Got typos?

Yesterday's Globe had a story about two guys who are traveling across the country on a mission to eradicate errors of spelling and grammar on signs. They started in Boston a month ago and made a big loop through the fertile typo ground of the South, fixing mistakes for free wherever they found them. This month, they're going up the West Coast, and then they'll be back in New England in late May.

I applaud them and only hope they'll visit Rhode Island on the return trip since they bypassed us on the way out. Perhaps they felt the smallest state was too large a task to take on right out of the starting gate?

We have a lot of problems here, although one that used to give me a headache has been fixed. That was the sign on a bicycle shop on the East Bay Bike Path that said: "Your on the right path with us!" But there are many more, such as the sign outside the Italian market on Federal Hill that announces they have "Delicasies." Crescent Park signs are always being spelled "Cresent," and, well, the list goes on and on.

Readers, please send in here any nominees you've spotted, and I'll send a compilation of your requests to these guys, who call themselves TEAL, the Typo Eradication Advancement League. Their web site and blog are illuminating, allowing readers to follow them on their nonjudgmental journey—

"to stamp out as many typos as we can find, in public signage and other venues where innocent eyes may be befouled by vile stains on the delicate fabric of our language. We do not blame, nor chastise, the authors of these typos. It is natural for mistakes to occur; everybody will slip now and again. But slowly the once-unassailable foundations of spelling are crumbling, and the time has come for the crisis to be addressed."

I'd just like to suggest that once they've corrected all the country's signs, they might take a look at menu misspellings (Caesar salad and arugula seem to be perpetual challenges) and song lyrics. Can anyone listen to Paolo Nutini's "Last Request" without cringing? Hey, Paolo— You're cute, but why would she lie down next to someone so grammatically challenged as to say Lay instead of Lie?)

Wrap v. Crepe

I don't like wraps. I guess other people must, because wraps are everywhere — wrapping ham and Swiss that would be better between two slices of good soft bread, wrapping eggs and bacon for breakfast. . . Just about anywhere you go to order a sandwich, you are told that you can have a wrap instead. I guess the idea is that the wrap material, whatever it is, is so hard and stiff that you can eat while driving. Wonderful, except that it's like eating cardboard. Give me a warm soft crepe any day over a wrap.

In this country, people seem to think of crepes only in terms of the flaming dessert Crepes Suzette, served at fancy French restaurants. But in France crepes are eaten for a quick breakfast or lunch snack, from Mama et Papa cafes or even from street stands where the crepes are made fresh while you watch.


Crepes may be either sweet, as in topped with ice cream or Nutella or jam — or savory, as in filled with ham and cheese, or even a warm egg for breakfast.

In Providence, there are two places where you can get good crepes for breakfast: the Rue de l'Espoir on Hope Street, and the Creperie, which is a little hole-in-the-wall on Fones Alley, just off Thayer Street.
The Rue (shown here in an illustration from its web site) is a bistro-style restaurant that has been an East Side favorite for more than 30 years. You can get a bacon, egg, and cheese crepe (as shown in the top photo here), or a number of sweet crepes.

The Creperie is more of a student hangout, open from 10 a.m. to midnight or later every day. There are only a few stools inside, but the crepes are authentically French, available in dozens of varieties (above, in photo), and you can watch them being made while you wait.

Read more about Providence breakfast places in the Providence Journal's Weekend section this Thursday.

My Blogger/My Self: YES Gallery in Warren

One of those things happened the other day that can only make me believe in cosmic karma. Walking along Water Street in Warren enroute to the Nat for dinner, I remarked to Retired Guy that I've always been fascinated by the little building you'll see pictured at right. Just at that moment, two young women were unlocking its front door. Upon engaging them in conversation about the building, we learned first: that one of them was Leigh Medeiros and that she plans to live upstairs and open the building's first floor as an art gallery. And second: that this is the same Leigh Medeiros who, from 2005 to 2007, wrote a Rhode Island blog for the Boston Globe's Explore New England online travel guide. (There's a link to it in the sidebar at left).

Now, as a new Rhode Island blogger myself, I have naturally bumped into some of Leigh's lively and engaging writings about the state in the course of Googling around. I'd noticed that her last post was in September, when she signed off with a brave hail-and-farewell message to her readers — and then dropped off the Internet altogether. I'd wondered who she was, where she lived, why she'd ceased blogging about Rhode Island. (It turns out that the Globe, in its cost-cutting wisdom, decided to use its own Boston staffers instead of paying a Rhode Island stringer to write about the distant outpost of Rhode Island.)

