La Deliciosa Michioacana

Located at 3821 W Gate City Boulevard in Greensboro, La Deliciosa Michioacana serves ice cream, fruit bars, frozen treats, and other desserts. Flavors rotate regularly. A Dominican-inspired lunch/dinner menu will be added in the near future.

Ice cream is to the Mexican state of Michoacan what beer and cheese are to Wisconsin, and this Greensboro dessert shop, owned by a pair of New York-bred brothers and their family, proudly honor that tradition. La Deliciosa starts with a high-quality ice cream recipe (14 percent milkfat), adds hand-chopped fresh fruits, and offers more than a dozen inspired flavors. Want rum raisin with real rum? You’ll find it here, just as you will blackberry, tres leches, tequila, mango, guava, and more. Ice creams are available in cups or cone bowls though if you prefer your dessert in stick form, there are plenty of paletas (popsicles) as well. There are even mangonadas (a mango/lime/chili drink), a somewhat scarce treat in Greensboro.

After much deliberation and the begrudging realization that we couldn’t have every flavor at once, my wife and I opted for a small coconut/rum raisin combo and a small strawberries and cream, respectively. The strawberries and cream was rich but not heavy with fresh-tasting berries and hints of white chocolate. The rum raisin puts any commercial equivalent to shame. Without hyperbole, this is some of the best ice cream you are likely to have anywhere.

Given the quality and the fact that everything is homemade, the pricing (just north of $3 for a small cup) is hard to argue with. It also helps that the friendly and accommodating staff will be glad to answer your questions, indulge your display-case gawking, and let you sample (within reason) flavor after flavor.

As of this writing, La Deliciosa offers only desserts. However, the restaurant just hosted an Ethnosh as a trial run for some lunch/dinner offerings. A Dominican-style roasted chicken was magically juicy and flavorful, black beans and rice were cooked to perfection, tostones were wonderfully crisp, and a trio of accompanying sauces paired nicely with everything. When this place gets its kitchen up and running, watch out.

If there is one drawback to La Deliciosa, it is that it is not easy to locate unless you are really looking for it (the space’s previous tenant, Los Gordos, shared the same problem). However, if you can navigate your way to the middle of the surrounding shopping center, absolutely phenomenal ice cream awaits.

9/10

Stonefield Cellars Winery

Located at 8220 NC 68 North in Stokesdale, Stonefield Cellars offers wine for sale by the bottle as well as tastings, snacks, and chocolate Thursday through Sunday. Outdoor seating is available, and the winery hosts weekly Friday concerts. It can also host weddings and private events. Frequent buyers can enjoy discounts through a Wine Club.

Guilford County is hardly wine country, but Stonefield Cellars still manages to acquit itself nicely. At first glance, this smallish vineyard feels like a family farm (replete with chickens), but don’t take that for a lack of sophistication. Follow Fezzik the greeter-cat across the scenic patio, and you’ll enter a dignified tasting room. Tastings go for a very reasonable $7/person ($10 if you want special reserve wines) for seven samples. The selection features only two dry whites, six dry reds (including two reserves), and eight sweet/fruit wines. Everything is made on-site, and whatever isn’t grown locally is brought in from elsewhere in the Tarheel State.

I’m not much of a wine connoisseur, but I definitely found the blueberry (not too sweet), strawberry (decidedly sweeter), and vin de narle (a dessert wine with chocolate and cherry notes) to be to my liking. My wife, who also gave high marks to the Dread Pirate Roberts (a spicy red blend), and I opted for a bottle of the vin de narle in the mid-teens, about the going rate for many of the non-reserve bottles here.

Though there were several others who had lined up to the bar for tastings at the time of our visit, Stonefield Cellars staff seemed well-equipped to handle the volume. They were knowledgeable about their products and free of the snobbishness that “winery” sometimes connotes.

Those who have toured wineries the country (or the world) over may be nonplussed by Stonefield Cellars, but for the Triad, it does what it does very well.

8.25/10

Bistro 150

Located at 2205 Oak Ridge Road in Oak Ridge, Bistro 150 serves American cuisine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner Monday through Saturday and a brunch on Sundays. Food specials change daily, and there is occasional live music. Outdoor seating is available.

