Eating Out: Amici's Living Room

Cameron and I had tickets to see Devotchka and Gogol Bordello at the Royal Oak Music Theater on Wednesday. Since we both had the whole day off, we decided to head down to that area earlier in the day to eat and tool around before the show. My friend Zac who has a pizza blog wrote an entry about this place called Amici's and I was fascinated because he said it catered towards vegan and vegetarian pizza. I've been wanting to try really good vegan pizza and I thought this would be the perfect place to do it. The best part was that Amici's is in Berkley, right outside of Royal Oak!

Finding the place was a little confusing, probably mostly because both of us are directionally challenged, to say the least. The area around it was beautiful so we decided to stretch our legs and walk around Berkley for a little bit.

The inside of the restaurant is pretty small, but they have a nice bar area, and an even nicer patio. The weather was perfect so we decided to sit outside.

We picked the perfect night to go because on Wednesdays their cosmos are $5 and their draft beers are $3. So we got one of each. I wasn't very impressed with their beer selection, but they specialize in martinis anyway.

The pizza came with an order of pesto breadsticks, which were pretty fantastic. I liked how they had a doughy pocket of air inside so that you could scoop the marinara sauce up into them.

We were tempted to order one of their cheesy pizzas, but I was determined to try a vegan one, so we went with the #11, which had pesto, tomatoes, garlic, broccoli...and I can't remember what else. Just lots of good stuff.

Cameron wants to know where the cheese is.

The pizza was really good. And okay, I'll admit, I was missing the cheese. Even with lots of pesto and sauce, the pizza tended to be a little dry. We did have the option of adding tofu mozzarella but I think tofu imitation stuff is gross. Maybe next time we'll try it just for kicks. Anyway, the pizza was definitely packed with flavor, it just lacked the texture you normally expect from a cheese engrossed pie.

It was definitely a great place that I would go back to next time I'm in the area. The service was good, the atmosphere was casual (although we didn't really enjoy getting smoked out by everyone else on the patio), and the food lived up to its name. It's always refreshing to find places that cater to healthier, less animal-involved eats.

After dinner we decided to kill some time with more drinks. We headed to Royal Oak and parked by the theater, then walked around, looking for a bar. Since we didn't know the area, we didn't know where to go. All the bar places we found seemed to be really expensive and ritzy. Eventually we found one called Mr. B's Pub.

This place was awful. The beer selection was awful. The bartender was awful. Everyone in there seemed to be really depressed and unhappy. I got a Blue Moon that only came in one giant size that took me a while to choke down. Later I found out from a friend that Mr. B's is apparently a chain restaurant. We were hoping to find a local dive of some sort with at least a little bit of creativity to offer. This wasn't it. As soon as we finished our beers we got the crap out of there.

Do I have to drink it?

Looks like Cameron thought the place was just great. Juuuuust greaaat.

We found a cantina a little ways down the street that wasn't much better drink-wise but at least the vibes were better.

And then we finally went to the theater!

Devotchka! Ok, I have to admit, my favorite part of the whole show was this crazy rope thing that these two girls did during one of their songs. They just started climbing up the ropes and dancing with them. In the air. It was insane.

Cameron LOVES paying seven dollars for a Budweiser!

Gogol Bordello.

Hey look it's that guy!