Tara Thai

Located at 435 Dolley Madison Road in Greensboro, Tara Thai offers Thai soups, salads, entrees and more for lunch and dinner seven days a week.

There is no shortage of Thai in Greensboro proper, and there is even more in the surrounding area. Despite this, Tara Thai manages to stand out. Familiar dishes are prepared in a way that is unlike any other Thai eatery I’ve frequented. In some cases, these departures are welcome, in other cases, not so much.

Housed in the back of a plaza off of Dolley Madison, Tara Thai is easy to miss if you aren’t looking for it. Once you get past the odd location, however, the inside is classy and comfortable. The menus have an ornate design that gets your attention.

Speaking of the menus, the selection here is commendable. The classics (pad Thai, tom ka gai, fried rice, and various curries) are all accounted for, but you can also find several duck dishes and a wealth of vegetarian offerings.

For our first visit, my wife and I split an order of vegetarian samosas, a chicken pad Thai, and a beef red curry. Both entrees came with a small salad with peanut dressing. While this is usually a favorite, the peanut dressing was offputtingly sweet. The samosas were also very different from what was expected. In contrast to the Indian style, Tara Thai’s rendition consists of triangular turnovers stuffed with corn and other vegetables along with a yogurt-based dipping sauce. Again, this ended up leaning more sweet than savory. Just when I was ready to write the food off as being overly sweet across the board, however, the entrees delivered a few nice surprises. For starters, instead of having some scrambled egg mixed in, the pad Thai was covered with a dome-like layer of egg. While strange to look at, this preparation did not disappoint. The noodles underneath were moist, and the dish was flavored well. The curry also had a good bit of heat, and the beef was cooked nicely.

Tara Thai’s pricing is not too far off from that of the competition (entrees in the $10-$15 range), and the inclusion of salads and small dessert bites works in its favor. The service here is quick, courteous, and efficient.

If you have tried Greensboro’s other Thai spots, Tara Thai is unlikely to leap to the top of your list. However, its solid service and interesting – if uneven – food make it at least worth a try.

7.75/10

The Revenant

In the 1820s, frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his half-Pawnee son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) act as guides for fur trappers led by Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson). After the party is attacked by hostile Ree, tensions rise between Glass and John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a trapper with strong anti-Indian sentiments. Not long thereafter, Glass is attacked by a bear and seriously wounded. Though Henry leaves Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) to watch over him, they instead leave him for dead. However, the iron-willed Glass isn’t vanquished yet and swears revenge. To get it, he will have to travel through territory patrolled by rival French trappers and a Ree chief who will kill anyone in order to find his missing daughter.

Thanks to an unfounded rumor, many will only know The Revenant as “that movie where Leo was raped by a bear.” There is no bear-rape here, but there is plenty else that makes The Revenant stand out. Alejandro Inarritu (of Birdman and Babel fame) directed this adaptation of Michael Punke’s novel, itself loosely based on a true story. In the spirit of Cormac McCarthy’s Western novels, it’s a harsh, violent film yet one that pairs its gore with an elegiac view of nature, here in the form of Emmanuel Lubezki’s sharp cinematography. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s haunting score is an appropriate complement.

Those who have a frame of reference beyond the bear incident may also know of The Revenant as the film that finally netted DiCaprio an Academy Award. That selection rightly raised some eyebrows (this is not DiCaprio’s best work and Matt Damon or Michael B. Jordan were just as worthy), but it is not without merit. While he doesn’t have much dialogue, DiCaprio underwent a Christian Bale-like physical transformation and ably conveyed Glass’s determination and sense of anguish. Hardy favorably called to mind Josh Brolin’s villainous turn in True Grit while Poulter plays Bridger (a future frontier legend) as both naïve and capable. Gleeson, on the other hand, seems miscast: his father, Brendan, would have exerted the experience and authority needed for this role.

Despite the talent involved on both sides of the camera, there is no ignoring the idea that The Revenant simply doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The plot is that of a simple revenge tale, the notion that the frontier was an uncompromising land of moral grayness has been explored before, and even the characters’ deeper motivations – grieving over lost family – seem perfunctory here. Given Babel’s nonlinear approach and Birdman’s all-around strangeness, The Revenant’s straightforwardness will strike some as a waste of creative capability.

It may not be novel and it certainly isn’t for the squeamish, but The Revenant does provide enough stylistic flair and acting oomph to justify its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. This is the kind of movie that you can appreciate while still wishing that it offered more.

8/10

Dame's Chicken & Waffles

Located at 301 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Downtown Greensboro, Dame’s Chicken & Waffles specializes in chicken and waffles for lunch and dinner Tuesdays through Sundays. Beer and wine are available, as is limited outdoor seating.

For many, chicken and waffles is comfort food. Here, it’s an art form. True, there are a few other offerings (shrimp and grits and salads among them), but your best bet is to go with what is on the sign. Chicken comes in cutlet, wing, and drumstick form while waffle choices include classic, sweet potato, gingerbread, blueberry, and there are plenty of shmears (flavored butters) to go with them. While you can order a la carte, the pre-made combinations present plenty of tasty options. For our first visit, my wife and I opted for the Frizzled Fowl (panko-crusted chicken cutlet, classic waffle, blueberry shmear, and plum sauce with almonds) and the Buff Brahmas (two cutlets with a whiskey cream sauce, a classic waffle, and a peach & apricot shmear).

The food was generously portioned and phenomenally tasty. Both cutlets had a thin, crispy coating and juicy, well-seasoned meat while the plate-sized waffles underneath were fluffy without being limp. The flavors also played well off of one another as the saltiness of the chicken and the plum sauce balanced the sweetness provided by shmears and syrups/drizzles. Among the sides, the mac and cheese was very cheesy and nicely laced with black pepper while the grits were creamy albeit quite thin.

The service and atmosphere here are definite plusses as well. The lunch counter and dark brown trim call to mind a classic Southern eatery. Our food arrived relatively quickly, and our server, Dianah, proved to be quite helpful. When we couldn’t decide on a side, she gave us bite-sized samples of all of them.

Of course, it would be too much to ask for all of this to be really affordable as well, and Dame’s is not. Most of the chicken and waffle combinations run in the $10-$15 range, which is not bad considering the quality and quantity (you will have leftovers) of the food, but higher than some who have had the dish (in its simpler form) elsewhere may be willing to go.

With great food and service in a comfortable environment, Dame’s is a no-brainer for anyone in the area who is at least curious to try (let alone craving) chicken and waffles. Now if only they were open for breakfast.

8.5/10