Match P0int

In the little town in which I live (which is in fact a borough of a larger city, but I can still dream, can�t I?) there is a restaurant whose name translates into English as The Greek Village. Apart from the menu and posters on the walls, there is nothing Greek about it. Sure, it serves souvlaki and pikilia and spanikopita and taramosalata and gyros, but it also serves pizza and meat-and-potatoes type of entr�es (which is a misnomer, by the way, since the word appetizer in French is entr�e). It�s a regular family restaurant, one to which we would often take the family (well, not often) as a treat since they could get the kinds of food that were forbidden at home (i.e. French fries [or Greek chips] and soda pop). I remember when the kids were really little, they would order orange crush (actually, I think it was we who ordered it for them because we wouldn�t give in yet to them drinking cola) and they would invariably spill it. That stuff stains!

What is most remarkable about The Greek Village is that the owner and chef was not Greek at all, but Vietnamese. We have a rather sizeable population of Vietnamese refugee families in our town, mostly because of the French connection (dating back to colonial times), and one of best piano students at the department ever was a daughter of one such family. This might account for why the food is only marginally �Greek�, although they do try there. It�s a favourite hangout with the students because the food is plentiful and cheap. What more could you ask for?

Anyway, a couple of years ago, the chef left The Greek Village and started his own establishment across the street in what used to be a doughnut shop when we first moved here and has gone through many different incarnations. It is right next door to the seedy bar owned by HeII�s Angels, the one I vowed I would never go back to after Hubby played with his friend�s band there before Christmas last. The new establishment is called (translated from the French) The Greek Captain, and the owner/chef�s name is Phuc. Ahah! Yes, you guessed it, one can buy T-shirts which say on the front: I was Phuced at the Captain�s.

The Captain�s menu is not much different from his competition across the street; it still features pizza, gyros, Greek food and family dinners of the too-much-protein-and-starch variety; however, he has added Vietnamese dishes too, and has become rather renowned for his Pho, or soupe tonkinoise, a large bowl of broth, noodles, and protein (chicken, beef, shrimp, tofu) of your choice. I have been hearing about it for ages, and yesterday I finally got a chance to try it.

I stopped by the university to meet Little Princess after an exam, as I had offered to buy her lunch (I am not above this bribe, as I have mentioned in the past), and found her BF sitting in the sunshine also waiting for her. The three of us picked up three more ladies from the art gallery (the curator [whom I hit it off with instantly], her assistant and the stagiaire or intern, a student) and walked into town where we found a large-enough table and ordered small bowls of pho. I was told that a large was roomy enough to bathe in, and the small was mighty big. I had the vegetarian soup which, unlike the others, came with broccoli and carrots in it plus pieces of fried tofu. A plate of bean sprouts and sliced lime is served alongside, and sweet red bean and hot sauces are on the table. It was delicious. According to my daughter�s Chinese friend, it is even better than anything you can get in Toronto, although the gallery curator said that we should check out a particular restaurant.

While we were there, my baritone who is doing his recital on Sunday arrived, so we made room for him at the table and he ordered soup as well, with shrimp. We then walked back to the campus together where he went to work in the computer lab and I met his accompanist who asked me if I knew where he was, to which I answered in the affirmative, and she informed me that he had missed a rehearsal that morning. Oops!

Hubby and I were supposed to go to a union meeting followed by a party with food, music and dancing (at least that�s what the email promised) last night, but we were both so bagged we ended up falling asleep instead and just stayed home. However, they were showing the W00dy Allen movie Match P0int at Centennial Theatre, so we went to the 9:30 show. It was my first time in there since the renovations, and it is beautiful. Imagine, it was built in 1967 (Canada�s centennial) and finally underwent a facelift. It has new seats, new carpeting and new acoustic paneling. It looks good.

Anyway, the film was excellent. It was like a remake of his earlier movie Crimes and Misdemean0rs in which a man hires a hit man to take out his mistress because she is threatening to ruin his marriage and all he has worked for, but the newer film lacks the comic relief that the filmmaker himself provided in the earlier work. I recommend it very much. It just occurred to me that Allen has implicated the D0st0yevsky novel Crime and Punishment in other films of his, even if it was just a passing reference. In this most recent one the main character is actually reading the novel in one scene, the earlier film takes its title from that book, and the plot line is brought up in conversation in L0ve and Death where Allen parodies Russian literature.

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