamed dumpling with green onion, egg, pork and vegetable

A combination of three dishes: string beans, chicken with cashew nuts
and scallops with cucumber

Chicken with Glazed Cashew Nuts

Sauteed Blue Lake Green Beans with Roasted Pork

Mandarin Orange Cheesecake with
Fresh Fruit in Raspberry and Passion Fruit Sauce

For my birthday on May 21, I had dinner with my husband at one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles, Yujean Kang's a gourmet Chinese restaurant. They do not serve you typical Szechuan Chinese cuisine, but instead use high-quality ingredients to produce gourmet-level entrees at non-gourmet prices.

Although it is one of my favorite restaurants, I haven't actually eaten at Yujean Kang's for awhile. They have two dishes on their menu which I absolutely adore. They are: 1) crispy beef with chinese baby bok choi, szechuan style; and 2) chicken with glazed cashew nuts. In fact, I almost always order these two items whenever I go there.

We started with a very interesting steamed dumpling stuffed with four interesting ingredients (cooked egg, green onions, smoked pork and some vegetable whose name I forget. Unfortunately a single order of these only included 3 dumplings so I was forced to eat 2, after taking the close up picture seen above. They were quite small, but very yummy.

Since it had been awhile since I had eaten there we only ordered one of my favorites, the chicken with glazed cashew nuts (sliced chicken breast with assorted mushrooms, fresh snow peas and vanilla beans, served with sesame seed and glazed cashew nuts). This is a truly astonishing dish. The chicken is very, very tender, melting in your mouth, but incredibly flavorful thanks to the presence of vanilla beans and a yummy slightly sweet sauce. The dish has very interesting competing textures, with sweet, crunchy glazed walnuts and very smooth, slippery mushrooms and the aforementioned chicken. Additionally, there are bright green, crunchy snow peas which provide contrasting color and another interesting texture. The pictures above do not do it justice!

In addition to the Chicken with Glazed Walnuts, we ordered the Sauteed Green Beans with Pork, primarily to compare Yujeans Kang's version of this typical Szechuan dish with the same dish I've often ordered at Yang Chow restaurant. Honestly, I found Yujean Kang's version of the dish slightly inferior to Yang Chow's. The greens were not crunchy enough at Yujean's, although the dish was a nice contrast to the chicken. However, it was intended to be a light vegetable dish because the other two dishes contained protein and the addition of smoked pork made it seem a bit too substantial.

The third dish we ordered was one of the most expensive things on the menu, a $23 entree: the fresh spicy sea scallops with cucumber and jellyfish. The dish came with Szechuan peppercorn sauce on the side. My husband was very interested in ordering this because Szechuan peppercorns were banned for import into the United States for years (ban ended in 2005) and the spice is supposed to have an almost pharmacological effect on the tastebuds.

Hubby had dropped the knowledge that this was my birthday dinner so they insisted on providing a dessert for free. While I ran out to feed the meter (even on an early Saturday evening it is not wise to defy the Parking God in Pasadena) and when I returned there was a lovely (complementary) mandarin orange cheesecake with kiwi, grapefruit and tangerine artfully arranged around the plate. Amazingly, there was even mandarin inside the cheesecake itself, and this did not clash with the dairy-laden sweet.

All in all, Yujean Kang's is an excellent dining experience, one I would like to repeat soon, but next time I will make sure to order both of my favorite dishes!

Name: Yujean Kang's.

Location: 67 North Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91103.

Contact: 626-585-0855.

Visit: May 21, 2011.

AMBIANCE: A-.

SERVICE: A.

VALUE: B.

FOOD: A. 

OVERALL: A- (3.667/4.0). 

MOVIE REVIEW: Super 8

The Other Half and I saw J.J. Abrams' Super 8 last weekend. It was billed as his homage to the classic Steven Spielberg movies of the 1970s and 1980s such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial. Interestingly, Spielberg is listed as the producer for this film.

