Process Writing

Cody Howrigon

How did you discover a process for writing each piece?

My writing process is a very conscious thing for me. I have made a point over the quarter to better hone my writing/revision techniques in a way that makes sense. I used to just take a loosely formed idea and go with it. I would write without any real direction or plan, then leave the bulk of the burden for later when I would revise. I quickly learned that this doesn't work at K College, as time is much too scarce. I instead look at my creative writing assignments more like the argumentative or philosophical papers that I'm more accustomed to writing. I mean this mostly in terms of finding structure and staying more consistent with what it is I'm trying to say. I do this by spending a considerable amount of time brainstorming in the initial stages of a piece. Once I find what I think is an interesting theme or story, I try to construct a paragraph-by-paragraph outline for what I plan to say. I do tend to deviate quite a bit from my plan when first writing a piece, but I do my best to revisit my initial intentions when I revise. After my first draft is written and I share it with the class, I have found the feedback to be indispensable. Particularly with our last assignment, the perfect meal essay, I found the feedback to be especially useful. It is a nice luxury to have so many outside eyes giving careful, constructive criticism on my work. I used the comments made in class as my guideline for revision. I did not make all of the changes that were suggested, but I did make a lot. These workshop sessions are something that could possibly not be an option in future classes, and definitely won't be if I plan to write at all for a living or even for fun after graduation. I think it will be imperative to my improvement as a writer to find ways of replicating this process in the future.

What connections did you make between the texts we read and the pieces you wrote for class?

I think my intended connections between the texts we read and the pieces I wrote for class were very obvious for everyone in the class. I am a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain, and I have realized that I often mimic his writing style subconsciously. My obsession with his shows and books were the primary motivation for me taking this course, and has motivated me the whole way through to try to learn and grow more as a creative writer and critical thinker. I also found an interest in the food writer Jim Harrison and his piece, "A Really Big Lunch." I think the way I wrote my last piece was influenced a great deal by him, and the lifestyle he lead. Anyone who lives a life traveling the world, meeting incredible people, and eating the greatest food around, I think has come to understand the true meaning of "carpe diem." 

What did writing for this course teach you about yourself?

To be as brutally honest as I can be, I think this course has taught me that I am not a creative writer. I have come to appreciate the art of creative non-fiction more than I ever have. I have been exposed to writers like Liebling, Kramer, Harrison, Nguyen, Tomkins and more. They have all made me much more aware of the art of food writing, and what it means to do it correctly. This class has given me a healthy disdain for Yelp, and wanna-be food writers. It has also encouraged my already burning passion to travel, by intensifying my understanding of how food and culture are intertwined, and how essential food is to understanding the grand scheme of who a group of people are and what they're about. I think I will always remember the quote we went over from the first day of class, "If you really want to understand a culture, you have to taste it."

The Perfect Meal (Revised)

Cody Howrigon

The Perfect Meal

    "Look at the grease dripping off of it! Could you have possibly made something more unhealthy?" My cousin complained with her usual outrage and gusto.

    "You mean could I have possibly made anything more perfect? The answer is no." Was my sarcasm-laden response.

    These were the words my older, health-conscious cousin and I exchanged at our Uncle's lake house before embarking on what I hold to be the most perfect of food experiences. Since this was supposed to be my idea of the perfect meal, and I was the one who bought and prepared the ingredients, I had very little interest in listening to the usual complaints of my mostly well-intentioned cousin. Health is of very little concern to me when I'm trying to indulge expertly. Sure, one should enjoy all of life's pleasures to some degree of moderation, but a life robbed of these pleasures completely is the life of a monk, and I have no interest in monk-hood.

    Backtracking several hours, as I sat in my room pondering the idea of “the perfect meal,” I came to understand a few things about myself better, and they resulted in a small set of criteria by which my perfect meal would be realized. These three criteria were and I think will always be my three requisites to food perfection. They are as follows: (1) it has to take place on a Sunday (2) those I love most must be present (3) the food has to possess fresh, quality ingredients, and the cook’s focus must be on taste above all else (such as health, presentation or any other worthless detail). These three criteria may be simple, and perhaps even easy to achieve. This does not take away from the beauty of the experience, however.

