Print Works Bistro

Located at 702 Green Valley Road next to the Proximity Hotel, Print Works Bistro offers European-influenced fine dining. The bistro is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and a brunch runs through 4 p.m. on weekends. Amenities include a full-service bar, outdoor seating and a private dining room. A buffet and live music are offered during special events.

Both Print Works and the adjacent Proximity pride themselves on being green and it shows. The inside of the restaurant is bright and airy thanks to light hues and abundant natural lighting. Hanging balls of foliage and a view of the gardens round out the earthy facade, but the real marvel is in what you don’t see – both the restaurant and hotel are powered by 100 rooftop solar panels and utilize energy saving technologies.


The emphasis on sustainability may put your conscience at ease, but it will do little to placate your stomach. Fortunately, the food is up to the task. A Spring brunch menu featured both dressed-up classics (Eggs Benedict with Black Forest Ham, Croque Madame on challah) and less traditional fare (black rice with leeks and Portobello mushrooms, confit duck hash with potatoes, poached eggs and hollandaise). The duck hash was a revelation – the meat was succulent without being overly fatty and the eggs were neither rubbery nor runny. The quiches (both Lorraine and a shrimp/crab combo were listed on the menu) drew plaudits for their buttery crust, while the Eggs Norweigan (poached over smoked salmon with hollandaise) was described, without excessive hyperbole, as “the best thing I’ve ever had.” One diner thought the breakfast sandwich would have been better-paired with a salad than potatoes, but none of the food missed the mark. Neither did a round of peppery, garnish-laden Bloody Marys, for that matter.


Of course, food of this quality doesn’t come cheap. Brunch entrees run from $10 to $15, which seems like a bargain until you realize that portions don’t run large and you may have just shelled out $10 for a cheeseburger or an order of French toast. On the other hand, Print Works is the kind of place you go to savor, not to fill up.


Service at Print Works was brisk and our server was affable. Though far from empty, the restaurant did not feel crowded – there was plenty of space between tables. Reservations are not required, but they are probably a wise bet if you are bringing a group.


Print Works may not be quite as inventive as its nearby sister restaurant (the similarly priced and similarly excellent Green Valley Grill), but it’s more inviting and a palate-pleaser through and through.


8.75/10

Boba House

Located at 332 Tate Street, Boba House specializes in teas and vegetarian fare. The menu offers soups, salads, entrees and noodle dishes. Many selections can be prepared vegan. A selection of beer and wine is available and there is a different special for each day of the week.

“It doesn’t taste like meat.” Such was the verdict pronounced by a friend on Boba House’s tofu chicken and beef substitutes. It’s a valid point – for meat eaters, nothing compares to the real thing – but the faux flesh is an acquired taste rather than an inherently off-putting one.


Once you get past that, there’s a fair amount to like here. The Asian influenced menu offers everything from satay (not bad, but lacking in texture) to spring rolls (small and nothing special), but you’re better off trying something which won’t inevitably suffer in comparison (though the cheesecake can actually hold its own). Case in point: the mixed bowl, a vermicelli/vegetable stir fry with a tangy sauce and your choice of topping. The salads lean toward the exotic (avocado and calamari are among the options) and feature a complimentary blend of flavors. Whatever you get is likely to be good for you – or, at the very least, better for you than that burger or pizza you forsook by coming here.


Boba House is a small space, but not a cramped one. It’s rarely packed and bar seating ensures you won’t be waiting for a chair for long. The intimacy of the surroundings and a two-person weekend special make Boba House an attractive date destination, but you’re just as likely to run into families with little kids as you are college-aged couples.


Service is very prompt and the wait staff is personable, though you sometimes get the sense they are trying too hard to be outgoing. Pricing is plenty reasonable. Though the portions aren’t very large, just about everything on the menu runs under $10.


Better options exist for non-vegetarians, but Boba House still offers a healthy, affordable meal in a comfortable space. At the very least, it presents a compelling challenge to the notion that meatless cuisine is bland, boring or insubstantial.


7.25/10

Election

Ambitious overachiever Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) will stop at nothing to be elected student body president. She is opposed in her efforts by moralistic history teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), who recruits Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), a popular and personable though completely oblivious, jock to oppose her. Things get complicated when Paul’s younger sister Tammy (Jessica Campbell) enters the race seeking revenge.

