Florida Agenda

By Richard Hack

In a city full of Chinese restaurants, it is always a joy to find that gem of a place that combines extremely delicious and inventive Asian cuisine with a sophisticated ambiance that beckons to the more romantic among us. Tucked away on chic Las Olas Blvd., along the Hammarshee canal, Wild East Asian Bistro offers all that and more.

Unusual by design, Wild East is housed on three levels—the main dining room in a cool industrial décor softened with faux bamboo and mood lighting, or two al fresco sections overlooking the canal, where active jumping fish seem to be putting on their own aquatic show day or night, and the occasional kayak or canoe will drift slowly by as if on cue.

The servers move in hushed efficiency, appearing by some zen instinct when needed, and then disappearing into the background around the open kitchen where Chef Richard Ha performs his magic amid the leap of flames and stir-fry pans.

While the extensive menu mixes Korean, Malaysian, Japanese and Thai dishes, it is the abundant Chinese offerings that always seem to get the taste buds eager to explore the over one hundred options that unfold like surprises inside a fortune cookie.

Divided into a gastronomical map, the menu is sectioned into “Makimono (Rolls)” “Soups,” “Chilling (Salads),” “Warm Up (Lo Mein, Fried Rice, Chow Fun),” and the “Main Event” entrees featuring “The Land,” “The Sea” and “The Field” to cover all the bases. The real challenge, of course, is choosing between the selections with poetic names like Ancient Chili Pepper Chicken–a hot number with chili pepper, scallions, and five-spiced soy ($17), Midnight Steak—bistro medallion chucks with shitake mushrooms, peppers, onions and black bean sauce ($21), Firecracker Noodles—a blend of chicken, ginger, pepper, chilis and scallions mixed atop udon, and Beijing—a half duck, cooked with scallions and cucumbers, and served with steamed pancakes and hoison sauce ($23). Our personal favorite from the entrée menu is the  perfectly cooked Siam Sea Bass, which arrived at the table wrapped like a gift inside a banana leaf ($22). It doesn’t get any better if you like red coconut curry.

The place has been a Las Olas staple for three years now, and you’ll find it bustling with regulars seven nights a week. They seem to find multiple favorites from the Sake selection, which includes a wide range of brands and bottles priced from the $9 Tokuri Ikkon Blue Label Unfiltered to the ultra-chic $89 bottle of Wakatake Onikoroshi Devil Killer Shizuoka.  The always fun Saketinis are abundant as well, with Sex on the Beach and Red Dragon two of the most potent ($9).

If you are in the mood to experiment, skip the main menu entirely and head immediately to the colorful small-plate menu where each dish is a bargain at only $6. We always try to select several new options on each visit, although who can resist the classic Chicken Lettuce Wraps, Baby Shrimp Cups, or a heaping plateful of Sesame Chicken Noodle Salad—standard fare on every foray.
With 52 items on the $6 menu, you literally can graze for hours. Among the most popular are Flaming Calamari, Crispy Beijing Duck Wings, Sake Clams, Grilled Miso Mahi, Lap Cheong Shrimp Lo Mein as well as assorted dumplings and fried rices.

Owner Peter Wong has managed to do the impossible by combining a drop-dead location and a delightful atmosphere with prices that can be less than a visit to Burger King. Credit his wife Emily for some of the more inventive $6 plates including the Thai Lime Noodle Salad, a combination of skinny rice noodles, with julienned carrots, celery, cucumbers, bean sprouts and the tiniest slices of grilled chicken this side of Shanghai.

Though the idea of eating dessert at an Asian restaurant may not be instinctive, don’t pass up the “Sweet Endings” menu. Although our favorite Chocolate Trilogy—white, milk and dark chocolate mousse cake at $8—seems to always be sold out, a good second choice is Marquise Au Chocolat, a chocolate sponge cake with a sweeter-than-heaven ganache at $8. Big enough for sharing, though you won’t want to after the first bite. Even the simply refreshing Asian Ice Cream Trio at $7 is an outstanding choice—red bean, green tea and mango ice cream served in a large martini glass. It gives yum a new meaning.

And don’t forget that after the meal, all of Las Olas beckons right outside. End your evening with a stroll up the boulevard, and people watch to your heart’s content. Wild East is open for lunch every day except Sunday, with dinners every night of the week. They are open till midnight on Friday and Saturday evenings, with a special late-night menu. Make sure to tell Wild East that the Florida Agenda sent you.

