Poetic License

What better time to look back at the Beat generation than during a period of national unrest? The bohemian writers and poets who found success during the Cold War — Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs and Corso — were restless souls with many different causes and passions, and their philosophies may be useful today. The late William Burroughs (novelist, drug-taker, wife-killer and former Lawrence resident) told poet Gregory Corso in the 1960s: “Why worry about anything? You’re on a sinking ship, man; you’ve got to have it now. Let havoc happen. Why worry about wars? They happen.”

Most of us can’t help but worry. And yet, when I walked into re:Verse, the Beat-influenced hangout on the Country Club Plaza, I realized that despite international tensions and a weakening economy, the party hasn’t stopped. In fact, it’s in full swing at re:Verse. Depressed? Bring on the Beatnik Antipasti, baby, and an ashtray!

The beautifully designed space — part lounge, part restaurant — rocks with laughter and music. Handsome bartenders shake up icy martinis for a young and noisy crowd. Patrons belly up to the bar three deep, flirting and giggling and frequently having several conversations at once — with the people standing next to them and with the voices on the other end of their cell phones. Let havoc happen, man.

On one rainy Thursday night, re:Verse was the busiest place on the Plaza. We pushed through the steel door and then shoved our way to the hostess’ station, where an angelic young woman in a miniskirt added our party to a lengthy list. She then brushed us away to a spot where we could stand and watch the crowd, like wallflowers at the orgy. I was already self-conscious — what had possessed me to put on a black turtleneck? At re:Verse, it’s practically a uniform. My friend Marie, a brittle, high-fashion icon, gave the crowded bar area a quick once-over and announced, “Hipster wanna-bes.” I’m sure she was including me as part of that scenery, but I didn’t care. I was there to eat, not pose.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally were escorted to a table. By the standards of the increasingly homogenized, chain-dominated Plaza, re:Verse is absolutely Hipville. But bohemian it’s not. Forget the idea of a subterranean basement with drippy candles and jugs of cheap wine; re:Verse is all stainless-steel panels, pearly tile floors and high-tech TV monitors. (You can watch the kitchen crew prepare your food.) A glossy panel of lipstick-red plastic contrasts the deep green of the water-filled champagne bottle and the stark white tapas plates on each table.

“Is this drinking water?” asked Marie, “Or did the flowers die?”

“It’s drinking water,” said the no-nonsense waitress, who had brought us a frosted water glass already filled with … bread. Two long strips of unleavened cracker bread, that is — one baked with a sprinkling of yellow cheese, the other with enough salt to fill a good-sized shaker. It was nearly inedible, but I was so hungry that I gnawed on it like a starving refugee until a plate heaped with sautéed calamari and spicy strips of chorizo arrived. Now this, as Allen Ginsberg might say, was something to howl about. The tender rings of squid had soaked up all the flavors from the sauté pan — olive oil, garlic, white wine and a splash of crushed red pepper — to create a sensual culinary poetry.

The restaurant offers only four dinner choices, if you don’t count the daily fish or pasta specials — and we didn’t. Before our server, a Cate Blanchett double in black, could even announce them, we blurted out our desires. The ravenous Marie wanted the brie-stuffed eight-ounce tenderloin, and I was mesmerized by the sound of Chicken Roulade, chicken rolled around creamy goat cheese and bits of roasted peppers. The stuffed chicken arrived sliced into a rhythmic series of concentric circles, poised on a mound of orange-tinted “Beat” rice and spiced with turmeric and paprika. Sadly, it looked better than it tasted.

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Marie was luckier, oohing over her groovy stash of garlicky mashed potatoes flavored with rosemary and bits of the spud’s rosy skin. The tenderloin, which had been rubbed in olive-oil, was slightly crispy, steaming and dappled with a sexy port reduction — a true work of art. She sliced into the steak to reveal a juicy red interior and a bubbly sheath of gooey molten brie. I was able to snag a few bites, but mostly she held off my advances with a wave of her wine glass, which was filled with Sterling Merlot. “The Beats all drank, you know,” she said. “Kerouac was a drunk.” Not as drunk as the loud-mouthed lout at a table in the middle of the restaurant, who at least was lively.

My second visit was early in the evening. Only a few tables were occupied and the bar was practically empty.

“We get busy after 8,” said our chatty waiter. “It’s a late-night place.”

I was with my friend Bob, who viewed the gleaming dining room and its aggressively current music with suspicion. “It’s for the twentysomethings,” he said, giving the evil eye to the bejeweled Johnson County matron and her silver-haired companion at the next table. “And people who wish they still were.”

Which led us to wonder whether the re:Verse crowd is even capable of appreciating the restaurant’s fifty-year-old literary theme. “Most of them? No,” admits owner James Taylor. “A couple do, but most of our patrons are young and they don’t have a clue. But they don’t care. They’re here to have a good time.”

Wishing we were younger ourselves, we eagerly ordered a variety of tapas from the extensive “Small Plates” menu, which seems to be a culinary tribute to that mad literary moment in Morocco when Burroughs, Kerouac and Paul Bowles smoked hash and, somehow, cobbled together Naked Lunch from Burroughs’ notes.

I would have loved to taste the “Circ au Fromage,” described as flash-fried, roasted-garlic-stuffed olives, but fifteen minutes after I had ordered them, our server remembered to tell me offhandedly, “We discontinued that dish.” Thanks to those fabulous kitchen monitors, I had watched one of the cooks snap at him, “We’re not making that anymore.” Circ au humiliation.

So we pounced on the Merguez, a quartet of mildly-seasoned Moroccan meatballs, sliding each one through a swath of minty cilantro pesto or fiery chili sauce. Other dishes from this Corner of the Casbah collection were absolutely luscious: crusty, feathery-light crabcakes flecked with tiny bits of red, yellow and green pepper; moist, paper-thin circles of hot, pink-raw beef tenderloin.

But the beef was served with slices of grilled baguette that had come straight out of the refrigerator and tasted damp and stale. Medjool dates stuffed with chorizo were jarringly sweet, despite the tartness of the accompanying fig vinaigrette. And the boring mushroom caps stuffed with goat cheese and microscopic bits of pancetta might taste good only if a person really were smoking kif.

Nevertheless, there are things on chef Mark Zukaitis’s menu I still want to sample. So, to paraphrase Ginsberg’s “The Lion Is for Real,” I will be back again. Because even when times get bad, the Beat goes on.