A dark comedy which is neither dark nor funny has little to recommend itself by. Unfortunately, this is the case with Alexander Payne’s 1999 adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel. To start with, the stakes are too low. Neither Flick’s ruthlessness nor McAllister’s vindictive countermeasures rise above the level of pranks, really. Plenty of films from the past decade (Donnie Darko, Brick, Assassination of a High School President, etc.) show that it’s possible to do something meaningful in a high school setting. Election ends up seeming petty in comparison.

In addition, the film is peppered with voiceover narration from several characters. This works well in spots – Paul’s failure to recognize that his girlfriend is using him, for instance – but it’s both overdone and largely ineffective. The potential for biting commentary and or/radical disconnect is squandered on too many “This is my life” moments.

Because of the comedic premise, the characters are deliberately drawn to type. Only McAllister seems really complex or conflicted, but he is rendered just as unsympathetically as the dumb jock and the conniving politician. That said, Election is well-cast and there is some quality acting here. The often-annoying Witherspoon shines as the relentlessly driven Tracy. Broderick, Klein and Campbell are convincing in their roles, limiting as they may be. Nobody is slacking here.

Election was undoubtedly intended as a commentary on the polarizing nature of American politics. A more trenchant commentary, however, can be found in the fact that 11 years after it’s release, it’s hard to find this movie clever or shocking.

6/10

Twilight

Just kidding. I'm not going to read, let alone review, this monstrosity. However, if you would like an in-depth and often-hilarious examination of what makes Stephenie Meyer's vampire saga both so terrible and so compelling, please visit my friend Jen's blog, Why Does Twilight Work?

Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever

In this memoir, Up in the Air author Walter Kirn traces his journey through the American educational system. Tutored at a young age by a retired admiral, Kirn endures a surreal trip through the public schools of rural Minnesota, Macalester College and, finally, Princeton University. Surrounded by the wealthy, the talented and the utterly bizarre, Kirn nearly loses his mind in an Ivy League setting before earning a competitive fellowship to Oxford.

A good personal essay is one which contains elements of both personal and universal truth. Inasmuch as a memoir can be interpreted as an extension of that form, the same criteria can be said to apply. With Lost in the Meritocracy, Walter Kirn manages to get it half-right. The book is filled with colorful character sketches – “Uncle Admiral” is rendered poignantly, upper-crust roommates are obnoxious and oblivious, a party girl doesn’t fully grasp the significance of having Truman Capote as an upstairs neighbor, etc. – which threaten to drive Kirn into the background. Despite this, the author/narrator emerges as a lost young man searching for guidance who nevertheless manages to find creative ways to assert and overexert himself. Kirn’s destructive tendencies – he vandalizes a common area after his roommates bar him from it – give him enough of an edge to steer him away from sad-sack territory and his playwriting ambitions dispel any fears that he would adopt the guise of a humble midwesterner.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t contain a lot of the larger, more universal truth. One of Kirn’s recurring memes is the corruption beneath the veneer of respectability. In conservative Minnesota, this takes the form of a deranged and lecherous old man who is allowed to teach and endanger children for decades; at elite Princeton, it’s the decadent rich, the drugged-out underachievers and many, many others. However, that things are never as pristine as they seem will come as a shock to precisely none of us.

Furthermore – and contrary to the title – we don’t really get a sense of “the meritocracy” at play. Yes, we do see the immense pressure Kirn faces at Princeton and the considerable toll it takes on him. But at the same time, we see this as less endemic of a system than it is of Kirn himself, drug-abusing and socially awkward as he is.

Lost in the Meritocracy stands out as a well-written yarn with plenty of interesting (sometimes funny, sometimes horrifying) anecdotes. But given the richness of the journey Kirn took, its lack of profundity and broader relevance is a major letdown.

7/10

The Defiant Ones

John “Joker” Jackson (Tony Curtis) and Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) are two prisoners who break away from a Southern chain gang while chained together. The racist Jackson and the proud Cullen must stave off killing each other long enough to break the chain and make it to freedom. Meanwhile, a pack of hunting dogs and a wily sheriff (Theodore Bikel) are in relentless pursuit.

