July 5, 2005
Batman and Fire
We went out on a classic date to Shaker Square on Saturday, dinner (at Fire) and a movie (Batman Begins).
I hate to say it, since I am a Tim Burton fan, but that was by far the best Batman movie of all of them. Very dark, not so much supernatural as much as it touched on the vigilante nature of the character (and super heroes in general) and the magic of technology (I loved the backstory of the belt and the batmobile particularly). I went into the movie wary, becaue I love Christopher Nolan's other movies, particularly Memento, and I was worried this would be just a sell-out money-making Hollywood film. But the director's mark was definitely there in the core theme of the tormented, grief driven protagonist. Really really good - I recommend it even to people who sually hate super hero movies.
After the movie, we had dinner at Fire, a place I'd been wanting to go for a while, in large part because they are not an Indian restaurant and they have a tandoori oven. Excellent food in a comfortable, relaxed neighborhood-y environment. I had wheat claybread with roasted eggplant, tomato and mozzarella and tandoor roasted vegetables, artichoke puree and white beans. Patrick had fire-roasted banana peppers, sausage and tomato and halibut with sweet corn risotto and jicama salad.
I worried about the eggplant in both, since I am picky when it comes to eggplant. It had the most perfect melty texture and smoky flavor. The roasted vegetables also had a generous amount of fennel, proving to me that I can like anything if it is prepared well enough.
For dessert we shared brownie sundae with hazelnuts and hot fudge. Kind of a dressed up highbrow version of the brownie monster at Tommy's, it was super-rich with delicious hot fudge sauce topped with a combination of vanilla bean ice cream and homemade whipped cream. I think about 1/3 of it was all I could manage, but I wished I could eat more! |
I hate to say it, since I am a Tim Burton fan, but that was by far the best Batman movie of all of them. Very dark, not so much supernatural as much as it touched on the vigilante nature of the character (and super heroes in general) and the magic of technology (I loved the backstory of the belt and the batmobile particularly). I went into the movie wary, becaue I love Christopher Nolan's other movies, particularly Memento, and I was worried this would be just a sell-out money-making Hollywood film. But the director's mark was definitely there in the core theme of the tormented, grief driven protagonist. Really really good - I recommend it even to people who sually hate super hero movies.
After the movie, we had dinner at Fire, a place I'd been wanting to go for a while, in large part because they are not an Indian restaurant and they have a tandoori oven. Excellent food in a comfortable, relaxed neighborhood-y environment. I had wheat claybread with roasted eggplant, tomato and mozzarella and tandoor roasted vegetables, artichoke puree and white beans. Patrick had fire-roasted banana peppers, sausage and tomato and halibut with sweet corn risotto and jicama salad.
I worried about the eggplant in both, since I am picky when it comes to eggplant. It had the most perfect melty texture and smoky flavor. The roasted vegetables also had a generous amount of fennel, proving to me that I can like anything if it is prepared well enough.
For dessert we shared brownie sundae with hazelnuts and hot fudge. Kind of a dressed up highbrow version of the brownie monster at Tommy's, it was super-rich with delicious hot fudge sauce topped with a combination of vanilla bean ice cream and homemade whipped cream. I think about 1/3 of it was all I could manage, but I wished I could eat more! |