Well! once she knew what I was about, we greeted each other like the lone two members of the same club. Talk about a fateful meeting! If I'd tried to find her, I probably wouldn't have been able to. Anyway, Leigh's gallery venture is to be called Yes, it is in the little building at 146 Water St. in Warren that she explained had once been the studio of author/illustrator David Macaulay. There's to be a soft opening April 4, and an official one a week later, on the 11th. Everyone's invited to come. When I went back to take a picture, I couldn't help but notice the bumper sticker on her little green Honda:

"You May Say I'm a Dreamer, But I'm Not the Only One."

YES, indeed.

Warming strikes the Coffee Exchange deck

Yesterday — the first really warm day of spring around here — all the newspapers were full of gloom and doom: "Global Warming Cracks Antarctic Ice Shelf." (Buried way down in the story was the fact that this shelf sticks out from the rest of the ice pack, which is actually growing in size.) The folks reading the report from the sunny deck of the Coffee Exchange on Wickenden Street in Providence appeared to take the news in stride.

Here in sunny Providence, at least, we had a really nice day. (The same date reached 75 degrees in 1922 in Providence, and 10 in 1960.) It's called the weather, and we might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Next week is expected to be in the 20s around here. I don't know about Antarctica.

OMG! "Sudden cold snap theatens apple crop" headlines ahead. LOL.

Two-for-one at the new Nat Porter

For those of us who dine out a lot, tax season is a sobering time. Seeing all those restaurant amounts neatly toted up in the 12-month credit card statement makes you all too aware of what else you might have done with all those dollars.
A few weeks ago, Retired Guy and I resolved to eat in more, and we've been pretty good about it — so good that last night we decided we deserved a meal out. I recalled that the new Nat Porter in Warren was offering a variety of specials, including 2-for-1 entrees Sundays through Tuesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. We squeaked in just under the wire, about 5:58, but the waiter said we were good for it.

The Nat has always been a beautiful place, an elegant restaurant in a Colonial-era captain's house on Water Street in Warren. A pair of youthful owners called quits on the place last summer after a three-year stint that was marked by some highs and some lows, but new owners took it over last fall. Their new menu shows a little more Italian influence than the old one did, but there's a nice variety, with most entrees priced from $17 to $26. We were well satisfied by grilled pork loin with sauteed apples and mashed sweet potato for $17 for both us (2-for-1), a glass of Shiraz for $5 and an apple and gorgonzola salad split between us for $4. Even with dessert (carrot cake, $6) and a Cosmopolitan for me ($8), our pre-tip bill was just $44.
The place was lovely, the service perfect, the background music a Sirius Coffeehouse mix — altogether, just the sort of tax-season economizing I favor.

Nat Porter, 125 Water St., Warren. (401) 289-0373. On Wednesdays through April, $36 dinner for two includes bottle of wine and live music beginning at 9 p.m.

Opening Day: Somerset Creamery

For fans of the homemade ice cream at Somerset Creamery, today was Opening Day — the first day you could get a cone since the '07 season ended in October. You didn't have to buy tickets; you just had to have seen the sign by the side of Route 6 last week announcing the Mar. 24 home opener.

And while I wouldn't say that the stands were packed shortly after the OPEN sign was lit at noon, die-hard members of Somerset Nation were there, greeting each other and owner Carolyn Berube, congratulating themselves on having survived the winter, and taking a few moments to contemplate the list of flavors, savoring familiar names like Cranberry Bog, Mocha Chip, Ginger, Grape Nut, and a rookie, Lemon, that already looks like a good prospect.

Everyone looked happy. And why not? While Red Sox Nation can only hope for a great season, Somerset Nation knows it will be — right up till Columbus weekend.

Bristol's Blithewold: 'Happy Woodland'

In this not-quite-winter, not-quite-spring interval, Bristol is the perfect destination for a day-trip. Its harbor being half-way down Narragansett Bay, the town has waterfront without actually being on the ocean, where late March is one of the rawest times of the year.
First stop: Blithewold, just to see what's poking up at the mansion's 33-acre waterfront grounds. Of course, it's too soon to see the famous daffodils in bloom. But the green clumps of their spiky leaves are there, promising a bright yellow carpet in two or three weeks. (Daffodil Days this year are Apr. 12 to May 4.)

The Moon Garden on the mansion's south side is where the most blooming flowers are right now: miniature daffodils nodding above brown leaves, purple crocus, pale yellow Helleborus and white snowdrops.