The story is set in the 1970s and is centered around the lives of four young teenaged friends who live in Lillian, Ohio, a small. mid-Western town. The main protagonist of the film is Joe Lamb, a 13-year-old who lost his mother in an industrial accident and whose Dad is one of the deputy sheriffs of the town. His best friend is Charles who is trying to make a zombie movie with his Super 8 camera. While filming late at night the kids witness a horrific train derailment, which looks like it was caused intentionally by their biology  teacher. The military shows up to clean up the train wreck, which was apparently a military transport. The audience starts to see people around town disappear in strange circumstances, providing us brief glimpses of what could be some kind of alien creature.

The movie is very suspenseful, with some amazing set pieces (the train crash sequence is incredible) and there were moments when either myself or my husband literally screamed out loud in surprise. Abrams skillfully deploys the "children-in-danger" motif which occurs so often in Spielberg's films to great effect and combines it with a coming-of-age story. The later aspect of the plot was less interesting to me, and the resolution of the alien creature storyline is full of Death Star-sized plot holes but overall Super 8 is a very enjoyable theatrical experience.

Title: Super 8.
Running Time: 1 hours, 52 minutes.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and some drug use.
Release Date: June 10, 2010.
Viewing Date: June 12, 2011.

Plot: B-.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: B+/A- (3.4167/4.0).

FOOD REVIEW: Go Burger (Hollywood, Los Angeles)

Exterior of Go Burger at Sunset & Vine

Vidalia onion rings

"duck fat fries"

my burger, with the lovely slaw and superfluous pickle

inside of my burger, with delightful bits of bacon showing

My ongoing quest to find the best burgers in Los Angeles lead me to Go Burger in Hollywood, recently. This is actually the second time I am writing this review. My first review was lost in the great Blog apocalypse of May12, 2011 which initially deleted my published review of Lazy Ox Canteen and erased my draft review of Go Burger.

 Go Burger resembles Juicy Burger (see review) and The Counter (see review) in that it is the kind of place where they have a number of set burgers but you can also select your own ingredients and design your own.

I decided to have the BLT (Double Smoked Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, BLT Burger Sauce, $11) and splurge on the fries cooked in duck fat. The person I was eating lunch with had the "Make it a Philly!" Smashed Burger (with Griddled Onions, Peppers, Pickled Jalapeños and Melted Provolone, $12) and the Vidalia Onion Rings. On the advice of the LA Weekly article "30 Burgers in 30 Days" I purposefully selected a relatively simple burger and was interested in the duck-fat fries.

It turned out that the burger was excellent, while the fries were disappointing. The onion rings were also incredible. The fries sounded better than they tasted. They ended up being somewhat soggy and not very flavorful while the onion rings were delightfully crunchy with and  relatively sweet. Another surprise was the cole slaw that was delivered with the burgers--it was also excellent. I am never fan of something other than ketchup being used to dip onion rings or fries into, but the buttermilk ranch dressing on the side was pretty good, especially with the onion rings!

The price point of Go Burger appears to be slightly higher than either Juicy Burger or The Counter but the burger seemed to also be of higher quality. It was still not as flawless as the Lazy Ox Canteen burger but I would rank it a close second to all the burgers I have eaten recently. I would definitely go back to Go Burger, to order the onion rings and try out one of their other burgers or put together one of my own design realizing that this could end up pretty pricey when cheese toppings (Vermont cheddar, American, Provolone, Monterey Jack) are $1 each and premium toppings (Blue cheese Gruyere, grilled onions, Bacon, sliced avocado, madeira mushrooms, fried egg, homemade chili, grilled red peppers) are $1.50.

Overall, Go Burger well deserves its place on the list of outstanding burgers in Los Angeles.

Name: Go Burger.

Location: 6290 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028.

Contact: 323-327-9355.

Visit: May 9, 2011.

AMBIANCE: A-.

SERVICE: A-.

VALUE: B+.

FOOD: A-. 

OVERALL: A- (3.583/4.0). 

MOVIE REVIEW: X-Men: First Class

The Other Half and I succumbed to summer movie marketing and went and saw X-Men: First Class in its opening weekend, at a matinée screening at the L.A. Live Regal Theaters. We had previously seen the earlier X-Men movies directed by openly gay Bryan Singer and we were curious to see how Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn would re-boot the franchise. I'm not as big a "Gay Geek" as Wonder Man (who is?) but I do remember collecting the X-Men comics briefly in the mid-1980s.

