Bix Engels: Let's Eat!

Hundreds of people lined up for twenty-five-cent ice cream cones, hot dogs, and milk shakes at the Washtenaw Dairy’s to celebrate the Ann Arbor landmark’s seventy-five years in business. In the space of four hours, they sold some 4,500 milkshakes.

Chef Brandon Johns is no longer cooking at Vinology. Johns has been gone from the North Main Street restaurant for a week, said his wife, Sara Johns, whom I called because she has had a hand in public relations for Vinology. Brandon Johns had been at Vinology for one year. Before that, he had led the kitchen at the Mainstreet Ventures’ Chop House for six years.

Vinology owner Kristin Jonna declined to discuss the split, but said they are looking forward to working with their new chef, Robert Courser. Courser comes to Vinology from Chen Chow Brasserie in Birmingham. Courser has already had some impact on Main St. dining, having designed the menu for the Black Pearl, which opened last summer (the Black Pearl and Chen Chow are both projects of designer John Janviriya, who was also initially involved in Mélange). Courser will be Vinology’s fourth chef in three years.

Reviews for Brandon Johns’s cooking, including one by me in the Observer last year, were generally enthusiastic. Writing in the April 2009 issue of Detroit Hour, Christopher Cook called Vinology “the most improved restaurant in Ann Arbor,” continuing that the improvement had come in “large measure because of the direction of newcomer chef Brandon Johns, who came in as a partner and investor last summer.”

Mrs. Johns said the chef remains committed to local farmers and local food sourcing and hopes to be continuing in this vein elsewhere soon. Chef Johns has often been seen diligently poking through the greens at the Ann Arbor farmers’ market, and he skillfully brought the products of local food artisans and growers like Four Corners Creamery, Calder Dairy, Ernst Farm, Kapnick Orchards, Prochaska Farms, Snow’s Sugarbush maple syrup, and Tantre Farm to the table.

Kristin Jonna underlined Vinology’s intention to stay with local sources, noting that the new chef’s father is an owner of Eat Local Eat Natural, the Scio Township company that provides area restaurants with Michigan products. Jonna says they will gradually launch new menus over the next few weeks. She describes chef Courser’s style as very creative and very fun, with an emphasis on world flavors and wine pairings. 

I’d heard so much buzz about Beezy’s that I was surprised to find so little flash to this Ypsi cafe. But maybe that’s the point—Bee Mayhew has created something simple and real, with a lot of heart. Beezy’s namesake creator is a thirty-one-year-old with a ferocious strength of will, a finely tuned business plan, and an angel investor—one of her favorite customers when she worked at Petoskey’s Roast and Toast cafe, who, she says, “turned out to be a gazillionaire.”

Launched last November, with an aim of providing “simple, honest food,” and with dedicated service from an offbeat, friendly crew, Beezy’s attracted an instant, well-deserved following.
Mayhew’s communitarian cafe is housed in a graceful 1865 brick Italianate building next to a storefront Pentecostal music school, across from a strip joint, a couple of doors down from the Dreamland Theater, and not far from the local-food advocates at Growing Hope. Clearly, there are a lot of different constituencies in the neighborhood, but it feels like most of them could find happiness here, at least in the form of a sandwich and a cup of coffee.

It’s a handsome space, but not in a glossy-magazine kind of way that makes people feel insufficiently cool. Mayhew painted some of the plaster walls a sunny yellow accented with eggplant and steely blue trim but left unpainted the brick wall that runs the length of the dining room. She added floors of recovered ash wood—from trees felled by the emerald ash borer—and exposed the original tin ceiling.

Much of the sandwich making takes place behind the counter in the main room, which intensifies the social spin. It makes a difference when you can interact with the person preparing your food, when she asks you afterwards as you pour more coffee from the self-serve bar, “You had the breakfast burrito, right? Was it OK?”
It was way more than OK—delicious, in fact.

