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Every year has a theme, and while I could
say this one belonged to the commenters on
the Grub Notes blog, who waxed profane on
the subject of salad and called me a hack
on a regular basis, I'd rather dub 2010 the
year of dessert. Yoguri opened in the dead
cf early winter, when it seemed that Athens'
first Korean frozen yogurt place found its
audience, as downtown dieters discovered a
cup of yogurt could make for a sweet, low-cal
lunch. Its rival the chain Yoforia, followed
some months later, setting up shop in the for
mer Jittery Joe's in Five Points (which moved
into the ex-Hodgson's building) and offering
a serve-yourself formula. In between, SunO
Dessert, a branch of the delightful Atlanta-
based Taiwanese shaved-ice business, opened
downtown on Broad. And toward the end of
the year, cupcakes appeared to be ramping
up production in Athens, with Silver Lining
Cupcake Co. on Baxter, Cake Bites delivering
cupcakes wherever, and Black Forest Bakery
getting into the game as well. Trend or coinci
dence? 2011 will tell.
Highlights of the year include the following
establishments:
Totonno's Famous Meatballs: While the
atmosphere at this meatery (Hawthorne Ave.)
is minimal, its focus on one thing is admi
rable, and the meatballs are reliably delicious,
especially the lamb ones, which are worth the
extra pennies. As much as I adore vegetables,
there are some cold, rainy evenings on which
Totonno's seems like the best idea ever.
The Granary: This bakery in Watkinsville
focuses on healthy breads and sweets, but you
wouldn't know it to taste its offerings. House-
made apricot newtons with whole-grain flour
are particularly delicious, and the store also
retails baking supplies in nice, small packages.
White Tiger Gourmet and Chocolates: I
know it's not new, but Boulevard's favorite
little BBO. place has really blossomed, with
dinner hours five nights a week. Yes, you have
to remember to get cash out before going and
the bathroom is an ordeal to get to, but the
perfect burgers make it worth it.
Peking (Eastside): This one, too, has
been around for years, but only in 2010 did I
discover the orange menu (of more authentic
dishes), which contains such delights as zhi
ran lamb (rolled in cumin), xiang tzuan tofu
(with preserved greens), pork with yellow
chives and meltingly soft yu shing eggplant.
Normal Ban Most bars in Athens aren't for
grown-ups, but this one is. In a strip store
fronts on Prince Avenue, it doesn't project a
hipper-than-thou attitude, it has plenty of
parking and a lovely patio out back, and it
even mixes good nonalcoholic cocktails.
Pupuseria El Coquito: Located on
DanielsviUe Road next to the Marathon gas
station, this cheery, tiny, bustling Salvadoran
restaurant serves wonderful pupusas and an
unctuous version of came desebrada.
Gymnopfedie: The full review for Athens'
spiffy new vegetarian restaurant won't run
until after the new year, but this wee spot
(three tables) in the Leathers Building on
Pulaski Street is nothing if not vision-driven.
What Else Opened?: A ton! This year, it didn't
feel like the openings were balanced by the
closings, which hadn't been the case in a
while. If you want something New Orleansy
or Lowcountry, you can choose among
NONA, George's Lowcountry Table and Reds
Southern Tavern, all of which opened (or
were covered) this year. Some of what opened
was, as usual, chains or franchises, such as
Sweet Peppers Deli, but it seemed mostly to
be a year of locally based small businesses.
Piccolo's Italian Steakhouse and Chops
and Hops, both in Watkinsville, offered hefty
amounts of protein, and Off the Hook Fish
House, on Baxter, which will also be covered
soon, did the same in a more casual format,
focusing on fried catfish.
For BBQ, we got Dawg Gone Good BBQ.
next to The National on Hancock, and Cotton
Club, at Jackson and Broad, the latter a
smartly marketed and designed concept, if a
bit short on quality smoked meat. Sorrell's Pit
BBQ also set up shop in a trailer on Broad,
near downtown, in a move I hoped would
encourage others to do the same. If the city
isn't going to expand the number of street-
vendor permits, private businesses will have
to step in and rent out their parking lots, as
with the Fresco Pops stand on Baxter that's
shuttered for the winter. Graze Burgers and
Salads took the place of the now departed
Burger and Cheesesteak Factory in the
Bottleworks, crafting an intelligent, family-
friendly menu.
Flight Tapas and Wine Bar, on Lumpkin,
has a smart wine program and a palate for
good pairings. Tapas might not be a hot
concept anymore, but the idea is still attrac
tive, and the escargot are excellent. Highwire
Lounge became incorporated into Trappeze
and now serves food. Lamar Thomas left
East West Bistro to start Chef Lamar's Iron
Grill, where he is now no longer, and The
National added brunch, a welcome addi
tion for the post-church crowd. Falafel King
took the revolving-door space on Baxter
across from Little Caesar's, and, while the
execution needs work, is at least attempt
ing to bring Athens something that is not
hibachi! Along those lines, East Hibachi
Grill opened in the former Ryan's on Barnett
Shoals, Inoko Sushi Express opened on
College Station Road, and Toshiro Japanese
Express opened in the Homewood Shopping
Center. Maba Grill, in the former Which Wich
on Broad, started out the same but revamped
in the past few weeks to add an array of
Vietnamese dishes. Yay! Kingpins Bowl &
Brew closed but was replaced by Ten Pins
Tavern. Also open this yean Em's Kitchen on
Hawthorne, Hendershot's Coffee Bar pour
ing coffee on Tallassee and a second Two
Story Coffeehouse on the Eastside, 9<fs Bar
and Jack's Bar, both downtown. The Capital
Room in the Georgian downtown, Taqueria
Camino Real in the Gateway Shopping Center,
El Patron and Mexicali Grille on Broad,
Whiplash Caffe in 909 Broad, and, in the
world of retail, The Beer Growler on Baxter
and Trader Joe's on Epps Bridge Parkway.
