Roy – Ted Mills

Drink of the Week: Roy’s The Southside

December 5, 2013September 16, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Eighty years ago today, the 21st amendment to the Constitution ended 13 years of Prohibition and, as the song goes, happy days were here again. Several years ago, Jeffrey Morganthaler, the influential Portland mixologist, suggested in a blog post that we should all raise a glass on Dec. 5 to properly toast the reason we can drink in public without fear of jail time.

And I’m doing just that as one half of the team putting on Repeal Day Santa Barbara for the third year in a row. We took Mr. Morganthaler’s idea and started a little bar tour that this year has expanded to eight of downtown’s favorite drinking establishments. The fun begins at 5 p.m. today at participating bars including Roy, Marquee, Milk & Honey, Cielito, Cadiz, Pickle Room, Blue Agave and Wildcat Lounge. Each bar will offer specialty cocktails and more. Dressing up in Roaring ’20s attire is encouraged. For more details, go to http://repealdaysb.com.

Exposed – MONIKA MOLNAR-METZENTHIN’S NUDES ARE NAKED IN A DIFFERENT WAY

September 13, 2013October 2, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

'Michelle' Courtesy photos — ‘Michelle’
Courtesy photos

There’s a humorous tease in the title of Monika Molnar-Metzenthin’s “Nouvelle Nudes” exhibit at Restaurant Roy this September. These women that Ms. Molnar-Metzenthin has painted were indeed nude at the time, posing for life drawing classes at the Schott Center, but like a fetishist focusing on the parts that nobody else pays attention to, the artist has decided to render these faces in paint, and nothing else.

Art modeling can be dull and ache inducing for the model, and a bit weird for the artist if they’re not used to gazing for long stretches at the nude figure. Some models fall asleep or nod off, others daydream. Who knows what they’re thinking about?

Roy’s Reckless Whistle

October 29, 2010June 25, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Last time we visited Esther Rogers, the bartender and mixologist at Roy’s, we surprised her and she was still able to whip up some mighty fine cocktails with a gourmet eye, the kind we expect from Roy’s menu. This time, she told us, she knew we were coming. But that wasn’t the reason she had a small cocktail menu printed out — that was for the RND evening last weekend that our crew managed to catch at the last minute.

If we haven’t mentioned it before, RND vodka is our favorite local spirit. It may be the only one too, discounting the bathtub of homebrew gin I’ve been keeping a secret. Anyroad, Rogers set out to show off the spectrum of RND and we sidled up a week later to try the cocktails and see what we make of them.