Housed in a nondescript shopping center and blessed by strong reviews, Bistro 150 is a very strange, slightly sad, though not irredeemably bad little eatery. Enter this dark restaurant, and you’ll find a few traditional tables toward the front and a lounge area with sofas further back. Ordering and payment are both handled at the register, perhaps a concession to the very small staff. Only the owner and a chef/cook were working when we arrived around 5 p.m. on a Saturday. Then again, we were the only ones in the restaurant, so it’s possible they had all the staff they needed. A radio playing 1960s hits further contributed to the odd vibe.

In contrast, Bistro 150’s menu is decidedly more traditional. Among the apps, sandwiches, and salads, you’ll find familiar hummus plates, Reubens, Greek salads, and flatbreads. In fairness, the dinner entrees offered some unexpected – and more refined - surprises, such as potato-crusted pangasius or grilled pork loin with a cranberry and red wine sauce. A nice variety of coffee drinks and gelato round out the offerings.

For our visit, my wife and I went with a roasted chicken salad (with sundried tomato, olives, and feta in place of the standard goat cheese) and a Chesapeake pasta (shrimp, clams, and mussels over linguine in an Old Bay, white wine, and cream sauce). The salad was respectably sized for its price ($9.99) but was otherwise a disaster. Overly large pieces of tough chicken lay atop overly large, unsightly pieces of lettuce with chewy sundried tomatoes mixed in. Bleh. Fortunately, the pasta dish ($15.99) fared better. There was a decent ratio of seafood to noodle, and though the Old Bay and white wine flavors were absent, the garlicky, creamy sauce still had plenty of flavor without the heaviness of an alfredo.

Service was also uneven. During our meal, the owner came around to see how we were doing, which was a welcome gesture. Prior to that, however, she expressed indifference and bafflement when my wife tried to ascertain which dressing paired best with the salad, and said salad initially arrived without the one ordered (a problem quickly remedied thanks to the cook/chef). The owner also isn’t the easiest person to understand.

Oak Ridge is not Greensboro or High Point in terms of dining options, and a lack of nearby competition may help explain Bistro 150’s strong reviews. But even in a vacuum, this quirky eatery falls short of reaching the promise suggested by its appealing dinner menu. I don’t see myself coming back.

6.5/10

Before the Fall

David Bateman, a conservative cable news mogul, charters a private plane to take him, his wife, and their two young children home to New York City from Martha’s Vineyard. They are joined by another wealthy couple, the Kiplings, as well as Scott Burroughs, a down-on-his-luck middle-aged painter acquainted with Bateman’s wife Maggie. When the plane abruptly crashed into the water, Scott and four-year-old J.J. Bateman are the only survivors. Hailed as a hero for swimming the boy to safety, Scott finds himself the focus of unwanted media attention. Meanwhile, federal investigators, including Treasury officials who were building a case against financer Ben Kipling, are desperate to found out what happened, and Bateman’s controversial star pundit sees an issue worth rallying around.

Noah Hawley is best known these days as the creator of the supremely enjoyable television series Fargo, but 2017’s Before the Fall is the fifth book in a literary career dating almost years. The same sensibility permeates both works. In Fargo, Hawley brings a darkly humorous tone, heavy symbolism, and an almost biblical sense of catastrophe to small-town Minnesota criminal shenanigans. So too goes Before the Fall, where he balances characters’ place-in-the-cosmos fulminations with intimate, seemingly mundane, sometimes funny moments and turns nearly everyone into a tragic figure.

Throughout it all, Hawley maintains a consistent narrative structure that allows him to control the rate of revelation. In the present, Scott moves toward recovery, not only from his injuries, but from years of passivity; Maggie’s sister Eleanor embraces her new role as mother to J.J. despite her greedy, indifferent husband; and crash investigator Gus works his way closer to finding out what happened on that plane. In between, we learn the histories of all on board, from Bateman to his stealthy Israeli bodyguard to young flight attendant Emma to philosophical, well-read Captain Melody. The novel unfolds in layers, drawing the reader in as each is peeled back.