Overall, I was impressed with X-Men: First Class. The highlights for me were Michael Fassbender (Inglorious Basterds) as Magneto and the decision to set the film in the 1960s during the Cuban missile crisis. Fassbender is very easy on the eyes, and he's a good actor to boot. By placing most of the action in 1962, the director was able to distinguish this X-Men from the others and most recent super-hero films. Instead of the super-intelligent computers and futuristic gadgets that clutter most summer blockbusters this movie features retro styling and very un-sophisticated electronics. The heart of the film is in relationships, the three most notable are between Fassbender's Magneto and James McAvoy's Charles Xavier, Xavier and Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique and Magneto and Kevin Bacon's Sebastian Shaw. Bacon makes an excellent villain, and it is a generally accepted principle that the strength of a superhero entertainment can be measured by how effective the main villain is portrayed. The ongoing metaphor of mutant powers and sexual orientation (i.e. both of these are traits that you discover when a teenager, you may not share the trait with parents and you can be ostracized from society for actualizing the trait) is an incisive hook for a gay viewer like myself.

There are problems with the movie, however. For example, who the heck are these mutants? The "first class" of mutants to be educated and trained by Professor X feature a few that I was familiar with (Mystique, Beast and Banshee) but many more that I had no clue about (Havok, Darwin, Emma Frost). Emma Frost was controversially (among fan boys) played by Jennifer Jones of Mad Men fame, and although she looks amazing, her performance is a bit wooden. But at least she has lines to deliver, which is more can be said for Dr. Shawn's sidekicks Azazel and Riptide who have awesome powers (teleportation and wind control) but puny agents, because they are literally speechless. I was somewhat disappointed with McAvoy's Xavier because I thought he (but I concede it may be due to the script) did not do as an effective job as Fassbender did of displaying his character's motivations. It is very, very clear why Magneto is suspicious of collective efforts and humanity, in particular. It is not very clear why Professor X is so sure that he can work within the system to allow humankind and mutantkind to live and work together towards a common future.

One negative outcome of setting the movie in the early 1960s is that issues of race and gender are generally downplayed, or worse crop up in ways which discomfit those of us familiar with the 21st century. (SPOILER ALERT) Of course the first mutant to die in the movie ends up being one of the few Black ones, and the other (multiracial) mutant ends up on the side of Magneto, the putative future villain in the X-verse. The gender issues are even more problematic, with most women in the movie being shown scantily clad, even when they are given impressive mutant powers (c.f. Emma Frost). There's a reason these films look like they are designed with the viewpoint of a straight (white) 13-year-old boy in mind,despite the audience being a whole lot more experienced and diverse than that.

It will be interesting to see if they are able to make a sequel to X-Men: First Class. There are many, many great stories set in the X-Men universe (Dark Phoenix, anyone?) and hopefully, Vaughn will bring his fresh eye, and Fassbender and McAvoy to future depictions of these stories.

Title: X-Men: First Class.
Running Time: 2 hours, 12 minutes.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief partial nudity and language.
Release Date: June 3, 2010.
Viewing Date: June 6, 2011.

Plot: B-.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B+.

Overall Grade: B+ (3.333/4.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan

The first two Takeshi Kovacs novels by Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon and Broken Angels, are pretty amazing, so it's bittersweet to be reading and reviewing Woken Furies, which is billed as the third and last of the series.

Each of the three books featuring Takeshi Kovacs written by Morgan is so different it's hard to call them part of the same series, but they do all feature Kovacs, a hard-bitten, world-weary, brutally efficient killing machine and violent mercenary with his own unique sense of fairness and justice in the very unfair universe of the future.

