Eat Me

Westville: I forgot.

When I first saw Westville, I wrote it off mentally as too gimmicky. Oh, there's another one of those Wholesome Heartland places in the Big City. It will be serving comfort food galore, and the thing is, I highly doubt it will be better than the Grange Hall (now the Blue Mill Tavern once again, although nothing like the old Blue Mill, where I used to hang out in its divey days).

But chance brought me and a friend to Westville for a late dinner, and I saw that it did have some things going for it. For one, it offers a lot of side dishes, which, for a grazer like me, is a boon. I like making entire suppers out of side dishes; call it the displacement approach.

That night was not an all-side-dish dinner night, thought. I ordered the whole trout; it was a little salty but quite edible. The green beans surprised me; they were perfectly cooked—a little soft, a little snappy. From what I could tell, the chef hadn't done the cold-water plunge, either. Ever noticed how difficult it is to get green beans just right?

While we were eating, a group of guys were whooping it up at the next table. They were good-natured, and unfrat-like, and singing goofily to parts of the music. I don't know if they were drunk or young or both, but I didn't much mind their antics. It was more homey and amusing than it was obnoxious, at least at 11:30 at night.

Unlikely that anybody who eats at Michael's would eat at Westville.