    In my quest to create my idea of the perfect meal, the first thing I did was address the first of my three checkpoints to food perfection – the meal had to take place on a Sunday. Sunday has always been an important day to me. This is not because I am religious. In fact, I’m the furthest one can be from religious. Sunday is and always has been a special day to me, because it's the one day of the week where the world seems to actually take a break, and where my mind can be at ease. It’s a day known in the Howrigon family as a day to stop whatever it is we’re doing, forget all the stress accumulated from the past six days, and come together as a family to enjoy one another’s company around the dinner table. This strong trend in my family’s history makes it impossible for me to imagine what a perfect meal would be, if it weren’t taking place on a Sunday.

    The second criterion I had to meet was ensuring that my family would be with me to enjoy the meal I was to prepare. Reading this, one might make the argument that this is the same or very similar as the previous criterion, but this is not the case. They are two exclusive, essential parts of what it is I define as the perfect meal. If for example, my family were to meet for a meal on a Friday night as opposed to a Sunday, this would still be a fantastic meal. It would fall short of the status of perfection however, as it would be missing that last crucial ingredient of the day in which it took place. The reasons this criterion is important to me is more obvious than the last, and probably needs the least amount of explanation. My family has always been close. I love them all more than life itself, as the cliché goes. There is nothing I consider perfect in this world that doesn’t include them.

    The third bullet point on my recipe for gastronomic perfection, is the all-important question of “what the hell are we going to eat?” This one was difficult, as there are a seemingly infinite amount of possibilities to choose from. Creativity is not my strong-suit, nor is cooking. The genius of it though, is that my lack of culinary expertise is irrelevant really. This is MY idea of the perfect meal, isn’t it? Assuming the first two of my three bits of criteria are met, and so long as the ingredients are of high-quality and fresh, I don’t really give a damn what we eat. With this in mind I left my room and my state of culinary contemplation, and made my way to a favorite local food store – Harding’s Friendly Market – where high-quality, fresh products have been the theme the store has built its reputation on for decades. Well-aware of my cooking deficiencies and lack of patience, I scanned the aisles of the store looking for something that was both simple and temporally expedient, but also tasty. A light-bulb went off when I came to the meat aisle: burgers. Who doesn’t like a burger who's actually had one? As I stood there in aisle 13, searching through the assortment of severed animal parts, my mouth began to water. A sudden flood of excitement welled up inside me as I began to formulate the monster of a burger I was to concoct. No, a normal burger just wouldn’t do. The initial apathy my journey began with had turned into an obsession with creating a pile of ground-beef, cheese, and bacon that would turn any vegetarian to the dark side. 
    Choosing one product over another was difficult for me. I admittedly have very little experience or natural savvy for spotting out bargains or "good deals." My food-buying logic was more along the lines of, "if it's expensive, it must be good (so buy it)." The price tag on the buns I bought could only be explained if they were the tastiest, most outstanding burger buns mankind has or ever will create. The meat had to be of the highest quality (which I could also only decipher by price), and the bacon had to be apple-smoked, and the primest of cuts Harding’s Friendly Market had to offer. Your typical American Cheese wouldn’t do either. I had to get the brick-sized mammoth of cheddar cheese instead (also obscenely expensive). Tomatoes and romaine lettuce were also in my cart, but were there mostly to compensate for the guilt many in my family would be experiencing for having eaten such an artery clogging dish. Oh yeah, I would throw in a side salad, too.

    After I had all my ingredients accounted for and bought, I headed to my Uncle’s before-mentioned lake house where the rest of my family awaited my arrival. Everyone was there: my mother and father, two sisters, Grandparent’s, Aunt’s, Uncle’s, and a whole slew of cousins. The calendar on the wall read Sunday, November 13. The two most crucial aspect of the meal were in place, now all I needed to do was follow through on the third. They all assured me that they were hungry, and predictably blamed their hunger on my “always taking forever to shop,” even though I can count on one hand how many times I've shopped alone for a family meal. With that, several of my family members and I got to work on the meal. My 15 year-old cousin Scott was to watch the patties on the grill and flip all of them once every five minutes for 15 minutes. My dad was watching the simmering bacon, ensuring that they were taken out as soon as the right crispy-to-soft ratio was achieved. I chopped all the tomatoes and set out the onions and romaine lettuce. I also threw together a nuts and berries salad: mixed greens, extra-large walnuts, dried raspberries, feta cheese, slivered carrots, and balsamic vinaigrette were the ingredients. I also had the joy of cutting the brick-sized block of cheese for 15 people, many of whom would be asking for seconds. I did this by flipping the block of cheese vertically, and cutting as many two-centimeter-thick slices that I could. The result was more than enough for everyone. The patties and bacon surprisingly were finished at approximately the same time, and the moment we were all waiting for had finally come. I laid out all the fixings in a line across the island countertop in my Uncle’s kitchen, and we took our spots standing around the food, hand-in-hand, as my grandmother prepared the pre-meal prayer. As everyone stood with heads bowed and hearts full of the holy spirit, I can't help but wonder how many slices of bacon I should top my burger with.

