Again, this is a Yelp review brought over here for archival purposes, especially the description of the Midnight Manhattan (links added). Originally written in 2021.
We’ve been coming to Airways since they had only their space in the more industrial section of Kent. I think we’ve been coming to The Bistro since it opened.
They’ve always been a friendly, accommodating place. They have their own beers, which tend to the IPA side of the scale, but they always have “guest” beers as well, usually with a porter or a stout for reprobates like myself. Lately they’ve been doing mixed drinks as well, and I very much like their Midnight Manhattan — “Blue Spirits rye whisky, Sidetrack Distillery nocino walnut liqueur, Scrappy’s orange bitters, rouge vermouth $10″ (don’t be scared off — the walnut note is very faint, and mixes with the rest of the drink just fine).
Food? Their kitchen started small, only able to do sandwiches and flatbreads. As they’ve gotten more space, they’ve fleshed out the menu in interesting ways — a charcuterie plate; mac & cheese; fish & chips; a “Bavarian breakfast plate” on the weekends.
In the age of COVID, they’ve always been scrupulous, much helped by the patio area they’ve had to start with (and hops growing on the fences). The menus are touchless, by giving you a QR code that sends you to their web site.
Not only have they been the one restaurant we’ve tended to eat at in person, when we have friends from the city of Seattle itself come by, we generally take them here.
I give out my stars on how far out of the way I think you should go. Five means nationally; four is within the region; three is within a city; two means down the street; and one star means you’re in front of a place’s door and can’t move.
By definition, if we’re inviting friends from elsewhere in the region to drop by, Airways Brewing Bistro is a solid regional four stars.
This review was written in 2014, when Vignole was still open. They closed soon after, unfortunately. But part of the point of this website is to archive my writing, and I like this one. Here we go:
Where do I start with this place I love so much?
Let’s do the attention grabbing thing first: In January, I was on a trip to New York. Being interested in food, I had lunch with my wife at Babbo, just to see how well Mario Batali really can cook. I started with an antipasti, of course — Calamari “alla Piastra”. And as I had a taste, I knew it was done well: fresh calamari; light, citrus notes…
…and I thought, “I wish this was more like Sandro’s Totani e Fagioli…”
Which was when I had to re-appraise Café Vignole, and its wonderful owner-chef, Sandro. I am not kidding around when I say that Sandro and his wife Nancy make food that may be favorably compared to a Michelin one-star restaurant, at least on some dishes.
It isn’t just the Totani e Fagioli, which is calamari and beans in a spicy and peppery tomato broth. It’s also his Rigatoni Al Ragu. My wife had the Pappardelle Bolognese at Babbo, and I can say from tasting experience that Mario and Sandro are hitting similar earthy, robust flavor notes in their meat sauces. Others have mentioned the baby back ribs — I avoided them for a while, because I associate ribs with sweet sauces. I tried them last night, though, and Nancy’s ribs instead use a wine-reduction rosemary and olive sauce, with roasted potatoes, and broccoli with garlic. I’m kicking myself for having waited so long.
There are dishes Batali does better than Sandro. (Lamb Belly. A magnificent seared lamb concentrate.) But what I’m saying is, within Sandro’s aspirations, they’re definitely comparable.
The setting for Café Vignole is a small, neighborhood spot just a few doors up 57th Ave S from Rainier Ave. In a 2012 review in Seattle Met, their writer Kathryn Robinson said, “With family in both the front and the back of the house, it’s the sort of spot that barely knows it’s a restaurant.” I love that phrase, “barely knows…”, and think it sums up Vignole and its comfortable, convivial family feel perfectly.
Which brings up the issue of pace. Our meal last night was over an hour and a half. That’s because this really does feel like a slice of Sandro’s native Lucca, and things don’t move at the rush,rush,rush of American life. This is a place to savor: Savor the food, savor the surroundings, savor your family, friends, and lovers who are with you.
I understand there are people who find the style of, say, Olive Garden comforting. This is not that place, though. This is a place to get as close to Italy as you can without buying a plane ticket.
Based on over 10 meals, the price has averaged $48 per person/per meal. But that’s counting everything — appetizer, entree, dessert, wine, tax, tip. The pastas are $15 each, and the meat entrees are in the low to mid $20’s. A single glass of wine and a bowl of the Totani would make a great light dinner for just about $20.
I give my stars on the basis of how far one should travel to try a place: Nationally, from elsewhere in a region, within your city, down the block, and run away.