The burrito is one of the ten or so breakfast plates on the chalkboard menu, the rest of which is devoted to sandwiches, soups, and salads. Canada-born, Mayhew grew up all over before settling in Michigan, putting down roots in Petoskey before replanting herself in Ypsilanti. With the zeal of one who picked the place she wants to live, Mayhew is an enthusiastic locovore, but not doctrinaire or elitist. The businesswoman in her considers price and quality as well as geography: she’s the first restaurateur I’ve talked to who proudly points to Gordon Food Service as a supplier: “They’re a huge Michigan company with good prices and a lot of great products from here.”

This practical approach helps her keep prices reasonable, but she also shops much closer to home: the tortilla in that $5.95 breakfast burrito comes from nearby Dos Hermanos Market. Mayhew stuffs it with local eggs and wonderfully robust Dos Hermanos chorizo, adds a tangy grated cheddar, and rolls it tightly. A scattering of home fries with a deep shiny cast delivers exotic flavors like cumin and paprika and a pepper blend from Alden’s Mill House in Antrim County.

I liked the breakfast plate, too, a blue-collar start to the day, with eggs, potatoes, crisp apple-wood–smoked bacon, and toast. In a way that makes the place feel like Mom’s kitchen, if you want the eggs any way other than scrambled, you’re out of luck. That’s not to say Mayhew isn’t flexible—she whipped up a good-looking custom vegan tofu burrito topped with sautéed veggies for the table next to ours—it’s just that she has a lot to cook on one four-burner stove.
Every day Mayhew makes two soups, one with meat and one vegetarian. Her chicken soup is exuberant, laced with lots of tarragon and plenty of carrots, celery, and chunks of breast meat. Since the soups are self serve and held in a steam pot, the broth-based soups may be a better choice than the cream soups. The cream of asparagus I tasted had gone a little too thick by late afternoon, but though it lost points on consistency, it still had excellent flavor. On another visit, the mulligatawny really didn’t taste like any mulligatawny I’ve ever had, but it was nevertheless a good concoction, with dark- and light-meat chicken and vegetables in a zippy broth.

For about $7, you can pair a big bowl of soup with any half sandwich or small salad. “Small” is relative—a small “Beezy’s Salad” was plentiful, a deep bowl of mixed greens, thinly sliced red onions, homemade croutons, slices of roast chicken, a scoop of egg salad, lots of crumbled bacon, and just the right amount of ranch dressing.

Mayhew bakes fifteen to twenty-five loaves of bread daily—sourdough, rye, cracked wheat, and veggie—and the sandwich slices are hand-hewn, thick, and uneven. The fillings make liberal use of fresh herbs. I found myself going back for the egg salad on soft cracked wheat, the bread providing a fine platform for a retro mustardy mix reminiscent of deviled eggs. The “Chicksilanti” is delicious, with clean-tasting roasted chicken and lots of celery, mayo, and fresh herbs. It’s “topless”—that is, open-faced—in a nod to Deja Vu across the street.

Mayhew bakes a few sweets from scratch or almost scratch—scones, lemon bars, and cinnamon buns—none of which I tried. She gets brownies and cupcakes from Erin Kelley’s tarte bakery, and coffee cake from Tim Edinger of Old World Bakery. I did sample Beezy’s coffees, which are very good; Mayhew uses Intelligensia coffee beans, roasted in Chicago.

Beezy’s predecessor in this space, the Oasis Cafe, a project of Belleville’s Power Centre Church International, aimed to provide affordable warm meals and a friendly gathering space. For whatever reason, that model didn’t work, but it seems like Beezy’s has taken on a similar role. It’s one of those places, like Zingerman’s (of which Mayhew is an alumna), that can lift a neighborhood. It is already an integral part of the social fabric and even contributes to the neighborhood agricultural scene. Mayhew sends her scraps to be composted to the Growing Hope hoop house a few blocks away. Growing Hope sends back veggies like spinach and cilantro grown right down the street. You may not know all these back stories when you eat at Beezy’s, but their sum shines through in the dining experience.

Beezy’s

20 N. Washington Ypsilanti

734-485–9625
beezyscafe.com
Mon.–Sat. 7 a.m.–7 p.m. Closed Sun.
Breakfast baked goods $1–$1.85, hot entrees $2.50–$6.25, soup $3.25, salads $2.75–$6.95, sandwiches $4.95–$6.95

Fully accessible to disabled.

