As a fan of foreign food, I always am delighted to come across a new restaurant. I recently had the pleasure of discovering one called Kabob.
The experience was a bit awkward at first. We walked into a large room that was mostly empty, with a small buffet along the back wall. After standing there for a minute or two, one of the patrons flagged us over and told us to just grab a plate and help ourselves, adding that he doesn’t actually work there but just dines there a lot.
While we picked up our plates, a pleasant young lady came out, greeted us and took our drink orders.
The L-shaped buffet consisted of naan, six main entrees and rice lightly dusted with saffron. At the end was a salad/dessert bar.
The main entrees being served my first visit around were the chicken kabob, dal hyderabadi, kubedia kabob, chicken khorma, mixed vegetable khorma and khorma kofta. They continued to rotate dishes throughout the buffet hours.
I quickly filled the bottom of my plate with rice and then piled a little of the chicken kabob, dal hyderabadi, kubedia kabob and chicken khorma on top.
The dal hyderabadi is a yellow lentil that is pureed with tomatoes, cilantro, mint leaves and cumin, then cooked down. I am used to Indian dal, which is not pureed, so the texture was different from what I usually have. But the flavor was perfect.
Next I tried the kubedia kabob, which is ground beef filled with onions and spices. Compared to the other Persian food I have tried, it was cooked correctly and the flavor was nice, but it was a little tough for me, and I did not enjoy the unsuspecting crunch of onions, so I ended up pushing the beef aside...
Finally, there is a place for Amarillo College Moore County Campus students and faculty members to go watch sports and enjoy fantastic food.
Last Sept. 1, Dumas welcomed its first sports bar, 287 Roadhouse, to open inside the city limits.
The atmosphere is awesome, with stainless steel-top tables and huge flat-screen television sets located in just about every corner of the sports bar so no sports fan will miss a single moment of their favorite sport.
To quench your thirst, 287 Roadhouse offers everything from cold beer and cocktails to tea and sodas. The reasonably priced food comes in pretty good-sized portions. You definitely will get your fair share of food.
The menu makes your mouth water as you try to decide what to order. The calf fries appetizer is the best I have ever tasted. The calf fries are the Roadhouse appetizer specialty.
If you’re the kind of person who wants to eat healthy, then the salads are just what you would want...
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s . . . It’s . . . The archangel Michael? Come to save humanity from God’s wrath?
The 2010 fantasy/thriller Legion promised heart-pounding action, frightening ideas and a semi-all-star cast.
After seeing the film, I think a valiant effort was made to achieve all three, but in some form or another the film just couldn’t quite obtain its goal.
Nine souls hanging in the balance is enough to make anybody just a little nervous.
Add an army of the condemned and the Almighty ’s judgment, and one would think the excitement and fear would be too much to contain. Somehow though, it is all lost in translation.
The archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) defies God’s wishes to lead the charge to eradicate mankind and execute a child.
It is never made clear what exactly makes this child “humanity’s last hope,” which turns out to be the first of many holes in the plot.
Even worse still, I couldn’t make a connection to any of the characters despite their seemingly endless dialogue.
Dennis Quaid comes off as quaint at best, which may have been intended but takes away from every scene he is in.
The final straw is the film’s inability to end. Michael’s nemesis, Gabriel (Kevin Durand), simply cannot be defeated by the now-mortal archangel...
Creating an action movie with good cinematography is difficult. Most are too focused on the action and not enough on how the movie looks or feels.
However, French director Pierre Morel does just that.
In From Paris with Love, Morel’s second American film, he manages to take a mundane movie and make it enjoyable to look at.
Starting out as a cinematographer in many films, Morel switched to directing in 2004 with the movie District 13.
Using French film techniques, Morel brings a different feel to what could have been just another action movie.
The shots are short and fast, yet Morel still gives you the complete story without overdoing it.
He also focuses on the soft, yet sharp colors that bring a Parisian feel to the film.
Despite the film’s aesthetically pleasing look, the plot and acting leave much to be desired.
The plot, following an almost generic route, focuses around Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ character, James Reece, who works as an aide to the French ambassador.
However, he also holds a job as a low-level, undercover CIA agent.
Finally getting to work on a senior mission, he is paired with Charlie Wax, played by a bald John Travolta, who is completely opposite from Reece...
I love ethnic food. Thai is a particular favorite of mine.
But the problem I have with the search for my favorite food in Amarillo is that the main Thai restaurants are heavily Americanized in order to appease the tastes of their patrons.
For the past year that I’ve lived in Amarillo, I’ve bemoaned the fact that there aren’t many ethnic restaurants that hold true to the made-from-scratch, scarily bizarre-looking, intricately spiced and seasoned dishes that I have a sentimental spot for.
Then one day, my boyfriend and I walked into Bangkok.
Located on the Boulevard in a non-descript beige building is Little Thailand.
With the telltale Formica tables, cast-off diner chairs and agitated foreign chatter coming from the kitchen, I knew we had struck gold. We didn’t have so much of a server as a petite, impeccably dressed woman with a heavy accent who bustled around our table with absolute authority and charm.
The Thai teas we ordered were homemade and served in generous glasses.
For an appetizer we ordered the sticky jerky: a plate of five Thai-style fried chicken pieces and a basket of sticky rice which you scoop out and roll up the chicken in, along with two phenomenal dipping sauces...
It always seems to happen. Directors see that a movie was a huge success, and they try to recreate that same magic with a sequel, or in the case of Shrek, a four-peat.
However good that first movie is, that sequel or subsequent parts of the series just never quite measure up.
But every once in a while, movie magic is recreated and in the rarest of situations, exceeded.
Troy Duffy has recaptured the illusive success of a sequel in The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.
The movie picks up the lives of the MacManus brothers, Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy MacManus (Norman Reedus), 10 years after they brought the corrupt underworld of Boston to its knees. It begins by showing the MacManus brothers living a quiet life as shepherds in Ireland...
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