By RICHARD HACK

She’s naked and she’s hot, and hiding in plain sight right on Wilton Drive. We’re speaking, of course, of the Naked Grape Wine Bar, which manages to mix cozy with industrial in a welcome mat of stainless steel, plush seating and dark walls mixed with a friendly cliental that seemed to flow as couples throughout a recent Saturday night visit.

Nutritional counselor and fitness trainer Andy Kress joined me to taste our way through the Grape’s new tapas menu with features flatbread pizza, panini sandwiches and an assortment of crisp and tempting salads. But it was the cheese sampler plate ($15) that attracted Andy’s palate. Three half-servings from the extensive cheese case sounds like it should be a gourmand’s dream, but making a choice from their huge selection was hardly simple.

The first taste of  Humboldt Fog ripened goat cheese, with its layer of edible vegetable ash, combined creamy texture with a tangy overglow. A great start to a varied assortment. The cave-aged gruyere made with cow’s milk was far subtler, but no less tasty.

Perfectly creamy while still maintaining its shape. Our third sample, the  sheep’s milk manchego, the definitive Spanish cheese, had a piquant, buttery and nutty flavor, distinguishing it from the trio, which came with British biscuit crackers and was accompanied by a caramelized Vidalia onion compote.

While still on the Small Plates section of the menu, we were lured by Manny’s Lower East Side Chopped Liver ($5) that was supposed to be served with a French baguette, but instead came with saltines. Either way, Manny knows his stuff—for the thick and rich chopped liver was laced with onions and eggs and a symphony of ethnic undercurrents.

The freshly prepared lump-crab cakes were easily the best deal on the entire menu at a scant $10 for two. Served on a bed of arugula, the crab cakes featured a sun-dried tomato finishing butter that left a lingering taste of garlic, basil and oregano just behind our smiling lips.

Our ever-informative server Johnny sold us on trying a dish called Three Little Pigs ($10), which at that point in the evening was exactly how we were beginning to feel as we loosened our belts and continued to graze the way Americans increasing do these days. As it turned out, the “pigs” of the title were actually slightly-larger-than-cocktail-size wieners, snuggled in a fresh bun and decorated with a host of accessory items that gave each a regional twist.

Not surprisingly, the least inspiring and tasty was the American: with its roasted red pepper catsup and mustard relish. Far more of a standout was the Mexican: an excellent combination of corn relish, jalapeno, and chipotle mustard dressing. Hot, sweet and delicious. But the triple-crown went to the out-of-the park Greek: a baby weiner covered in feta cheese, diced cucumber, Kalamata olives with a Greek tahini dressing. All three were served were can’t-stop-eating-them blue potato chips. Yum!

As I went wondering through the bar-restaurant, chatting up customers and joining in various celebrations in progress, it was evident that the Naked Grape is a happy place. There’s a fireplace warmth to the space without a fireplace. That glow you feel is from the friendly faces and outstretched hands. Not only are you encouraged to linger here, there are scattered board games—Yahtze, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit among them—to keep you fastened to your seats.

At the far end of Naked Grape, a retail section features jars of specialized chutneys, antipastos, jellies, relishes plus warm and cold dips, fresh from the Virginia Chutney Company in Arlington. And then, of course, there are the walls of wines—available for purchase by the bottle, glass, or two-ounce taste beginning at $2.50. What a clever way to explore the vineyard without committing half-a-paycheck in the process.

Co-owner/proprietor Caleb Ben-Avram is always in the kitchen, positioned right next to the eight-seat bar where the cute bartender Ben is a blur of activity and effervescence, while co-owner Tim Slivinski works the room.

Walk through the door at the Naked Grape and you’re family. And like family, you’ll immediately feel at home, and come back again and again.

By Richard Hack

Photo: The showgirls of Lips: (top row) Twat, Velvet, Alexis, April, Chocolatta, Jennifer
(middle row) Nicolette, Diva, Misty, (bottom row) Nicole, Charlize, Deja, and Franchesque.

To enter the queendom of Lips, the restaurant, nightclub and show palace, is to enter a place that lavishes enchantment right along with its signature knock-you-on your-ass frozen cosmos. It’s not just the chandeliers shaped like stiletto pumps or the gauzy drapes in fuchsias and limes and the occasional tangerine. Nor is it the stage no larger than a postage stamp decked out with more tinsel than the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. It’s not even the food, though the menu, heavy on large portions and sauced dishes, is quite good.

