Dinner
and a Movie
Hokey
Sci-Fi and Haut Korean
By
Steve Herte
When
we moved into our neighborhood back in 1957, we met and knew
everybody on three sides of our block and everybody on our street
(which wasn’t difficult because our street is only two blocks
long).
One
by one, however, our friends moved out and now, mine is the only
family left of the originals. Yes, there are new friends, different
friends, but more people keep to themselves. Every house has more
than one car and, traffic is almost constant. No children play in the
street now. It’s too dangerous.
I
recently went to a wake. One of my former neighbors who moved to
Nassau County had passed. Thanks to my sister, my Dad and I could get
there and it was worth it. I haven’t seen some of these friends in
over 30 years and there wasn’t enough time to catch up on all the
history. It was draining, but it was good. I was ready for a positive
experience after.
The
next morning, I noticed a large, strange, white mushroom growing in
several lawns on my block. I’d never seen it before, but I took a
photo of it for later identification. Little did I know that these
mushrooms were an omen of good things to come at dinner that night.
As for the movie? No mushrooms. Enjoy!
Maze
Runner: The Scorch Trials (20th Century
Fox, 2015) – Director: Wes Ball. Writers: T.S. Nowlio (s/p), James
Dashner (novel). Stars: Dylan O’Brien, Aiden Gillen, Ki Hong
Lee, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Dexter Darden, Alexander Flores, Kaya
Scodelario, Jacob Lofland, Patricia Clarkson, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo
Esposito, Terry Dale Parks, Lili Taylor, & Barry Pepper. Color,
PG-13, 131 minutes.
In
a post-apocalyptic world where the bad guys belong to an organization
called WCKD (pronounced “wicked”) and most people over teen-age
are afflicted with a global pandemic called “The Flair,” which
turns them into snarling, black-mouthed zombies (called “Cranks”),
you know you have the makings of a class-A “B” movie. For those
who hate abbreviations like I do, WCKD stands for World
in Catastrophe: Killzone
Experiment Department. You can’t make this up.
Add
in some familiar scenes from Planet of the
Apes, Dune and Cloverfield, sprinkle
in trite, predictable dialogue and make sure the cast delivers their
lines in the corniest way possible, just for fun. Then do this for
over two hours and you have the makings of a possible disaster.
Lastly, make it perfectly obvious at the end of the movie that
there’s going to be another one and you’ll have everyone under 15
in wild anticipation.
To
say that this sequel of the original Maze Runner (2014)
lived up to the negative stereotypes of typical sequels would be a
gross understatement. It really is not as good as the first one. The
really great mechanical creatures – called “grievers” – only
appear once, in a drug-induced dream sequence and the only excitement
happens in several chase scenes. For those who love the Die
Hard series, you’d hate this one. Not enough things
blowing up.
At
least the creators give us a short background at the beginning of the
film. The scene is murky and the air is filled with a snow-like ash
as Tommy’s mother hands him over to the authorities of WCKD because
he’s an “immune.” Then we relive his teen-age elevator ride up
to the center of “The Glade” – the beautiful pastoral living
area in the center of the colossal maze – and his subsequent escape
from the maze with his five comrades.
Now,
it seems they’ve been rescued from WCKD by Janson (Gillen) and are
given decent sleeping quarters with real bunk-beds, and meals they
don’t have to scrounge for in a cafeteria-like setting with dozens
of other teens like themselves. Minho (Lee), Newt (Brodie-Sangster),
Frypan (Darden), and Winston (Flores) are happy with their new
surroundings and the promise of getting to the “safe area” – a
paradisiacal place they’ve dreamed of going to – somewhere beyond
the mountains. Thomas (O’Brien), however, is still suspicious,
especially when he sees Teresa (Scodelario), the sixth member of
their maze-surviving group, being led off to another location.