Marjorie Lyon, the grande dame who left her family's Tudor mansion and beloved gardens (her 'Happy Woodland," Blithewold) to the public, would be pleased to see how good it looks — the 1901 greenhouse restored, the cutting garden ready for a new season, and the Water Garden serene with its arched stone bridge and still-leafless Japanese maple looking sculptural on its own islet in the middle of the gurgling pond.


The mansion will not open until mid-April, but people can stroll the grounds year-round. There's an honor box for donations to help support Blithewold for future generations to enjoy.

Thayer Street revisited

A new generation of Brown University students crops up every four years, so the quarter-mile stretch of Thayer Street that is the campus's commercial heart is an always-evolving mirror of the fickle culture of youth.

I first laid eyes on the street as a high school sophomore, back in the days when Ladd's Music had the White Album, Jone Pasha's was where you went to get your flower-child dresses, Rascal House was where everyone went after last call, and IHOP was where to go for pancakes the morning after.
At that time, the older generation still had Thayer Market for carriage-trade groceries, E.P. Anthony pharmacy, Mills Sisters for dresses, Mark David for men's suits, Ms for hostess gifts, and Clarke's for flowers.

These days, Thayer is all about youth. People who remember it as it used to be are always wringing their hands, saying the street has become too punk or too full of motorcyclists and panhandlers. But there is no denying that it is one of the busiest streets in all of Providence. There is always foot traffic on Thayer, from early morning to the wee hours of the next day.

I took a stroll along Thayer recently, walking north from the corner of Waterman Street up to Cushing Street, just to look at what's there right now. Leaving out services like banks, salons and optometrists, here's what's on Thayer today:

First block: Cold Stone Creamery, Starbucks. Other side: Yang's (Asian gifts and T shirts) and Foreign Affair (Euro clothing).
Second block: Viva Paragon restaurant. Other side: Au Bon Pain cafe, Pie in the Sky (jewelry and gifts), Juniper frozen yogurt, and Tealuxe tea shop.
Third block: Brown Bookstore. Other side: Roba Dolce (gelato), Geoff's (sandwiches).
Fourth block: Spectrum (Indian clothing and gifts), Gordito Burrito (Mexican food), Antonio's Pizza, the Avon Cinema, Andrea's (Greek restaurant). Other side: Kabob & Curry (Indian food), Nice Slice pizza, Rock Star (body piercing), Johnny Rockets ('50s-theme restaurant).
Fifth block: Berk's (shoes), Shanghai (Chinese restaurant), Blaze (fusion restaurant), East Side Pockets (Middle Eastern), Kartabar restaurant/bar, ZuZu's Petals (dresses), Bagel Gourmet, J&J's Candy, Beadworks, Second Time Around (consignments). Other side: City Sports, Spike's (hotdogs), Shark (sushi, coming soon), Details (accessories), Army & Navy Surplus, Shades Plus (sunglasses), Sushi Xpress, Urban Outfitters (clothes and dorm stuff). At the corner of the last block is Blue State Coffee.

That's 24 restaurants and 16 stores, plus a movie theater and services like CVS and Store 24 all in five short blocks of one street. No wonder Thayer so busy it's hard to find a place to park nearby: No other street in Providence is that densely packed with stuff to buy and do.

Because the street is such a reflection of its times, revisiting it can make you feel your age. Of all the places listed here, only the Avon, Andrea's and Spectrum remain from 1968, and Spectrum is in a different building.

IN THE PHOTOS , Tealuxe (in the curved-front brick building) is where Mills Sisters dress shop used to be, and Roba Dolce is in the Tudor-style E.P. Anthony Drugs building at right.

Spring perspective: Prospect Terrace

Spring 2008 arrived this morning at 2:05, but you wouldn't know it by the weather. A light rain is falling with a heavy overcast and a temperature of 42.
But just a couple of evenings ago, you could feel the spring coming from the pretty East Side overlook park called Prospect Terrace, where this couple sat watching the sun set from the best perch in the city: a park bench near the towering statue of Providence founder Roger Williams, watching over the city he started in 1636 at the base of this hill.

Probably even at that time, courting couples came to this spot to look out over the Great Cove of Providence, now covered by all those downtown buildings in the space between the State House (which was built atop a small hill that jutted into the north side of the Cove) and the turreted Industrial Trust tower, which sits on land that was at the southern shore of the Cove.

Just about a block in length, Prospect Terrace is located at the intersection of Cushing and Congdon Streets in a lovely residential area of the East Side. Anyone who has lived in Providence for any length of time feels nostalgic here, remembering long-ago people and long-ago times in the city that Williams named for "God's merciful providence" to him and his followers in their time of distress. (He had been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for holding "diverse, new, and dangerous opinions" challenging church-run government.)