No. This queendom is special because of its royalty – the multi-talented assortment of drag stars and their transsexual equivalents who perform Tuesday through Sunday in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of feathers, sequins, push-up bras, and wigs the size of Cincinnati. With names like Velvet, Deja, Franchesque, Charlize, Nicole, April, Chocolatta, Jennifer, Charity, Martina and Champagne, they sweep, wiggle, and saunter their way through numbers that are bawdy, brazen, and cosmically comic mixing generations, genders and polite bodily movements in a ratatouille of wit and wisdom, all girdled in bustiers.

This mélange of crowns, tiaras and rhinestone excess is the responsibility of Yvonne Lamé – the Southern Belle who created the concept over thirteen years ago in New York, where all things are apparently possible, opening the first Lips in Greenwich Village.

Several years later, an off-spring sprouted like a wild orchid in San Diego, to equal critical acclaim. Four years ago next month, Lips Fort Lauderdale was born.

In a city where drag is as common as seashells, the unique collection of talent at Lips brought gays, straights, and other unidentified lifestyles and whipped them into a fricassee of excitement, themed to various nights of the week. Each has a hostess who reigns over their evening, shedding joy like confetti on New Year’s Eve. And it is to these four super-drags, if you will, that we pay homage with a curtsey and bow. After all, royalty they are and royalty they shall always be.

DIVA

The Queen Bee of the bunch reigning supreme on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings is the blonde and bejeweled Diva – no last name necessary.

“I started out as a window dresser at Marshall Field’s in Chicago in the 80s,” Diva remembers. “It was really the dream job for a budding drag queen, having access to every department in this enormous department store that had a little of everything. The drag part came as the result of a dare – when friends coaxed me into entering a talent contest at a Chicago bar called Off Broadway. It wasn’t a drag talent contest per se, but I dolled up in full ensemble, and ended up winning the show!

“I’ve never been good at reading the fine print, but as it turned out, in order to collect my $100 prize money, I had to make a second appearance at the place the following week. For some reason, the hostess for the evening was a no-show. The club’s owner asked me to fill in, and I had such a good time, I stayed on for the next two years – hosting the event every Monday night!

“When Marshall Field’s got bought out by Macy’s, I got transferred to Florida to do the windows in a new store being built at Broward Mall in Plantation, and ended up supplementing my income by doing drag at the old Boardwalk in North Miami Beach. At the time, I never thought of it as a career. That happened the moment I realized that I was earning more money doing drag on the weekends than I was Monday-Friday at my day job,” Diva reveals.

There were pit stops in Miami, Opa-Locka, and Hialeah, before Diva became a Fort Lauderdale fixture at the original Trannie Shack show at Elements, housed in the building where the current Scandals bar is located.

“The owners of Lips saw me at Elements, offered me a job at their club—then under construction and I’ve been working the room ever since.”

Friday and Saturday nights, birthday and bachelorette parties abound with audiences that get so enthusiastic that the word “wild” becomes a p.s. for the night. A third show on Saturday night called “Taboo” is Diva’s favorite since it allows the girls to reveal a bit more skin and push the envelope to just this side of naughty.

“During the week, we’re the Disney of Drag,” says Diva. “The late show on Saturday night is where we get sexual. We even have a different menu.” And the way she says it, you just know Diva is licking her lips.

MISTY EYEZ
The always upbeat Misty Eyez is a big woman with a big story. She was raised to be a pastor and graduated from Oklahoma’s Oral Roberts University.  But it wasn’t the pulpit that turned out to be her eventual calling. All that changed on one fateful Halloween, when Misty dressed in drag to celebrate the holiday.

“Anything is possible on Halloween, and since I was struggling to come out of the closet while living with my very conservative Christian family, I dressed up as this gorgeous woman for a contest, which I was absolutely convinced I would win. Looking back at the pictures now, I was a hideous mess, but at the time I thought I looked gorgeous. While I didn’t win, it did make me more comfortable with myself and my sexuality, and eventually I just began to dress up more… and well, one thing led to another,” she says, fluttering lashes that seem poised to fly right off of her eyelids and across the room.