    Once the prayer came to a close and everyone was finally seated at the dinner table with their mountain of meat before them, the long-awaited moment began. The burgers were immaculate. The XL burger and the half-dozen strips of bacon were infused together by a thick layer of melted cheddar cheese between them. This, coupled with the always fresh Harding's romaine lettuce and tomatoes, as well as the fluffy beauty of the bountiful buns, helped make this more than an enjoyable meal. I think this had a lot to do with my total disregard for the amount of money I spent on the ingredients, and the sheer unhealthfulness of the creation. Mostly though, as I sat in my chair at the table, listening to my Aunt giving her usual stories of awkward social encounters and everyone laughing hysterically at the punch-lines, I realized that it was because of them and the state of mind we all shared, that I enjoyed it so much. This was the perfect meal. Its perfection laid not in the exquisite quality of the food (don’t get me wrong, the food was great), but in the fact that the food was an excuse for us all to come together, and to enjoy one another’s company. Like the great Anthony Bourdain once said, “it’s not about the food you eat. It’s about who you eat the food with.”

The Perfect Meal

 Cody Howrigon

How does one define “the perfect meal?” Is it something universal, that anyone with the slightest bit of culinary taste or knowledge ought to find perfection in? Or is it a more personal thing, one that we all have our own unique, valuable perspective on? I like to believe in the latter explanation, as I think most people do. To me, the search for the perfect meal had a certain set of a priori criteria that had to be met in order to even be considered as being worthy. The criteria are: (1) it had to take place on a Sunday (2) those I love most must be involved (3) the food has to possess fresh, quality ingredients, and the cook’s focus must be on taste above all else (such as health, presentation or any other worthless detail). These three criteria may be simple, and perhaps even easy to achieve. This does not take away from the beauty of the experience, however.

         In my quest to create my idea of the perfect meal, the first thing I did was address the first of my three prerequisites to food perfection -- the meal had to take place on a Sunday. Sunday has always been an important day to me. This is not because I am religious. In fact, I’m the furthest one can be from religious. Sunday is and always has been a special day to me, because it was the one day of the week where the world seemed to actually take a break, and where my mind could be at ease. It’s a day known in the Howrigon family as a day to stop whatever it is we’re doing, forget all the stress accumulated from the past six days, and come together as a family to enjoy one another’s company around the dinner table. This strong trend in my family’s history makes it impossible for me to imagine what a perfect meal would be, if it weren’t taking place on a Sunday.

         The second criterion I had to meet was ensuring that my family would be with me to enjoy the meal I was to prepare. Reading this, one might make the argument that this is the same as the previous criterion, but this is not the case. They are two exclusive, essential parts of what it is I define as the perfect meal. If for example, my family were to meet for a meal on a Friday night as opposed to a Sunday, this would still be a fantastic meal. It would fall short of the status of perfect however, as it would be missing that last crucial ingredient of the day in which it took place. The reasons this criterion is important to me is more obvious than the last, and probably needs the least amount of explanation. My family has always been close. I love them all more than life itself, as the cliché goes. There is nothing I consider perfect in this world that doesn’t include them.

