Chus On Chow

Michael Angelo’s recently opened on James St. in Eastwood between Sacred Melody Plaza and Wegman’s.  This location has been the site of many restaurants, almost qualifying as a restaurant graveyard.  I did my share of whining when the Melt Shop closed, whose service and simple fare I enjoyed and rooted for.  But by now it’s almost morbidly fascinating to see every brave soul who tries their luck in this karma-challenged spot.  I know none of you could have guessed it, but they offer Italian fare.

We made our way over to Michael Angelo’s on a very cold night recently.  As some already know, the owner was previously a very longstanding chef at Antonio’s, and some favorite recipes from that former hotspot came along with him.  I went for the Riggies to cut the winter chill.  This Utica-styled pasta favorite was appropriately spicy, the sauce was good, and the portion was quite massive.  Lonnie opted for the fish sandwich, and we were both impressed with the flavor and how refined and delicate the breaded coating was.  Our server was very pleasant and friendly.

It’s a small, modest place, not comparable to somewhere like Antonio’s, a fairly fancy restaurant.  The new decor is tasteful, though.  It’s almost surreal to have seen such a long sequence of decor changes in that building.  We’ll see how they make out – they don’t appear to be doing a lot of advertising, so I’m guessing that their success will depend on whether they can attract former fans of Antonio’s who might enjoy a somewhat more modest meal price.

Just recently I was relaxing and watching the boob tube, when I saw the new Domino’s Pizza ad.  At first I wasn’t sure what was going on.  As I recall, a fellow standing in a professional kitchen (possibly the CEO) was saying that customers had told the Domino’s management that their pizza wasn’t good.  The language he quoted was pretty blunt.  Wow.  He went on to say that they had taken this to heart and changed their recipes (and possibly the ingredients?).  Finally, he asked the viewer to please come in and try the new pizza.  It was hard to believe that this was an ad, with simple candor.  What a concept – no slick sales pitch, and even more amazing, an admission of error by a corporate boss.  Unbelievable!  And refreshing.  Finally somebody who gets it.  Now that I think about it, I wonder if it’s cheaper to make this type of ad than some dazzling, slick, completely phony production.

In the Internet age, with everyone blogging and commenting everywhere, and with news organizations publishing online countless times per day, it’s very hard for a huge business to hide.  If your stuff sucks, people will find out very quickly, whether or not you admit it.  As such, corporate heads can no longer count on preventing negative press from being seen, which they were able to do when distribution of news and information was very tightly controlled.  But it’s still the rare CEO who seems to grasp this.  I suppose that if upper management has been there a long time, and no longer is in touch with rapid changes that make up our modern reality, then you’ll still see the tired, outmoded ad techniques trickling down from their remote ivory tower.  Fortunately, this seems to be changing.

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Lonnie and I were very disappointed to find that the Melt Shop suddenly closed. Jennifer was extremely friendly, we enjoyed the food, and best of all, we could walk there. Even the decor was original and fun. It wasn’t entirely clear to us why they closed. I think it may have had something to do with the rent being increased, and if that’s true, I suspect that their profit margin may have been too tight to afford it.

Already, another sandwich shop has moved into that spot.  (At least I think that’s what it is – it has looked mostly empty each time I’ve gone by)  That location is like a revolving door, I’m afraid – many small restaurants right in a row. You have to wonder why they have the notion that they will succeed where so many others have failed, something I’ve written about elsewhere. For instance, no matter how many pizza joints there are all over, and how many have failed, we’ll always see more – it’s a nearly scientific fact.  Apart from most people’s unwillingness to do any market research at all, I imagine that having kitchen equipment there is the deciding factor. Maybe the landlord has no choice but to try to find other aspiring sandwich shop owners – other businesses may find the location to be a bad fit.

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Recently we were on vacation in the Thousand Islands region in northern New York state.  The weather was great, and our base was in Clayton, NY.  One sunny day we went on a jaunt to look at antiques and neighboring towns.  As we drove along, the car seemed to be buffeted by the wind, which was high that day.  But as drove further, it seemed to get worse, and much as we hated to admit it, the car started to hesitate, indicating that the wind wasn’t the problem at all.

We were between towns, not at all in the middle of somewhere, and we began to make agitated calls to information to see if there were any repair shops anywhere near us.  We managed to get a couple numbers from the operator.  Of course, when dialing information, accuracy suffers somewhat, and though we did scare up some actual people that answered, a look at our map revealed that they weren’t particularly close to us at all.

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Sometime ago alert reader Adrienne asked why our restaurant listings, while neatly categorized and showing contact information, didn’t seem to have much content.

I’ve finally gone through the restaurant listings and added some thoughts on almost all of the ones that were similarly spare.  They are fairly brief, and not fully fleshed-out reviews by any means, but I tried to make them so that they would give some meaningful impressions of each place, enough to encourage you to visit, and at least provide a basis for discussion.

See you at the restaurant!  Your hungry buddy, Dave