Restaurants Update

A. Krispy Kreme Donuts is projected to be serving hot glaze donuts to the public on August 29. 2 nights ago I was able to get some hot crullers. Oooh they were goood!

B. The Coffee Bean Cafe (Florida/Osborne) is waiting on license approval from the state before they can open.

C. After a long hiatus there is activity at Martha's Restaurant (Nebraska/Frierson). It looks like they are doing some work on the equipment in the kitchen. The seating area looks very good, very nicely painted and decorated.

D. Last Sunday I was hungry for a cuban. Avila's is closed on Sundays so I tried New York Restaurant and Market. (Florida and Knollwood.) Not as good as Avila's. Bread is too thick and when they press the bread they do not add whatever Avila's puts on the outside of the bread. I guess I will have to keep looking to find a good Sunday cuban.

E. Viva La Frida's got some very good press from Steve Otto on August 19.

Local Artists Aren't Allowed To Starve Here
STEVE OTTO

``Do you know about the arts revolution?''
I looked up from the menu, where I was trying to decide on the enchiladas or the stuffed chicken with chilis.

The woman was wearing fatigues and had a bandoleer wrapped across her chest. Her long, sort of blond hair, had purple tips. She did not look like our waitress. ``I am El Commandante,'' she said.

``Out of chaos comes creativity,'' she added, tossing a purple booklet down on the table. It was full of little sayings such as ``Art is a house that tries to be haunted.''

We were at Viva La Frida, which is not only the best Mexican restaurant in these parts, but one of the better restaurants, period.

Angelica Diaz runs this incarnation from the 1960s on Florida Avenue in Seminole Heights.

It is a wondrous confluence of her Sonoran cooking with a decidedly artsy tone of poetry readings, performance art and walls covered with paintings of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

This night apparently was the kickoff of an exhibition of art posters, which would include ``performance art.''

That helped explain the woman dressed as sort of a Greek warrior who walked in carrying a shield and a 6-foot spear that was supposed to be a pen. And when the woman with the sousaphone came marching in playing ``The Impossible Dream,'' I barely looked up from my enchiladas.

The event was a gathering of artists trying to promote, of all things, art.

Being artists, it wasn't always easy to tell who was in costume or who was just there to eat. It was actually a lot of fun. Mexican food, especially Mexican food with good Mexican beer, goes great with people stopping by to read poetry at your table.

Who's Your Dada?

I even liked the Greek warrior, who said that when she isn't in warrior garb, she's an English instructor at St. Petersburg College. She had us cutting words randomly out of the newspaper and taping them into Dadaist poems.

The irony of the evening was that here was a collection of Bay area artists looking for some recognition and support for art.

They were doing it in a town that has already dumped $13 million into a new art museum and so far can't even decide where to put it.

I can promise you that wherever and whatever is ultimately built for 20 million or 30 million bucks will not begin to approach the down- to-earth gathering at the rambling restaurant with the yellow walls on Florida Avenue.

If it were me, I would just give Angelica Diaz a few million dollars and have her open a half-dozen versions of Viva La Frida around town, and whenever you were in the mood for some art and, of course, some enchiladas, you could stop by.

The art posters, by the way, will stay up at Frida's through September.
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This story can be found at: http://tampatrib.com/FloridaMetro/columns/MGBAMS6KKCE.html