 The third bullet point on my recipe for gastronomic perfection, is the all-important question of “what the hell are we going to eat?” This one was difficult, as there is a seemingly infinite amount of possibilities to choose from. Creativity is not my strong-suit, nor is cooking. The genius of it though, is that my lack of culinary expertise is irrelevant really. This is MY idea of the perfect meal, isn’t it? Assuming the first two of my three bits of criteria are met, and so long as the ingredients are of high-quality and fresh, I don’t really give a damn what we eat. With this in mind I made my way to a favorite local food store – Harding’s Friendly Market - where high-quality, fresh products have been the theme by which the store has built its reputation for decades. Well-aware of my cooking deficiencies and lack of patience, I scanned the aisles of the store looking for something that was both simple and temporally expedient, but also tasty. A light-bulb went off when I came to the meat aisle: burgers. Who doesn’t like a burger who's actually had one? As I stood there in aisle 13, searching through the assortment of severed animal parts, my mouth began to water. A sudden flood of excitement welled up inside me as I began to formulate the monster of a burger I was to concoct. No, a normal burger just wouldn’t do. The initial apathy my journey began with had turned into an obsession with creating a pile of ground-beef, cheese, and bacon that would turn any vegetarian to the dark side. The meat had to be of the highest quality (and therefore the highest price), and the bacon had to be apple-smoked, and the primest of cuts Harding’s Friendly Market had to offer. Your stereotypical American Cheese wouldn’t do either. I had to get the brick-sized mammoth of cheddar cheese instead (also obscenely expensive). Tomatoes and romaine lettuce were also in my cart, but were there mostly to compensate for the guilt many in my family would be experiencing for having eaten such an artery clogging dish. Oh yeah, I would throw in a side salad, too.

 After I had all my ingredients accounted for and bought, I headed to my Uncle’s house where the rest of my family awaited my arrival. Everyone was there: my mother and father, two sisters, Grandparent’s,  Aunt’s, Uncle’s, and a whole slew of cousins. The calendar on the wall read Sunday, November 13. The two most crucial aspect of the meal were in place, now all I needed to do was follow through on the third. They all assured me that they were hungry, and predictably blamed their hunger on my “always taking forever to shop.” With that, I got right to work, and began by giving orders. My 15 year-old cousin Scott, was to watch the patties on the grill and flip them all once every five minutes for 15 minutes. My dad was watching the simmering bacon, ensuring that they were taken out as soon as the right crispy-to-soft ratio was achieved. I chopped all the tomatoes and set out the onions and romaine lettuce. I also threw together a nuts and berries salad: mixed greens, extra-large walnuts, dried raspberries, feta cheese, slivered carrots, and balsamic vinaigrette were used. I also had the joy of cutting the brick-sized block of cheese for 15 people, many of which would be asking for seconds. I did this by flipping the block of cheese vertically, and cutting as many 2-centimeter-thick slices that I could. The result was more than enough for everyone. The patties and bacon surprisingly were finished at approximately the same time, and the moment we were all waiting for had finally come. I laid out all the ingredients in a line across the island countertop in my Uncle’s kitchen, and we took our spots standing around the food, hand-in-hand, as my grandmother prepared the pre-meal prayer. As everyone stands with heads bowed and hearts full of the holy spirit, I’m trying to decide how many slices of bacon I should top my burger with.

Once the prayer came to a close and everyone was finally seated at the dinner table with their mountain of meat before them, the long-awaited moment began. This was the greatest burger I have ever had. I think this had a lot to do with my total disregard for the amount of money I spent on the ingredients, and the sheer unhealthfulness of the creation. Mostly though, as I sat in my chair at the table, listening to my Aunt giving her usual stories of awkward social encounters and everyone laughing hysterically at the punch-lines, I realized that it was because of them and the state of mind we all shared, that I enjoyed it so much. This was the perfect meal. Its perfection laid not in the exquisite quality of the food (don’t get me wrong, the food was great), but it laid in the fact that the food was an excuse for us all to come together, and to enjoy one another’s company. Like the great Anthony Bourdain says, “it’s not about the food you eat, it’s about who you eat the food with.”

Response to Omnivore's Dilemma Part 1

After reading Pollan's section on fast food, I will never again even consider eat chicken McNuggets, or possibly anything from McDonald's. The entire way through the chapter I couldn't help but feel like I might get sick. The fact that it takes 38 different ingredients to make a chicken McNugget, that potentially hazardous or toxic chemicals are used in the creation of the McNuggets, and the fact that most of it is made up of corn and other ingredients “that are not used in the household,” is simply appalling to me. How any sane, loving parent could continue to let their children or themselves ingest these despicable blasphemies of food will forever remain a mystery to me. Pollan's mention of the “nutritional facts” McDonald's so graciously provides its patrons was humorous to me, as I have read through something similar online before. The fact that six McNuggets has approximately the same amount of calories as an entire hamburger is something that should probably be illegal.