This review was originally published in the Ann Arbor Observer, May 2009. 

The sun came out just in time for the three o’clock chef-show at Ingalls Mall Saturday, one of the street fair events at the Ann Arbor Book Festival. Zingerman’s Ari Weinzweig kicked off the show, followed by Eric Villegas, author of Fork in the Road; private chef-author Laura Stec, who wrote Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite out of Global Warming; Vinology chef Brandon Johns; and eve chef Max Sussman, co-author of Freshman in the Kitchen. The five were there to talk about their cookbooks and offer samples of dishes specially created for the event.

Hiller’s Market on Washtenaw put together a useful booklet of food producers from our state for its ongoing “Buy Michigan” promotion. You can download the pdf here: Foods Made in Michigan.

Speaking of local foods, today’s  New York Times has an interesting story about stretching the definition of what’s meant by eating local, “When Local Makes It Big,” by Kim Severson. Frito-Lay is one of the companies Severson writes about for its use of geographically-targeted marketing. It may fill in some gaps for people who’ve wondered about, as I did recently on the way to Metro Airport, a billboard alongside I-94 touting Lays potato chips’ Michigan roots.

 Even in a town saturated with coffee shops, Jim Saborio’s Comet Coffee stands out with an exceptional brew. Open since March, Comet Coffee remains mostly geared to take-away cups. But recently they set out a pair of tiny bistro tables in front of the shop in Nickels Arcade, a place to sit and drink in the architecture. The coffee is a good match for Nickels’  dramatic setting.  

Saborio takes coffee seriously. The menu features a rotating selection of five coffees, mostly from 49^th Parallel roasters in Vancouver, BC, and prepared using drip pour, French press, and vacuum pot methods, as well as in espresso riffs. Air-pots are forbidden; every cup of coffee is made fresh to order with precision grinding and exact water temperature. Prices range from about $2 to $7. A few sleek pastries are available, made by Vinology’s pastry chef; and they carry the wonderful locally-made Maitelates alfajores.

Two-year-old Café Japon, the French-Japanese fusion bakery café on Liberty, now serves breakfast seven days a week. Like the rest of the menu, it’s an ideal counterpoint of East and West: on the one side, French omelets, sweet or savory crêpes, quiche; on the other, atsugiri toast and, on weekends, a Japanese breakfast assortment.

Café Japon was impressive when it opened. It’s even better now—from its authentic French baguettes (which owner-baker Miyoko Honma also supplies to Eve in Kerrytown) to its out-of-the-ordinary Japanese fare. The setting is humble, close, and comfortable, but food-wise, it’s a special experience. When I ordered a cup of matcha tea to start my breakfast. Joe, the counterman, asked me to pick the bowl in which I would like it to be served. Using a long narrow bamboo scoop, he carefully measured the pea-green powdered tea into my chosen bowl, added purified hot (but not boiling) water, and whisked it to a light foaminess with a wooden chasen. To offset the tea’s faint bitterness, it is accompanied by a daifuku, a rice-flour dumpling filled with sweetened red bean paste. The two, matcha and daifuku, are presented side by side, and the tea is drunk from the bowl. This is no cup of Lipton’s.

Pacific Rim’s remodeling took longer than originally anticipated, but it was ready in time for two of the biggest dates on any Ann Arbor restaurant's calendar: graduation and Mother’s Day. We stopped by on the first Saturday night in the Asian-fusion eatery’s new space.

They started work last fall, breaking through the wall on the west side to add a bar, extra seating, and a private dining room in the old Ehnis and Sons space next door. Chef-owner Duc Tang told me in October he was concerned about maintaining the ambiance. The new room is beautiful--sleek and soft, but with a familiar feel. The original dining room has been spruced up  too, so that the two spaces have a consistent design theme. 

In addition to the expanded dining area, they also finally have an ADA-compliant loo (the original bathrooms were downstairs in the 19^th century building). Duc Tang kept the restaurant open throughout the remodeling.