Ann Lemons Pollack
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Sub Zero Vodka Bar
Hard to believe Sub Zero Vodka Bar has been open for seven years in the middle of the Central West End. Harder still to imagine that with a name that doesn’t even mention food, its kitchen earns such high marks. And Ann finds is charmingly humorous that a sushi parlor is operating in a location
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This Week’s Wine, February 20, 2011
Opening a bottle of wine is a lot like scratching off the scratch-off stuff on a lottery ticket. It carries a feeling of suspense, of the hope that great things are about to happen. They are not always realized, of course, and while millionaire status may never arrive, a good bottle of wine provides pleasure.
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Ruined
Lynn Nottage's language is both simple and brutal, but the two words, individually, deliver a far greater impact than just saying "brutally simple." Her play, "Ruined," now at the Grandel Theatre in a powerful production by the Black Rep, is a keening, passionate scream at the world to awaken those who can save women from
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Cedar Rapids
It’s rude, crude, tasteless and vulgar. It’s also funny, even hilarious if you like rude, crude, tasteless and vulgar humor. “Cedar Rapids,” opening today, brings back memories of the films of people like Preston Sturges, though the language has progressed (or regressed?) nearly70 years. Despite that, and its often-casual attitude toward sexual fidelity, director Miguel
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Sirens
Sirens don’t always precede fire engines. Once upon a time, according to Greek and Roman story-tellers, they were seductive damsels whose singing was more magnetic than that of Justin Bieber and Frank Sinatra combined. Their songs caused ships to crash into islands, dooming sailors to drown in the azure blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
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Hot Stuff: The Nightcap
We've still got a fair amount of winter to go, and sometimes when we come out of…oh, one of the theaters in Grand Center, perhaps, we want a nightcap. Irish coffee is often just the thing. And we found a first-rate one. Where? We wrote about it in St. Louis Magazine here.
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Pi CWE: Brunch
Euclid Avenue in the Central West End is, for brunch, the St. Louis equivalent of New York’s Upper West Side. You can’t swing a purse without hitting a diner, and as the dandelions grow, so will the crowds. Even business at breakfast spots seems to be picking up again. But we’d never thought of Pi
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Round and Round the Garden
With a weekend of gloom, doom and depraved love stories covering local stages like a blanket of blizzard, “Round and Round the Garden,” strong on flowers, foolishness and the wit of Alan Ayckbourn, brought to the Black Cat Theatre on Sunday the same feeling that the sunshine and balmy temperatures provided for the rest of
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Closer
The word "closer" has different meanings, depending on the pronunciation of the word: A hard "s" can refer to someone who wraps up baseball games, or who ends things, like closing a deal on a car. A soft one usually deals with physical closeness in terms of another person, whether actual or emotional. The play
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Macbeth
If Chris Koster, Missouri's attorney-general, thought he'd start a quiet weekend in his home town by stopping in at the Rep for an evening of theater, he picked the wrong night. The Rep's raucous, highly physical, blood-soaked production of "Macbeth" looked just like a Tuesday session of the state legislature. Paul Mason Barnes, who directed