The Worx

Located at 106 Barnhardt Street by the train tracks in Downtown Greensboro, The Worx offers upscale comfort food: soups, salads, sandwiches, steak, chicken, and seafood. There is a full-service bar, rotating specials, and brunch on weekends.

The best way to describe The Worx would be as a dressed-up pub. The pricing and presentation occasionally strive for something greater, but it’s a false ambition. You won’t find anything off-the-wall innovative, but if you play your cards right, you can certainly take in a satisfying meal.

Housed in a 120-plus-year-old building, The Worx makes good use of its space inside and out. Outdoor seating is nestled in a cozy-looking porch. Indoors, there is an industrial theme that feels more appropriate than overbearing: red walls, metal art, solid brick, and ductwork (in other words, decidedly NOT The Mad Hatter). Though it fills easily, the noise level is tolerable, and servers seem to take good care of their tables.

The menu here is limited but with enough versatility to get by. Seafood mac and cheese and a jumbo stuffed portabella seemed to be the only derivations from formula. Familiar or not, however, the execution was successful. The fried green tomatoes, topped with pimento, bacon, and balsamic, were among the best I had. A crab cake sandwich was slightly sweet and well put-together on a thick, buttery bun. The thick-cut parmesan fries it came with were hot and fresh, but lacked a savory note; copious application of pepper fixed that. My companion’s black bean burger was better seasoned than most, and the soup of the day (a bratwurst and bean concoction) had a surprising but welcome lemony note.

Prices ran slightly high. Considering the recent influx of artisanal burgers, paying $9 to $10 for one that is not is becoming increasingly indefensible. Though worthwhile, the $9 fried green tomatoes were also pricy for an app. Given the downtown location, however, The Worx isn’t outrageous.

While it may not have the gravitas to impress across the board, The Worx has enough going for it to merit a return visit. At the very least, The Worx is not a misnomer.

8/10

Crafted! The Art of the Taco

Located at 219-A South Elm Street in Downtown Greensboro, Crafted specializes in innovative tacos. Traditional and American-style tacos are also available, as are burritos, burgers, and apps. There are vegan options as well and a full-service bar.

One needn’t stoop to the (guiltily pleasurable) depths of Taco Bell to think that tacos are and should be relatively inexpensive. Even quality authentic-style tacos tend not to run more than $2 apiece around these parts. Crafted, however, will challenge one’s notions of how much a taco should cost….by challenging one’s notions of how good a taco can be.

Right off the bat, Crafted’s menu captures the imagination. Among the signature tacos, you will find combinations such as blackened tuna with garlic aoli and kimchee (the Fedora), beef brisket, grilled pineapple, and sweet chili sauce (the Fixie), and falafel, pickled cucumbers, and greens (the Hoodie). Sides too venture toward the unexpected: duck fat braised collards, anyone? Of course, if avant-garde tacoism isn’t to your liking, you can build your own from more traditional ingredients (like beef, pork, or chicken) and pair it with salsa and chips.

During my visit, I opted for the Wayfarer, a perfect marriage of pulled pork, Korean red sauce, marinated cucumber, and red onion relish. The pork was moist and slightly smoky, the red sauce addictively sweet, the relish appropriately tangy, and the cucumber refreshing. The homemade mac and cheese deliciously creamy and worth the $1 upcharge. In short, there was nothing that wasn’t amazing.

As alluded to previously, however, “amazing” comes at a price. The signature tacos come two apiece for $8-$10 with one side. Want a burrito instead? Be prepared to pay $1 more. The more conventional taco preparations aren’t that much more wallet friendly, and you will shell out an extra 50 cents for either an American (lettuce, tomato, sour cream, shredded cheese) or traditional (radish, cilantro, onion, avocado) accoutrements. Those who like to down cheap tacos four at a time will be in for a rude awakening.

Also of note: Crafted is a taco bar, not a Mexican restaurant. They say as much on the menus, but the reality won’t hit you until you walk through the door. Like many Elm Street establishments, Crafted is long but narrow. There is a handful of tables and a long bar. Interestingly, you walk past the kitchen before arriving at the dining area. The walls are a bright green, and the ambiance is lively without being deafening. Food moves from the kitchen at a satisfactorily quick pace, and servers are efficient sans attitude.

Crafted’s pricing and artisanal approach to tacos may alienate those with strong preferences for more straightforward and economical fare, but those with open minds and open wallets will be hard-pressed to find a tastier tortilla.