There are, however, unfortunate exceptions to this complexity. Maggie’s husband, a selfish hipster manchild named Doug, is one-dimensionally detestable. And naming the co-pilot who benefitted from his family’s political connections despite his own mediocrity “Busch” seems almost too pointed a barb. Then there is Bill Cunningham, an amalgamation of the worst of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck turned up to eleven, an influential troll who will, through innuendo, smear Scott as a terrorist if it helps the ratings and serves his narrative. Such a one-dimensional buffoon would ordinarily be cause for complaint (compare to Fargo’s much more interesting antagonists), but his snarling opposition does at least drive Scott to take action. That said, their confrontation toward the end of the book is far less climactic than the story warrants.

In Before the Fall, Hawley has gripped readers with a philosophical mystery that meditates on loss as often as it entertains or enthralls, but a few uninspired character choices and a weak ending render it inferior to his television work.

7.75/10

Luna Mexican Seafood Bar and Grill

Located at 2606 North Elm Street in Greenboro, Luna Mexican Seafood Bar and Grill serves Mexican fare for lunch and dinner seven days a week. There is a full bar and an outdoor seating area. Lunch specials and vegetarian options are available.

Luna is a former Mexico Mexican Restaurant location, something that should come as no surprise given the brightly colored tables and chairs. Those, reasonable prices, and mediocre food were Mexico’s calling card. Luna retains the first two while improving the third, but it has a ways to go before it can be considered one of Greensboro’s best.

First, the good: the menu is expansive. In addition to tacos, burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, chicken dishes, steak dishes, and other staples, Luna offers oysters, several shrimp cocktail variations, and other seafood-oriented dishes that won’t pop up everywhere else. Pricing is, as mentioned, reasonable (seafood entrees at around $14, chicken, pork, or steak house specialties $10-$13, most burritos under $10), and portions are large.

Food is inconsistent, but there is more good than bad. I ordered an ACP seafood, described on the menu as containing “shrimp, calamari, scallops, mixed bell peppers, mushrooms, squash, and onions…served over a bed of rice and smothered with cheese.” The dish contained neither squash nor mushrooms nor cheese, and there was little rice. There was, however, plenty of lettuce and a delicious, perfectly crisp piece of fried fish, which ended up being the best thing on the plate (not that the rest was bad – the onions were nicely caramelized, for instance). My wife’s order of chile verde featured tender pork in a rich, spicy sauce, but the accompanying rice and beans were strictly average.

Service is another area where Luna could use some improvement. Given that the restaurant was about half full at the time of our meal, the kitchen seemed decidedly slow. Our server was very personable and cared about what he was doing, but he was also quite new to his job, and it showed.

The colorful décor, deep menu, friendly staff, and flourishes of tasty food make Luna too promising to write off entirely, but more consistency, better management, and, most likely, more personnel are needed. You can eat here without regretting it, but you won’t be over the moon for this place.

7.25/10

Greed Narratives: The Wizard of Lies and The Founder

For as much as America celebrates innovation, entrepreneurship, and business success, it also revels in exposing the (real or exaggerated) dark side of that success. The greed narrative is one that shows that the desire to do better, reach higher, or earn more comes at a great cost, be it laws broken, lives ruined, personal integrity destroyed, and/or relationships torn asunder. It should be a tired trope at this point, but it is kept relevant (if not exactly fresh) by a seemingly endless parade of real-life inspirations.

Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff and McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc are two such inspirational figures whose lives were recently given the greed narrative treatment. Both 2017’s The Wizard of Lies and 2016’s The Founder aim to shine some light on the price paid for financial success. But just as these two cases are separated by time, circumstance, and several orders of magnitude (Madoff’s empire crashed and burned while McDonald’s continues to thrive), so too do their respective films diverge.

