Sushi Republic

Located at 329 Tate Street, Sushi Republic offers appetizers, Japanese entrees, and, of course, sushi. Wine,beer and saki are available, as are bento box lunches and outdoor seating during warmer weather.

Sushi is by its very nature an acquired taste. Nobody thinks they will like raw fish until they actually do. For that reason, it’s encouraging when a sushi restaurant continues to challenge our notions of what is and is not delectable.


In that regard, Sushi Republic rises magnificently to the occasion. You can get familiar sushi and sashimi here (tuna, salmon, shrimp and the like), but the real stars are the specialty rolls. Not content to experiment with mere avocado and cream cheese, Sushi Republic utilizes such ingredients as mango, mozzarella, BBQ eel and asparagus. My personal favorite, the Tate Street Roll, is a katsu-coated cornucopia of salmon, red snapper, crab, avocado, asparagus and cucumber, all topped with eel sauce. If that combination can’t tantalize your taste buds, nothing will.


For the sushi-skeptical, the menu offers no shortage of alternatives. Appetizers are grouped into Garden (edamame, vegetable gyoza), Farm (pork gyoza, chicken yakitori) and Sea (crab tempura, shrimp shumai). Any of the dumplings are safe bets. Entrees include teriyaki chicken, ribeye steak, seared tuna and panko breaded tilapia. Asparagus is a favorite here and accompanies many of the dishes.


Pricing at the Republic is reasonable for the quality of the food, meaning you’ll spend a lot to fill up, but you’ll feel that it’s worth it. Appetizers are mostly in the $4 to $9 range, entrees run from $13 to $16 and sushi varies considerably depending on the ingredients and quantity. Many of the specialty rolls can be had for under $10.


Seating isn’t a problem if you come for lunch or show up when the courtyard is open. Dinner during the winter months, on the other hand, is a gamble. It’s a small establishment and it fills quickly. Service when crowded can be sluggish, though servers are knowledgeable and polite and a pencil and paper ordering system greatly cuts down on confusion. Don’t tempt fate by trying to bring a large group and don’t plan on eating a quick meal.


Both the expense and the scarcity of space prevent Sushi Republic from becoming a regular option, but for special occasions with time to spare, it will deliver new ways to please your palate.


8/10

Shutter Island

In 1954, federal marshals Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are summoned to a mental hospital on an island off the coast of Massachusetts to search for an escaped patient. A storm leaves them stranded not long after they get there and their investigative resolve puts them at odds with Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), the chief psychiatrist. Daniels suspects something sinister afoot, but is that the evidence or his trauma (dead wife and memories of liberating Dachau) talking?

Dennis Lehane’s thrilling novel is given the star treatment, as Martin Scorsese and an A-list cast team together to create a film with a very high cinematic pedigree. The results do not disappoint. It’s a faithful adaptation, beautifully rendered. “Beautiful,” however, does not always equal “pleasant” and that’s especially true in this case. There’s plenty of disturbing imagery (raving mad inmates and frozen dead concentration camp inmates are just the beginning) to go with the period clothing and the stormy solitude of the island creates a profound sense of disquiet from the moment the marshals arrive. Not since Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining has a director been able to extract such place-based tension from the get-go.

The acting isn’t quite on par with the aesthetics, but its fine in its own right. DiCaprio delivers a gripping performance as a conflicted man who threatens to unravel under pressure. Max von Sydow adds a hint of stately menace as a smug Germanic psychiatrist, while Emily Mortimer convincingly conveys fragile instability as the missing patient, a delusional woman who supposedly drowned her own children. Kingsley is a bit understated for his own good and the Boston accents are probably too thick, but these aren’t fatal flaws.

Despite the tension and paranoia in the air, Shutter Island is not a quick-moving film. It slowly branches out, unfolding its mystery piece by sinister piece. Some will grow bored and frustrated with the deliberate pace, just as some will find its twists and turns (including a key revelation toward the end) gimmicky and predictable. These are valid criticisms, but it’s important to realize that this is a film where whatever actually happened takes a backseat to the effects that it produces on the characters and viewers alike.

