katatonia, last fair deal gone down, and rochester ny

On Saturday, Spetember 24 – right after wrapping up a presentation on Justina Robson's Quantum Gravity series at SLSA 2011 – I began working my way toward Rochester, New York, to watch Katatonia play a headlining gig and to hear every song off 2001's Last Fair Deal Gone Down (plus several older tracks) performed live.

My brief email interview with guitarist/songwriter/back-up vocalist Anders Nyström explains the wherefore of these headlining gigs amidst a tour opening for Opeth. And my show review, also for Hellbound.ca with excellent live photography by Adam Wills, relates the ensuing results. But it no more than mentions our mouth-watering dining experience in Rochester.

The weather was lovely. The border crossing was smooth. The drive was pleasant and the company delightful. We checked into a downtown Rochester hotel, recharged a few battery levels and headed out to a local restaurant called The Owl House for dinner.

The menu features mostly home-made and locally-produced goodies, with lots of vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free items and options. In fact, most of main dishes had built in vegan/non-veg choices.

A plate of homemade chips with a fancy (raspberry?) glaze provided our tasty appetizer. For a main course we each went with the special, mine tempeh-based with capers, quinoa and asparagus. It was so delicious we went back for brunch the next day. Consider this a vegan metalhead recommendation.