Altered Carbon takes place on Earth, in a faintly recognizable San Francisco Bay Area several centuries in the future, where Kovacs has been hired by an incredibly rich and old man to find out why he killed himself (or someone made it seem like he did). In Morgan's vision of the future consciousness download technology is  available, but not cheap. So, both Kovacs and the formerly dead man have been downloaded into new bodies (called "sleeves") from their memories stored in their "cortical stack." Morgan's depiction of an Earth of the future dominated by megalomaniacal oligarchs and capitalism run amok is weaved in with a  suspense-filled, violent hunt for the truth of the reason for the mysterious death. Synopsis: Maltese Falcon meets Bladerunner.

Broken Angels is set a couple decades in the future, subjective time, on a completely different planet called Sanction IV. Consciousness can be beamed from one planet (and star system) to another and then downloaded into a brand new sleeve. It's basically a way of virtually travelling at the speed of light. Kovacs begins the book in pure mercenary mode, fighting for the bad guys in a civil war he doesn't believe in . However, he goes AWOL to lead a mission to find and plunder a secret hoard of priceless alien artifacts with a corporate money man and two mysterious strangers he shouldn't (but does and doesn't) trust. Synopsis: Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Alien.

Woken Furies has Kovacs back on his homeworld, Harlan's World, which is 90% covered with water but also orbited by Martian artefacts which rain destructive "angel fire" on any "too large" object which exceeds a vertical distance of 400 meters above the surface. Kovacs is engaged in an extensive campaign of vengeful murder against a powerful religious sect who have rejected the promise of immortality via technology the consciousness download process provides. After saving a woman with advanced implants who was being attacked by some of the more militant members of the sect by slaughtering a half-dozen of them, he discovers that she is the head of a group of mercenaries who are working to decontaminate a nearby continent of abandoned military hardware with artificial intelligence that has run amok. The woman is named Sylvie and she can provide Koacs safe passage from the consequences of his latest massacre.

Kovacs ends up joining Sylvie's "decon" team and is able to get the team out of danger when a raid goes wrong and Sylvie is injured. While Sylvie is off-line she goes through an episode where it seems as if another personality is residing within her. The other personality appears to be Quellcrist Falconer, the most important revolutionary figure in the last several hundred years of struggle against the oligarchal families who run Harlan's World. Falconer has been dead for hundreds of years but Sylvie/Quellcrist appears to be aware of information that only Falconer would know.

Kovacs is being chased by a younger version of himself who is working for the Harlan family for reasons which are some combination of retribution for Kovacs' murderous rampage, a desperate attempt to find and neutralize Quellcrist/Sylvia and suppress any neo-Quellist revolutionaries and a desire to eliminate the competition provided by the "older-model" Kovacs.

All these motives and motivations are portrayed and resolved by Morgan in an engrossing way which is somehow not as compelling as the denouement in Broken Angels. He does make it possible that another Takeshi Kovacs novel of some kind could follow this one, but the author has expressed his desire for this to be the last one and moved on to writing a ground-breaking fantasy series, starting with The Steel Remains.
Morgan has quickly jumped to the top of my list of authors whose work I will look out for, just beneath the likes of Peter F. Hamilton, Patrick Rothfuss and Peter V. Brett.

Title: Woken Furies 
Author: Richard K. Morgan
Length: 480 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Published: May 29, 2007.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.75/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: George R.R. Martin's A Storm of Swords

Which book in the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R.R. Martin is the best? Many would argue that the third entry in the series, A Storm of Swords, is the most likely candidate. There is no question that it is the largest of the four books published to date; in fact, in England it was published in two volumes (Steel and Snow and Blood and Gold).

At Amazon.com  A Storm of Swords has 822 reviews, with an average of 4.50365 (90.07%) with 76.6% of reviews selecting the top 5 star review. The book preceding A Storm of Swords is A Clash of Kings and it has a slightly higher average review of 4.50857 (90.17%) but they are less numerous (700) and has a lower percentage of 5-star reviews (71.6%). The first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, is the most well-known, naturally, since it was published first. It has by far the most number of reviews, 1,840 with an average of 4.38587 with 71% being 5-star reviews. The fourth book, A Feast for Crows, is the least popular book of the series so far and most harshly reviewed (an average score of 3.206557 based on 915 reviews). The fifth, A Dance with Dragons, will be released on July 12, 2011.