As evident from the trailers, Shutter Island is not for the feint of heart. It is also not for those who demand absolute ingenuity in plotting. But for those who can live with those constraints and focus on the craftsmanship, this is as good as it gets.

8.25/10

Lindley Park Filling Station

Located at the corner of Walker and Elam Avenues, Lindley Park Filling Station offers burgers, sandwiches, salads and more. There’s a full bar and brunch is available on Sundays.

As the name suggests, the Filling Station once catered to gasoline rather than gastronomy. Don’t go looking for license plates and Shell stickers on the walls, though — the interior is elegantly minimalistic. Televisions are available if you want to watch a game, but the ever-present music may make paying attention difficult.


The Filling Station’s menu is geared toward lighter eats. Entrees are occasionally available on special, but you’re usually looking at something in the soup/salad/sandwich range. Whatever you order will likely bear the name of a local street or landmark, an added bonus for neighborhood folk.


The fare here is served with flair. Nut crusted goat cheese with marinated portabella mushrooms, a salmon salad with walnuts, goat cheese and lemon poppyseed dressing over a bed of baby spinach and a fried green tomato/herbed mayo/cheddar on Texas toast sandwich all show creativity and refinement. Even more conventional options are given a dash of the upscale: pita and hummus comes with both the black bean and red pepper varieties, while burgers include touches like basil aioli and caramelized onions. The Scott Avenue (a crab cake/bacon/baby spinach salad, paired with a tasty buttermilk-chive dressing) is a personal favorite, but you really can’t go wrong with anything here. Just be sure you save room for dessert — the banana fried cheesecake is tantalizingly sweet.


If there’s one drawback to the Filling Station, it’s that it is easily, well, filled. A scarcity of space and seating means you’re most likely headed for a chair at the bar. Show up on a Friday night with a group, however, and you’ll be lucky to find room to squeeze inside, let alone sit down. The congestion can cause service to suffer, though the staff are friendly enough.


The satisfyingly quirky menu and hip location make the Filling Station an ideal destination to grab a drink or a quick bite to eat, but this is not the place to be if you plan on lingering long.

7.75/10

Southern Comfort

In 1973, members of the Louisiana National Guard venture into the bayou for training exercises. It isn’t long before they offend some local Cajun hunters, with tragic consequences. Lost, scared and conflicted, the guardsmen are then left to fight their way back to civilization.

The worst that can be said for Southern Comfort is that it is low on originality. The plot mirrors that of one of director Walter Hill’s previous films, The Warriors, in which a more urban group of outnumbered outsiders tried to fight their way home. The ruthlessness of the locals and Mother Nature alike also suggest a strong indebtedness to Deliverance. In fact, if some studio executive pitched Deliverance meets Tropic Thunder meets Predator, this is probably the product that would result.

It’s filmmaking by algorithm, but that doesn’t make it bad. Southern Comfort is full of tension and moves at a brisk pace. The booby-trapped bayou and the clash of personalities among the guardsmen will leave you waiting to see who’s going to get it next and how. A violent pig slaughter interspersed with Cajun villagers singing and dancing while the hunters search for the surviving guardsmen is particularly tense.

Plot-driven as the movie is, the ensemble cast doesn’t need to do much to make it work. Keith Carradine doesn’t even bother to fake an accent – or develop a physique — as Spencer, a “city boy” who eventually takes command. Fred Ward is decidedly more convincing as Reece, a sadistic, belligerent redneck bent on revenge. The real star, however, is Powers Boothe. As sour-faced Texan Hardin, he does the anti-hero/survivalist thing to a T.


Like previous Hill releases, the setting allows the film to reach higher thematic ground than either the acting or the script suggest. It can be read as an anti-war movie in that it shows what happens when a group of armed and uniformed foreigners – several of them psychotic or incompetent – charge into a hostile backcountry. At the same time, it never feels like a polemic. Between the vengefulness of the Cajuns and the guardsmen’s penchant for stirring up trouble, there’s more than enough blame to go around.


