Karl 13enacci, Features Editor The Behrend Beacon It's all about Benjamin's by Charles Reese staff writer There ;ire some who would say that Erie is a dead town. While this may he true to some, I say we just aren't looking hard enough. Down the back streets and side roads, there have to he a :~'p Benjamin's Restaurant is located at 16 West 10th Street things to do and places to eat. My job here at the paper is to find restaurants, dine there, and report hack to the Behrend student body. The search is by far the hardest part of the job, but nowhere near impossible. I or Inv first review, a friend and 1 found lienjamin's, which is located at 16 W 10th St. Rcinamin's is a con, well lit, and mid price ranged restaurant :Ind hay. The restaurant is part of the A\ aloe Hotel. To he short and sweet, it was not crowded. While it was a Monday night. Benjamin's was virtually deserted other than a few patrons at the bar. Benjamin's is a good place to take a date to have a quiet time at a downtown restaurant, without breaking the hank. While the decorator made a valiant Crossword ACROSS 1 Play parts 5 Heavy, (Jolt sound 9 Greek letter 14 1300ty 15 Ho call 16 Wealthy, powerful person 17 Rights grp 18 Paper quantity 19 Actor you 20 Lon of Cambodia 21 Old Faithful locale 23 Buffalo team 25 Radar's drink 26 Land more punches 29 African antelopes 33 Wynonna s mom 35 Lhasa s land 37 ' Bravo 38 Table scraps 39 French artist Fernand 40 Big swig 41 College cheer 42 Set sights 43 Bottle material 44 Soak up 46 Do over 48 Native people of 7 Russian river Solutions 8 Evil spirit 9 Single attempt 10 Comic Short 11 Spanish river 12 Thug 13 Ready. willing and 21 Bigfoot's Himalayan cousin 22 Unit of magnetic flux 24 Sailors' drinks 27 Agenda topic 28 Striped feline 30 Source of the St Lawrence Seaway 31 Artist's medium DOWN 32 Drunkards 1 Alda and Ladd 33 Writer Ephron 43 Jewels 54 Light beige 2 Medium brown 34 Bedouin, e.g.45 Gasoline rating 55 Tidal situation 3 Turnpike features 36 Anglo-Saxon 47 Harass 56 Highlands 4 R-V connection theologian 49 Key of Erma' . girl 5 Use a flail 39 Slander in print 51 Upper crust 57 Workplace 6 Command to 40 Spill the beans 52 Tightwad watchdog org. Fido 42 Put in order 53 Entry 61 Pig pen Canada 50 Logo 53 Teeth-cleaning material 58 The Greatest 59 High seas 60 Final position 61 Roof rack tote 62 Arboreal ape, for short 63 Tennis great 64 Pierre's head 65 Sri Lanka cash 66 Russian autocrat 67 French/Belgian river attempt, he missed the mark. The in side of the restaurant has many prints of paintings from the late 1700 s. While the theme i.s Benjamin Franklin, I feel the setting clashed with colorful hang ing cartoons of or Ben that adorn the ceiling attending as could he wished. We were well-taken care of and the food was quickly prepared. On to the food! It was good, but not overly impressive. To start out the meal. my friend and I ordered the chicken quesadillas. These were quite good, though they took a new slant on the classic dish. While the usual quesadilla is round and flat in form. these were rolled into a log shape. My friend sampled the lasagna rollups for her main course. These looked very good and she was pleased After perusing the menu, I found a dish I knew quite a good deal about, cheese steak. The cheese steak is a staple of any good Philadelphian's diet and I am no exception. From this van- © 2002 Tribune Media Services, Inc All righls reserved. The serving staff was as polite and r—sae ' Friday, November 1, 2002 tape I was able to judge this cheese steak as an expert. To my disappoint ment, a Benjamin's cheese steak is not, to put it gently, a Philly cheese steak. The steak portion of the dish actually was solid meat. In a true cheese steak, the meat is chopped up. While I was not impressed, it was not a bad meal. "4 , " - The highlight of the meal for me were the fries. It is hard to find really good french fries. In my opinion, the best fries have the crunchy outside and soft inside. I have only been to two places where that was achieved. Benjamin's fries are, without a doubt. some of the best I have ever tasted. They were well worth the trip. To reiterate, all in all, Benjamin's is a perfectly good place to have a meal. The final price for the entire evening (including drinks and tip) was $33.78. Not bad for a two -person dinner down town. Funny books are