I would generally agree with the crowd at Amazon.com that A Storm of Swords is the best book of the first four in the A Song of Ice and Fire series that I have read so far.

The book's impact is not just based on it's length, though, as in most things, size does matter. There are so many important, stunning and horrifying plot twists which affect the characters we have grown to love and hate that several times I had to re-read sections of the book because I was reading so quickly to find out what was going to happen I realized I had missed an important event that had happened.

In this third book in the series the story that began in A Game of Thrones has progressed in surprising directions. It is almost impossible to review this volume without giving away important plot developments which a first-time reader should really experience unspoiled. I can say that the structure of the book follows the form of the previous entries in the series, with point-of-view chapters from various characters following one another seamlessly to reveal the overall storyline. There are POV chapters from Lannisters (Jaime, Tyrion and Cersei), Starks (Catelyn, Sansa, Arya and Bran) and their associates (Daavos Seaworth, Samwell Tarly, Jon Snow). Daenerys Targaeryen also returns and makes progress towards establishing herself as a true Queen of Westeros far away in the East.

The main storylines (internecine political conflict in King's Landing, Jon's foray beyond The Wall to learn the truth about the wildlings, Daenerys' quest for an Army and a crown, the impact of the War of Five Kings on Westeros' citizens as experienced by several of our main characters) are told with expert deftness and intriguing suspense. You literally do not know who will survive or perish, even if they have a chapter named after them (hint!).

Some say that Martin is trying to dethrone J.R.R. Tolkien as the universally acknowledged king of fantasy, and it may be true. Others say that Martin may actually have higher aims such as joining Shakespeare in the canon of literature. I'll leave it up to future readers to decide, but the decision of whether or not to invest the time and energy to read these books should be an easy one for anyone who delights in the pleasure of fiction itself.

Title: A Storm of Swords.

Author: George R.R. Martin

Length: 1008 pages.

Publisher: Bantam.

Date: May 28, 2002.

OVERALL GRADE: A+/A (4.167/4.0).

PLOT: A+.

IMAGERY: A.

IMPACT: A+.

WRITING: A.

MOVIE REVIEW: Incendies

For my birthday last year the Other Half and I saw the film that won the 2010 Best Foreign Film Oscar, El Secreto de Sus Ojos, a suspenseful, mysterious drama set in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in Spanish with English subtitles. This year, I decided I wanted to see Incendies, which many thought should have won the 2011 Best Foreign Film Oscar (Denmark won for In a Better World),especially after hearing this review from Bob Mondello of NPR:

I can't recall seeing a film in which I have so often wondered, "My God, how must that feel?" We in the audience are meant to be as unsettled as the characters. I've heard complaints about the ending being over-the-top, but my background is live theater, and you won't hear them from me. The storytelling in Incendies strikes me as primal the way Greek tragedy is primal. Shattering. Cathartic. It is a breathtaking film.

So clearly Incendies is a suspenseful, mysterious drama in French (and Arabic) with English subtitles. It was Canada's entry into the Foreign Language Oscar competition, but most of the scenes occur in an unspecified Middle Eastern country (presumed to be Lebanon).

The story begins with the reading of the will of a mother named Nawal Marwan to her surviving twin children, a boy Simon and a girl Jeanne, in a somewhat depressing Montreal notary's office on a cold, wintry day. The notary delivers two letters from Nawal to her twins, one is to be delivered to their older brother and one is to be delivered to their father. The twins are amazed: as far as they know, their father is dead, and they have never been told that they have a brother! Her mother wishes to be buried in an unmarked grave, face down until they have completed her requests of communicating these letters to her twins' brother and father. The male twin reacts with anger and storms out of the office while the female twin sobs quietly. Thus the movie begins as a mystery about family secrets.

The scene shifts to Nawal as a young woman, and we see that her "immigrant" (Palestinian?) boyfriend get attacked and killed by her brother. However we find out that Nawal is pregnant, and she eventually has a baby boy who is immediately taken away within minutes of birth. This solves the mystery of the existence a brother to the twins.

