San Jose–based street wear company Halloway has appropriated a familiar image for its new T-shirt. Featuring a bushel of grain ringed by the words “City of San Jose, California,” these icons are scattered throughout the city—on manhole covers.
Attractions News - page 64
Despite tackling the AIDS issue, and being populated by responsibility-free boho types who might be seriously irritating to meet in real life, City Light’s production of Rent is not overly self-important or preachy. On the contrary, it’s vibrant, absorbing and entertaining from start to finish. And despite the heaviness of its most dramatic moments, it’s also quite funny, satirizing its dreamy, self-absorbed artists at the same time it celebrates them.
Chef Glenn “Gator” Thompson of Bayonne restaurant in downtown San Jose is on a mission to show the world that it’s possible to make healthy Southern food without sacrificing flavor. He hopes his cooking will serve as an example to his overweight brethren in the South that one of the country’s most distinctive regional cuisine need not be hazardous to your health. “This is a restaurant to get the word out and give back.”
Sante Grill aims to “revolutionize” fast food with its lighter, nonfried, less calorically dense menu. The restaurant isn’t out to save the world through its food, but it’s just trying to make fast food doesn’t taste like fast food. And on that score that restaurant does pretty well.
With its comic-book set and toy-piano background music, Auctioning the Ainsleys, the new production at TheatreWorks, creates a mood of absurdist unreality before the first words come out of the first character’s mouth. The fast-paced comic drama by Laura Schellhardt (directed by Meredith McDonough) opens with second-generation auctioneer Avery Ainsley (Heidi Kettenring) selling the last possessions of her domineering mentor father—a Stetson hat, a man’s coat and a pair of size-10 shoes.
One of the best places to experience birria is east San Jose’s aptly named La Birrieria, even harder to pronounce than the restaurant’s namesake dish. La Birrieria is 100 percent Mexican. The tidy, family-run restaurant is located next to a liquor store off South White Road and can be easy to miss. Inside, the wood-paneled walls, handwritten signs and family photos give the place a welcoming, friendly appeal. But most appealing of all is the birria.
The 1930s had their glitzy side, which Foothill Music Theatre has recaptured with its lavish production of Cole Porter’s 1934 musical Anything Goes. Complete with a 45-member cast and a live band, and in the capable hands of award-winning director Jay Manley, the show displays that era’s more glamorous aspects:
PakistaniI food is not as common as Indian food in the Bay Area, but here’s a tip on how to spot the few restaurants out there: Look for the letter “N.” For some reason, Pakistani restaurateurs have settled on a naming convention that leans heavily on the 14th letter in the alphabet. There’s the excellent Kabob N Curry’s in Santa Clara. Milpitas has Naan N Masala. Up in Berkeley, one can find the cheap and delicious Naan N Curry. My new favorite is another Milpitas “N” restaurant: Tandoori N Curry.
Belle Yang’s ‘Forget Sorrow’ (W.W. Norton; $23.95) exemplifies the graphic novel’s strengths as a strategy for telling family history. The local author and illustrator, who once studied at UC–Santa Cruz, has published books for both adults and children; this is her first graphic novel.
The spicy soup of Spam, hot dogs, American cheese, cheap ramen noodles and kimchi is known as Johnson Tang and, more literally, ‘army base stew.’ In spite of Santa Clara’s vibrant Korean restaurant scene, the dish is not widely available here, but I found a hulking bowl of the stuff ($12.99) at Jang Su Jang.
