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2011 ROUNDUP
In 2010's year-end round-up, I wished for a
French restaurant better street food and Greek
cuisine. Two out of three's not so bad. The
year 2011 brought us some lovely additions to
the local scene, more franchises and a ridicu
lous amount of yogurt...
Heirloom Cafe and Fresh Market opened
in a renovated gas station at'the corner of
Chase and Boulevard, bringing new life to a
lot that had been an eyesore for years. Its
ambitions were large (to prepare foods and
provide groceries on the side—all based on
local, sustainable ingredients made with care),
but many of them were fulfilled. Many of the
dinner items are excellent-breakfast perhaps
even more so because of the lower pricepoint.
Lunch has nice sandwiches and pretty little
side dishes. The people involved care about
obscure grains, and they love vegetables.
Ted's Most Best, the pizza place from Jessica
Greene and Jay Totty (both of The Grit) in
a gorgeously renovated industrial space,
continues to charm thoroughly. Its pizza is
simple and excellent. Its salads are enormous
and beautiful. Its desserts are cute; its staff
enthusiastic and friendly.
Sakura Steak House is tucked away next to
a dollar store, a computer repair shop and a
sporting goods retailer that has a lot of hunt
ing supplies, none of which would seem to
bode well, but the sushi and all of the other
offerings are prepared by serious, detail-
oriented chefs.
Kab&na, on TaUassee Road, is an endless
source of frustration, with its inconsistent
hours, weird service and so on, but'it is also
worth the trouble, with wonderful Indian cui
sine (both veg and non) and equally delicious
Jamaican cooking.
Etienne Brasserie, which replaced the Crtton
Club downtown, is the French restaurant men
tioned above. Not everything is executed to
perfection, but many dishes are veiy good,
and the pore mignon is more than that.
Viva Argentine Cuisine, on the Eastside, is
a funny little place with some things worth
going a little out of your way for, like its
Argentine cheesesteak, one of the best sand
wiches in Athens, and its nicely cooked meats.
Plus, its mini-cupcakes are super cute.
The Georgia Theatre Restaurant, run by Ken
Manring of White Tiger, that sits atop the
Georgia Theatre, has a tiny menu, but every
thing is well executed. It's a great place to get
a vegetarian or BBQ sandwich and an amazing
view of our town.
Sr. Sol opened a second location, on Broad
Street, in the former digs of El Patrqn, with
food as good as and atmosphere more pleas
ant than its original. Also expanding were Big
Easy Caf*, with an Athens location on Baxter;
Keba, with two new franchises; The Blind Pig,
where McAlister's Deli had been, on Broad;
Yoforia, with a new location in the downtown
deck; Ike & Jane, with a mini-branch in the
renovated Georgia Museum of Art (and soon to
be running OK Coffee downtown); Donderos'
Kitchen, which is now running the cate at
the State Botanical Garden of Georgia; and
Butt Hutt BBQ, which opened in the Macon
Highway location of Jot 'Em Down at the very
end of the year and should be finishing up its
move down Baxter Street in March.
In other yogurt news, YoDawgs on Baxter,
Menchie's in Beechwood and Georgetown
Square and Polarberry at Timothy and Atlanta
Highway added more of the sweet stuff
to our town, with more planned to open.
George's Lowcountry Table and Sisters
Creole Market served up their own versions of
Low Country and Cajun cuisines. WatkinsviUe
gained Kumquat Mae, a bakery and cate,
Acapulco's Mexican Grill and Dominick's
Italian Cuisine, a chain out of the Atlanta
area. Stuffed Burger opened on Baxter in the
former Falafel King, putting its toppings inside
its patties and retailing awesome whoopie
pies. The Dogg Pound took over Hollis Ribs
on Broad, near Hancock, doing a kajillion
different kinds of hot dogs with style. Team
Biscuits and Burgers started a local drive-
through on Danielsville Road, and Talk of the
Town Country Cooking opened in what had
been Gateway Cate for years, nearby. Farther
afield, Big Al's BBQ Pit cooks up great ribs
and good pork in Statham, Bubba's BBQ oper
ates out of an auction house in Amoldsville,
and Wok Star is about the only game in town
in Winterville these days, doing some pretty
good Chinese. • .. .
