Turning Lebanese . . .

When the Lovely Lettuce and I were visiting the Detroit, we ate at Anita’s Kitchen in Ferndale. The restaurant is run by the son and daughter-in-law of one of my RGIS co-workers here in Buffalo.

The Lovely Lettuce and I both like Middle Eastern cuisine and Anita’s Kitchen is one of the better Lebanese restaurants I’ve experienced. Despite having wonderful falafels, the menu  is a bit more adventurous and upscale than many of the Lebanese restaurants I’ve eaten at over the years.  And that is a good thing.

After I got back to Buffalo, I saw my friend at an inventory and he told me that his son mentioned that we ate at his restaurant.   My co-worker asked how I found the restaurant without being given the address.   I replied that Ferndale isn’t that big a place and that it was the only Lebanese restaurant at Woodward and Nine Mile.

Motor City Withdrawal

Well, we got back to Buffalo Tuesday night. The Lovely Lettuce and I really enjoyed our 6 day ‘oliday in the Motor City. Although, if one wants to be technical, our ‘oliday was Southfield, MI since that is where we slept. Perhaps our ‘oliday will inspire me to post about something other than the joys of working for RGIS. Just for the record, I must tell you that I resisted the urge to drive to the RGIS World Headquarters and fart in their general direction.

We loved the Henry Ford (Museum and Greenfield Village), the Detroit Insitute of Arts and Detroit and Toledo Zoos. We visited lots of neighborhoods from my past and found that some of them were for all practical purposes gone.

Dining in the Motor City and Environs was a culinary adventure. The Lovely Lettuce had what she called the “best veggie burger I ever had” at a restaurant called Sweet Loriannes. We both loved the veggie meatloaf there as well. We found out that beets and feta cheese are a tasty combination at a restaurant in Greektown called the Golden Fleece.

There was a lot of stuff to blog about. Hopefully, I’ll get around to it.

Lobsters Gorilla

Once upon a time in another century, I was a in a band called Lobsters Gorilla. We formed at the University of Detroit. The other original members and I all lived at the end of a corridor at the Holden Hall?? dorm. Bobby Lent, guitar and vocals was from the Bronx. John Sase, a talented multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter from Detroit, played drums. I sang, wrote most of the songs, and played bass. In his other bands, John usually played bass.

In the short period that we existed (1978 – 1981) we had a few line up changes but the core was always Bobby, John and me. I never really wanted to be the singer. I wanted to write the songs and have someone else sing them. At one point, Dangerous Diane Spodarek of Dangerous Diane and Detroit Artists Monthly fame was the singer. Kevin Zielinski, the brother of one of my classmates, was our “boy singer” for a while. At another point, we had another drummer (Jimmy??) whose name escapes me with John playing bass and me playing assistant guitar.

We played a lot at the Freezer Theatre in the Cass Corridor. For some reason, the folks at Plum Street Music have two Lobsters Gorilla songs available for download: Blue Light and Rich Suburban Girl.

The Plum Street Music website features the music of many Detroit artists including John Sase..