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Ballroom blitz! >>
Dig in to dinner and dance
your Back in the good ol’ days, dancehalls were a dime a dozen, and the masses flocked to them regularly for a night of entertainment, eating and exercise under one roof. During its regular Stardust soirées, Do–Ré-Mi offers old-style dinner and dance outings, in a glitzy if not very ritzy ballroom located above a bustling bingo hall in Villeray. Most of the regulars are in their golden years, but that doesn’t stop them—or you—from getting down and dirty to the music. While the seniors want to party like it’s 1949, there are also a few serious ballroom dancers who take the opportunity to practice swirling around the wooden floor. Throughout the room, neon signs flash to announce the upcoming dance style: fox trot, triple swing, mambo, cha cha, tango, waltz, rock ’n’ roll and rhumba. Oh, and line dancing of course, but I’ll get to that later. First, the food. All around the dancefloor there are a bunch of tables where you eat under an illuminated sky of globe lanterns and twirling neon atoms. The grub is pretty basic—perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that it’s very easy to chew. There’s a different menu for each evening, the recipes for which could be found in any basic cookbook: leg of lamb, chicken cacciatore, pasta trio, roast beef, or stuffed cabbage. And there’s always spaghetti with tomato sauce if the day’s selection is too wild for you. My first time around, the menu concept was Asian, in the 1950s sense of the word. The beef teriyaki consisted of strips of something brown that had been cooked up with pepper, onion and soya sauce. The hot and sour chicken amounted to chunks of something beige, with a few veggies, coated in a sweetish glaze. On my second visit, the nightly special was veal with black olives and mushrooms, which again appeared to be liberally doused with meat tenderizer. Both times, though, the rice was nice. Dessert, such as super-fake Black Forest cake, is also included. Plus, you get coffee—and, if you go on a weekend, there’s a late-night buffet. The weird thing about supper here is that you’ll find yourself shovelling it into your mouth, even if you’re not exactly loving it or the plastic plate it comes on. (There’s talk of providing real china for an additional 75 cents, but I was unable to confirm this breaking news by press time.) You can also reserve a seat for a small extra charge, but if you visit mid-week you’ll probably be able to snag a booth to yourselves, which offers a most excellent view of all the action. And the action is the real focus here, after all. I mean, where else can you get fed and witness a crazy dance-o-thon for $12? The antics are jaw-droppingly fascinating. Couples streak around, skipping, bending, writhing and spinning with various degrees of skill. The pros keep their necks rigid and extended like ostriches, while the scads of heart-warming elderly couples, too stiff to swing their hips, bust out their own limited moves. Some of the steps are absolutely hilarious, particularly the aforementioned line dancing, where the crowd is like the Borg, with one mind, vacant stares and hunched shoulders, following no apparent leader on a walk to nowhere. Just don’t laugh too hard, because you’ll be out there bumbling through the rhumba soon enough. Or at least I hope so—don’t go if you’re too cool to be a fool, or if you can’t respect that this place is a little piece of paradise for a whole lot of people. : Do-Ré-Mi |