I thought Pollan's comparison of our current epidemic to the alcoholic epidemic of the early 19^th Century was very well done. I was previously unaware of this epidemic and even more ignorant as to what its cause was. The overproduction of corn, as the author says, was the primary reason the alcoholic epidemic took place in the early 1800s. With such a high supply of corn, the price of corn-based goods (alcohol) plummeted, and Americans were drinking large amounts of the liquid in the morning, afternoon, and night. This is an obvious parallel to what we are experiencing today with fast food, as the author ensures us that the majority of fast food is in large part produced from corn. This makes the incredibly low prices fast food restaurants are able to offer possible, which in turn incentivizes many Americans to eat as much of the diabetes causing substance as they can (leaving us in our current situation).

 If you are a proponent of capitalism (as I and most Americans are) then, according to the author, “processing cheap corn into forty-five different McDonald's items is an impressive accomplishment (implying that you ignore the ethical conflicts).” On a certain level I understand and agree with what the author is getting at here, but I also think he puts a little bit too much of the burden on the hands of the food industry. Capitalism works on a basis of supply and demand. As the demand for these incredibly unhealthy foods increase, the fast food companies are going to continue to produce and sell these products. If consumers refrain from eating what's currently offered and instead demand healthier options, the companies will be forced to reply to the change in demand and give the consumers what they want. This may seem like an oversimplified view, but I do think there is a lot of truth to it. Consumers should be ultimately responsible for what they choose to buy, and although fast food companies do exert a great amount of influence, I think it's important to understand the consumer in this empowered way rather than as a mere passive receptacle of the food industry's garbage.  

Response to Omnivore's Dilemma: The Perfect Meal

Pollan's idea and procedure for his perfect meal is both elaborate and intimidating. The amount of labor the man was willing to put into one day in order to produce one meal seems near insanity to me. When talking about his eleven hour day of cooking Pollan asks, “Why, I asked myself when I took a ten-minute break for lunch around 4:00, had I ever undertaken to prepare such an elaborate meal by myself?” “Elaborate” seems like an understatement. Not only did Pollan spend an incredible amount of time preparing the meal on the day it was to be eaten, but he spent weeks beforehand going out and gathering all of his ingredients by hand. My favorite story of him gathering his own ingredients, is the story of him trying to find his own abalone. He describes his abalone hunting experience this way, “There's no question that you burn more calories looking for abalone than you can possibly collect, making this a perfectly absurd human enterprise.” After his detailed description of what it is to hunt abalone and how difficult it is, and after he cited a fact that more people are killed hunting abalone (by sharks) than they are hunting species on land, the fact that he didn't know he wouldn't be able to freeze the abalone and save it for later was really the icing on the cake for me. I couldn't help but laugh and feel bad for him at the same time.

 I also enjoyed how Pollan divided his journey to creating the perfect meal into three sections: 1. Planning the Menu 2. In the Kitchen 3. At the Table. The first section takes us through his thought process when considering what would be his idea of the perfect meal, and it takes us through is personal hunter/gathering and cooking ethics about how the process should be carried out. The second section takes us through how he had planned to actually cook the food and what parts of his plan did and did not work out. The third section talks about the actual meal itself, and how Pollan's making of the feast was a testament to his devotion and appreciation of the people he made it for. The evening starts a little tense and maybe even awkward, but quickly progresses to a higher-level of conversation (mostly about food and foraging), as the people at the table begin to gel more as the evening progresses and the food comes out. Here, Pollan's deeper idea of food means comes out. He says that eat item of food at the table represented different stories to all the different individuals eating there. He says that food feeds both body and soul with “the threads of narrative knitting us together as a group, and knitting the group into the larger fabric of the given world.” This is a very powerful insight to me, and I think it gets at the very reason food is so important and powerful in our lives.  

CYOA: Are TV Ads Making Us Fatter?

Are the ads we see on television everyday having a more significant impact on our country's obesity level than we realize? Are these glamorized depictions of greasy, often times fat-infused food acting as a sort of weight-gain hypnosis or propaganda for many Americans? Are children under the age of eight perhaps more at risk of being influenced by these glamorized fast-food ads? Or should consumers/parents of young consumers instead be held accountable for what they choose to eat/feed their children? These are some of the questions we will be discussing in class Tuesday. In the links below you will find an article from NPR that asks these questions, and a youtube video showing some of the most outrageous food commercials of the past year. Hopefully these two resources get you all thinking more about the topic and ready to discuss on Tuesday!

