Date Archives September 2014

Evil Is Not A Scientific Word: The Jekyll & Hyde Club

  jekyll and hyde nyc lobby

When I talked about my upcoming trip to New York, my polite friends would inevitably inquire what sights were on the docket, and were generally perplexed when the first words that came out of my mouth were “I’m going to the horror Chuck E. Cheese!”  The look of confusion in their eyes would say everything. “Isn’t that just the regular Chuck E. Cheese?” “You’re going to a city with the best restaurants in the world and you’d choose Chuck E. Cheese?” “I bet the horror is what you find in the ball pit.” “What’s wrong with you?”

In some ways, The Jekyll & Hyde Club is the horror Chuck E. Cheese, but it’s also so much more: if Chuck E. Cheese and an English library and freak show shared a magical evening and somehow split their DNA three ways and had a baby, The Jekyll & Hyde Club would be that baby. Unlike Chuck E. Cheese, the animatronic parts of the restaurant were created much more recently than the 1970s, and they’re creepy in an enjoyable way, not a “I can’t believe they’d let that dusty half-rotted material jerk around near food intended for human consumption” way. No detail was neglected: the servers dressed like Victorian-era butlers, complete with bowler hats, every seat in the house was near something interesting to look at (unlike the sequestered mine area in Casa Bonita), there was even a secret entrance to the restrooms through the fireplace and down a book-lined corridor, AND in said restrooms sometimes a face would pop out at you in the mirror like the Bloody Mary nightmares of your childhood sleepovers….good thing you’d already let go of your bowels just minutes earlier! The eyes in some portraits would move. Other portraits would morph over time–sometimes it would look like a standard portrait, sometimes the subject would blink, slowly erupt in boils, his face would twist in pain, or the shadow of a tarantula would start crawling across. It was excellent. Truth be told, this place looks exactly how I’d decorate my house if I had infinite money and no one to tell me no. Except I’d also have a dinosaur room.

jekyll and hyde specimens

elephant head mountI was seated opposite this, so I had a lot of time to watch these most-excellent moving portraits.

king tut wall of skullsSometimes the pharoah would talk!

disco skeletons

Jekyll and hyde bar

shrunken head bar

jekyll and hyde mummy

fireplace werewolf mount

fireplace restroom entrance

hidden restroom doors

shark head mount

skeleton ventriloquist

wall of masks

zeus is pissed

drusilla dreadfulFrankly, I’ve seen a few dolls that are scarier than this.

jekyll and hyde conjoined dolls

jekyll and hyde mermaid tank

jekyll and hyde haunted house

What I didn’t know was that the Jekyll & Hyde Club also contained its own haunted house: The Chamber of Horrors. If I hadn’t already decided to visit, this would have sealed the deal for me. Objectively, it’s not the best haunted house I’ve ever been to–it was fairly evident that there were only a few employees working inside and they relied overly much on the room being pitch black for scares. However, just having the place to ourselves was enough to make it better than our experience at Halloween Horror Nights Orlando : it’s hard to be scared with a line of bros penguin walking with their arms around their girlfriends in front of you. I don’t know how the experience would change when the restaurant is full. The night that we went was relatively dead and we were some of the last people through the maze before it closed for the night.

mad science experiment

frankenstein lives

They also put on combination live/animatronic show every so often (Every hour? Two hours? We only saw one while we were there, so it’s not often enough to be obnoxious) that was definitely Frankensteinian in nature, not Jekyll and Hyde. Not that I’m complaining! The show was entertaining, the actors looked like they were having fun, and the audience was definitely into it, which are all important elements to keep it from from feeling sad and awkward.

It’s weird to talk about a restaurant and not mention the food, right? I went in with really low expectations, because restaurants in this category rarely make food that you feel enthusiastic about eating, and I ended up being more than pleasantly surprised, as was Jason. Granted, the things that we ordered were hard to mess up (a Memphis burger and a margherita pizza, respectively), neither one of us have food critic tendencies, and we were both quite hungry, so a boiled shoe probably would have been acceptable at that point in time as long as it was a large one. Still, I would say that it outclasses many of its theme restaurant peers. As far as prices go, I didn’t find it shockingly expensive save for the stupid-expensive drink I ordered ($20!!! In USD! For a drink that didn’t get me drunk!)–in general, the prices seem in line with other theme restaurants. They do tack on a $3 “entertainment fee” per person which is a little annoying, but seems reasonable by comparison to Casa Bonita‘s insistence that no one may enter without purchasing an entire meal. Neither would be preferable, but ultimately $3 is negligible. The Chamber of Horrors isn’t included in that $3 fee, it comes at an additional charge which varies depending on whether or not you’re dining at the restaurant.