Prospect Terrace is an easy walk from the Brown University campus and the East Side. From downtown, walk up steep Thomas Street next to the First Baptist Church in America, and turn left at Congdon.

Tribal breakfasts II: Nicks

Nicks on Broadway has been a foodie-favorite on Broadway for nearly a decade, always earning raves from the local press and always packed with a hip-looking crowd, a loyal cadre who followed chef/owner Derek Wagner to his present location (in 2006), which is several blocks closer to Olneyville than his original spot on Broadway was.
This is a tribe that loves to tell you that Nick is not Derek's name — it was the name on the real workingman's diner that used to be at the restaurant's first location. And they leap to correct you when you spell Nick's with an apostrophe, which it doesn't have, apparently just to be alternative.

Open for breakfast daily except Mondays and Tuesdays (from 7 a.m., except 8 on Sundays), Nicks has been crowded since it opened and is even more crowded now that it's so much larger. This was the case even during the several-month period last year after the restaurant had moved but didn't yet have its sign up. If you dine out a lot around Providence, you're bound to see people you know at Nicks, maybe even some that you saw dining out the night before.

But more and more, I'm hearing from people that they don't go to Nicks anymore, because it's just too crowded, too noisy, and too expensive. A cup of coffee for $3? Breakfast for two (not brunch, mind you, this is basically eggs, bacon, toast and homefries) for close to $30 with tip?
Last time Retired Guy and I went to Nicks, we were seated elbow-to-elbow with two people who were discussing the intimate details of a loved one's cancer treatment. Our tables were touching, so there was no way that the two of us could avoid feeling like intruders in what should have been a personal conversation.
Every table and counter stool is always occupied at Nicks. On a previous visit, we had been seated at a high table that was squished between the front glass window and the line of people waiting for a table, their elbows continually brushing us.

One of the things I liked about the old Nicks was the easy friendliness of Wagner and the other chefs as they worked the grill just behind the counter. He'd make you an omelet, or mix you up a yogurt parfait, based on ingredients he knew you liked. Back then, you really felt as if you were part of the neighborhood crowd. Now, the grill is so far removed from the counter and the place is so much larger that you never get a chance even to say hello to anyone. I don't recognize the waitstaff and I don't know who's cooking. To paraphrase the famous Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore: It's too crowded."

Tribal breakfasts: Louie's

Whenever I've written about Providence breakfast places, someone tells me I've left out Louis, or Louie's, which is at 286 Brook Street one street over from the Brown University campus. So yesterday I went there again, just to be sure I hadn't missed something. At 10:30 a.m. on a Monday, the place was packed with college students who looked as if they'd just rolled out of bed. One young woman continued a lively discussion with five of her tablemates while she got up to do some yoga stretches in the cramped space between tables. She was wearing that beatific smile common to yoga-people and seemed blithely unconcerned that she was getting in the way of the busy waitress. The background soundtrack seemed to be an Ethel Merman medley, and the students were talking over it as loudly as if they had earbuds in.

Perhaps the secret of its obvious popularity is that Louie's is a no-frills diner-type of place that attracts a mix of tribes that you don't often see together: blue-collar workers and students. Specials include "Barack Your World and Hillary's Delicious Soup," Edamame Xanadu, and plain old Number 2, which is two eggs, bacon, hash browns and a pancake ($5.95).
It's a place where the parking-enforcement guy or campus maintenance man feels just as comfortable as the sociology professor does. You can get breakfast for a few bucks every day of the week, all day, 5 a.m. to 3 p.m.

But as before, I found nothing special about Louie's food. The pancake was fat and flabby with no particular flavor, and when I asked if there was any real maple syrup, the waitress, who was wearing camouflage sweatpants, gestured silently to a plastic bottle of no-name kiddie syrup that was already sitting on the table.

At breakfast time, in particular, people like to be with members of their own tribe, whatever it is: College student or workingman, foodie snob, business-person or mom with stroller. From the number of people that go to Louie's, it's clear that it's a favorite of more than one tribe.

More on Providence breakfasts tomorrow.

Place of Good Lunch: Au Bon Pain

In a recent post, I complained of the lack of good deli-style lunch places in downtown Providence. I said that I miss Mark's Deli, which used to be at the corner of Washington Street and Union. News travels fast in the blogosphere — ask and you shall receive. And so in short order I have this update to offer: Try Au Bon Pain in the Bank of America building on lower Westminster, across from the old Arcade. I had completely forgotten about it.

