Daily Loaf

Routes Music is a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of the American people. We’re traveling all across the country, stopping along the way to interview local bands, take footage of live performances and chat with anyone and everyone. Learn more about the documentary here; check out all previous entries here.

It’s 8 p.m. and Phil is driving through a torrential rainstorm in an abandoned part of New Orleans’ West End. He’s running his hand through his hair, bent over the steering wheel, trying to find Magellan Road. The GPS isn’t working and every street seems to lead back to the interstate we just exited. A tiny brown Chihuahua looks lost, too, as it darts across the road and between two houses.

It’s enough rain to make a New Orleans native nervous.

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Routes Music is a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of the American people. We’re traveling all across the country, stopping along the way to interview local bands, take footage of live performances and chat with anyone and everyone. Learn more about the documentary here; check out all previous entries here.

As with anything in life – including music documentaries – the unexpected moments are usually the best. Our time in New Orleans was no different.

On Friday, we came across two girls – Anastasia Euthanasia and Joy Deemster – performing on the street in the French Quarter (in front of a police station no less!). Going by the name Delicious Gloom, the girls played a highly infectious song for us. After days of Los Mega Boyz’ “Selena” looping in our heads, it was welcome relief.

Check ‘em out: Read the rest of this entry »

Right now, I’m sitting in a dark, one-bedroom basement apartment in the uptown section of New Orleans. To my right is Catman , a 28-year-old heavy metal fan who got the nickname two decades ago from some cruel children after his Tourette syndrome caused him to lick his hands repeatably and wipe them on his shirt. (These days, he’s lost the habit but still wears the moniker proudly.) On the table next to him is a small studio: mixers, drum machines, two guitars including a Lyon series Washburn electric, a microphone — all connected to a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop. In a thick British accent, Catman describes his musical tastes, his past bands (from the Nundown to Albino Spiders) and the first album he ever danced to (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). He briefly stands up and hits a button the drum machine filling the room with a techno remix of the old Super NES game, Battletoads.

On my left, two music fans hover over Catman with three video cameras. One of them, Phil Bardi, probes Catman with questions, slowly getting the musician to open up while operating two cameras on a tripod. The other is Terrence Duncan, who pans and tilts and zooms around the room, catching Catman’s musical history on HD. These videographers are with me.

We’re Routes Music – a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of folks like you and me, and folks like him and her, all across a place we like to call America.

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Do not use the word inexpensive. It conveys entirely the wrong sentiment. Inexpensive is a word marketing gurus spout when selling low-end versions of high-end products. It’s a tool the wealthy use to determine socio-economic pecking order, to know when to sneer or raise an insouciant eyebrow, to peg poseurs striving for more than they can afford.

Inexpensive implies reduced quality.

Cheap, on the other hand, is a bargain. Getting something for less than it’s worth. The hallmark of value. And a prime criterion for students in search of dinner.

All three of these restaurants, scattered conveniently across the Bay area near local campuses, proudly serve flavorful, filling and — most importantly — cheap food. Nothing inexpensive about them.

Reviews after the break:

Ricky P’s Po Boys
3.5 stars
6521 4th St. N., St. Petersburg, 727-525-2023 or rickyps.com

Damn, if Ricky P’s Po’ Boys ($5.99-8.99) doesn’t just look the part. The tiny storefront on N. Fourth Street in St. Pete has barely enough parking to accommodate a lunch rush, a counter that’s so close to the front door you’ll likely be lining up outside, and just enough tables to tease you into thinking you’ll be able to eat your sandwich in comfort. It feels exquisitely cheap.

For a po’ boy joint, Ricky P’s has a fairly expansive selection of non-po’ sandwiches and hot dishes, including better than average gumbo based on a seriously expressive roux, beans and rice spiced by a prodigious amount of cayenne-infused andouille sausage, and the best jambalaya I’ve had in the Bay area. Maybe that’s not saying much, considering the lack of Big Easy eateries around town, but this moist, tomatoey rice would likely compete on equal footing with non-cheap options.

Ricky P’s sloppy roast beef is loaded with salty gravy that’ll soak the bun by the time you get your take-out home, like a Chicago beef dip that’s soaked from the inside out. Get it “ferdi”-style — with added ham and melted cheese — because, well, why not? The muffuletta is slathered in a damn fine spicy olive salad, the Cuban is typical and the cochon de lait — pulled pork topped by “cajun” slaw — is a backyard barbecue treat with almost enough juice to compete with the drippy beef sandwich.

Ricky P’s eponymous traditional po’ boys, although tasty, are actually the least exciting items on the menu. Stacked with lettuce and tomato and slathered in dressing, the fried shrimp or oysters are often cooked a little earlier to be ready for the lunch rush. When the seafood is fresh, hot and crunchy, the sandwiches are excellent. After a short rest in a steam tray, however, the sandwiches are merely good. Still cheap, though.

Tun-Du-Ree
3 stars
1506 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, 813-251-2111 or tunduree.com

We originally wrote about Tun-Du-Ree ($3.99-7.99) several years ago, back when the little Indian take-out joint was still housed in a trailer in an empty lot near Interbay. Owner Bhava “Pat” Saravana spent a year looking for a permament spot, eventually finding one to his liking on Kennedy, between SoHo and Downtown. Gone was quaint and rustic in favor of Tun-Du-Ree’s new look: vibrant, well-designed and positively chain-like. The website even has a tab for “locations.” Plural.

The menu expanded as well, but on the whole the changes were more physical than culinary. Tun-Du-Ree’s food is still simple, tasty and cheap.