Café Vignole, in my opinion, is a solid five stars. If you’re reading this in Chicago, or Atlanta, you should come on up and try it. Next time Mario comes from New York to visit his parents in Seattle at Salumi, he should make a side trip, and talk shop.
And if you’re already in Seattle, and it’s dinnertime between Tuesday and Saturday… It’s time to drive to 57th and Rainier for some pasta, carne, and vino.
“It is often very illuminating, therefore, to ask yourself how you got at the facts on which you base your opinion. Who actually saw, heard, felt, counted, named the thing, about which you have an opinion? Was it the man who told you, or the man who told him, or someone still further removed? And how much was he permitted to see?”
“When he informs you that France thinks this and that, what part of France did he watch? How was he able to watch it? Where was he when he watched it? What Frenchmen was he permitted to talk to, what newspapers did he read, and where did they learn what they say?”
Public Opinion, chapter 2 Walter Lippmann
——
One may obviously substitute Ukraine, Russia, Gaza, and Israel here.
I remembered Roger Ebert saying this about The Age of Innocence. I was right about the topic; wrong about where. It’s in his review of The Remains of the Day.
“I got some letters from readers who complained (Innocence) was boring, that “nothing happens in it.” To which I was tempted to reply: If you had understood what happened in it, it would not have been boring.”
The Bedford Quarry House, by architect Steven Harris:
(If that’s blurry, it’s probably because it’s a screen capture.)
Overall — and I know this is very much a science fiction reader’s observation — the house reminds me of the one in City, by Clifford Simak. On the edge of a quarry that’s been allowed to start filling with water, benevolent noise provided by a waterfall.
Here’s a video with an interview featuring Mr. Harris
Long before the current fraud trial in New York state, Donald Trump was known to play shenanigans with his net worth. Notably, he said in a legal deposition his net worth changes depending on how he feels. Call me old fashioned, but I believe your net worth varies on your liquid assets.
Anyway. I’m posting this so I can easily find it, in case it disappears elsewhere.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Below are excerpts from Donald Trump’s deposition conducted on Dec. 19-20, 2007, in his lawsuit against author Timothy O’Brien and Warner Books, then owned by Time Warner, CNN’s parent company.
Andrew Ceresney served as the attorney for the defense.
On the damage the book did:
Ceresney: Mr. Trump, you also claim that the book damaged your reputation, correct?
Ceresney: And that’s because you are perceived publicly, you believe, as a billionaire, correct?
Trump: That’s correct.
Ceresney: And the book —
Trump: I am a billionaire. I’m not perceived. I mean, I am a billionaire. Of course, if you read Tim O’Brien’s writings and what was then transposed into the The New York Times, you would certainly not think that. But I am a billionaire, many times over, on a conservative basis.
Ceresney: And you believe that because the book, at least according to you, suggested that you were not a billionaire that damaged your reputation, correct?
Trump: Yes.
Ceresney: And you think that that has hurt you in your business dealings? Is that what you’ve said?
Trump: Well, I’ve lost deals. I’ve lost specific deals because of it.
On calculating his own net worth:
Ceresney: Mr. Trump, have you always been completely truthful in your public statements about your net worth of properties?
Trump: I try.
Ceresney: Have you ever not been truthful?
Trump: My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.
Ceresney: Let me just understand that a little. You said your net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings?
Trump: Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day…
Ceresney: When you publicly state a net worth number, what do you base that number on?
Trump: I would say it’s my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked. And as I say, it varies.
On having a thin skin:
Trump: I’m very thick-skinned if they tell the truth. In other words, I’ve had many bad articles over the years, and if they’re accurately bad — I mean, some things are bad, some things are good — I can really handle it well … Where I do become thin-skinned is when somebody writes bad things that are untrue.
On his valuations of his properties:
Ceresney: Have you ever done an analysis to determine whether the amount that you have contributed in cash to these golf courses is more or less than the amount that you have made from these golf courses?
Trump: It will be. They will all be very good investments in the future. This is … this is a business that you start off slow, and then you get more and more members, and all of a sudden it becomes extremely profitable.
Ceresney: Mr. Trump, I asked you have you ever done an analysis?
Trump: No, I have never done an analysis.
Ceresney: Have you ever done a projection as to how much you anticipate you will profit on these courses over time in light of the contributions that you’re making in cash?
Trump: Yes, I’ve done mental projections.