We Said Goodbye To: Tasty World, SaLadworks,
Rita's/Peart/s Sweets, Gumb/s, Golden Dragon
(Epps Bridge), Old City Diner, Plantation
Buffet (Eastside), Which Wich, Red Eye Coffee,
Gateway Caffe, The Georgian Southeastern
Cbophouse, Yo Spicy Mexican Restaurant,
Cactus Cafc, Sons of Italy and Harry Bissett's,
some of which came and went in the same
year, and the last of which was the main one
to provoke moaning. What will 2011 bring?
No more hibachi, please! I wish for street
food, Greek food, more good sandwiches and a
French restaurant.
Kiiiary Brown food@ftagpoie.com
Currently on view at the bucolic Visionary
Growth Gallery in DanielsviUe is a group exhi
bition entitled "Psychocollagraphica." The
emphasis of the show is the use (and misuse)
of photography in contemporary art, and
among the four artists represented, quite a lot
of ground is covered. I trekked out there for
the opening, on what seemed like the coldest,
most bitter day of the year thus far, to see
what was up.
Y Psycho: The show is somewhat dominated
by longtime Athens resident J. Phillip White,
whose detailed and intricate collages line the
walls in small groupings, occasionally inter
rupted in sequence by the works of the other
artists. In many of White's collages, a protago
nist is set against a disparate backdrop but
J. PhHBp White s collages are on display at Visionary Growth
Gallery through January.
excised of any identifying features: no heads
and, frequently, no limbs. In one particularly
memorable image, a cloud of white smoke
emerges from the open blazer of an anony
mous male. White's craft is consistently impec
cable; the wide variety of sources from which
he draws is somehow muted by his attention
to the cut line and his careful placement and
arrangement of elements. Deceptively simple.
White's smaU works stick in the mind long
after they leave the gaze.
A natural pairing with White is Alexei
Gural, another artist whose X-Acto skills are
in peak form. Gural's incredibly elaborate
shadowboxes employ collage techniques to
create low-relief wall sculpture; his images are
cut from photos, backed with foam core and
mat board, and exist standing at attention in
shallow spaces made to appear infinitely deep
through scale shifts and perspective. Although
somehow surreal the overt nostalgia and
sentiment of the work undermine the intense
focus and craft that goes into each. I mean it.
Collision: Hotel Indigo is currently host
ing a refreshing exhibition of four young
artists in its dedicated gallery space
on the ground floor. The show, titled
“Colliding Scopes," features the work
of Charlie Key, Nash Hogan, Dena Zilbur
and Margaret Schreiber. The work, which
spans collage, assemblage, painting and
printmaking, appears initially disparate
upon first viewing, but slowly reveals its
common thread of landscape throughout.
In the case of Margaret Schreiber, her
stream of consciousness coUaged draw
ings eke out the sensation of place more
so than any actual specifics. A viewer
moves through Schreiber's intimate draw
ings, lovingly nestled in one of Indigo's
recessed walls (one of my favorite fea
tures of the architecture), with the ease
and pleasant lethargy of a long road trip.
Arresting the mood are Charlie Key's
large-scale assemblage paintings, which hur
riedly and urgently combine found elements *
against imagined (and metallic! Yes!) back
drops. Key's flashfire process and devil-may-
care presentation and are off-set by the calm
and controlled brushstrokes of Nash Hogan,
whose familiar and fractured cityscape paint
ings look sharp as always against the stark
white backdrop of the gallery space. (The last
time I saw them, they were set off against the
distressed backdrop of The Grit's walls.)
But my favorite in the show was the mys
terious and compelling prints of Dena Zilbur,
whose quirky line and wonderful sense of nar
rative hit you, again and again, in this large
sampling of lithography etching and draw
ing. Combining carefully chosen subtle hues
against a range of gorgeous greys, Zilbur's
prints are like your favorite songs made visible
and physical, existing in ink and paper. I think
I'm in love.
Brian Hlttelberger arts@8agpoie.com
these things are completely obsessive. (Check
out the cover of the Flagpole Guide to Athens
for an example.)
Markedly different from the other artists on
exhibition are the large-format photographs of
John Santerineross, whose black and white
nightmarish prints recall Joel-Peter Witkin
and Viennese Actionism (and just in time for
Christmas!). Here, rather than construct his
images using collage, Santerineross creates
elaborate sets and environments for his mod
els to interact within. In the end, the works
create the impression of a manipulated image,
but are actually captured in a single exposure.
Although much has been said about the bru
tality of Santerineross' work, I actually found
the photographs to be somewhat tender in
an unexpected way: the same models appear
throughout his pieces, and however
treacherous or dangerous their immediate
surroundings appear, it always seems as
if it's the model, and not the photogra
pher, who is in control of the image.
Rounding out the show is Jillian
Guarco's work, whose mysterious "Mask"
series I found completely compelling.
Guarco's photos, each of which was
mounted on wood through the humble
means of packing and scotch tape, show
case a figure behind a variety of masks,
in a range of scenarios. See the main
Calendar image in this issue. On view
until the end of January, for more infor
mation, visit www.visgrow.com.
DECEMBER 22,2010 • FLAGP01E.C0M 13