The restaurant’s heartier entrees — like vindaloo or korma — are stripped-down versions of what you’ll find at your neighborhood sit-down Indian spot, flavorful enough, but without the depth. Fast food.

You’re better off ordering the kinds of dishes that fast food joints do best, like Tun-Du-Ree’s deep-fried samosas, the dumplings covered in a crackling-crisp shell and stuffed with deeply spiced potatoes, or spinach and cheese. Parantha — a flatbread stuffed with lentils and griddled — is flaky and rich, with an immense amount of spicy heat that works wonders with bright mint sauces.

Tun-Du-Ree’s real bargains are the “snack” wraps loaded with seasoned and stewed chick peas, or the restaurant’s trademark roast chicken, stacked with fresh veggies and slathered in more of that mint sauce. Those are the kinds of sandwiches that’ll keep you from driving through the McD drive-through next door.

Jerk Hut
3 stars
207 E. Twiggs St., Tampa, 813-223-4473; 926 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa, 813-977-5777 or jerkhut.com

The Jerk Hut ($5.99-12.99) was always a hidden gem in Tampa’s downtown business district, a dark den of flavorful foods stocked with rickety furniture and colorful characters. Then, they moved their northern location — out by USF — to a big new spot. Suddenly, that Jerk Hut has a mojito bar. Sunday brunch. Regular live music in a festive party-atmosphere.

Thankfully, the food is the same cafeteria-style Jamaican stews and curries that still make the downtown location a non-secretive secret hang-out.

At both spots, jerk is a worthy choice, the Hut’s take on the classic spice rub uncompromisingly potent in both spice and herbaceous punch, conveyed by chicken that manages to be juicy and tender no matter how long it appears to have sat in a steam tray.

Venture away from the chicken and you’ll find luscious oxtail stewed slowly until the bones’ gelatin infuses the tender meat and veggies; curried goat coated in fragrant spices that temper the pungent meat; and stewed veggies that make you understand how Rastafarians can endure being vegetarian.

Although the $15 cover charge almost breaks the “cheap” barrier, the Sunday brunch at the Fowler location is still an incredible deal if you plan on hanging out and eating all that you can eat.

(Want to follow all of CL’s Food, Drink and Restaurant news? Bookmark the food section of the blog, add the CL Food RSS feed to your reader of choice, follow @BrianRies on Twitter, or check out the Food Section page multiple times daily.)

Nola Cafe
2 Stars
301 W. Platt St., Tampa, 813-258-8778 or nolacafe.com
(See all recent restaurant reviews.)

You can see Nola Cafe from the Crosstown Expressway, if you’re looking at the right spot, but finding it while cruising down Platt is tough unless you happen to see the rustic, handpainted signs promising “Po’ Boys!” and “Jambalaya!” The little cafe is hidden in an awkward strip mall facing the pharmacy drive-through of a Walgreens, tucked into the back, the kind of spot you hear about and track down. In the Bay area, New Orleans cuisine is like that — rare, almost secret, with little of the fanfare that sprang up a few years ago after Katrina.

In unfortunate good timing, Nola opened a year before the hurricane devastated owner Louis Robert Jr.’s Louisiana home town. After the storm, the restaurant easily turned into a hub for New Orleans expats and well-wishers who wanted to eat and talk their way through the tragedy. It has the right vibe for that, with a newsstand tucked into a former closet, well-worn furniture and jazz standards playing through the speakers. Robert works his way through the closely arranged tables, talking up his restaurant’s inspiration and letting “le bon temps rouler.” With his help, Nola feels like the Morning Call Coffee Stand that was the restaurant’s New Orleans inspiration.

The food, however, is a much paler homage to New Orleans. Read the rest of this entry »

He was the bespectacled white kid from the suburbs trying to sit in with musical legends in New Orleans. But instead of getting the cold shoulder, drummer Stanton Moore was welcomed on the bandstand by any number of prominent players. And the crowd dug him, too.

Stanton Moore Trio, tonight, 8 p.m., Crowbar, Ybor City. $10.

“To tell you the truth, when I was coming up and they’d let me sit in, the regulars at the bar would be, ‘Listen to the white kid,’” Moore says by cell phone on his way to a recording session in the Crescent City. “They’d be dancing and egging me on. They were real supportive.”

It probably wouldn’t have gone quite so well if young Stanton had sucked. But from an early age, he committed to learning the distinctive, tricky and at times peculiar nuances of the New Orleans drumming style. (See his video demonstrations at the bottom of this post.)

“I had a great guy who taught me the basic rudiments,” Moore says. “But it was a real challenge to go from that to learning from [storied NOLA drummer Johnny Vidacovich] to loosen up. But I was determined. I really worked on how to loosen it up and apply it to my drum set.”

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Sex and desire are ever-present forces in human conflict. However, not until Tennessee Williams‘ A Streetcar Named Desire premiered in 1947 had the physical act of sex been so explicitly depicted on stage as a source of power and dominance. In Streetcar, the New Orleans street, Elysian Fields, is an urban jungle where the laws of nature are the abiding rules of engagement. As in the wild, sex and violence are intimately connected. Intercourse is a product of aggressive competition, dominance, and submission rather than romance. Although Williams repeatedly claimed that this work warned against a world where brutes were allowed to rule, at the play’s end, the dominating and sexually imposing Stanley conquers Blanche, and her illusions of love. Streetcar forces modern audiences to decide if society should not tolerate such carnal behavior, or if there is some logic in following one’s desires down the darker avenues of human experience. Read the rest of this entry »