One
day, in the cafeteria, Thomas’ friends point out the only kid who
doesn’t associate with any others, whose name is Aris Jones
(Lofland). Aris is a lot like Thomas. When he sees eight teens
“chosen” daily to get out of the cafeteria and supposedly are
taken to the safe area, he wants to know what’s on the other side
of that formidable door. One night, Aris accesses Thomas’ dorm room
through the ventilation shafts (how many movies have we seen that
before?) and he leads Thomas to an overhead grid where they see the
“nurse” wheeling something that looks like a cross between a
coffin and a cryogenic chamber into another sealed area of the
complex.
The
next day, Thomas makes a fuss with the two guards at the door after
the “chosen” eight are led out and he steals a swipe card. That
night, he and Aris make their way to the sealed area and find rows
and rows of teens in a semi-coma, hooked up to machines that are
distilling the immune DNA from their blood (one of them is Teresa).
They learn that Janson is working for WCKD and, in particular for Ava
Paige (Clarkson), who put them in the maze to begin with. They
haven’t been rescued; they’ve been played.
If
there is a running gag in this movie – and if it were funny –
it’s the repeated line, “What’s your plan?” – always asked
of Thomas. Well, he comes up with a plan for the entire group (with a
rescued Teresa) to escape Janson’s clutches and head towards the
mountains hoping to find the resistance group called “The Right
Hand.” The first chase scene ensues and they escape, climb an
enormous sand dune and watch as the searchers look everywhere for
them but in the straight-line direction they took. Hmmm.
The
sandstorm covers their tracks and they come upon a deserted dwelling
that appears to have been occupied recently. It has dishes, food,
water, clothing and power. Thomas concludes that this must have been
a way station for survivors going to the mountains. Of course there
are some Cranks living there and one of them scrapes Winston’s
abdomen. Second chase scene. They quickly gather up whatever supplies
they can carry and run off through The Scorch, basically a desert,
which takes them through a ruined version of New York City (complete
with a sand-mounded George Washington Bridge) toward the distant
mountains (which are far too craggier than the Appalachians).
Winston’s injuries cause him to catch The Flair and begrudgingly,
they leave him with a gun to commit suicide before he turns into a
Crank. (Can you sing the song from Peter Pan, “I Don’t
Wanna Grow Up?”)
One
night, Thomas wakes up and sees lights in the distance, as well as a
fierce lightning storm edging up behind them. The third chase scene.
They run as fast as they can toward the lights, but not fast enough.
Minho is struck by lightning. The rest have to prop him up and drag
him to safety where he recovers with a “What happened?”
They
now find themselves in another complex with Cranks in chains to act
as guard dogs, where they meet Brenda (Salazar) and Jorge (Esposito),
the man in charge. As soon as he learns they escaped from WCKD, the
dollar signs light up in his eyes. But when WCKD attacks his
installation, he agrees to take the group to the mountains. Fourth
chase scene. But escaping the complex is not easy and Thomas and
Brenda get separated from the rest and wind up in the sewer system.
I
ask you, if confronted with a clean tunnel with a light at the end of
it branching off from a tunnel overhung with blood-red root-like
growths, which way do you go? “What are those?” Brenda asks in
curiosity. When a lame rat gets attacked by one of the growths and a
Crank emerges from it and eats the rat, we kind of get the idea.
Fifth chase scene. This time it’s all up the side of a skyscraper
that has toppled onto one across the street from it – a la
Cloverfield. They escape and rejoin the others, but Brenda’s
been scraped by a Crank.
The
group just barely makes it to the foothills (where they are sniped at
in a mountain pass by two girls who, strangely, know Aris) and meet
Carl (Parks) and his reduced army of resistance fighters. When Brenda
collapses in front of them, he wants to shoot her before she changes,
but Mary (Taylor), who knows Thomas from childhood, has a way of
making an antigen using Thomas’ blood and distilling out the immune
factor.
Brenda
gets better, but Teresa is a fink and rats the group out to WCKD, who
swoops down and decimates the small army and flies away with Teresa.
