The One Who Likes Eve

BFF Kelly was in town for one of our semi-annual extravaganzas last week. At one point early in the evening we were seated outdoors at Rush Street, and a man we met on one of our previous forays happened to stroll by with a friend. “Mandy,” Kelly exclaimed, “look, it’s Mike!* Can you believe it?! What a coincidence!” She waved the pair over to join us, and it was clear they’d gotten quite a head start in the beverage department. “You guys!” Mike kept saying with a bit of a slur and a surprised expression, “YOU guys!” Then, pointing to Kelly, he said “Dave, you remember me telling you about these girls. The cute one and…” turning to me “…and...and the one who likes food!”

Perfect. “the one who likes food.” Exactly the impression I want to make on the single men of Ann Arbor.Now that said, and in a sort of you-can’t-fight-City-Hall frame of mind, I’ll tell you about my outing with Pepper to Eve for noshies and drinks last Friday night.

Eve The Restaurant

The Button and Pepper’s daughter are both at band camp, so it was our annual Moms’ Night Out. With no reservations, we entered the Kerrytown boite with some trepidation. “No problem,” said the hostess as she seated us at a lovely outdoor table, “we’re in the August doldrums.”

Pepper ordered a White Grape Martini, and I had a Prosecco Peach Bellini. The martini was made with grape flavored vodka, and lovely with a little green grape floating in it. And while grateful that it didn’t taste like grape Kool Aid, it really didn’t have much flavor. Just a sort of bland, sweet taste that made the vodka frighteningly smooth going down. My Bellini wasn’t made with the traditional white peach puree, but yummy nonetheless. I’ll give the bar a pass and assume that they made the puree with in-season Michigan peaches.

For eats, we went tapas-style and ordered all appetizers. The tempura-style shrimp (below) was to die for, presented with a fresh aioli swirled with some kind of crème fraiche. Sweet, sweet, sweet! “This is almost like eating the shellfish version of a perfect filet mignon,” I said to Pepper as I sliced into one of the banana-sized crustaceans.

“My staff constantly rave about these,” Pepper told me, as we then dove into the plate of Wonton Nachos. But you know what? Meh. They were okay, and using fresh wontons rather than tortillas is interesting, but I found them a bit bland. They were heavy on the beans, and really needed a kick of some sort of strong flavor. Maybe a salsa with lemon grass, to continue the Asian/Latin mash up?

Curry Mussels...Mmmmmm

But then, honestly, just about anything would pale in comparison to our final dish, the Curry Mussels. Oh. My. God. Swimming in a green curry and coconut sauce, this was by far the best bowl of bivalves I’ve ever had in town (sorry Earle). The sauce was just a perfect curry – fresh tasting, a bit of a kick, and delish went sopped up with the crusty house bread from Café Japon. Killer.

Happily fed, Pepper let out a surprisingly melancholy sigh and said “Mandy, this may be our last chance to eat here.” Chef/owner Eve Arnoff’s (above) lease at Kerrytown is a question mark, and I asked Pep if she’d heard more lately. “I hear she’s moving to Chicago by Christmas.”

Sigh, indeed. Those of us "who like food" would sorely miss Chef Eve.

*Names have been changed to protect those who ought to know better...