Based on the book of the same name by financial reporter Diana Henriques, The Wizard of Lies is a small-screen (HBO) production that boasts a big-screen pedigree. Robert DeNiro stars as Madoff, Michelle Pfeiffer plays wife Ruth, Alessandro Nivola and Nathan Darrow are sons Mark and Andrew while Barry Levinson directs (His son Sam is the screenwriter). DeNiro, who has been toiling in forgettable comedies and B-films lately, reminds audiences what he is capable of when given a weightier role. He portrays Madoff, who infamously bilked investment clients in a long-running $65 billion Ponzi scheme, as confident, calm, and compartmentalized to the extreme though also self-aware and ultimately broken. Pfieffer is more than solid in support – Ruth comes across as a tragic figure – and Mark and Andrew emerge as reluctantly complicit foils to their scheming father.

Intimate in its characterization and slickly shot, The Wizard of Lies suffers from misplaced narrative focus. So much emphasis is given to the implosion of the Madoff family that the film largely glosses over the greater impact of Bernie’s misdeeds. The Big Short showed that it was definitely possible to expose the workings of Wall Street chicanery without losing the audience. The disappointing reluctance to do so here renders The Wizard of Lies a stylish, at times affecting, but ultimately hollow film.

Whereas The Wizard of Lies documents a fall, The Founder focuses largely on an ascent. In 1954, Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) is a struggling milkshake mixer salesman from the Midwest who finds that a client in California has high demand for his company’s machines. After meeting the McDonald brothers Mac (John Carroll Lynch) and Dick (Nick Offerman), he is greatly impressed by their restaurant’s speedy, efficient operation and convinces them to franchise it. Though Ray successfully markets the concept to franchisees, he finds himself unable to get ahead financially. His plans to cut costs by using powdered milkshakes and to buy and lease the land the restaurants sit on put him at odds with the brothers but hold the potential for runaway success.

Directed by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) and scripted by Robert Siegel (The Wrestler), The Founder starts as a paint-by-the-numbers, hard-work-makes-good origin story before going noticeably darker. Though it thankfully avoids hagiography, it also steers clear of Social Network-style immolation of its subject. Keaton gives a convincing performance, portraying Kroc not as a moustache-twirling schemer but as a beleaguered dreamer whose ambition clearly got the better of his ethics. And though the film contains several notable omissions (don’t look for Ronald here), it still works to document the moves that transformed McDonald’s into a juggernaut. However, it suffers from precisely the opposite problem of The Wizard of Lies. It is at such an emotional remove from its subjects’ personal lives (Laura Dern’s role as Kroc’s first wife is a thankless, one-note role and the McDonald brothers are only shown vis-à-vis their relationship to Kroc) that it makes it difficult for the audience to invest in these characters.

Greed narratives are unlikely to fall out of favor any time soon. The best of them offer unorthodox storytelling and complex characterization; the worst of them treat their subjects as props in a predictable morality play. Both The Wizard of Lies and The Founder fall somewhere in the middle, boosted by strong lead performances but hampered by sins of omission.

The Wizard of Lies: 7.25/10

The Founder: 7.25/10

Boxcar Bar + Arcade

Located at 120 West Lewis Street in Downtown Greensboro, Boxcar Bar + Arcade offers a full drink menu with two dozen craft beers on tap as well as arcade games, retro console games, pinball, air hockey, and more. There is free popcorn, and drink and token discounts rotate daily. Food is not served, but food trucks appear regularly. A private room is available for events.

As someone who doesn’t drink frequently and is disdainful of loud spaces, Boxcar does not seem like a place I should enjoy visiting, yet I definitely do. A fun concept, a great selection, and affordability all make Greensboro’s first barcade a hit.

First, a caveat: Boxcar can get very crowded (and loud) during peak hours. However, if you are open to a daytime visit (Sunday afternoons seem to be best) in lieu of Friday or Saturday nights, this becomes far less of a concern. There are a few other minor quibbles (you may find yourself elbow-to-elbow with gamers at adjacent cabinets, and you never know which cabinet will be out of order on a given day), but they are (pun intended) relatively small change.

That said, the bar comes well-provisioned with everything from IPAs to ales to ciders to pilsners as well as a few creatively named cocktails. There is a good balance of local/regional offerings (Preyer, Foothills) and nationally recognized names. Prices vary, but discounts (i.e. $1 mimosas on Sundays, two free tokens for every drink purchased during happy hour) are a regular occurrence.