“My drag career began in 2003 at a bar called Trixies in Hollywood, but it wasn’t until two years later, when I moved to Elements, that my drag career really exploded. It’s funny, ‘cause I’m really very sweet,” she says, flashing a grin as sly as it is witty. “They called me  the South Florida Sweetheart. I’m just nice by nature,” she says.

Hard to believe that this is the woman chosen to host Lips’ Wednesday night Bitchy Bingo, where cattiness is queen right along with

Misty Eyez. “It’s really funny,” she says, “but sometimes I’m half-way through the show and I have to remind myself to be nastier. It really doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m all about peace and harmony.”

It’s easy to feel the love from this drag star whose chosen career has caused a seeming unmendable rift with her family. “Oh, they think of me as a backsliding homosexual who’s going to burn in hell. Now, I still think of myself as a good Christian. Yet, they won’t even consider talking to me until I return to Jesus.”

And that’s not the only struggle that keeps Misty Eyez busy, separating the personas while hoping to heal what she sees as segregation within the gay and lesbian community itself. “Here we all are fighting for equality, and we can’t get along among ourselves. Gays don’t talk to lesbians who don’t talk to trannies. The circuit boys don’t talk to the bears who don’t talk to the twinks.

The leather queens don’t talk to anyone. We need to respect ourselves, before we can expect the rest of the world to respect who we are. I will never give up my fight to bring us all together. Never,” she says. And she means it.

NICOLETTE

Nicolette is a tiny bundle of talent known for her ability to transform into famous superstars, Reba McEntire among them. Hosting Lips on Thursday nights’ Dinner with the Divas, Nicolette rotates the spotlight between Barbra, Judy, Lisa, Tina, and Marilyn among
others.

“Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined doing drag for a living,” she says. “The first time I tried it, I was 22-years-old in Monroe, Louisiana, and entered a drag contest in a club called Hot Shots. I had never seen a drag show, so needless to say, I didn’t win. However,” she pauses, hoisting a well-manicured finger into the air, “two months later, I returned with a new look, a new song, and a new attitude about the whole business. This time, I won, I’m happy to say.”

At the time, the bar didn’t have a regular drag night, but the events proved so popular that they turned their Tuesday nights into an all-drag event with Nicolette getting her first regular paid engagement.

“I worked there for several years before moving on to Nashville, where I worked for several more years. Then about 10 years ago, I moved to Florida and began working at the old Madame’s Restaurant & Cabaret in Sunny Isles with Franchesque and Nicole. When Lips opened, we all moved here, and each of us developed our own celebrity impressions.”

Diana Ross, Cher, Madonna, Bette Midler – all get their moments on stage most Thursday nights as the lookalikes threaten to outdo the originals with costumes and creativity.

Nicolette returns on Sunday afternoons for Gospel Brunch, leading the always-irreverent Sisters of Sequins to raise their voices in joyful song. It’s the only standing ovation where the audience is on its knees.

“My mother is so supportive of what I do,” Nicolette smiles in appreciation. “My twelve-year-old sister too,” she adds. “My father… well, not so much. He knows what I do, and once he saw  me on television. Never said whether he liked it, but… maybe some day,” she says still smiling. Talent has a way of making the impossible happen.

TWAT LaROUGE

Tuesday nights at Lips is Dragalicious, the new game show evening when strangers become the best of friends in impromptu contests that involve gags, props, and prizes galore. The game show night is the creation of Twat LaRouge, and it’s only fitting that this multi-talented costume and jewelry designer-turned-showgirl should keep the fun rolling with a $16.95 prix fixe menu and $5.00 frozen cosmos.

“I got dressed in drag for the very first time in 1999 in Kansas City Missouri, at a club called Cabaret,” she says. I was getting my BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and created this character for my senior thesis. She was a mother figure, with no breasts, no hips, a flattened face – downtrodden and emotionally abused by her family.

“During the show, the woman makes a trip to a store and comes out transformed! She went from brunette to blonde, had a huge head, huge eyes, and these giant hips that have since become my signature look. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen… and it’s still unique today,” Twat says.

The following year, on January 2, 2000, Twat, now a regular at the Cabaret, met a kindergarten teacher named Johnny, a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College, a theater and dance school in New York City. It was one of those love-at-first-sight kind of things, and the pair have been together ever since. (They were officially married a few years back.)