There are many more mysteries to come, however, because Nawal leaves home to go to University in the big city and finds herself in the middle of war zone. The Christians and the Muslims are fighting a civil war "in the South" and the hostilities have spread throughout the city as well. Nawal is Christian and when she finds out that that orphanages are being attacked she travels to the South to find out if she can find her son she gave up who would now be a toddler. The movie turns into a war story as Nawal witnesses horrific atrocities committed by both sides first hand and ends up in prison.

The movie then shifts again into a "fish out of water" story as we follow Jeanne, Nawal's daughter from Canada as she attempts to retrace her mother's steps a generation removed in time in order to solve the mysteries surrounding her father and her brother and comply with her mother's dying wishes. Eventually Jeanne's twin brother Simon joins her, along with the notary who had employed their mother for decades and is insistent that they do all they can to fulfill her dying wishes.

Incendies is an incredibly haunting film. You will either hate or love the final twist at the end but you will not quickly forget it. Incredibly, they were able to get the rights to one of Radiohead's most psychedelic songs, "You and Whose Army?" which is deployed to devastating effect in the film's opening scene. I would strongly urge you to see the film in the theaters, but if you miss it there add it to your Netflix queue as soon as it is released on home video. It really should not be missed.


Title: Incendies.

Running Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

MPAA Rating: R for some strong violence and language.

Release Date: September 4, 2010.

Viewing Date: May 21, 2011.

Plot: A+.

Acting: A.

Visuals: A.

Impact: A+.

Overall Grade: A- (4.167/4.0). 

FOOD REVIEW: Island Flavors (Laurel, MD)

While I was on a research trip in Maryland/Delaware in early May I discovered the unassuming West Indian restaurant Island Flavors in a strip mall right off the Route 197 exit off the Baltimore-Washington Expressway (Maryland Route 295).

I'm always one to look out for really good West Indian food, and the best I have found so far is in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. That's a long, long ways from my home in Los Angeles, so often when I am on the East Coast I try and sample new restaurants. In Los Angeles, there is some pretty good Caribbean food (Ackee Bamboo, Caribbean Treehouse, Kassava) and some just okay (Derrick's Jamaican Cuisine, Juicy's, Wi Jammin).

Island Flavors is in a very unassuming, somewhat unprepossessing space, with cheap plastic chairs and tables and covered steam tables. You should go to Island Flavors for the food, not the atmosphere or service.

I ordered the brown stew chicken ($7.75) and homemade sorrell ($3.50). The brown stew chicken was excellent. It is very tangy and piquant but not overly spicy. It comes with steamed vegetables and fried plantains. The sorrel was also quite good, much more heavily infused with ginger than I am used to, and quite a bit more concentrated. Halfway through eating my small brown stew chicken I knew I wanted to sample their "Curry Chicken & Roti" ($8.00) and take a large brown stew chicken to-go ($9.25) on my 6-hour flight home to Los Angeles.

The curry chicken roti ended up being very unusual, with the roti skin being uncharacteristically left open, serving as a bowl for the curry chicken stew, instead of fully enclosing the thick curry chicken stew burrito-style that I am used to. The roti skin used was delicious, lighter and more flavorable than most (I suspect butter must be involved) and by not enclosing the stew, it seemed they were able to use more tender cuts of chicken with bone attached, as opposed to the sometimes dry, boneless chicken which appears in most chicken curry rotis. The brown stew chicken I brought home to Los Angeles was just as good when I ate it microwaved after being in the refrigerator as when I had eaten it inside the Island Flavors restaurant two days before. Both dishes were better than anything I have had from any West Indian restaurant on the West Coast, except perhaps for what's served at Kassava.

If you're in the Laurel, Maryland area (about 30 minutes north of Washington, D.C.) I would strongly recommend that you check out Island Flavors and order yourself a roti and a brown stew chicken to go, you will not regret it!

Name: Island Flavors.
Location: 12633 Laurel Bowie Road, Laurel, MD 20708-2603.
Contact: 301-776-7208.
Visit: May 7, 2011.