The game selection makes the leap from respectable to downright impressive. Boxcar offers everything from old-school platformers to 80s beat-em-ups to fighters to rail shooters to driving games. If every you had fond memories of frequenting an arcade in your youth, you can relive that experience (and possibly find the same games) here. Most arcade games are a mere one 25-cent token apiece. Pinball, on the other hand, runs a substantially higher four tokens a play.

Infinitely more fun than your typical bar, Boxcar is a great way for Grensboroians to kill time without breaking the bank.

8.75/10

Saratoga Grill

Located at 108 South Churton Street in downtown Hillsborough, Saratoga Grill specializes in seafood but also offers sandwiches and salads. The restaurant is open for lunch Monday through Saturday and for dinner Wednesday through Saturday. There are discounted wines on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and a $10.25 early dinner menu is offered from 5-6:30 p.m. Beer and wine are available.

Dining at the Saratoga Grill is both literally and metaphorically an up-and-down experience. It is located above a shop and accessible via a narrow stairway. Upon reaching the top, you’ll find yourself in a tastefully decorated loft area-turned-dining room. The wall art and lights make for a homey, welcoming feeling. However, in lieu of a hostess stand, you are asked to wait by a small table against the far wall, which puts you awkwardly in the path of servers moving to and fro. Tables are also positioned somewhat close together though not uncomfortably so.

Once seated, you’ll encounter a menu full of classics: clam chowder, French onion soup, a Reuben, a burger, etc. The selection of fish and seafood (including a honey almond salmon and a few scallop dishes) is commendable though, and vegetarians can find solace in a portobello sandwich and a few salad offerings.

For my first visit, I went with a crab salad half sandwich with a cup of French onion soup and a mixed greens salad. The food was competently prepared but unremarkable. The sandwich, as expected, was faux crab, and neither it nor the soup or salad were elevated in any way. However, my wife reported that the hot pastrami sandwich that I brought her was quite tasty.

The pedestrian food here is partially offset by very affordable prices. Whole sandwiches with salads run $8 and under, and for that price, you can substitute a half sandwich and soup while keeping the salad. Downtown Hillsborough is not known for frugality, so this was a welcome surprise.

Saratoga Grill seems to do a fairly brisk lunch business, and, as such, the kitchen moves at a pace that reflects the volume. Servers are friendly and attentive though, and you won’t go without water whilst waiting for that food.

Overall, Saratoga Grill is hard to pin down. The pricing and availability of seafood dishes are certainly draws, but the so-so food and quirky layout/location are causes for hesitation.

7.25/10

Ice Scraperz Rolled Ice Cream

Located at 1941 New Garden Road, Ice Scraperz Rolled Ice Cream specializes in homemade ice cream but also offers coffee drinks and boba tea. Features rotate monthly, and both dairy-free options and child-sized portions are available.

Rolled (or stir-fried) ice cream involves pouring milk and ingredients onto a cold grill and chopping, mixing, and scraping until rolls of ice cream are formed. Coldstone Creamery uses a similar process for mix-ins, but Ice Scraperz, a new family-owned start-up, is the only establishment in Greensboro that uses the process from the beginning. There’s a certain amount of novelty in that, and it’s interesting to see your order made right in front of you.

Beyond that, Ice Scraperz offers plenty of options, from the tried and true (Vanilla Bean or Chocolate Malt) to the more eccentric (cotton candy Pop Rocks or lemon zest and lavender) to the outright insane (the Snowdrift, which requires a basketball team to devour). All of these permutations come with up to three additional toppings, and all can be made with coconut milk. The pricing (save for the Snowdrift) is a flat $5.50, not cheap, but not unreasonable given what is offered.

For our first visit, my wife and I split a Like You a Latte (coffee, white chocolate, and Heath bar crunch) with mochi and peanut butter cups added in. Texturally, it lacked some of the expected creaminess, which may be an inevitable consequence of the preparation method. Beyond that, the flavors melded well.

Though their chosen business name calls to mind frost-covered windshields, the owners of Ice Scraperz are friendly folks who have provided plenty of options for those seeking a cool treat on a hot day. It’s not the best ice cream in the area, but it’s a fun and welcome change of pace.

