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The Where Else? Cafe and the Inescapable PhallusApr 26 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line As much as I enjoyed the food, I have to confess that the flamboyance of the place ultimately made me tired. I suppose it's fair to call the Where Else? Cafe 'trendy' because the owners are having to tear down walls to expand the size of their restaurant (located on 11th Street just off Spruce). They used to do catering, but don't have time to cater as often as they once did. And if you want them at your event, apparently you need to call well in advance. Their food is popular because it is good--flavorful, unpretentious, (largely) Caribbean cuisine. But I can't help suspecting that they are called upon as caterers so frequently because the restaurant itself is more than a bit over the top. Without studying a map, I can't say that Spruce and 11th is the exact geographic center of Philadelphia's gay community, but it is close enough for the decor and music of the Where Else? Cafe to cinch the deal. From the outside, the restaurant is all about understatement. The tiny sign that hangs in the front window is barely visible from across the street. It's a piece of decaying wood with 'Where Else?' painted across it in an unassuming script. But when one opens the door to go inside, one is assalted by the sound of Eurodisco 'music,' the kind of music that is sure to have four consecutive G chords blared on the keyboard every minute or so. Ugh. The walls are painted and treated and lighted in accordance with all of the rules that have been set down by the flaming Christopher Lowell. I like Christopher Lowell when it comes to building things out of plywood, but I cannot stand the things that he thinks he can get away with when it comes to color combinations and clusters of knick knacks (which he calls, in that ever-so-cute way of his, 'tchotchkes'). The walls of Where Else? have been ragged with plaster. The one opposite the cash register is a green-tinged yellow that wouldn't be at all annoying if the wall next to it were painted any color other than orange. The lead flashing that covers all of the exposed corners in the restaurant is straight out of Christopher Lowell, but its dim metallic luster is accented by the phallic skewers that cover the walls. Virtually every skewer curls into a double ring at the end, rings that finish the phallic skewers off with a decidedly scrotumesque flourish. And then there are the pictures--sketches of mushrooms that appear to have been uprooted and allowed to wilt. The heads of the mushrooms sag behind the shafts of the stalks, which expand toward the end so that the sketches bear an uncanny resemblance to medical diagrams of the penis and scrotum. After a few minutes of looking at the wall and smirking, I decided that I had had enough phallus-gazing, and moved to the opposite side of the table so that I wouldn't have to look at the mushrooms and skewers. Just then, however, my waiter returned with my order of beef tenderloin and spinach. The circlets of beef were stacked into a column with a large mound of spinach pinned to the top by a knife that frankly alarmed me. Mrs. Sloucho's jerk pork came garnished with a sliver of banana cut lengthwise and propped up against a couple of balls of rice. It didn't help matters that our dining companion had ordered the tamales. The tamales were really quite delicious. I had begun to think that no one in the Philadelphia area knew how to cook with masa, but clearly I was wrong. My spinach and beef was a close second. The jerk pork was disappointingly dry and bland, but the rice and plantains that came with it were tasty enough. Since everything was priced at ten dollars or less, we certainly got our money's worth. In keeping with the atmosphere of the restaurant, the beverages tend to be on the fruity side. There is guava juice and coconut milk and quite an assortment of drinks that I just can't quite see grown people pouring down their gullets. Fortunately, Where Else? also serves unsweetened iced tea, which is extraordinarily difficult to find in restaurants in this part of the country. As much as I enjoyed the food, I have to confess that the flamboyance of the place ultimately made me tired. I can't help suspecting that even Liberace himself would have been enervated (rather than energized) after spending fifteen minutes in that oppressively phallic jungle.  |
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