I would say that the biggest downsides to the Jekyll and Hyde club are that it’s in Times Square (which is all-around horrible unless you are a fundamentally different sort of person who enjoys massive crowds of people wandering aimlessly and excruciatingly slowly in a mall filled with stores you have at home and advertisements flashing at you on all sides…it’s like walking in a stinky, annoying, pop-up banner), the seats all have arms which make them difficult to climb into when you’re butted back to back with another customer, and your experience is wholly dependent on how much effort the employees are willing to put forth into their performances. None of these caveats would prevent me from going back, should I find myself in NYC at some point in the future. In fact, I think Casa Bonita has a serious contender for the title of “most exciting restaurant in the world.”

How would you like it, if ten years from now, people were laughing at things you did?

Ten years ago today, I packed up my car with everything that would fit and moved into an apartment in Redmond, Washington sight unseen to live with with a friend I’d made at a community college in San Diego. The Northwest had been calling to me for a while: I’d been offered a sizable scholarship from the University of Puget Sound, a friend had suggested that the PNW might be a good fit for me, and another friend had already moved up and given me a standing job offer. Moving here seemed inevitable. What blows my mind is that if I had taken the scholarship from UPS, I would have never met a single one of the people I just mentioned. Possibly none of my friends. Probably not my husband. Change one thing and the entirety of the last ten years (actually, twelve, if I went to UPS immediately after returning from Taiwan) would have been different, even if the place was the same. I never would have gone to Drexel. I never would have quit Drexel. I never would have gone to Palomar. I never would have met my roommate and gotten my first job in the game industry. That same roommate took me to a party for Digipen students, where I made the friends through whom I eventually met Jason.

When I got here, things were touch and go at first. The friend who had offered me the job was transitioning out as I was transitioning in, and it looked like there wouldn’t be a job for me after all for a while. I was dating an abusive liar. I spent my last dollar and insisted that I be hired based on the promise that was made. And somehow things worked out for me: I got the job, I was able to cast off the asshole, I eventually got on my feet with the help of some friends.

Now I’m married. A homeowner. I have made some of the best friends of my life here: a chosen family. The Pacific Northwest is beautiful, and it is a good fit. Sometimes it’s gloomy, sometimes it’s snarky, sometimes it’s passive-aggressive…and so am I. It’s been good for me.  I was not the most open-minded, whole, adult person when I moved here, and through people’s patience and kindness, I’ve learned better, to be better. Obviously I could still learn a lesson or two about being less self-centered but that’s neither here nor there. I may not live here forever. There’s so much to see, and I want to see everything. But I wouldn’t give up the last ten years for anything.

In richness and in poorness (poorness is underlined)

One year ago today, Jason and I got tired of shacking up and made it legal with a crazy dance party and the best people in the world. I had friends fly across the country to be there…even one of the friends I met in Taiwan from Australia happened to be in the area that weekend and was able to attend. At the time the party happened, I was so freaking stressed out over every last detail that I lost track of the big picture…but now when I look at photos or listen to our jammin’ playlist, I feel nothing but grateful to everyone who helped me celebrate an important life event and so very incredibly lucky to have so many special people in my life. The last year went by so fast, and it was all the better for having a committed partner by my side who is down for any adventure I want to undertake. Married life is awesome. It makes me want to live forever.

0002

0228

0244

0312

0374

0453

0571

0646

0676

0693

bsg centerpiece

newspaper All above photos ©Brilliant Imagery Photography (Hire her, she’s great!)

IMG_0137

IMG_0188

IMG_0279

IMG_0289

bridal shower

Bonus bridal shower picture because it was so damn pretty and girly.

mawwage

130913_200922