Since Johnny moonlighted as an actor in an underground drag show called Late Night Theater, it took only a small leap of networking before Twat was designing their costumes and sets. And when both of these lovebirds lost their jobs unexpectedly, a leap of faith (and Twat’s ailing step-mother) brought the pair to South Florida where fame (and Lips) awaited.

Both Twat and her Johnny, now working in drag as Chocolatta, were hired by Her Majesty Yvonne. And the rest, as they say, is history.  The pair have this remarkable ability to finish each other’s sentences. Such is the stuff of true love. And they can often been seen together on stage in Lips.

For Dragalicious, while Twat runs the show, Game Show Johnny is out of drag and by her side. It’s a one-two punch not to be missed.
“We’re together for the long haul,” says Twat, who Chocolatta happily announces is the “creative one.” “We’ve had so many great times together it more than makes up for the occasional bitchy drag queen we’ve come across.

“We’ve had cigarette holes burned in our costumes, and drinks poured into our suitcases,” says Chocolatta. “But for the most part, drag queens are sweet. That’s how we always try to be, welcoming the scared newcomers and extending a helping hand.”

But that’s hardly the only thing that sets this team apart. “We sew all our own costumes, make our own jewelry, mix our own music,”says Twat. “Nothing in our acts are ever duplicated anywhere. We always give a positive, embracing, creative show.”

As a way of giving back, Twat and Chocolatta volunteer at Drag It  Out, a not-for-profit organization that teaches drag to both men and women. “From ages 19 to over 50, they just want to have fun.” Sign us up for some of that.

Dinner with the Divas A Special Benefit for Neighbors4Neighbors

The Ladies of Lips bring their  special divas to life in support of Neighbors4Neighbors to help South Florida children and families in need. Hosted by Diva and CBS4 News Anchor George Estevez, the evening showcases songs by Madonna, Cher, Diana Ross, Tina Turner and illusions newly created for the show. Michael Goodman and  Jen Klaassens co-chair the event, Wednesday, November 9, starting a 6 p.m. with a VIP reception. Dinner and show follow at 7 p.m. Tickets are $50 per person. VIP tickets are $75, including a champagne reception and premium seating. To purchase tickets, call 305-597-4404 or www.neighbors4neighbors.org.

Lips is located at 1421 E Oakland Park Blvd. in Oakland Park, FL. For information or reservations, please call 954-567-0987.

By Richard Hack

Photo Courtesy Getty Images: President Obama shakes hands with gay rights activist Frank Kameny after signing a memorandum on federal benefits as Vice President Joe Biden (from left), Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Sen. Joe Lieberman (independent-Conn.) look on.

Frank Kameny, a pioneer in the gay-rights movement, and the father of gay-activism, died October 11 from natural causes in his Washington, DC home. He was 86.

“Frank Kameny led an extraordinary life marked by heroic activism that set a path for the modern LGBT civil rights movement,” Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solomese stated. “From his early days fighting institutionalized discrimination in the federal workforce, Dr. Kameny taught us all that ‘Gay Is Good.’”

After serving in the Army in World War II, and earning a PhD from Harvard University, Kameny took a civil service position with the U.S. Army Map Service in Washington. Soon thereafter, he was questioned about his homosexuality and judged unfit for federal employment.

Determined to fight what he saw as discrimination, he argued his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where, in 1961, he brought the first civil rights claim in a U.S. court based on sexual orientation. While Kameny lost the petition, he never stopped fighting for the rights of homosexuals, both in the military and in the workplace.

In the same year, Kameny joined Jack Nichols to form the Mattachine Society of Washington, DC. In 1965, he led the first pro-gay demonstration in front of the White House. Hand-painted signs used in the protest for equal rights now hang in the Smithsonian Institution.

Frank Kameny 1925 - 2011

Coining the phrase “Gay is Good,” Kameny demanded and received the right to speak at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in 1971, challenging the association’s theory that homosexuality was a sickness. The same year, he founded the Gay Activists Alliance (now the Gay and Lesbian Activist Alliance). Kameny was also the co-founder of the National Gay Task Force and the National Gay Rights Lobby.

“As we say goodbye to a trailblazer on National Coming Out Day,” Solmonese said, “we remember the remarkable power we all have to change the world by living our lives like Frank – openly, honestly and authentically.”

In a life full of proud moments, Kameny never stood taller than when, from his wheelchair, he took his place in the front row at the White House as President Barack Obama signed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act” into law in December 2010.