8/10

Wonder Woman

After receiving a decades-old photograph of herself from Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) recalls her past. Raised as an Amazonian princess on the remote island of Themyscira, she is trained as a warrior by her aunt Antiope (Robin Wright) and taught to be on guard against the return of Ares, god of war and corruptor of men. When a plane crashes into the water, Diana saves the pilot, American soldier Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), who informs her of the ongoing War to End All Wars (World War I). Against the wishes of her mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), Diana joins Trevor on a mission to London to deliver stolen notes on a new German weapon that could change the tide of the war. Despite a looming armistice and the loss of the notes, German Gen. Ludendorff (Danny Houston) and his top chemist Doctor Maru (Elena Anaya) are determined to complete the weapon and ensure a German victory at all costs.

Given both the disappointment of prior DCEU films and the dearth of female superheroes, Wonder Woman risked overhyping had it shown a modicum of competence. Thankfully, Patty Jenkins’s take on this classic heroine’s origin tale is quite a bit more competent than that, and its success is more than relative.

Like other DCEU films, Wonder Woman is highly stylized and visually engaging with well-choreographed fight scenes. Unfortunately, this film also shares its universe’s vices: an indulgence in gimmickry (in this case, overuse of slow motion) and an overblown fiery final battle. Aesthetically, however, Wonder Woman at least manages to brighten up the palate. Whereas Dawn of Justice offered a monotonously grim cityscape, Wonder Woman at least gives the beauty of Themyscira and the sorrow of war-torn Belgium as visual counterpoints to dreary, bustling London.

Beyond that, Wonder Woman benefits from much better treatment of pacing and plot. The movie doesn’t feel like a slog, and Jenkins’s direction and Allan Heinberg’s script tell a tale that doesn’t inspire lots of confused head-scratching. That isn’t to say that Wonder Woman is without thematic depth: whether or not humanity is worth fighting for despite its cruelty and destructiveness is an idea that the film engages head-on.

For better or worse, the film also makes significant changes to Greek mythology, world history, and the title character herself. For those whose Wonder Woman reference points are Lynda Carter and an invisible plane, Gadot’s take will come as a shock. However, this is hardly a bad thing. Gadot preserves Diana’s bravery and formidability while also adding a facility with languages, a frustration with the status quo, and a naivete that turns to cynicism by the time of the frame story. This makes for complex, well-developed characterization. Whether swinging her lasso or declaring her ideals, Gadot does an excellent job.

Given the wartime setting and the presence of a brave American soldier named Steve played by an actor named Chris, Wonder Woman invites comparisons to Captain America: The First Avenger. The comparisons aren’t baseless. Just as Cap had the Howling Commandos, Diana and Steve recruit a band of mercenaries including a master of disguise (Said Taghmaoui), a sharpshooter (Ewen Bremmer), and a black market trader (Eugene Brave Rock). But as with the title role, there are wrinkles in these characterizations that add complexity. Trevor, though certainly competent, is given a healthy dose of vulnerability while Bremmer, once again the hapless drunk, lends shell-shocked pathos to his role. Also of note: the Danish Nielsen and the American Wright convincingly match their accents to Gadot’s, and Lucy Wright provides effective comic relief as Trevor’s chipper British secretary.

In contrast, the villains are decidedly simpler and less interesting. Ludendorff, an exaggerated caricature of the real WWI commander, comes across as a poor man’s Red Skull. Maru, though thankfully no longer an offensive “Yellow Peril” stereotype (the character was originally Japanese), gets little development beyond an enthusiasm for concocting deadly gasses and scarred face. At least when Ares finally reveals himself, he is given a more compelling motive and some manipulative charm, but even then, his dialogue degrades into hammy shouting (“I will destroy you!”) before all is said and done.

It would be too much of a stretch to place Wonder Woman in Avengers/The Dark Knight territory at the apex of superhero cinema, but with its charismatic characterization, thrilling action, and ability to both inspire and entertain, it is both the DCEU’s shining star and its biggest reason to believe that future outings (i.e. Justice League) may outpace past disappointments.

8.25/10