Risotto Fritters at Rivue in Louisville, Kentucky

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rivue-at-the-Galt-House/130298003713985

http://www.rivue.com/

 

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2012

OK – in fairness to this restaurant – I was in pretty bad shape when I sat down to this meal.  The day before had been a 36 hour day with nearly 24 hours of it devoted to trying to get from Los Angeles to Louisville – and the rest to signing autographs for fans at Fright Night Film Fest (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fright-Night-Film-Fest/63772024471).

Then – after a few hours sleep and a 10am-7pm shift at my table signing autographs & hobnobbing with the fans etc – and only two teensy weensy 6-chip-each bags of Doritos for sustenance, I adjourned to Rivue for a meal.  My boyfriend and I were seated at a window – on the 25th floor (I think) and the view was spectacular.

I put my purse on the window sill & snapped a few pictures.  Within a minute, my boyfriend looked at me – very concerned – and asked, “Are we moving?”

I looked at him & it was like one of those great rack focus things they do in films where the background and foreground condense or something and I felt like I had vertigo.  We were, in fact, moving.  We were in one of those revolving restaurants.

“I don’t feel so good,” my boyfriend, Miles, said and commenced turning green.

I looked at him as Louisville moved away from me behind him and I realized, I didn’t feel very good either.

“Oh,” I said, “let’s get offa this thing,” and reached down for my purse.  My purse was no longer on the sill where I’d put it.  Or rather – it was, but Miles and I had spun at Nascar speed half way around the room and my purse was touring the window side of every table in the joynt.  A waiter approached with menus.

“Uhm – the window stole my purse,” I said, “and I think we need to change tables.”

“Oh, don’t worry!  This happens every day,” the waiter said & wandered off to find my bag.  I watched him & felt decidedly dizzy.

“I don’t feel good,” Miles repeated.

“Save yourself, Miles!  Get off of this thing!” I said and then had a vision of being drunk & trying to walk off a moving carousel or through a fun house.  “But be careful!”

He looked at me, ashen, and I could swear his hair was moving in the breeze created by the breakneck pace of this treacherous eatery.

“In fact, I’m coming, too,” I said and gripped his arm as we staggered off the spinning disc.

We stood, dazed and trying to regain our bearings as the waiter approached with my purse.

“Here you go.  Safe & sound,” he said and held it out to me, smiling.  Smiling like Heath Ledger as the Joker.  “Where would you like to sit?”

I looked at Miles & thought he might collapse any second.  He said he felt better once on solid footing but I knew he was lying – because I was lying when I said I was better, too.

We selected a table on the stationary part of the room but it was impossible for both of us to sit at any table and not have one of us forced to – at least peripherally – see the other diners whipping past at a nauseating rate.  We ended up sitting next to each other at a four-top but I turned my chair sideways so that I pretty much had my back to Miles – and the lava lamp of furniture & humanity behind him – and faced the same direction he did.

“I think we are still moving,” he said, finally.

We weren’t but I felt it, too.  It was like being in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  Brutal.  Crippling.

“Maybe food will help?”

“Maybe,” Miles said but I could tell he didn’t think there was a chance in Hell that we were gonna get outta there alive.

Well, we ordered food.  Among the items ordered were these Risotto Fritters.  They were delicious!  We had pasta, too, which was only adequate.  Or maybe the focus we both needed to keep out motion sickness at bay & keep from retching up the risotto fritters inhibited our enjoyment of the pasta.  All I know for sure is that neither of us was ever convinced the entire hotel wasn’t spinning like Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz and that neither food nor alcohol did anything to make anything better.  We paid the check as quickly as possible & got out of there as fast as seemed safe – given our fragile condition.

Oh – and I know one other thing.  I know that revolving restaurants are supposed to move at a very, VERY subtle speed – not like the Teacups or the fucking Gravitron at your local carnival.  Call me crazy but – if the term “centrifugal force” comes to mind as you are trying to eat – you are moving too fast.  I’m just saying.  So – enter Rivue at your own risk!