a laughing matter by Nancy Pate The Orlando Sentinal "Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of I luinor Writing from The New Yorker," edited by David Remnick and Henry Finder (Modern Library, 514.95, paperback): This often hilarious collection of sketches, parodies and poems by such contributors as James Thurber. Dorothy Parker, Woody Allen, Veronica Geng and Steve Martin makes for perfect bedtime reading , just be careful you don't roll out of bed laughing. The title comes from E.B. White's 1929 "Dusk in Fierce Pajamas," in which the malaria-stricken narrator peruses society magazines and dreams of living the high life. And anyone who's ever read a theater playbill will get a chuckle out of Marshall Brickman's 1976 "Who's Who in the Cast." LAUGH TILL YOU CRY "The Onion Ad Nauseam: Complete News Archives, Volume 13," edited by Robert Siegel (Three Rivers Press/Crown, $l7, paperback): Devotees of the online newspaper parody will be delighted to find favorite headlines ("Brad Pitt Bored With Sight Of Jennifer Aniston's Naked Body"), articles ("Lowest Common Denominator Continues to Plummet"), news briefs ("Man Nods Knowingly At Mechanic") and opinion pieces ("Beer Commercials Aren't What They Used To Be"). And then there are the horoscopes. This time last year, for example, Aries folk were warned: "You will meet a dark-haired stranger next week. Actually, you'll We want to hear from you! Send us your ideas. Write a letter to the editor! Through the looking glass by Mike Pingree, KRT Campus WAIT, SHE LOOKS FAMILIAR Two porn video makers in Osaka, Japan, have been secretly video- I I taping women removing their clothes in department store changing rooms, I I then selling the wildly popular videos to an army of enthusiastic male customers nriP customer inized his own wife in oner Unfortunately for them, one customer recogi of their videos and called the cops DOING HERE? ME? UH, GOTTA GO, SORRY A Wichita, Kan., father saw that a backyard lawn chair had been I I moved overnight several times and suspected that someone was using it to I Isit under the bathroom window and spy on his daughters in the shower. So hq laid a trap. He hooked a spool of fishing line to the chair and ran it into the kitchen. Later, when the spool was yanked off the table, he ran outside where he found a neighbor. His explanation was insufficient. OR SHOULD IT BE 'THE CONFUSED ONE'? A lioness in a game reserve in Kenya is continuing to adopt baby antelopes instead of eating them, as members of her species normally do. They mostly escape with the help of their mothers (one was eaten by another lion when she took a nap.) Then she adopts another. There have been five so far. The locals have named the lioness Kamuniak, which means the blessed one." DITHERED TrtTS 1,51..wahn, •••,:::Q4::t., , = , i . i', ± behrcoll2@aol.com 'The Noogiel meet several, hut only one of them is important for our purposes. DOUBLE DARE YOU "Don't Try This at Home," by Hunter S. Fulghum (Broadway Books, $l4, paperback): This zany little instruction hook is subtitled "How to Win a Sumo Match, Catch a Great White Shark, Start an Independent Nation and Other Extraordinary Feats (For Ordinary People). - We're not sure why you'd want to break into Buckingham Palace, for example (no, don't tell us), but Fulghum provides a list of what you will need, including a servant's uniform, Duct tape and an English accent; time required (one week preparation, two hours to complete exercise), as well as detailed instructions _ including parachuting onto the roof of the palace. All this to short-sheet Prince Charles' bed? THEY WENT THATAWAY "The Stupid Crook Book, - by Leland Gregory (Andrews McMeel, $9.95, paperback): Law-enforcement officers will be among the first to tell you most crooks are far from criminal masterminds. Gregory offers further proof in this collection of factual anecdotes, although he doesn't name the guilty parties because "they still have the ability to hire lawyers." His unwise guys include a naked burglar who was quickly captured when he leaped over a fence into a cactus garden, a visually impaired bank robber who asked for help exiting the bank and the teen who raided the refrigerator of a house for a box of ice-cream sandwiches and left a trail of discarded wrappers. Page
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers