Gr/eats - CLOSED

• Cuisine(s): American, Asian, Japanese
  Price: $
  Payment Types: MasterCard, Visa
• Features: Takeout
  Serving: Dinner, Lunch
  Alcohol: None
• Reservations: Accepted, Not Necessary
  Parking: Lot Available

Description

The standard crack about Giant Robot, even before the publication became actually beautiful and spawned an extensive bicoastal network of film festivals, art galleries, Internet sites and its own art galleries and shops, was that it actually functioned better as a toy store than it did as a magazine. Now, gr/eats is the culinary outpost of Giant Robot empire. This small, chic cafe is furnished with Eames shell chairs and the sort of harsh, glowing light one expects to find in Prada boutiques. The music kind of rocks, mostly the kind of indie stuff you hear from musicians whose passions extend equally to Neil Diamond and Neil Young. The densely packed hamburgers are made with Angus beef, and the mango-garnished fish tacos are pretty good. A platter of French fries includes crunchy banana shavings and squishy sweet-potato fries along with the usual shoestring potatoes; an occasional special of fried tofu comes hip-deep in a dashi-based sauce that will be familiar to anybody who has ever eaten a single dinner in a Japanese-American home. The food at gr/eats is re-contextualized Asian-American home cooking: bland, seasonal Thai shrimp curry and Japanese omelet rice; a mild Salvadoran seafood stew served over a yellow rice "paella" and slightly clumsy Vietnamese spring rolls wrapped in rice paper; salty, fried tofu "meatballs" painted with an orangey sweet-and-sour sauce.