7/10

Strange Cousins From the West

Released in mid-2009, Clutch’s 9th studio album carries on the band’s proudly eclectic tradition. Here, Clutch continues to blend stoner metal with blues-rock influences and angry-sounding vocals with literate, sometimes funny lyrics. The biggest difference this time around is that keyboardist Mick Schauer is gone and, as the title suggests, there’s more of a Western feel.

Clutchophiles will also notice that things have slowed down considerably on Strange Cousins. There isn’t as much drive and aggression as there was on previous releases, but this isn’t really a bad thing. It allows the lyrics and powerful rhythm section to take center stage. Neil Fallon’s vocals are also a lot cleaner when he isn’t stuck in a loudness war with Tim Sult’s guitar.

Slowed-down or not, no one will mistake this for easy listening. The album opens with a catchy twang on “Motherless Child” and both “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” and “Algo Ha Cambiado” feature funky, albeit repetitive rhythms.

Lyrically, like any good Clutch album, Strange Cousins is all over the place. “Abraham Lincoln” bemoans the assassination of our 16th president and denounces his killer as a coward, while “Motherless Child” strikes a familiar blues refrain about the hard life. On the opposite end of the spectrum, tongue-in-cheek anti-government paranoia runs through “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” (“Your friends from Langley are back again”) and “Freakonomics” (“Red threat! Helicopters! Super mind control!”). It’s sometimes hard to separate the band’s stabs at sincerity for its fondness for unabated wackiness, but at least it’s never boring.

Strange Cousins is not the definitive Clutch album nor should it be anyone’s first Clutch album. But for those equipped to handle the band’s idiosyncrasies, it’s a welcome addition.


7.25/10

Hard Times

Aging Depression-era drifter Chaney (Charles Bronson) earns his keep fighting in illegal bare-knuckle street fights. He soon hooks up with shady promoter Speed (James Coburn), who talks him into going to New Orleans to make some real money. As Chaney’s reputation grows, Speed’s gambling debts deepen and they both run afoul of ruthless businessman Gandil (Michael McGuire).

The true mark of a well-crafted film is that it could have been a bad film in different hands. That description fits Hard Times to a T. By the mid-1970s, Bronson could do tough-guy roles with his eyes closed, which isn’t too far removed from what he does here. Chaney is a man of few words and when he does speak, it’s with an unwavering deadpan. This could have easily been nothing more than 90 minutes of him punching people, which, for some people, might still be worth watching.


What saves Hard Times from B-movie status is the behind-the-camera work of first-time director Walter Hill (who also wrote the script). The man who would go on to develop Alien and direct The Warriors and 48 Hours gives his debut film a solid period feel. It’s nowhere near as handsome as a Scorsese production, but the cars, the clothes and the crowded back alleys all feel right on. What’s more, Hill manages to subtly capture the era’s desperate, scrappy zeitgeist – something which viewers should be able to connect with in these tough economic times.


Next to the gritty look and feel, the film’s greatest asset is the fight sequences. There’s a touch of Indiana Jones Syndrome in that punches sound 10 times louder than they should be, but the strikes and blows are well-choreographed. At 50-plus, Bronson could still give – and take – a convincing beating. The on-screen slugfests are neither cartoonish nor stylistically exaggerated. This is just good, old-fashioned brawling, brutal and simplistic to a fault.


Both the script and the supporting performances are fairly one-note and predictable. Coburn is appropriately fast-talking and shameless as Speed, but it’s a completely static role. And Jill Ireland, the real-life Mrs. Bronson, isn’t on screen long enough to bring any depth to her role as a married woman Chaney takes up with. On the other hand, Strother Martin leaves a lasting impression as Poe, an opium-addicted med school dropout turned fight doctor with an exaggeratedly eloquent way of speaking.


In and of itself, Hard Times is solid entertainment which falls well short of greatness. It is worth watching, however, for both the insights it provides into Depression-era values and the ascendancy of Hill as a premier action director.


7/10