Stanley Kramer was his generation’s premier director of “message” movies, a distinction which won him as much scorn as it did praise. This award-winning 1958 offering provides support for both views. To start with, it’s very well-acted. Yes, Curtis’ Bronx accent creeps up every now and then (and Bikel as a Southern sheriff is a real stretch), but the roles are played with conviction. A young Poitier is angry as Cullen, but he brings a sense of cynical bemusement to the role as well, singing at inappropriate times to mock his oppressors. Curtis plays Joker as a hard-bitten realist when it comes to race relations, but a head-in-the-clouds optimist about his own affairs. These are some complex convicts and the nuance the actors bring to the characters elevates them above the level of props in an afterschool special about tolerance.

That isn’t to say this movie isn’t preachy. The script is littered with indignant and self-pitying riffs on race, place, class and justice. Kramer’s intent was probably to shame and shock a nation. He may have succeeded with 1958 audiences, but in 2010, this stuff is old hat. The inevitable grudging respect Joker and Cullen develop for one another seems predictable, as does the sheriff’s benevolence toward them as the film progresses.

Shot in black and white, The Defiant Ones picked up an Oscar for its cinematography. Landscape – particularly, a harsh and dreary swamp – is used effectively here. At a mere 97 minutes, the film doesn’t do much meandering, though it does start to lose steam toward the end.

Like many films which have been imitated and parodied, it becomes difficult to separate the original from what it inspired. In the case of The Defiant Ones, you get the sense that this was a once-great film that is increasingly failing the test of time.

7.25/10

Ham's Restaurant

A regional, family friendly casual dining chain, Ham’s Greensboro locations include 3709-J Battleground Ave., 3017 High Point Rd. and 699 East Cone Blvd. This review will largely cover the original Friendly Avenue location, which will close Sunday after 75 years. All locations share a common menu featuring appetizers, salads, sandwiches, burgers, pasta, steak/chicken/seafood entrees and desserts. Drink and food specials change daily. Please contact your nearest location to ask about trivia, bingo or karaoke.

In many ways, Ham’s has been my culinary guiding light as a Southerner. When I arrived in New Bern from New Jersey five years ago to begin my journalism career, Ham’s was among the first restaurants I lunched at with coworkers. I was intrigued by the menu, which offered delicacies unavailable (and, in some cases, unheard of) in the Garden State. My first time out, I went with the shrimp burger: a delectable wad of fried shrimp served on a bun with slaw. Later, I graduated to shrimp and grits and the Cajun skillet, a shrimp/sausage/rice concoction that quickly became a favorite. A year into life as a Carolinian and Ham’s was a fixture in my regular restaurant rotation.



As I moved from New Bern to Elizabeth City and from my first reporting job to my second, I learned that aside from a Waffle House and a church every few miles, the South did not necessarily lend itself to homogeneity. New Bern was a placid-but-developing city filled with Northern transplants and retirees; Elizabeth City was a restless little town forced, somewhat reluctantly, into growth by the spillover from the Virginia Tidewater. There was no Ham’s in Elizabeth City and nothing really like it, either. And while I did find a few reliable places to eat, my cravings for lowcountry and Cajun fare went largely unfulfilled.



When I moved to Greensboro nearly two years ago, hopefulness returned to my life and so did Ham’s. The Friendly Avenue location was a nine-minute walk from my friend Andrew’s house and thus a logical destination.



My first time in, I was initially disappointed. One glance at the menu told me the original Ham’s was a different breed of restaurant from the New Bern location (the New Bern restaurant, to my understanding, was a separate franchise spun off the original). My Cajun skillet and shrimpburger were nowhere to be found, replaced instead by far more pedestrian offerings. Also, original Ham’s felt cheap; less a dining establishment than a funhouse. A model train chugged back and forth along one wall, reinforcing the notion that this is a place where nothing gets taken too seriously.



Fortunately, my initial pessimism ended once the food arrived. I went with a Cuban sandwich, something that, while not rare, was at least not a burger or a BLT. It was done right and the choice of sides (options included slaw, vegetables, homemade chips and my eventual favorite, potato salad) was a definite plus.