In French, Au Bon Pain means something like "place of good bread," but there is much more than bread at this high-quality Parisian-inspired cafeteria chain that was started by Bostonian Louis Kane in 1978. There's a great sandwich selection, and they build them behind the glass case while you watch. There's also a salad bar full of fresh and good-looking selections, several soups, and of course, good French and other types of bread, as well as pastries.
When I was there the other day, they were passing around samples of fruit smoothies and sandwich bites of chicken, pesto and roasted red peppers on ciabatta bread. Everyone was helpful and friendly, and the place was immaculate and bright with its big windows facing south across Westminster. You can eat in the cafe or just outside it in the atrium, where many downtown types were picnicking at green garden tables under towering palm fronds.

More on Mark's: A reader left a Comment on the Missing Mark's post of Mar. 4, reminding me that some of the deli's specialty sandwiches were named for celebrities and locals, like the Suzy Cute (for Susan Farmer, who then ran Channel 36), the Larry Bird (turkey), and her favorite and mine, Jaws (tuna with bacon and cheese). Of course, since the deli is gone, it's all just nostalgia, but you can find Mark's complete menu still on the Web at MenuPix.

Greenhouse effects: The Botanical Center

With ski season skidding to a halt in New Hampshire and reports drifting in of "wet snow," "loose granular," and the dreaded FLG ("frozen loose granular") conditions up there, we're sticking around home more on the the weekends. Yesterday I decided to check out the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center on Elmwood Avenue in Providence.
Opened just a year ago and billed as "the largest indoor garden in New England," the center is far more modest in scale than original visions called for, back in those heady economic times when the expansion of the old Smith Greenhouses in the park was first floated.

Basically, the Center is three large greenhouse garden rooms planted with tropicals and exotics arranged attractively around fountains, walkways, pools and stonework arches. There's a rock pond full of brilliant orange carp, and special displays are devoted to carnivorous plants and orchids. Admission is $3.
As soon as you enter, your glasses fog up to let you know you've entered a different climatic zone, one that's warm, green, and humid, with no FLG in sight.

Yesterday, dozens of members of two photography clubs were busy setting up tripods and cameras to practice their technique. A bunch of the guys were hoping to catch a Venus Fly Trap or Pitcher Plant in the act of cannibalizing a bug, but it looked to me as if it would be a long wait for an action shot like that.

If you like indoor gardens, check out two of the best in New England: The Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham, Mass. and the indoor courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

Bad boys: Whatcha gonna do?

Yesterday was a fine day for strolling around Providence, and as Retired Guy and I headed into the free-for-all intersection that separates the mall from downtown, there before us was one of the city's finest, sitting alert but relaxed astride a police edition, V Twin, 103 cubic inch, 1690 cc Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle, shiny black like his leather jacket, boots and helmet.
Eddie Malloy has been a Providence cop for 20 years, a motorcycle officer for many of them, and he loves his bike. Now, chatting about the absolute craziness of the intersection we were waiting to cross, we all saw a gang of saggy-pants youths cavorting merrily across eight lanes of exiting Interstate traffic. The kids were heading into downtown.
Malloy gave them a perfunctory bleep on his siren, but they ignored it.
"See?" we all said, shaking our heads. "No respect."
"You know, it's just like Martin Luther King said," added Malloy— "It's not the color of a man's skin; it's the content of his character."
He had just two minutes left on his shift.

Then, just like that, he gets a message on his radio that there had been a robbery in the mall — a cell phone stolen by a gang of saggy-pants youths.
"You can't outrun the radio!" says Malloy, revving up the Harley and turning on his siren to officially part the Red Sea of the city's certified-insane intersection.

We had been heading to the Biltmore anyway. Just as we got there, there was Malloy, along with a member of the mounted command, a detective, a park ranger and a couple of other cops. They already had two Saggy Pants in the patrol car and were waiting for a female cop to arrive to pat down a girl who'd been one of the group.
It appeared, Malloy told us, that she had just been hanging around them and wouldn't be charged.

"Look at that," he was telling us and the detective (while behind his back one of the other cops scooped up a pile that the horse had left and pretended to drop it near the Harley) — "Two arrests in two minutes with no paperwork."
Then Malloy got back on his bike and drove off home.

There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.

See motorcycles like Malloy's at special event nights held at Ocean State Harley Davidson in Warwick.

