Sticky's

*The following is the final food column posted by Russell A. Shussel, long time food critic for The Milltown Shout. We have no idea of his current location or as to whether or not his claims towards the end of the message are true. We simply decided to post this to meet a deadline.

-the editors

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There are many examples of restaurants that attempt to follow trends, or to burn their own trails with experiments in the kitchen, with the staff, and on our tables. There are restaurants with no lights provided that guide the eater to a table where they have to be handed their utensils and told what the specials of the day (or night?) are; there are cafés that serve clients who bring in dogs, cats, lizards, birds, and even certain species of insects and attempt to make the experience a comforting one. These experiments often fail, but they can charm and amuse you on a difficult date or after a long day of work.

And then, there is Sticky’s.

I know that many of you have heard all of the rumours about the restaurant that came to our hometown almost ten years ago and somehow managed to hang on as a regular eatery for those with a daring palate and not much in the way of other options. I know that it has become a sort of cultural touchstone for our neck of the woods, and that there is even serious talk of making it an untouchable monument of sorts (it seems to work as a perfect tourist trap). And of course, there was “the incident” that we can never seem to get enough of when the very name of the dining establishment is mentioned (I will not being delivering specifics on a news item we all know too well). But it has already been reviewed and analyzed and condemned as the last sign of the apocalypse, at least to our taste buds.

And yet, I have never eaten there.

Until today.

Let me say that I did bring a date with me for the meal (an easy way for me to remove all doubts in the minds of the owners, staff and other customers that I might actually have the job of food critic), and that I owe her an incredible debt of gratitude and perhaps cash for the night that we just experienced. And I intend to write this in one sitting while the memory of the evening is still fresh. I have the feeling that I may be too traumatized to recall all the details if I leave a weekend between my thoughts and the keyboard.

So…

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I made the reservation for a Wednesday night, judging that it would be a day when patrons would not crowd out the dimly lit space inside (incidentally, when you call a restaurant to make a reservation, and their first response is, “Seriously? You really want to do that,” you can imagine what the evening has in store for you). I also decided to not use my own car to arrive at the locale. There is still an off-chance that someone would recognize my Prius and decide that I must be someone connected to the media, especially local press. A taxi would make it clear that I was a tourist too out of step and far too old to know anything about the place, or the convenience of an Uber. I was correct with both judgments.

When we arrived at the steps of the restaurant, the taxi driver wished me the best of luck and refused a tip. “I feel like I should be paying you for this trip” (his exact words). And then I looked around the street and nearby parking lot. Only two cars were in that lot and the street was empty. Now, one of those cars was a white stretch-limo in which a driver was clearly seen dozing away behind a now open window (this will play a role later in my narrative). My companion and I, taking notice of the beautiful sunset and quiet neighbourhood, almost stepped on a homeless man who was sleeping at the top of the steep stairwell leading up to the main doors. This would have been a terrible error, not for the social reasons that many of us face every day when we see the poor, but for the fact that this was the doorman\maitre d’\coatroom attendant. He brought us inside with a smile and brushed off his ginger-coloured outfit with a flourish (perhaps he also worked as a parking lot attendant; I did not feel it was a moment to ask).

Now, atmosphere does matter when you are dining out. As I noted, the restaurant had very few parked vehicles outside, therefore the place was quite peaceful and pleasant. Light jazz was playing on the PA system (mercifully, the music came from real jazz musicians, not some Muzak poison downloaded from an abandoned computer); tables were prepped with flowers and candles (all lit); the staff was making routine checks around the dining area and I could hear the noise of a busy and boisterous kitchen. These are good signs.

They are also false flags.

We were shown a table near a window where we could see the main road leading to a busy highway. We were then offered menus and I decided to start with an aperitif (dry vermouth and white wine – nothing too hard on the palate); my partner also ordered a starting drink (dry martini – an interesting choice). The server paused for a moment and then blurted out the one thing I did not need to hear from someone who did not look old enough to shave.

“But, please, I think those are digestives.”

This led to our raised voices, a chat with the manager, and the discovery that there was a whole other party in a private room nearby who could hear every word thrown across a small lopsided table. We did receive our drinks, a new server, and a promise that we would not have to “be bothered with the presence of such a person ever again”. I began to enjoy myself and then perused the menu.

They do call the place Sticky’s for a reason.

All of the appetizers listed would (dare I say it?) stick to you in some way if you indulged in them before the main meal. All of the items listed had cheeses of every variety, or syrups based on honey (or honeys, as I would learn when I turned the page and found an extra column in the menu) or sugar. My partner was beginning to regret her dry martini, but decided to hang on and order a small tray of melted cheese and bread sticks. Not to seem out of sorts, I followed my drink with honey-encrusted crackers (actually, they worked well with the vermouth and wine; not something I would make a habit, though). And we settled in for the main dishes.

Now, I should mention that at this point we noticed that the party in the other room had died down. My partner, under the pretext of needing to use the bathroom – was it a pretext? Maybe not – decided to walk past their room to see what was happening. After a few moments in the bathroom, she came back, sat down, and leaned over her thick vegan lasagna and spoke words that made me slightly uncomfortable:

“They are watching us.”

Now, I do not know if this is a standard game or habit of the upper-classes in this town, but my companion noted how they were looking at us through cracks in the doors and wall, attempting to hide as she passed by and not noticing her attention as she waited by the bathroom doors. I made a slight glance up and saw a camera that I could not notice earlier with all the reinforced stained woodwork and struts above us. And I knew what I had to do. But she really was hungry enough to continue with her meal. And I had honeyed salmon with asparagus and almond slices to enjoy.

The food actually was quite good and we decided that one last drink would suffice. No dessert was added to our bill that night. But I did see that we were going to have one final problem with that same boy I mentioned earlier.

I mentioned the reputation of the restaurant and an earlier “incident” that many of us in this town are too aware of. I also mentioned how surprising it was that Sticky’s was able to last this long as a place to stop and eat when everything else was closed. This should have made things clear to me as I sat in the quiet space and wondered about the camera, the homeless-looking man on multiple duties, and the boy.

They really did not think we should be there.

When I asked for the check, I told my partner that we would be leaving in style. She did not understand me until we were both outside in the cool darkness and knocking on the doors of the limo.

And that is why I am now writing this in a stretch limo on some stretch of highway with my partner tapping out my words.

Seems strange that he would leave the keys in the car as he decided to see why his buddies were knocking on the door. And, of course, as must be clear by now, he was not really their driver. He wasn’t much of a fighter, either. He was just sleeping off his day. And it was just their ride.

Well, now it is mine.

This will be my last food column for the paper and I hope that you have enjoyed the ride, as I am now enjoying mine. To treat a critic like a plaything and to make an assumption about what he would be aware of in the news items of his own papers was a gross miscalculation and I plan on leaving this vehicle with the local authorities, including the health board, to get this whole set up shut down.

We are making very good time on a quiet Wednesday.