Katatonia and Opeth in Buffalo - April 18, 2013

This week I joined a carload of friends en route to Buffalo to catch the opening date on Opeth and Katatonia's latest North American tour.

opeth: heritage recorded and live (belatedly)

An exclaim.ca review recap (in case you missed the tweets or facebook posts):

• I like Opeth's new album, Heritage. Here's where I attempt to explain why.

• Both Katatonia and Opeth are on top of their live game (Heritage sounds nearly as good in concert as on record). If only the entire audience would shut up and listen...

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.