8.75/10

Townie

After his father and namesake (the famed short story writer Andre Dubus) leaves the family, Andre Dubus III and his siblings are largely left to fend for themselves in a working-class Massachusetts in the 1970s. As the oft-bullied Andre learns to fight back, he becomes increasingly aware of the rift between his father’s academic bubble and his own hardscrabble surroundings and feels alternately drawn to and repulsed by both.

Having a legacy of a literary lion thrust upon you isn’t easy, and for the younger Dubus (author of The House of Sand and Fog), the violence, drug abuse, and isolation that informed his adolescence must have made for quite the bumpy ride. Despite that, his retelling of it avoids wallowing in self-pity. It is sincere and earnest without buckling under its own emotional weight.

Townie’s works best as a sketch of person and place. The bleak provincialism of Haverhill comes across clearly here as does the liberating openness of Bradford College (whether the elder Dubus teaches and the younger briefly attends). Young Andre’s gradual transformation from put-upon weakling to hot-headed brawler to, almost improbably, a writer in his own right is traced in parallel to his evolving relationship with his father. The elder Dubus comes across as a very complicated and contradictory individual: a habitual philanderer who regularly attended Mass, a gun-toting former Marine officer who embraced the counterculture, a man absent much paternal capacity who nevertheless cared about his family. By contrast, the author’s mother is given short shrift here. We see her as a hard-working woman facing difficult choices, but she only seems to creep around the edge of the narrative. She never once takes center stage.

The biggest mark against Townie is its repetitiveness. Instead of showing a time he was picked on or beaten or robbed, Dubus shows us seemingly every such instance. Similarly, while it makes sense to show us a fight he sought after putting on muscle, he walks us through countless fisticuffs and near-brawls. This, coupled with his insistence on sprinkling in superfluous physical description for minor characters, causes the book to feel bloated. As a stylist, Dubus does not lack craftsmanship, but perhaps owing to the highly personal story he is sharing, he does lack restraint.

Though some stronger editing may have elevated it from solid to superior, Townie is still worth a look if for no other reason than because it shows how even the dimmest of circumstances do not preclude change.

7.5/10

Fruitvale Station

December 31, 2008 marks the last hours of Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), a young man whose efforts to turn his life around are thwarted by a deadly confrontation at a San Francisco train station.

In the presence of injustice, passion typically prevails over prudence. In filmmaking – and all art, really – the intense desire to call attention to a wrong far too easily manifests itself as hyperbole, polemic, sensationalism, and distortion. The tragic end of Oscar Grant (Spoiler Alert: He was shot by a police officer while handcuffed. The officer apparently mistook his sidearm for his Taser. Whether an honest mistake or not, Grant did not deserve such an end.) is almost certainly an injustice. But while many would have seized upon his story to make a statement, to use Oscar Grant as a means to signify or remonstrate, first-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler took a different approach. He simply took a step back and told the story of Oscar’s last day, and in doing so, created a far more potent film than an Oliver Stone/Costa-Gavras-style excoriation would have yielded.

Fruitvale Station is not a documentary, nor does it purport to be one (Coogler, for instance, inserted a scene where Oscar comforts a pitbull that had been hit by a car, foreshadowing his own demise later on). However, its minimalist approach and lack of gloss does effectively convey a sense of realism. Even the mundane moments (such as Oscar stopping for gas) serve to heighten the believability of the proceedings.

The film also benefits from both strong acting and strong characterization. Oscar is not lionized here. He is depicted as a complex, flawed (he served time, had a temper, and was dishonest with his girlfriend) human being rather than a media-sanctified victim. That very humanness makes him sympathetic and relatable, qualities abetted by Jordan’s understated-but-convincing performance. Octavia Spencer, who helped the film get made, is a pillar of strength as Oscar’s upright, hard-working, and occasionally adversarial mother. Disappointingly, however, the police officers involved in the shooting (played by Kevin Durand and Chad Michael Murray) are reduced to one-dimensional antagonists with little depth. As a consequence, Oscar’s confrontation with them is when the film feels at its most scripted and dramatized.

It came as a shock to some that Fruitvale Station did not reap any Oscar nominations. It would come as a bigger shock, however, if this is the last we’ve heard from Coogler, who is only 27. He may not have a statue to show for it, but he will have to settle for effectively shining a light on a life lost too soon.

8.25/10