Ryan H.'s Profile

It sure took me long enough to get here.  We went on a Saturday night, and after seeing all these Yelp reviews talking about how empty the place would be, I thought it would be busier considering all the good reviews.  But no!  There was only one other couple there at 7:00 pm.

It's purely a husband and wife operation, and I find them completely adorable.  There was only one other kid helping out answering the phone/serving tea, etc.  True to the comments, sushi chef Yoshi kept to himself.  It's a delightfully informal restaurant, and there wasn't even any cheesy music soundtrack like you normally find at Japanese restaurants.

What's great about Yoshi's sushi is how uncomplicated it is.  The menu is simple sheet of paper, a stack of which hangs on the wall next to your table  You check off what you want.  The restaurant is purely a sushi restaurant.  I doubt there was anything cooked on the menu.  They didn't even have green tea ice cream.  Even the rolls were relatively uncomplicated and cheap.

As such, Yoshi falls into a category of restaurant that I admire:  The place that serves only one thing, but does it perfectly.  The nigiri pieces were a good size, and the ingredients in the rolls were well-proportioned.  I was especially impressed by one roll that had a very thin slice of apple curled into it.  And their prices are probably the best around.

I have the impression that sushi restaurants like this are common in Japan.  Maybe that's misguided, I don't know.  In America, it's seen as a special sort of meal.  But at Yoshi, I could feel comfortable rolling in for lunch, eating nigiri with my hands, and bring pleasantly surprised by the bill.  I feel bad that this is the closest sushi restaurant to my house, and it's taken me three years to get here.  I'll be back.

Has it really been almost seven years since I wrote my original gushing review of the original Everready in Hyde Park?  And eleven years since my first visit there?  Yikes, time flies.

This location has been owned by the Everready people for years, although it was a different restaurant, and I was pleasantly surprised to see they converted it into another Everready when I was in the area today.  Although you can tell it's a re-model.  They may have copied the cartoonish coffee dude in front, but unforunately, it does not have the retro flair of the original.  The rough hewn wood and modern lighting are the tell-tale signs of a different restaurant.

I can't say much for the food since we only had coffee and cake, but I am giving it four stars just on principle.  My bet is that it's not a five star restaurant like it's brother in Hyde Park, if only because I doubt they make all of the food on the premises daily.  Likely much of it comes from the Hyde Park location.  But that menu (copyright 2001) is still the same.  If it's not broke, don't fix it.  Glad to see there's a new location closer to home, if only slightly.

Oh, also the bathroom stalls are amazing.

So let me get this straight.  I'm going to pay more money than normal so that I have the privilege of watching advertisements before the movie?  GET REAL.  Advertising should be offsetting the cost of the ticket, not increasing it.  That's how the game is supposed to work, and that's how it does work in other forms of entertainment:  Television, magazines, radio, etc.  People pay premiums for HBO, satellite radio, and Consumer Reports because they are devoid of ads.  But when it comes to movies, apparently you pay a premium to watch gigantic commercials for television shows.  And there is no escape.  Because of the stadium seating, the commercials take up your entire field of vision, and the sound is loud enough to drown everything else out.  Why is this business model backwards?  I can go to the Spectrum and watch a movie for a few dollars cheaper, but they're just as likely to run someone's vacation photos as they are slides advertising local businesses.  By all accounts, it's Regal Cinema that should cost $8, and Spectrum that costs $11.  I'm knocking off three stars just for this absurdity.

The seats are comfy, I'll give them that.

I was never a huge fan of TCBY growing up, but I'm glad to see its return since it provides a "healthy" alternative to ice cream.  Plus, I love out-of-place stores, and even in the 80s TCBY seemed like an anachronism.  A chain of frozen yogurt stores spanning the whole nation, claiming on its face to be "the country's best yogurt?"  Not just the best frozen yogurt, but the best yogurt period.  What country are we living in again?

People are noting the fundamental change in food service that TCBY is heralding by bringing the buffet model to the desert world.  And what a business model it is!  TCBY seems to have finally realized that people don't mind making their own food, if said preparation only involves pulling down levers and sprinkling on toppings.  Imagine the savings in staff expense.  For the moment, there seems to be a TCBY guide person who shows you what to do once you enter the store (find a dish, fill it with the yogurt flavors you want, put on as many of the 40 toppings you want, then weigh and pay), plus cashiers, but I imagine the store could hypothetically be run by a single person all day.

And why not?  Who wouldn't want to prepare their own dish of frozen yogurt?  I would be embarrassed to ask an ice creamista for crushed Butterfingers, cheesecake chunks, gummy worms, raspberries, mangos, and kiwis on my white chocolate, classic tart, and peanut butter combo.  But at TCBY, there is no shame.  Finally, freedom!

