There have been tons of good times as of late. Not just the events of birthday week, which I will getting around to posting pictures of some day, there have been other random fun things.
Last night we went down to the Belmont to pick up some art pieces left over from the benefit. Ultimately, the pieces ended up being locked up somewhere, so we didn't get them, but we did drink a few (dozen) $.75 PBR drafts, and we got to eat dinner at Polish Village.
Polish Village is a very old-school type of place. It's a tiny little basement restaurant in Hamtramck and it's very cheap.
We got in there, and waited a few minutes for a table. The place is so tiny, that if the bar is full and you need to wait for a table, your only option is to mill about in the center of the dining room. Stuff like this just adds to the charm.
That, and the fact that they don't take debit cards. We had this exchange with the waitress:
Me: Do you take cards?
Waitress: No, cash only.
Me (toward TFN): Do you have any cash? I only have $20.
Waitress: That's probably enough. It's cheap here.
Me: Yes, but I want to have drinks, and I want to be able to tip you.
Waitress: We also take checks.
Who still takes checks? It just so happened that we had our checkbook, and were thus able to order whatever we wanted without looking at prices. We drank giant mugs of beer, and ate massive amounts of Polish home cooking, including cucumber salad, sausage, pierogi, saurkraut, mashed potatoes, stuffed cabbage and potato pancakes. The bill, before tip, was $20.72.
That's why I love the place.
Today at lunch, I wandered over to John K. King Books. That's another amazing place, and it's just a block from my office. The largest used bookstore in Michigan, the building is four stories, piled floor to ceiling with used books. One could spend many lunch hours there and not see it all. And that's just the stuff they have on the floor. Rumors of what's contained in their off-limits areas are also amazing, as this list indicates.
The store's occult books section conjurs up images of the library at Hogwart's, too.
Two little blurbs about two places that deserve much more notice, but that's all I'm feeling right now.
4 comments:
I haven't been to John King since ... 1987? God, I'm suddenly so depressed. PBR me, and pass the potato pancakes!!!
Those are 2 of the best kept secrets in Hamtramck/Detroit. I'm sure I'll bump into you at the some old haunts.
http://hamtramckstar.com/index.php/2005/12/30/john_k_king_books
You'll have to try Under the Eagle sometime, no booze but the food rivals any polish place in Hamtrmck.
Oh man, we have a place in Springfield that we’ve been going to far longer than I care to cop to.
It’s a dive, really, but they serve the most kick axe enchilada style burritos on the planet. The place is right down the street from where I went to college, and like the restaurant you mentioned, it’s way cheap, whoops, inexpensive.
My daughter laughs about it every time we go there, she says the wait staff, must be female and going through menopause, smoke at least two packs of ciggys a day, and therefore have a raspy voice and a smokers hack, and wear blue eye shadow.
Whatever, best Mexican food I’ve ever had.
Too bad you missed the artwork, and that used book store sends me into a jones for sure.
Thinking of coming up to do the half marathon in October.
You think you'll be around to take us out?
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