(Last chase/action scene.) Thomas has another plan. Go back to WCKD
and retrieve Teresa; (Seriously?) hence, another movie. As Frypan
says while in the desert, “I miss the Glade.” So do I, Frypan. So
do I.
Rating:
2 out of 5 Martini glasses.
Gaonnuri
(Gah-ohn-noo-ree)
1250
Broadway – 39th floor
(32nd Street), New
York
The
name means “Center of the World” and Manhattan-wise the location
is virtually correct, bordering on Herald Square. The main
attractions of this sleek, upscale Korean restaurant is its sweeping
west and north views of the Hudson River and New York skyline, plus
its incredible menu.
1250
Broadway is similar to many skyscrapers in Manhattan; lots of glass
and steel rising straight up from the sidewalk, with the main lobby
is on the 32nd Street
side. Currently, the entire ground level is swathed in a gauzy
construction curtain, which makes the entrance harder to see. To the
left of the main reception desk of this Spartan white marble lobby is
a small lectern with “Gaonnuri” printed on the wall behind it. A
young lady at the lectern will check the reservation and use her
swipe card to let you through the turnstile to the elevator bank.
There, on the left, are the only two elevators that go to the
39th floor.
A
minute later, the elevator doors open on a warm glow of golden light
on dark wood paneling and I am in Gaonnuri. I turned to the right,
saw the Captain’s Station (there were two couples already there),
and announced my reservation. The young lady asked me to have a seat
and I took a moment to admire the floor-to-ceiling wall of a
wine-rack separating me from the main dining area.
I
only had time to take my bag off my shoulder and doff my cap before
she returned and led me to a table in the center of the raised
platform forming the center of the restaurant. I had an excellent
view of the cityscape outside as well as the diners sitting by the
windows. I have to admit that I was impressed. The chair was
comfortable but there was nowhere to put my legs. Why? A little
history of Korean restaurants is helpful at this juncture: All of
them feature a tabletop barbeque and the tables are equipped with a
stove in the center support column. To protect the diners from the
heat, the support column is built wide, thus depriving tall people of
legroom. I adapted. The tabletop is bare wood polished nicely, with a
plastic woven mat covering the heating element.
With
the wine/cocktail list standing open on the table to my left and the
food menu lying to my right, all was ready. As I was placing my
napkin in my lap when my server, the tall, thin Jaesang, appeared and
took my water preference (which he already held in a frosty pitcher).
I had had time to peruse the drinks list when he asked if I wanted a
cocktail. I chose the Fiery Julep – absinthe, Woodford Reserve
bourbon, mint leaves, hand-squeezed lemon juice, and simple syrup.
I’m not sure what made it “fiery” but it was delicious in spite
of the mint leaves (which, fortunately, were not over-powering).
The
dinner menu is an amazing selection, featuring Hot and Cold
Appetizers, Table Barbeque, Side Orders and Entrees, as well as a
Fall Tasting Menu. I saw so many dishes that I’ve never eaten (I’ve
only been to seven or eight Korean restaurants in my whole history –
each with a different negative experience – and I’ve been
reticent ever since) that eventually, I called Jaesang over and told
him I decided on the Tasting Menu because, as I said to him, I was
unfamiliar with most (I said “all”) of the dishes. He asked if I
had any food allergies and I said no. He noted my order and I studied
the wine list while he went to put the order in.
I
saw the 2012 William Fèvre Chablis from France and immediately knew
what I wanted. It would go superbly with every dish on the Tasting
Menu, and I haven’t had Chablis in a long time. It’s one of my
favorite whites. When Jaesang brought the wine I was finishing up the
amuse-bouche, a lovely little mushroom cream soup with a delicate,
nutty flavor. The chablis was indeed bright and crisp in flavor and I
thought, while it was chilling in the ice bucket, I would have a
second julep.