Al's #1 Italian Beef and Gigi's Cupcakes
opened franchises downtown. The Volstead
put significant dollars into a bar and restau
rant on Clayton downtown. The Local Jam
took over the old Five Points Deli spot on
Milledge, rolling a badass breakfast burrito.
Honey B's Deli serves soul food and breakfast
on Prince, Little Cuckoo Chocolates does
sandwiches as well as sweets in the Chase
Street Warehouses, and Yummy Bites cooks
burgers and more on the Thomas Street end
of Clayton. Also open in 2011i Sweet Pepper's
Deli, China 1, Grilled Teriyaki and The Tap .
Room in the Georgian.
We Said Bye-Bye To: Wilson's Soul Food (sigh),
Off the Hook Steak.and Seafood, Right Tapas
and Bar, the Prince Avenue Huddle House, the
Iron Grill (where Casa Mia is due to open),
Marble Slab, Uncle Jerry's Biscuits and Burgers,
Dari Delite, AUen's (again, sigh), Pupuseria El
Coquito (replaced by The Food Palace), Reds,
the Daily Neighborhood Deli, the European
Deli, Totonno's Famous Meatballs, Toshiro and,
at the end of the year, Black Forest Bakery.
Farm 255 hired Whitney Otawka as its new
chef, meaning a new menu. Fooks Foods
moved across town to South Milledge. Doc
Grey's became Chango's Noodle House and
Espresso Royale Caffe turned into Jittery Joe's,
with little changing apart from their names.
White Tiger added Sunday brunch and dinner
Thursday-Saturday.
On the horizon in 2012 are a lot more fran
chises, some in the deck and some not, but
also Marker 7 Coastal Grill in Five Points,
from the folks who brought you Hilltop Grille,
which appears to have received its building
permit and should be something interesting.
This year, I wish for Greek food (again), a
Korean mega-grocery store like Super H or Assi
(which could be a real alternative to Walmart),
and an Athens location of Farm Burger. It .
could happen!
Hillary Brown food@fiagpole.com
NEWS OF ATHENS
Another One Down: I always feel like I'm
making excuses when I assemble my year-
end top-ten lists, apologizing—mostly to
myself, probably—for not seeing all the new
movies I'd have liked to over the previous
12 months. That's especially the case this
time around: bringing a new human into the
world, as Mrs. Film Notebook and I did in
2011, tends to reorganize your priorities in
some delightfully disruptive ways. Even with
a holiday-season push to catch up on the
year's important releases, I still missed more
than I can be happy about Certified Copy,
Mysteries of Lisbon, Poetry, Cave of Forgotten
Dreams and Weekend are among the new films
I had the opportunity to see in 2011 and most
regret missing (not counting end-of-the-year
releases like Young Adult and Tintin), but I'll
watch them soon. For now, forgive me, and
keep in mind that my list might look different
if I'd seen them.
More than what we saw in 2011, the year's
biggest story was how we see films, as digi
tal projection all but completed its takeover
of theatrical exhibition and online streaming
made enormous strides toward replacing DVDs
as the standard for home viewing. But that
stuff is no fun to talk about when you're try
ing to make a list; we'U get back to it later,
along with bitching about Netflix, I'm sure. I
should also mention that there were several
2010 releases that I didn't get to see until
this past year which would surely be on this
list if I counted them, like Carlos and True Grit
And finally, Edward Yang's 1991 masterpiece A
Brighter Summer Day, one of the best movies
I have ever seen, had its first-
ever (as yet, still extremely,
limited) U.S. theatrical release
last year. If I didn't think it
was cheating, that would have
topped my list. Here it is:
1. Melancholia Lars von
Trier's majestic film proposes
v/hat could be the director's
signature joke: the apoca
lypse as a cure for clinical
depression.
