JASPER NEIGHBORHOOD RESTAURANT AND BAR - TUCSON, AZ

Eating here for lunch with my friend, Molly, was pleasant but not memorable and a little too expensive for the quality of the food. The service, however, was friendly and efficient.

I ate at this restaurant a lot during Tucson #1 but haven't been back since we've returned to Tucson. It looked the same to me. Its a fairly narrow space towards the front and then widens a bit in the back. They have a nice patio area in front.

I ordered an albacore tuna sandwich with sweet potato fries accompanied by a slightly spicy dip. I  was really satisfied with my lunch; the portion of fries was big and the dipping sauce was excellent; the bread was fresh and there was lots of tuna with celery, sprouts and cucumber. It was pretty dry though so i ended up using two sides of mayo. The sweet potato fries were excellent and not greasy.

Molly had a more tortuous route to a satisfactory lunch. She initially ordered a Mojave salad which listed about 9 different vegetables on top of a bed of lettuce with a side of cilantro vinaigrette. However, the big bowl contained 95% lettuce and limp at that. and the few avocado slices i could see had brown spots. She also got a sad and stale looking roll with one of those butter 'cups' that must hold a third of a teaspoon. I've been known to go through a dozen of those to adequately butter a roll or piece of bread.

Molly eventually asked the waitress for a substitute meal because of the inedibility of the salad. This was graciously and promptly done with a vegetarian burrito which was proclaimed good.

I might try this restaurant for breakfast in the future to give them one more try and that's because i liked the atmosphere and the welcoming service.

YOUNG ADULT

This movie is a black comedy, a satire, a comment about single life and making it on your own and feeling fulfilled, about friendships and about loneliness. And all of this is put together with great whip smart dialogue and a brisk running time of about 90 minutes and terrific acting by charlize theron, Patton Oswalt and Patrick Wilson.

Charlize is Mavis, a disorganized and aimless ghost writer of books who drinks her way through encounters with men; her unhappiness is poignantly revealed by brief shots of her pulling out her hair in tiny patches. When she finds out that her high school beau, Buddy, is celebrating the birth of his child she fantasizes about going back to Mercury, the small town she grew up in, (she now lives in Minneapolis) and rescuing Buddy from his rigid and constrained husband and father role so they can pick up where their romance ended.

This sounds like a stupid plot but Theron's acting is so believable and authentic that I really liked her and cared about her and could empathize  with her acerbic comments and her rudeness and her sadness and her disconnect from other people and her huge sense of inadequacy which came out in cutting often cruel remarks, Some of the best lobbed at Beth, Buddy's wife. Some scenes were uncomfortable to watch, in fact.

Anyway, so the story line is watching this disaster production titled Mavis try to win Buddy back in spite of the fact that he's happily married. Patton Oswalt is a guy who had the locker right next to hers all through high school and she accidentally meets him in a bar but can't remember him till she sees his cane and realizes he's the "hate crime guy". evidently in high school he was beaten up by some jocks who said he was homosexual and the fact that the small town of Mercury still believes he's gay  (he's not) and the fact that his mobility is severely compromised from the beating means that he is also an outsider and not part of the social life of town.

He spends his days painting action figures and running a distillery in his garage.

One of the final scenes in which Mavis psychologically crumbles during Buddys' baby's naming party and lashes out at people is cringingly wonderful.

I gave this movie a 9 and Bill gave it an 8.

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE

really enjoyable movie. It had a simple plot; long time married couple starts divorce proceedings and Cal the husband played by Steve Carrel gets advice on how to get back into the dating game by Jacob; played sauvely and with debonair charm and a tad of snark by Ryan Gosling (this is really the role he excels in; he doesn't have to say a lot; he gets to do that sexy half-smile, and he shows off his (to use one of the movie lines) "photoshop'd body".)

And Cal has a precocious but not annoyingly so son who gives him advice about finding and keeping and fighting for one's soul-mate. The son has a crush on the babysitter and she has a crush on Cal which leads to some amusing scenes.

Eventually - this was a predictable turn - Jacob meets a gal who he falls in love with and she takes him to meet her parents who turn out to be Cal and Julianne Moore. Oh, Julianne confesses at the beginning of the movie as she's asking Cal for a divorce that she's slept with David, a co-worker who is played by kevin Bacon. He is totally wasted in his wimpy role. Wow- he looked so emaciated in the film; like he needed a fattening meal of mac n'cheese.

There were no belly laughs in the movie but the dialogue was good and it was a fast paced film and all the acting was good and i did giggle a lot plus get teary eyed during Cal's speech about how he met his wife.

ZIVAZ MEXICAN BISTRO - TUCSON, AZ

We ate here on my birthday coupon; order one entree and get another entree free. A good deal. we haven't tried this restaurant before since their entrees run about $14 making it really difficult - if not impossible - to keep our total bill with tax and tip at $20 or below. This is the general guideline we use which allows us to eat out as much as we do.

The food was fabulous. The menu is on large boards right by the front door and you order at the counter. Even though the place was sort of empty it was noisy due to all the tile and metal. so i can imagine the din when the restaurant is packed.

