Audrey Claire

"Audrey Claire" appears in a tiny Times New Roman font almost imperceptibly on a low window pane at a building who's lot in life is the Northwest corner of 20th and Spruce. Otherwise, one could not guess that this premises has a name at all. For, as of this writing, no sign exists; no brightly lettered façade is apparent; and only an outdoor chalk-laden hip-high menuboard proposes an identity. Notwithstanding marqueelessness, this "BYOB - Sorry, No Credit Cards" shebang draws neighborhood cabals in droves. If you can't feast at Audrey Claire's for less than twenty dollars, you're missing the issue. Of the "Small Dishes," pick the Grilled Spicy Squid. For $8, I wouldn't clean and devein the cartilage from a squid, let alone seven of them, each the size of a finger on an O.J. Simpson glove. Nor would I know how to grill them whole so that the outside is burnished to tenderness while the inside remains moist and solid white. And never would I even think to submerge the swollen, turgid, grilled bodies into a broth that makes you whimper, and wrestle with an uncontrollable urge to curse filthy puerile words out loud.