Soon,
the first course arrived – Gujeolpan, a platter of nine
delicacies. In neat little piles were shredded short rib meat,
shrimp, Pyogo mushrooms, cucumber, zucchini, egg, and radish, all
arranged like clock points around delicate, flour paper wraps
(delicate pancakes) with a deep orange sauce that tasted both fruity
and a little spicy. Jaesang instructed me to make any combinations I
liked with the sauce on the pancake, roll it up like a burrito, and
eat it as finger-food. It was great. No matter what combination, it
was a delightful sensation. There were only four pancakes and not
enough room for all the fillings. No problem. I ate the remainder
with my silver chopsticks (How’s that for posh?
I’m glad I wore a jacket.)
The
second course was octopus Moochim – tender octopus toasted in a
garlic-soy sauce with cabbage and red leaf-lettuce served on an
elegant avocado-green plate. As meticulously placed as the first dish
was, this one was arty. I almost didn’t want to disturb it. But
once I tasted it, it was hard not to go into a feeding frenzy. I’m
always amazed when octopus is tender. And the greens were crisp with
a light spicy vinegary dressing.
Course
number three was almost erotic. The mushroom Bokkeum – stir-fried
baby portobello, king oyster, enoki, pine and pyogo mushrooms with a
pear-garlic soy sauce – was a woodsy fantasy! Each mushroom had its
own character, sweet, nutty, earthy, savory and succulent. I
commented on how much I liked this dish to Jaesang and he agreed. He
even stated that it was his favorite. It was difficult to eat this
dish slowly and savor every bite.
The
fourth course, called crab gamejeong, was a crab shell (actually a
slice of cucumber) mounded with crabmeat, chopped short rib, onions,
green bell peppers, and carrots and floating in a small lake of
bright red Korean pepper paste soup. I recognized the fiery soup from
a previous dining experience where I had ordered a bowl of it and the
spice was too much for me (I was not warned). Here, it was just an
accent to the lovely crab/short rib combination. I was determined for
this restaurant to be a new experience and I never let on that I knew
the soup. I just enjoyed it.
In
the fifth slot was smoked marinated Galbi – smoked prime beef short
rib marinated in Gaonnuri’s signature sauce. Presentation was
everything: The dish was covered with a cylindrical glass and I could
see the smoke inside. Jaesang invited me to take a picture as he
removed the cover and the smoke escaped. I did. It reminded me of a
cocktail I had at Hakkasan – an upscale Cantonese place. The
smoking did wonders for the tender, juicy beef. Whatever was in their
signature sauce, it was wonderful, sweet and savory at the same time.
I took my time.
The
main course was mushroom Bibimbap and Doenjang Jjigae – a Kimchi
fried-rice dish mixed with oyster, portobello, pyogo and king oyster
mushrooms (I can’t get enough of mushrooms and this was the
motherlode!) and sided with more mushrooms, radish, Kimchi (the
Korean national dish, a spicy cabbage) and a lovely vegetable stew. I
finished everything. What I couldn’t pick up with the chopsticks, I
devoured with the silver spoon they provided.
Fortunately,
dessert was included. Called “La Figue,” it was an olive oil cake
with dulcey (sweet) cremeux (a fluffy pudding), black mission figs,
candied walnuts and Mascarpone gelato. The whole presentation
resembled a Chinese boat with two chocolate sails and raspberry
sparkles on the waves. It was fabulous! A cup of Peachy Oolong tea
finished off this feast perfectly.
Finally,
after forty-two years of dining out, I’ve found a Korean restaurant
where I had attentive, caring service, no one went ballistic over
a faux pas I made, I was able to connect with the
servers, and every detail I needed was filled in. A classy, wonderful
dining adventure in a beautiful ambiance, with something on the menu
to please everyone, the choice to barbeque or not, and an impressive
wine list with both affordable and exotic selections, that’s
Gaonnuri. I’m now cured of my Korea-phobia!
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