The chips were multi-colored and i swear the red ones taste better than the usual non-color ones. They were warm and fresh and came with 2 salsas; a red and green. Very tasty.

Bill had pollo pibil which was mounds of tender chicken marinated in an orange and achiote sauce and it had grilled pineapple slices and pickled onions. I had shrimp vallarta; 8 huge delicious shrimp in a spicy red sauce with onions, pepper, and tomatoes. Both of our entrees came with rice and black beans and a salad with a zippy dressing.

The service was great and we won't wait till my next birthday to visit this restaurant again.

HUGO

A completely fantastical, magical movie. One mark of an excellent movie for me is a total immersion into the scenes and the land and in this case, a Paris train station; so much so that i become totally unaware of me sitting in a theater watching a film. and this movie transported me.

Its a simple story with great acting about a young boy who is an orphan and goes to live with his uncle who keeps the clocks running in the train station. Hugo is caught stealing by the owner of a toy shop who is played by Ben Kingsley. Through this encounter, Hugo becomes friends with his god-daughter and they have many adventures and accidentally Hugo finds out that she is wearing a key that fits into a robot he has been trying to restore. The discovery of why this girl is wearing a key that Hugo needs to finish his repair is the plot.

Along the way there are many subplots and tiny stories. One of them is the security guard at the station who is trying to establish a friendship with the florist shop owner. Another involves the book store proprietor played by Christopher Lee.

The movie is rich in detail and atmosphere. A 10 from both of us.

EUROPEAN MARKET AND DELI - TUCSON, AZ

The 'restaurant' area is a small curtained off alcove to the right of the front door. Mainly the place is a market; jammed in every corner and on every shelf with Eastern European delicacies and wine and beer and they also have an extensive deli counter with meats and salads and cheeses. its also a hub of socialization among the Russians in the area so its always fun to go in there and hear the language and people watch.

the menu is divided into Mediterranean, Greek and Russian sections. Last night we had a gyros plate which had pita bread, gyro meat, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and great yoghurt sauce. I desperately wanted their pelmeni; wonderful tasting dumplings stuffed with a beef-pork and vegetable mixture and served with Russian sour cream which is a mixture of creme fraiche, whipping cream and sour cream. I could smear that on all my food.

However, it takes 30 minutes to make the pelmeni and we were too hungry to wait. The last time we ate here and ordered them- Debbie was visiting so it wasn't a problem to wait - we just shared an appetizer and talked. So instead we ordered their cabbage rolls; 2 huge rolls stuffed to bursting in their cabbage skins; in a great flavorful tomato sauce. they serve it in a bowl with lots of sauce and lettuce. The lettuce wilts because of the hot sauce and is extraordinarily delicious. I also ordered some Russian sour cream on the side.

The market-deli is owned by a husband and wife. Her name is Olga and she is cautiously friendly; smiles with restraint but her appearance is show-worthy. Last night she had on tight tight black sequined pants, stiletto heels, a leopard form-fitting top and big bright bangle earrings. This outfit was topped by her blonde hair style which is ratted and combed into a towering beehive of Kremlin-ism.

Olga, we will be back.

VERO AMORE - TUCSON, AZ

This italian restaurant is about 2 minutes from our house. Its a really small place; no booths, only tables set fairly close together. We were here with Jean and Tim - braving our way through freezing temps, wind, rain, and no sun - trying to remember we lived in the desert.

We got a table close to the door but by a wall so the noise level was a little dampened.

I was disappointed over-all in the food. Bill and I shared a pizza and ravioli. The ravioli dish (3 colors of pasta pockets so it was very colorful and the ravioli were big and arranged quite artfully on the plate around a big helping of marinara sauce with lots of chunky tomatoes) was wonderful. The entree stated it included 3 ricotta cheese and 3 crab but i only wanted the cheese. Each ravioli was stuffed to the edges with cheese so i was satisfied with that dish.

But it didn't come with any bread. So for $3.50 we ordered some "wood-fired" bread. It was a large round loaf and i think the dough was the same as their pizza dough. It was tasty and came with olive oil and garlic-basil butter.

The pizza was not good at all. It had artichokes, mushrooms, onions and prosciutto but you'd be hard pressed to actually see any of these ingredients. and the ham was tasteless and difficult to chew; it was tough even though it was a razor thin slice. There was not much sauce and the cheese was gluey but the biggest disappointment was the crust. It was thin but not crispy at all. It was chewy and starchy tasting and took away from the whispers of flavors from the lonely pcs. of mushrooms and solitary onions.

This pizza was $12.
And even though our waiter was cute and almost adorable and had a lovely speaking voice; once he took our order and then delivered it; he forgot about us. The restaurant got packed about this time too.

We won't be back. So Pizza Hut still remains Number One on our list and Tony's Italian Deli stays at the top for pasta dishes. Plus Tony's is about 1/2 the price of Vero's with a more genuine Frank Sinatra-Mafia atmosphere.