Kameny is survived by his sister, Edna Kameny Lavey.

Upscale Dining at Neighborhood Prices

MICHELE’S DINING LOUNGE
2761 E OAKLAND PARK BLVD,
OAKLAND PARK, FL
954-533-1919

By RICHARD HACK

Sweep into Michele’s Dining Lounge and enter a world of sophisticated elegance. Beige, browns and shades of mocha cradle customers in a warm embrace that stands in stunning denial of its strip mall home where the restaurant neighbors with a hair salon, a cigar emporium, and a day spa complete with thai massage.

Inside, however, is where the magic begins. A mirrored water-wall greets you at the entrance, while subtle lighting sets the stage for what promises to be a very special occasion. This is restaurateur Michele Bonarigo’s place, and she brings no small amount of talent to the table. She grew up in upstate New York working in eateries owned by her father and uncles, and learned her lessons well. Now it’s her turn to run the show, and Michele’s Dining Lounge has found an audience of swagged guests who fill the place to capacity on Tuesday through Saturday evenings.

The comprehensive menu comes equipped with clever LED lighting for the visually challenged – all the better to see the smart array of appetizers, entrees and desserts that tempt through descriptions that ooze with flavor even before you’ve made a selection.
We elected to start with flash-fried calamari with a pomodoro reduction ($10), escargots en croûte ($15)—snails in puff pastry in any other language, and a pan-fried jumbo lump crab cake ($15) with a spicy red pepper coulis.

All well-chosen selections, though slightly heavy on sauces that unnecessarily masked the delicacies of the dishes.

At $24, the grilled salmon entrée was a celebration in flavors – coconut, curry, and lime accenting a flawlessly prepared six-ounce portion. The medium-rare filet blue ($34), otherwise known as nine-ounces of heaven, was served on a square white plate that accented the amazingly juicy steak, sautéed asparagus and grilled portabella mushrooms, highlighted by a blue cheese sauce that drizzled perfection. And none of us could resist tasting the roasted pork tenderloin ($24) with wilted baby arugula in an apple/fig glaze that was presented on the plate in a design worthy of an art award. We’re told the dish is a specialty of chef Michael Kridlow.

We believe it!

Our server recommended the Francis Ford Coppola’s Director’s Cut Cabernet Sauvignon ($13 a glass), which displayed tones of cherry and chassis, and was such an excellent complement to the meal that seconds were ordered before our plates were licked cleaned.

Of course, there’s always room for dessert – at least at our table – with votes lodged for the lemon tart with raspberry sauce ($8), the apple streusel with ice cream and caramel sauce ($7.50), and the crème brûlée ($8) – three forks please. Since no one was eager to accept a proxy, we ordered them all and shared the decadence. Everyone knows that calories don’t count when you hold your breath, and that was exactly what we did at the first indulgent taste.

If you’re in the mood for a lighter nosh, there is a separate menu available only at the bar offering appetizers at $10 per item. A personal favorite is the dynamic Ahi Tuna Sliders with wasabi aioli and Asian slaw on a challah bun. Show up at barside for Happy Hour between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. and get an amazing 50% off on food and drink.

Michele’s Dining Lounge is open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday evenings from 5 p.m. until 11 p.m. with lunch served Tuesday through Friday 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, by the way, is LA-TEA-DA night with $5 mojitos and cosmos filling the 10-ounce glassware. Wednesday night features the glamorous songstress Chris Janes. Her trilling begins at 7 p.m. sharp. Thursday evening, Cecilia Roy takes control of the white baby grand and adds jazz to the mix from 7 p.m.

On Friday, the piano stylings of Sal Fazio hold court at 5 p.m., followed by the note  perfect Lavon the Sax Man Extraordinaire at full volume starting at 8 p.m. (Forget about talking when Lavon takes control of the mike.) Sal Fazio repeats on Saturday at  8 p.m. to finish the week with an elegant touch.

The restaurant boasts the slogan, “Upscale Dining at Neighborhood Prices.” While I don’t know what neighborhood you come from, from where I sit, this is not an inexpensive night on the town. However, given the quality of the food, the elegant setting, the friendly efficient staff, and the mix of movers and shakers who’ll become your new best friends, Michele’s Dining Lounge is worth every single penny. Save up your cash and go, ASAP.