NPR Article: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/29/462838153/food-ads-make-us-eat-more-and-should-be-regulated

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF0p4iTcXxg

Cody Howrigon

Restaurant Review

Intended Publication: The Index

North 11 Bistro and Brew has been offering a diverse range of menu options since it opened in 2003. Located on Gull Rd and only a ten minute drive from campus, North 11 is held to be one of the best places to dine by many in the Kalamazoo area. Terms like “fine dining” and promises such as “great food and service,” are often used to describe the establishment, as it serves as a primary destination for those looking to celebrate a special event or occasion.

Abundant with choices and hospitality it is, but fine dining it is not.

First impressions after walking into “North 11” can be summed up with one word - loud. Even on a night when the waiting area is of no use, the decibel level is on par with that of a middle school cafeteria. The seemingly unceasing, rapid-fire conversation is everywhere. This, combined with the collective ease at which the rambunctious patrons are eating, seems almost paradoxical.

Part of this is due to the open atmosphere. The restaurant is split into three sections. On one side is the bar, which appears to have undergone a facelift in recent years, as the decor seems to be more modern than the rest of the restaurant. The middle section is the main dining area, where I was seated, and is where the majority of the customers are located. The third section is essentially extra dining space, used for the overflow of dining patrons on weekends. The lack of big screen TVs on the walls are an indication of the kind of people that eat here - those looking for an experience centered more around quality food and conversation, rather than one focused on watching sports and eating “bar food.”

The menu’s great diversity of options ensures that there is something for everyone. Beef Burgundy Steak Tips, Pecan Encrusted Walleye, Bourbon Haystack Burgers, Personal Pizzas, Smothered Burritos, Spinach Wraps, Alfredo Pasta, Buffalo Chicken Salad and Open Faced Pesto Salmon, are among the many options offered.

The service isn’t perfect. What was supposed to be a short Jack and Coke - “half n’ half” - came out tall, weak, and a bit late. This was more of a minor distraction than a catastrophic mistake however, as the overall quality of service was generally satisfactory. The servers and bussers could be seen rushing from point A to point B at any time throughout the night, hurriedly taking orders and clearing tables with nothing but smiles on their faces.

The appetizers came out quickly - Prime Rib Bruschetta and Crab Rangoons - both of which I believe, make better people out of those who have them. The Bruschetta was presented on a large white plate, with all the slices of steak cut to approximately the same size, with garlic and feta sprinkled on top to decorate it nicely. This presentation will bring pleasure to any aesthetically savvy eye. So much so, that one might even feel shame for the prospect of actually eating it. The taste however was exquisite, and definitely worth enduring the sadness of ruining its beautiful display. The oval shaped crackers the strips of steak laid upon were the perfect level of moist, after having been soaked in burgundy reduction for precisely the right amount of time. The Crab Rangoons were also undoubtedly tasty, but less so than the Bruschetta. They are a mixture of crab, cream cheese and scallions, folded into a fried wonton dumpling that is close in size to a regulation-size softball. These delectable starters do a great job preparing the hungry patron for their entrée.

For any person who considers him or herself a true meat eater, the 12 oz. Prime Rib is a  worthy stop on your carnivorous voyage. The measure of all truly great steaks, is when they can be eaten without steak sauce and actually be enjoyed more. This is one of those steaks. It is typically cooked to a perfect light-red, medium-rare temperature, giving it the tender juiciness needed to be considered among the greats.

For those reading who tend to ignore or suppress their carnivorous heritage, and who instead eats nuts and greens exclusively, the Portobello Melt is a good choice. I am traditionally not a big fan of eating what I consider to be large hunks of fungus. In fact, I normally find it flat-out revolting. However, this was a different experience altogether. This was easily the best “hunk of fungus” I have ever tried, bar none. I not only tried this normally foreign dish, but I actually finished it. Any restaurant that can pull a complete 180 on someone like that has to be doing something right.

Although North 11 is not a place to go if you’re looking for a fine dining experience, it is a place to enjoy loud, energetic conversation with friends and family, while eating above average food in an above average atmosphere. The service is prone to mistakes as it is at most any restaurant, but they compensate for where they lack with raw effort and an upbeat attitude. The kitchen deserves all the praise they have been given and more. The food is sublime, and the presentation is artful. When dining at North 11, there is evidence everywhere for why they have survived for so long. The owners have made obvious efforts to reimagine their space, and they make good on their promise to provide personable service and high-quality food and drinks. Their strong historic track record combined with their current success makes their future look promising. North 11 is sure to be providing good food and loud laughs for many years to come.