Dinner…
Omia’s Pub & Grille
1015 Dranesville Rd.
Herndon, VA
For those senior Sterling-ites, you likely remember the old Pizza Hut on Dranesville Rd., literally right across the border into Fairfax County. Back in the day, it was as close to the center of culture as Sterling Park had. If you stopped by the Pizza Hut, you were bound to run into someone you know.
It’s been closed for years, but I have always been curious about the little restaurant that had taken its place.
Omia’s is an authentic little restaurant with a small (although apparently popular) bar. Specializing in Italian and Greek cuisine, Omia’s is intimate and comfortable, but not particularly fancy. The tradeoff of course is whatever you’re in the mood for, they have it (Calzones, Pizza, Subs, Pasta, Burgers, Steak, Seafood)—and they’ll make it to order.
I sat down with one of the chef’s specialties, the Chicken Divine, a large pasta dish with chicken, spinach and shrimp in a cream sauce. Divine was certainly the work for it and the sizeable helping was more than I could finish off after a healthy helping of the chili cheese fries for an appetizer.
One last thing about Omia’s is that they work to make you feel at home. The bartender greets you when you enter and says goodbye when you leave. While eastern Loudoun has grown so much over the last several years, sometimes it’s nice to stop by those restaurants that still feel like a family affair and where when they ask how your meal was—they really do care about the answer.
Price Range: $5-15
…And a Show
The Ghost Writer (PG-13)
Synopsis: The ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) for a former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) begins to investigate his client’s background and the suspicious death of his predecessor.
Review:
Having just finished saying that not enough real mystery films are being made anymore, I was lucky enough this week to sit down with “The Ghost Writer,” the newest offering from controversial director Roman Polanski. Whatever you might think of Polanski (post-production was completed while under house arrest), the man knows how to make a movie.
Unlike many directors, Polanski doesn’t feel the need to direct a movie like a freight train or wield it like a club. Instead, the audience is left with a movie that moves at its own pace. While at times the audience might want things to happen faster, the pace instead adds to the slow building tension throughout the movie.
Mysteries are hard. The audience doesn’t want to have the ending too obvious, but they would like to have the clues presented in a fair way (without being highlighted.) It shouldn’t take the audience’s intelligence for granted—in either direction. The ones who solve the mystery in their heads want to have a little pride in their intellectual acumen.
On screen, McGregor and Brosnan work to remind the audience why they’re big stars. As always, McGregor slips in seamlessly into the role, but Brosnan adds a level of gravity we’ve not seen from him before. That said, the real revelations were Olivia Williams (“The Sixth Sense”) and Kim Cattrall (HBO’s “Sex in the City) in a rare dramatic role. It’s the work of both actresses that truly set the tone and film.
While the pace may creep in sections, “The Ghost Rider” delivers a genuine mystery in the Hitchcock tradition with a verbally adept and visually studding film.
Rating (1-5): 4
John Geddie could use a ghost writer himself some weeks.
Next: “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”
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