Restaurant shakedown

Rumors are flying that several high-profile Providence restaurants are soon to close. Following the announcement last week that long-established Raphael's was closing its doors, this spreads something of a chill around the city's dining scene, which has been touted for so long, to the point of overload.
The news doesn't come as much of a surprise to those of us who have looked in restaurant windows, or sat inside, and seen in some cases more waiters waiting than diners dining.
Sure, part of it might be that when the economy sours, people don't dine out as much. But I suspect that a larger factor is that a city the size of Providence simply can't sustain the number of expensive and trendy restaurants that have opened here in the last few years. It was a bubble that was going to burst, and it did, right after Christmas.
In the past week or so, I've heard rumors of closure about Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, open barely a year, L'Epicureo in the Hotel Providence, and now Mills Tavern, which recently received a top rating in the Mobil Guide.

If the rumors are true, it's sad to see an owner's dream die, and it will be hard for the people who work there. But the truth is, the field has become too crowded, and that's when — just as on all those reality TV shows — somebody's not going to be there next week. Stay tuned for more.

Great expectations: Dining at the Z

Recently we went back to Z Bar, the Wickenden Street restaurant that is on my short list of places to eat and drink in Providence.
I just deleted the word great in there, because that might be overstating the case, unless you mean by it (as I do) that Z Bar has consistently met or exceeded my expectations over many years.
There are many restaurants in Providence where you can spend a lot more on dinner in the expectation that they will absolutely slay you with flash and dash and (maybe) great-tasting food. (The recently opened Chinese Laundry leaps to mind.) But more often than not, such places will disappoint you. A year later, they will be last year's big thing, and then they die. Remember Empire? Kestral? Lot 401?

Or, in another scenario, it might be that a restaurant does have really spectacular food that is so expensive that people only go there for special occasions a few times a year. So the place goes into an embarrassing and sometimes prolonged period of decline and then dies, as Raphael's Bar-Risto did (Mar. 9).

Interestingly, Z Bar doesn't even have a website — and that in itself says a lot. (Some restaurants have such impressive websites that you wonder how much time is being spent on the food.) Here's what we had to eat there the other night: A three-course prix fixe special of a satisfying roast-chicken-and-white-bean minestrone served in a wide flat bowl, a salmon filet sauteed in an herbed beurre blanc sauce, and a wedge of chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis (that's sauce, only more intense and less of it.) Three courses for $19, and not a disappointing note among them.
For $17, we had a petite filet of beef in a cabernet demi-glace, with mashed potatoes and perfectly cooked whole green beans. Glasses of a perfectly serviceable Australian Shiraz were $6.25.
Sure, a Cosmo was $10.25, but I didn't have to have one, did I?
If I hadn't had it, dinner for two with wine would have been $48.50 before tax and tip. Hot slices of fresh Portuguese bread as soon as we'd sat down in our prime corner windowseat, a lively (and somewhat loud) bar scene, warm colors, and the solicitous attention of longtime waiter Paul.
Rate that a great restaurant? Well, yes, I guess I do.

Z Bar and Grille, 244 Wickenden St., Providence. (401) 831-1566. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Reservations only for parties of 6 or more.

SOLD! in Portsmouth: Auctioning art and antiques

Ever wonder where dealers go to get the antique paintings, silver, furniture and artifacts they sell in their stores?
They go to auctions like those held about once a month at the Portsmouth, RI auction gallery run by auctioneer-extraordinaire Mike Corcoran. (You can find a list of upcoming auctions all over New England at Antiques and the Arts online.)
Even if you don't buy anything, you'll learn a lot about what things are worth by going to an auction — and if you go to one of Corcoran's, you'll be entertained as well. At yesterday's auction of estate items, you would have learned that your great-grandmother's long-handled brass bed-warmer isn't worth much more than 50 bucks — and that a 1920s California landscape painting by Maurice Braun would draw rapid-fire phone bids from California art galleries topping off at $34,000.
In between, there was plenty of action in the $500 to $5,000 range as Corcoran entertained the crowd with the antics they've come to see. Every once in a while, he draws gasps by lobbing a just-sold vase or cloisonnee dish to sidekick "Murph." At one point during yesterday's show, he removed a tiny fig leaf from the front of a bronze male nude: "Spitzer last week. . . Spitzer today!"
When a beautifully carved wooden music box came up for bid, he lifted the lid so the audience could hear it play a tinkling waltz. Then, calling one of the women in the crowd to join him, he took her for a little spin, saying in a broad aside to the audience, "When the moment is right, will you be ready?"

