View from the porcelain throne in the Little Muffaletta Eater’s Room, Enoteca, South Congress
As far as ancillary cafés attached to popular South Congress “wood fired pizza” joints go, Enoteca, that previously-discussed bulge off the starboard side of Vespaio, is Stingray’s favorite.
The fried oysters we had there yesterday, which were breaded in cornmeal and came with chile mayo, were, I am sad to report, somewhat leaden and overfried and like unto little fishtank-flavored rocks that get off in your mouth, but the pissoir, as anyone can see, is the demented work of a mind unencumbered by either the burden of taste or a shortage of remnant tile.
Stingray enjoyed her muffaletta, which, because she has people in New Orleans, she pronounces “moofalotta.” The Enoteca version appeared to be little more than an excuse to smear assorted tapenades all over a big round bun.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I LOVE that bathroom wall! Seriously. But since I don’t seem to have enough remnant tile lying around, looks like I’m going to have to break all my dishes and vases in order to redo my own bathroom. Oh tant pis.
Up here in the country we say muffalotta, and we make them the size of footballs.
Mosaic is an addictive form of madness and joy. Once you begin you simply cannot stop until you run out of either wall space or bits of broken stuff. Since both these things are in plentiful supply the madness and joy has the potential to go on forever.
Dearest Twisty,
I am so enjoying this toilet tour! It is precisely the sort of artistic holiday I enjoy most…especially, in my case, as a form of procrastination~!
Flush on!
Oh, I love that bathroom wall. It’s crazy like a Joan Miro image. Very practical, too: it probably hides a lot of stains.
Oh, let’s not think about that, after all.
Also, I am sad to say that the fried oysters you describe here are much, much closer to my experience of such things. Sad. Oh, well. At least Stingray got have multiple tapenades.
Those oysters do indeed look overwrought from too much time in the fryer or whereever they lived out their last seconds. Yuck.
I don’t know what tapenades are but looking at the food here always makes me damn hungry and I’ve cut back on my food budget this month and it sucks like hell.
As for the wall, I dream of doing exactly that to something somewhere, maybe a table. After jobs, I hate to have to see the beautiful broken tiles go to waste in the dumpster! Poverty makes one appreciate the usefullness of every scrap or peice of a thing. Throwing away is hard, hard I tell you! And it hurts my earth loving sensibilities, so bravo for the remnant tile wall! May we see more of them incorporated on walls.
I especially like the wine bottles stuck in the wall.
I was in New Orleans last week on a Habitat for Humanity project, and got to introduce some of my teammates to muffalettas and po’ boys.
And wield a sledgehammer.
When I was at UConn, there was a bar called Ted’s, where the women’s bathroom bore lipstick prints from at least 20 years’ worth of patrons. I’m not sure, but I think they finally renovated around 2000 and took some Fantastik to the walls, thus erasing the frosted pink to Vamp lipstick prints about 5 feet off the floor.
Okay, so we drank a lot at UConn.
broken tile art? i think not. someone spent some serious time cutting tiles for this project, and threw in a very few broken pieces for that air of casualness. it is pretty great, anyway.
I’ve been missing all this great Twisty stuff what with the damn exigencies of life pushing in, but now that I have time to read it, I am delighted to sense the presence of fellow mosaic-enthusiasts amongst the blamers.
hi, thebewilderness and kathy a!