Ceresney: Mental projections?
Trump: Yes.
Ceresney: These are projections that you’ve done in your head?
(First off: I’m going to be making some big claims here. I don’t have documentation. These are just the ramblings of a bedridden 60-year-old man. Perhaps if I had grad students to send out in search of footnotes things would be different. But I don’t. Everyone clear? OK. Play ball!)
I’ve been thinking a lot lately of the relationship between music, language, and memory.
These things are all intertwined. Consider Socrates’ objections to books.
“The story goes that Thamus said much to Theuth, both for and against each art, which it would take too long to repeat. But when they came to writing, Theuth said: “O King, here is something that, once learned, will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memory; I have discovered a potion for memory and for wisdom.” Thamus, however, replied: “O most expert Theuth, one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they can benefit or harm those who will use them. And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.” (Phaedrus, Pp. 551-552 in Compete Works, edited by J. M. Cooper. Indianapolis IN: Hackett.)
Socrates (or Plato) is on to something here. To use contemporary phrasing, writing is a way to outsource memory. And this applies to all media. Illich talked about how he was of the generation that moved from in-person, unamplified speaking and musical performance, to not only amplification, but recording. Someone could have the voice of Churchill, or Caruso, in their library, in addition to their books.
Our time has taken this yet further. I am in my bed after a stroke. My room, while comfortable enough, has very few things of mine. But through my iPad tablet, I have access to my Kindle library (and others), my Spotify music (and others), my Paramount+ videos (and others).
Which is how this all started. Paramount+ has (or had) a series on the making of the movie The Godfather I enjoy a great deal, The Offer. Being recent, and their own production, I assumed it would be available for years. I outsourced my memory Paramount.
Then, one day, Paramount took it away. I don’t know when. I just know I went to Paramount+ and The Offer wasn’t there anymore. In the implicit contract between Paramount and myself to be my memory, Paramount proved to be an unreliable partner. So I have canceled my subscription.
I now have my own copy of The Offer, technically pirated. Which goes to show how piracy is an archival project. But it reminded me of why I buy so many of my books, at great cost, and don’t use the library as often as I might. When I was a boy in California I used libraries a great deal. Then along came Howard Jarvis and Proposition 13. Libraries largely lost their funding. I could no longer trust libraries to have the books I wanted. So I hung out at used bookstores the way others would lurk at pool halls. (To use Joseph Epstein’s image.) My bookshelves began a lifetime of groaning.
But roll back to Socrates, above. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were epic poems. How did Homer remember them, at such length? Or the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Vedas, the Icelandic sagas, or any other oral work of great length?
Why, they were sung, of course.
What were Homer’s melodies? I really wish I knew. But here is someone’s version of Gilgamesh.
Here is the Hurrian Hymn #6, the oldest song where we have both the lyrics and what we believe are the original notes:
Pound talks about how great poetry should not stray too far from the dance. But this, too, implies melody.
Music. Memory. How many of us have songs we remember and recognize as soon as the first chord plays? What else is Name That Tune but a memory game? How many songs do we remember from the crib?
This came up through an internet meme (of all things):
The point, that women need to know (or at least, greatly want to know) when the blood will come is a strong reason for inventing a calendar. So is the snow. Or the baby. Or the migratory birds, or animals.
Does it make sense such a calendar would be sung?
How did h. sap. come up with music in the first place? What music touches us most deeply?
A woman needing to calm a baby, and so a lullaby.
A man seeing his partner die in childbirth, and so a dirge.
A group wanting to express joy, and so the dance.
Music evokes memory. Language evokes memory. Writing evokes memory. Recording evokes memory.
It’s a long march from the general (birth/death) to the specific (your favorite singer, doing your favorite song, during your favorite performance).
I currently believe language evolved to fill in that specificity. To increase the bandwidth. How do you keep that baby alive? Where do we go to follow the beasts and sun? Which mushrooms do we avoid?
Maybe this is all rehashed Jean Auel. I’ve never read her, so cannot say.
But I still think it’s all been to remember more and more, in greater detail, across generations.
“If you have old apple trees in Washington, Idaho, or Oregon, we want your apples! We look for apple trees planted prior to 1920 and the older the better. If you mail us your apples we will try to identify what varieties you send us. Send an email to rebeccajmcgee@icloud.com or dbens23@gmail.com and we can send you instructions on picking and mailing the apples. Thank you!”