Emperor's night out in Providence: Tazza blues

Is there in fact any live music on a Tuesday night in March in the Great Metropolis of Providence?
That was the question.
Normally, it would not be possible for me to even contemplate staying up late enough to find out the answer. But this week, with the time having sprung ahead and the weather clear and fine, I was ready to dance at (drum roll, please) 9:30 p.m. The only hurdle to actually going out at that hour was rousing Retired Guy from his comfortably horizontal position on the sofa, where he had been happily watching non-stop TV coverage of La Scandale Spitzer — or, en espanol, Escandolo.

But somewhat reluctantly, he did accept, after it was pointed out to him that while the Governor of New York would have had to pay more than $4,000 for a night on the town with an elegant, educated, 3- or maybe even 4-diamond companion, he — the Emperor of Providence — would be getting it for free.

We found a parking spot without any problem, and — and this would prove to be the highlight of the evening — spotted a Mini Cooper in the new Nightfire red color, which we decided was far superior to the old Chili red, which seems — to me, at least — to scream "mid-life crisis."
Then we entered Tazza, the artsy and contemporary cafe-cum-coffeehouse where (I had noted on a lunch-time walk about town) Tuesday is Blues Night.

Well! It turned out to be a free open mike type of thing, rather than an actual band. The gray-bearded man who was playing some kind of noise on an incredibly jangling stringed instrument had it so close to the microphone that it actually hurt my left ear. RG immediately turned off his hearing aid, which solved the matter for him, but we obviously had to leave having barely removed our coats.
Still not sleepy after we got home, I went to the internet to google "eardrum damage" while the Emperor of Providence returned to his couch and TV, where David Letterman (looking considerably grayer than he had when I'd last stayed up to watch the Late Show) was delivering the "Top Ten Messages Left on Eliot Spitzer's Answering Machine."

Did Spitzer have to deal with bad music and acoustic injuries to timpanic membranes while entertaining his glittering girlfriends at the Mayflower Hotel?
I think not. But then, you get what you pay for, don't you?

Boys' toys in Foxboro: Bass Pro Shops

It doesn't ever take much convincing to get RG to drive up to Foxboro for some shopping. That's because Patriots' owner Bob Kraft's "Guy Mall" — now taking shape around Gillette Stadium — already includes a superstore that exerts the same attraction to men as a salt lick does to deer.
Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World is unlike any other store you've ever been to, as much about entertainment and lifestyle as it is about actually selling stuff. You see men in workboots and NASCAR jackets pushing around carts in a happy trance, and to tell the truth, it's almost as much fun for women.
The store celebrates the rugged outdoor world of hunting and fishing and sells the infinite variety of accouterments needed to pursue both. You can buy everything from a bass fishing boat to a set of plaster casts that let you tell the age of a deer by its teeth. A motion-detecting night camera lets you capture on film a fisher cat or an owl that passes by its lens. Tents, truck boxes, duck blinds, gas grills, water toys, lodge-style furniture, fish-finders, GPS, binoculars, bait, ATVs, camouflage clothing, fluorescent orange clothing, camouflage make-up and, yes, camouflage make-up remover pads.
It's all there, laid out on two floors decorated with hundreds of taxidermy specimens of moose standing in a rock-lined pool, deer leaping over the water with wolves in pursuit, bears, foxes, wild turkeys, pheasants. . . . An indoor trout stream plunges into a 30,000-gallon glass-walled aquarium where you can see real trout, bass, and catfish swimming. All over the store, animal and bird calls punctuate the background noise of rushing water or rustling leaves. A wall of windows invites you to lounge in big leather club chairs and look out upon a pond and cranberry bog populated with statues of Big Horn Sheep and other critters that you can spot through sample scopes. There's a nice restaurant for lunch that includes a Wild West-style antique bar that's always lined with rear views of men in truckers' caps or suits talking "guy" to each other.
And then there are the arcades: A shooting gallery lets you knock over varmints and set a barn door swinging to reveal a growling bear. A laser arcade sets up interactive images of bounding deer or scattering doves that you knock down with your rifle.

Our excuse for going had been to find a pair of duck shoes, which we did. But you know how guys are with shopping: We ended up spending the whole afternoon.