2. The Tree of Life Terrence
Malick's colossal autobiogra-
phy-as-universal-origin-story
captures memory's vivid com
bination of vagueness and
specificity more accurately—
and beautifully—than any
other film I've seen.
3. Meek's Cutoff A feminist revisionist
western that interrogates America's Manifest
Destiny with director Kelly Reichardt's charac
teristic penetrating intelligence and sublime
understatement.
4. Another Year This is sort of cheating:
Mike Leigh's warm and funny drama about
difficult friends and family was released the
last week of 2010, but didn't play here until a
month or two later. Whatever—it was one of
my favorite films of the year.
5. Of Gods and Men Xavier Beauvois
directed this beautifully observed story of a
group of monks examining their motives and
their faith as they approach their martyrdom
in an Islamist uprising.
6. The Myth of the American Sleepover
The debut feature from David Robert Mitchell
is a wonderfully evocative and charmingly
modest chronicle of teenage rites of passage,
with rtui teenagers who act like kids instead
of small adults.
' CINEMA SCENE
7. The Future Miranda July's second feature
makes clear that the director/writer/performer
has become one of the most original and com
pelling voices in American film.
8. The Illusionist Sylvain Chomet's lovely
and heartbreaking second full-length animated
film, from an unproduced script by Jacques
Tati, is even better than his feature debut,
2003's far more widely acclaimed The Triplets
of Belleville.
9. Tuesday, After Christmas Radu
Muntean's unblinking portrait of a middle-
aged man in an extramarital affair is more evi
dence of the vitality of the ongoing Romanian
New Wave.
10. Le Quattro Volte I haven't had a
chance to see The Artist yet, but it would
have to be pretty great to top Michelangelo
Frammartino's sweet and witty film as 2011's
Best Picture with No Dialogue.
11. Super 8, War Horse I know: more
cheating. But I couldn't let it go unacknowl
edged that Super 8, JJ Abrams' homage/
pastiche/copy has more heart, sincerity and
legitimate drama than any Spielberg film since
Raiders of the Lost Ark. And so does War Horse.
Honorable Mention: Beginners;
Bridesmaids; Cedar Rapids; Cold Weather,
Crazy, Stupid, Love; Margin Call; Midnight
in Paris; Somewhere; Tiny Furniture; Unde
Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Y Take Note: I'm introducing the first film
in CinS's Classic Film No1r Series, Howard
Hawks' 1946 Raymond Chandler adaptation
The Big Sleep. If you've never seen it, you
have to: it's not an exaggeration to call it
one of the most entertaining films of all time.
And chances are, few of you have ever seen
it screened in 35mm, as all the films in this
series are being presented. It's only show
ing one night: Wednesday, Jan. 18. Do not
miss it... Athenians Kathy Prescott and Grady
Thrasher have produced a documentary about
the daring aeronautical exploits of Thrasher's
forbears (which were recounted in his story
in last yeaKs Slackpole). The film is called
World's Smallest Airport: The True Story of
The Thrasher Brothers' Aerial Circus, and it'll
be playing at Cin§ Jan. 15-19, with a special
08.A with the filmmakers on the 16th. Get
more details at www.athensdne.com, and
check out the trailer at www.worldssmall-
estairport.com... Finally, Beechwood Cinemas
is pursuing a license to serve beer and
wine. More on that as it develops...
Dave Marr film@flagpole.com
Humphrey Bogart-fendsoff a precocious Martha Vickers in The Big Sleep,
Howard Hawks’ 1946 film also starring Lauren Bacall, which plays at
Cin6 next Wednesday, Jan. 18 as part of the Film Noir Festival.
JANUARY 11,2012 FlAGPOLE.COM 9
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