What made me a convert, however, was the cookie skillet. This decadent dessert featured soft chocolate chip cookies served sizzling hot on a skillet, topped with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. It required at least two people to finish, took a toll on your stomach and made you feel like a glutton, but it was all worth it. The cookie skillet transcended Ham’s the way Don Mattingly transcended those lousy Yankees teams of the 1980s. At an easily splitable $5.99, it was a bargain too.



Needless to say, I went back. The cookie skillet became a rite of friendship with me. I would bring new people to Ham’s and get them to sample it, pressing strongly for their opinion (most had favorable things to say). I even created a facebook group to stress the dish’s superiority.



Return visits to Ham’s fell into an easy, comfortable rhythm. Andrew and Anna (of previously mentioned baking fame) and I frequently ended up there on Tuesdays to take advantage of the dirt-cheap $2.99 (with drink) Charlie’s Cheeseburger special. Utterly unpretentious (there were no caramelized onions or bleu cheese crumbles to be found), the Charlie’s burger was simply satisfying. In time, I also developed a predilection for the Big Island Chicken Sandwich, a moist and flavorful teriyaki grilled breast topped with ham, Swiss and pineapple. Neither that (at $7.29) nor the fried chicken salad ($8.49) were particularly good bargains, but they were both filling and pleasing just the same.



Ham’s casual atmosphere, which I initially took for a liability, quickly proved to be an asset. A given night featured at least one screaming young child and plenty of garrulous adults, but it was a comfortable loudness. It was liberating. I could talk freely and not have to watch what I said because the odds were slim that anyone beyond my table would hear it. If diners at nearby tables weren’t caught up in their own conversations, there was a good chance the bantering of others would drown out any inappropriate comment my group should happen to issue (and we issued plenty).



The one major drawback to Ham’s was the maddening, almost IHOP-like inconsistency. On some nights, servers were swift, attentive and genuinely pleasant and personable. On other nights, they were slower, more frazzled and rhetorically violent (“Is everything excellent?” How does one comfortable say “no” to that?). Though the food was usually satisfying, the quality of the cookie skillet varied from visit to visit and a bad Charliesburger put Andrew and Anna off Ham’s for weeks. The best that can be said is that there was never a wait for a table, no matter what the crowd.



Because I am not a native Greensboroian, I cannot identify Ham’s with my childhood. I’ll miss the Friendly Avenue location for its convenience, but I won’t feel like I’m losing a major part of my past when it closes. If anything, it makes me feel like I am evolving, moving on, pressing forward. Ham’s will shut its doors a month before I am set to finish grad school. Just as the Ham’s in New Bern was different from the Ham’s in Greensboro, a different Zac ate there. It’s likely that the next time I visit a Ham’s, both it and I will have changed once again. And while economic constraints may, unfortunately, force Ham’s to trend downward, I can only hope I’m headed in the opposite direction.



7/10

Our final cookie skillet:

Spartan

When the President’s daughter (Kristen Bell) goes missing, special ops veteran Bobby Scott (Val Kilmer) assembles a team and launches a covert mission to get her back before the press finds out she’s gone. His quest includes twists, turns, travails and apparent failure, but nothing is as over as it seems.

Renowned for snappy banter and colorful con capers, David Mamet goes off the reservation with this slippery political thriller. Mamet’s approach here is minimalist and spare, hence the title (references to King Leonidas’ policy of sending one soldier to a country in need are also scattered throughout). This pared-down approach, coupled with occasional flourishes of ominous music and a quick pace, give Spartan plenty of tension. The initial premise may be simple, but there are enough twists and turns here to sustain the suspense for a good while.

Unfortunately, Spartan’s tone is all wrong. The unrelenting cynicism gives the film a nice edge, but it takes itself far too seriously for its own good. Numerous films (No Country For Old Men comes to mind) have shown us it is possible to churn out a tense thriller without sacrificing moments of levity.

The acting also leaves a lot to be desired. In trying to project “stoic tough guy,” Kilmer comes off as flat and wooden. Denzel Washington handled a similar role much better in Man on Fire. Bell is squandered in a grating, thankless role and the other names in the cast (Derek Luke, William H. Macy) aren’t given much to do.

Spartan is an interesting departure for Mamet and it has the trappings of an edgy, thought-provoking thriller. Unfortunately, it lacks both the craftsmanship and the talent to make it anything more than passable entertainment.

6.5/10