Phantom dining Downcity

Going out for breakfast seemed like a great idea yesterday after Retired Guy finished stacking his pine logs and I figured out how to reset the clocks on all the electronics. RG has his rituals, and it's not easy to talk him out of going local for the first meal of the day, but he agreed to drive into the Great Metropolis to try Downcity.
I must have eaten breakfast at the original Downcity a hundred times before it burned down, back when it had different owners and was located a few blocks west on Weybosset, opposite from Johnson & Wales - or, in Rhode Islandese - where the Outlet used to be. Back then, DC had the best breakfast around.
But soon after DC reopened in its new location about a year ago, I went with a friend and was impressed only by its stylish new look, the service being the biggest negative.
Now I had a feeling of deja vu as the same expressionless waiter seated RG and me at the same table I'd had before and left us there with drinks menus but no breakfast menus. After a few minutes, I went up to the bar to ask for menus. "They're on the table," the woman bartender said. I went back and looked again. "Those are drinks menus," I went back to explain to her. "We'd like to order some food."
"The menus are on the back of the placemats," she snapped, as if I were a fool not to think of picking up and turning over my laminated placemat!
Well, it went downhill from there. We last saw the waiter rubbing a waitress's shoulders at the bar and showing no sign of returning to us at all.
So we left. I'm one diner who never hesitates to bail when the winds whisper, "Bad dining experience dead ahead."
But by now we were really hungry. With the time change, it was an hour later than our stomachs told us it was, and every foodie-favorite breakfast place in Providence had a line outside its door. There was nothing for it but to join the masses at Bickford's in Seekonk, proving RG right that there's no place for breakfast like close to home. There were maybe a dozen people waiting in a comfortable area inside the door, but the place is so big and so efficient that we waited no more than five or ten minutes to be seated at a window booth.
Bang! there was the smiling waitress with our coffee, and Bang! RG was off to the $11 all-you-can-eat brunch buffet. His take is pictured below, topped with a pair of chocolate-covered strawberries that he smuggled to me. I ordered from the menu: eggs over hard, crisp bacon, and a waffle ($5.99) with real maple syrup for another $2.
It wasn't the best breakfast I've had, but it wasn't bad. And certainly it put a great big smile on RG's face. He just loves being proved right.

Wild night

Here on the pine plantation, we measure windstorms by the number of pine limbs downed in back of the house. Last night was pretty wild, but it was only a Two Limb Night, thank goodness. Such nights always remind me of a gravestone I once saw in an old Rhode Island cemetery on which was written "Kill'd By a Pine Tree."
Living as close to 100-foot pine trees as I do, it kind of makes you appreciate every day.
Retired Guy has already got out the chainsaw and is busy cutting up the morning's bounty for next year's firewood, making lemonade out of pine limbs, I guess you might say.

Border crossing to Connecticut: Logee's Greenhouse

Retired Guy and I took the TomTom over the border into Connecticut yesterday, in part to see how the little guy did in a strange country and in part to visit the tropical landscape inside the Big House greenhouse of Logee's in Danielson. A family business since 1892, Logee's is an institution in the plant world, specializing in indoor tropicals, many of them grafted from stock that's more than 100 years old. The most famous of these is a 108-year-old Ponderosa lemon tree that grows 5-pound lemons the size of footballs.
We weren't buying, just looking and drinking in the fragrant humidity in anticipation of spring. The jasmine was in full bloom, the tree camellias were showing a last burst of color, and the hibiscus shown here looked luscious enough to eat. We chatted with owner Byron Martin, third generation of the Logees to carry on the business, and noted he had not only a green thumb but a green forefinger, these he said, an occupational hazard from the dyes in the fertilizer he had been using.


Oh, and TomTom did just great, getting us from Providence to Danielson in about a half an hour. Next, we challenged him with a detour to East Hartford, but more on that later.

Providence after dark: Drinks at Temple bar

Night out last night with Charlie, sipping an espresso martini (he a Manhattan) at the bar at Temple, the excellent restaurant downstairs in the new Renaissance Hotel across from the State House. Providence was looking good, and so was Charlie, tanned from a vacation in Puerta Vallarta and singing the praises of a great restaurant he found there. Boca Bento, he told me, was so good he ate there three times solo and was introduced to the chef, who seemed to think Charlie might be a restaurant scout of some kind. (He does sometimes review Rhode Island restaurants with me.)
Charlie has owned a restaurant in the South End in Boston, knows a lot about food, and he said the food in general in PV was superb. "When you find a place that can give you french fries that are so hot and so good you want to eat them even if they'll burn your mouth, that's a great restaurant!"
Temple was pretty hot, too. We shared a pair of "Snacks" from the menu: mini lobster rolls, which were loaded with chunked fresh lobster meat, and a fat crab cake coated with crumbed pretzel. The place looked incredibly chic and was busy but not so busy that you couldn't have a great conversation at the bar, something it's hard not to do with Charlie anyway.