AMBIANCE: B.
SERVICE: A-.
VALUE: A+.
FOOD: A.

OVERALL: A- (3.75/4.0).

FOOD REVIEW: Lazy Ox Canteen (Downtown Los Angeles)

exterior of The Lazy Ox Canteen

shell-on roasted fava beans, $5

yellow tail crudo w/ scallion, grapefruit & papaya salad, $14

8 oz. lazy ox burger with cantal cheese & green peppercorn mustard, $14

seared fijian albacore with lentils, pickled apple, oregano & bacon, $18

chocolate pate, $8

butterscotch pudding, $8

Recently, MadProfessah and The Other Half finally made it back to Lazy Ox Canteen, a hot restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. We went for the first time following the Los Angeles Times food reviewer S. Irene Virbila's now-famous rave review:

Lazy Ox Canteen is poised to become the restaurant of the moment. Partners Michael Cardenas and Centeno have made all the right moves. The place has an edgy energy, a cozy, casual interior with huge bare filament bulbs swaying from the ceiling and wood-clad walls, a seriously great wait staff and a wildly interesting crowd. Not to mention Centeno's deliriously inventive cooking, all at affordable prices.

I'm torn. I'd like to keep the place an insider's secret. I like being able to decide, that night, to head over to San Pedro Street for dinner and being able to get in. That's about to change. In the future, reservations are probably going to need to be made well in advance, I'm sorry to say.

We returned again this year on the same day (a birthday) and although the amazing fried chicken was not available (it typically sells out in the first hour of dinner service),we still had a stunning meal.

We started with the shell-on roasted fava beans and the yellow tail crudo with scallions, grapefruit & papaya salad. I was not happy with the fava beans. The shells were very tough and the flavor of the fava beans themselves is an acquired taste. The yellowtail salad looked more impressive than it tasted, because for $14 there should have been at least twice or thrice as much raw yellowtail. The salad looked great and was quite crunchy and piquant. But overall, it felt like a game of hide and seek looking for the crudo.

 The next item was the seared fijian albacore with lentils, pickled apple, oregano & bacon ($18). This is an incredible dish with the only bad thing that one can say about it is that there's not enough of it. It is actually an ample serving of absolutely delicious very rare albacore tuna combined with a sweet, crunchy, savory and salty mix. A must-order, in my book.

The pièce de résistance, however, was the $14 Lazy Ox cheese burger, which was produced with square cut fries and a green peppercorn mustard. The burger was cooked to perfection, exceptionally juicy with just a hint of pinkness and bursting with flavor. The fresh toppings of greens, tomato and melted cheese were kept attached to the burger through the use of a large wooden toothpick, maintaining a breathtakingly balanced burger. At first bite, both of us said "Wow! That's a good burger." Then you bite into the fries which remain quite hot for an astonishingly long time, and are amazed at how delightfully crunchy they are. The only downside of the Lazy Oxy burger and fries is the inclusion of the green peppercorn mustard. I have a strong belief tat the optimal condiment for fries is a simple ketchup and the green peppercorn mustard, although interestingly spicy, is a bit too fancy and fussy.

But, wait, there's more! For dessert we ordered the butterscotch pudding and the chocolate pâté, both of which were absolutely amazing. It's hard to choose between the two, but as a moist, very chocolatey dessert their "chocolate pate" was excellent, especially at $8.

I hope that it doesn't take another year before I return to Lazy Ox Canteen, and that they will still have these desserts on the menu, as well as the albacore and the signature burger. The service was attentive and the prices generally reasonable. Although the dining room itself is very loud when the place gets packed, a meal at Lazy Ox Canteen is one you will remember with pleasure for a long time afterwards.

Name: Lazy Ox Canteen.

Location: 1241 South San Pedro Street Los Angeles, CA 90012-3808.

Contact: 213-626-5299.

Visit: April 26, 2011 (and April 26, 2010).

AMBIANCE: B+.

SERVICE: A-.

VALUE: A. 

FOOD: A+. 

OVERALL: A (3.917/4.0).