I'm almost willing to completely overlook the quality of the product for my love of variety and squeezey machine operation.   But the truth is, the frozen yogurt is pretty good.  As good or better than your typical soft serve ice cream.  And it's "healthier!"

Here's another attraction I can check off in my Roadside America book.  Eastern State was only opened to visitors a few years ago.  It's been shuttered since the 1970's.  And for fans of creepy old historic buildings, they are doing the right thing in keeping the place in a state of sustained ruin.  No improvements are planned, and they've done only the minimum to make it safe for visitors.

The Steve Buscemi audio tour is a must.  And if you're a fan of historic ruins/old prisons/creepy buildings, you will definitely want to visit all of the informative stations throughout the property and can plan on spending ~4 hours here.

Located in a neat, old building, you have to climb several flights of stairs before you even get to the seating.  Once you're there, you couldn't ask for better.  The acoustics are pretty much perfect.  I went to see Andrew Bird, who builds complex songs out of loops of different instruments that are all played by him, live, and I could pick everything out of the mix.  

The seating leaves something to be desired, even in the orchestra seats.  I appreciate the weird historic details (like the pull-up bars on the backs of the seats), but at 6 foot tall, there just wasn't enough room for me.   I was constantly battling with knee placement, made more difficult by the fact that the seats are not staggered.  You sit directly behind someone, and someone sits directly behind you.  It really felt akin to the seats on a wooden roller coaster.  Fix the seating situation, and this would be a five star venue.

All of the National Seashore beaches deserve 5 stars, in my opinion.  This is just one of them.  Fantastically quiet, except for weekends in the summer.  But if you're looking for a nice swim, do not expect warm waters here.  A few souls are crazy enough to take the plunge in a swimsuit, but most people wear wetsuits into the water.

Want to avoid the $15 entry fee?  Go either very early in the morning or very late, when the booth is not staffed.  Getting there as the sun rises is a special treat.  There's no one there but the surfers.  I bring a lunch and a book and stay there for hours.  OR, if you have a bike, park at the end of the Rail Trail on Lecount Hollow Road and pedal in!  It's about two miles, and bicyclists get in for free.

The solitude is pretty amazing considering how congested much of the cape can be.  You can literally walk all the way up and down the "forearm" of Cape Cod on preserved National Seashore land if you wanted.  Very thankful they saved it from development.

Ever since having the Farmer Boy's mac & cheese at the Mac & Cheese Bowl at the Marriott this year, I've had it in the back of my mind, "I should try this restaurant."  Their mac & cheese was my wife's favorite out of the 30 in the contest (yes, we tried them all) and it was among my favorites.  A very traditional creamy mac & cheese with a mix of cheddars.

Had the mac & cheese at the restaurant and it was as good as I'd remembered.  A restaurant doesn't need much more than one great dish if you ask me, but since this is a diner, they have a large menu.  The place was relatively full for a Saturday at 8PM, so it has its fans.  Aside from the mac & cheese, I had a sweet potato soup which I was pleasantly surprised with.  It was not very salty, a common concern with restaurant soup, and it came topped with crumbled BACON.  I had a side of oven-roasted mushrooms to add a little variety to my mac & cheese experience, and there you have it.  Good eats.

Had a craving for something other than seafood.  Go figure.  So I called Toly's for the first time ever.  They make-a a greasy pizza pie-a.  The type of thing that will really hit the spot if you're in the mood for it.  Not the best pizza ever, but not the worst by far. A fine place for takeout, not eat-in.  It's the kind of place that has one of those weird old little computer betting screens at one of the tables, and a random old arcade game. They get extra points for some unexpected toppings like eggplant and spinach.

As featured on Roadside America!

Depending on the person, the biggest attraction here will either be the collection or the building itself.  I've been to a lot of specialty/regional history/ American folk museums, and most of the collections of old wooden tools, farm equipment, and silverware here will be familiar to anyone who has been to museums like that.  That said, there are a number of unique items I've never seen anywhere before.  Namely, the gigantic water bucket dipper which spans much of the main hall.  And on the very top floor, there's a gallows.  There's some of interesting stuff, but there's just so much of it, and as my wife said, it's all "brown."  So you start to get eye strain after a short while.

For me the most interesting thing was the building.  It is a very odd, designed-during-construction, concrete castle.  Even the windows are made of concrete instead of wood.  Avoid the 20th century elevator and staircase, take the original stairs inside the museum instead.  The flights are placed randomly on each level, giving it the feel of a maze.  At one point, you'll start ascending a tower into a room of Mercer's tiles and stove guards, and the stairs keep leading you in increasingly odd directions.  It finally ends at the very top room with the gallows and, oddly, an old schoolroom.