thursday, march 6, 1980
page 10
daily nebraskan
La Fonda de Acebo is mice, but lack&tlie spice
By Lyle George
La Fonda de Acebo, located in the Centrum, is a rela
tively new face on the Lincoln Mexican restaurant scene.
The appearance is inviting. The main room is light and
airy. Plants, plates and tapestries have a nice decorative
effect on the walls. The restaurant is divided by enough
walls that it gets away from being just a big room. The
atmosphere is cheerful and intimate .
. wfeGfl(S
My taste in Mexican food is hot. Three trips to the far
side of the Rio Grande have left my palate jaded by any
thing less than a destructive level of Mexican seasoning. 1
could eat a whole jalapeno pepper alive and kicking and
suffer no ill effects.
When I first sat down, the waitress brought me a basket'
of nacho chips and two bowls of hot sauce. She told me
one was regular and the other was extra hot. When I hear
that, my face broke out in a sweat of Pavlovian anticipa
tion. Hot sauce . '
As I took the first chip, dipped it in the extra hot
sauce, and placed it in my mouth, I fully expected that
my skin would develop a rash and I would beg the wait
ress to please leave a full pitcher of water at my table.
Such was not the case; 1 felt let down. The hottest
sauce they had really was not hot after all. I could have
taken it through a straw. Once again the old axiom, "the
farther north of the border, the cooler the seasoning," has
been verified, The hot sauces were nice but they were at a
tourist level of intensity,
,
The menu features several Mexican dinners, For the
weak at heart, there are hamburgers, steaks and other
American selections, I ordered the Combination Mexican
Dinner-for. $6.25, It included Guacamole salad a taco, '
tostada, beef burrito, enchilada, refritos and sopapillas.
Soloists to perform
with UNL orchestra
Twu senior soloists will perform with the UNL Orches
tra at 3 p.m, Sunday, March 16, in Kimball Recital Hall.
The concert is free, . -. '
Soloists Steve Jobman, Hastings, and Connie Crom,
Beatrice, were selected from competition last spring.
Jobman will perform Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto
No, 2 in C minor," Crom will sing 'Batti, Batti o Bel
Masetto" from Mozart's "Don Giovanni," She will also
sing Charpentier's 'Depuis le Jour,' . ;
The orchestra will separately perform "Sinfonia Scara"
(Symphony No, V) by Howard Hanson,
While I waited for my order, I had Quesadillos for
appetizers. Quesadillos are made of two tortillas, one on
top of the other , with melted cheese and chives in the
center. They were cut like a pizza and arranged in a sun
burst pattern on a plate around a small mound of diced
tomatoes and lettuce. They pleased not only my eyes, but
my taste buds as well.
The food presentation at La Fonda de Acebo was ex
tremely attractive.
Tasted good
The guacamole salad was pretty, garnished with cheese
slices, Uttuce and nacho chips arranged around it for a
pinwheel appearance.! Not only did it look good, it tasted
good.
The food from the kitchen is bland. The quality is
good, but the seasoning just is not there. The hot sauces
the waitress gave me at the beginning of the meal helped
but they did not do enough. I expected more zing from
Mexican food. I get the impression that if La Fonda de
Acebo made jumping beans they would not be able to
rollover, let alone jump.
The bar at La Fonda de Acebo features such drinks as
a Margarita (which looks big enough to swim in), Tequila
Sunrise, Brave Bull, Spanish Fly, Mexican Sunrise and
Black Panther. They also had imported Mexican beers
such as Carta Blanca, Dos XX, Tecate and Bohemia, a
brew by German immigrants who wound up in Mexico.
Aside from the problem with the seasoning, I find it
hard to fault La Fonda de Acebo. The atmosphere was
pleasant for dining and talking, and the service was ex
ceptional. When I was at La Fonda de Acebo, it was crowded but
the waitress still found plenty of time for my table. My
water glass was always filled, (an important consideration
in a Mexican restaurant) and the waitress w"as always
prompt and efficient,
, v 'v : ;.
f 7 X , J
. The rock group ZZ Top will appear in concert in Lincoln's Pershing auditorium Sunday. The concert
sgins at 7:30 p.m. and the auditorium doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets, available at all regular Pershing
beei
outlets, are $7 .50 in advance, $6.50 the day of the show.
Cruising
presents wron,
gidea of homosexuals
' - " ' .' . . v ,. ....... -v , , . ' . . .
. i ' . i '. '
By Pete Schmitz
For the most part, 1 am not offended by
stereotypes if they are grounded in truth
instead of prejudice or self-interest. And as
much as we may hate to admit it, certain
stereotypes are, accurate; otherwise they
wouldn't exist. After all, each of us, no
matter what group we belong to, are con
ditioned by our surroundings, whether or
not these surroundings are favorable,
In light of this, I must say that director
William Friedkin's latest movie, Cruising,
did not bother me because it presented a
bleak and stereotypical view of gay men
who are oriented towards sado-masochism,
No one can deny that an S. & M. sub
culture exists within the gay subculture it
self, and I don't think that any reasonable
peri on would argue that sado-masochistic
behavior (which also exists among hetero
sexuals) is sometimes dangerous to those
who participate in it. Yet I am not going to
let Friedkin off the hook,
. His movie is disturbing because it is
nothing more than a freak show that is
inevitably going to give audiences the
wrong idea of homosexuality despite the
disclaimer put on screen, which states that
the homosexuals portrayed in Cruising
were not meant to be representative of all
homosexuals.
Along with showing brutal murders and
seedy-looking gays draped in leather,
knives and chains, the director and screen
writer would have done well to indicate
why some of these men chose homosexual
violence as a way of life.
Furthermore, since the few films put
out by Hollywood about gay people have
dealt with only the dark side of their lives,
one would think that by now an American
studio could have released at least one
picture which showed a gay couple living
happily together. Many do despite the dis
crimination and societal abuse they face.
If you haven't heard already, Cruising is
about Steve Burns, a police detective who
goes undercover to catch the person who
has been slaughtering certain gay men like
cows. Burns was chosen for the assignment
because of his physical resemblance to the
victims, and Al Pacino was chosen for the
role of Burns because of his androgynous
features and his experience at playing both
a cop and a gay in Serpico and Dog Day
Afternoon.
Despite the terrible gaps in the script
and Friedkin's lack of guidance, .Pacino
does well as the initially heterosexual
police officer who discovers his latent
homosexuality once he goes undercover. It
is too bad that the end of the movie leaves
Pacino standing in the bathroom rubbing
his face aimlessly after shaving, as his girl
friend puts on his leather outfit.
Another oppressive element in the
movie occurs when a gay friend of Pacino
is murdered after the mass murderer was
caught. It really does not matter if the
murder was done by the victim's roommate
or by Burns, for Friedkin makes the viewer
certain that it was done by another homo
sexual. Like I said earlier, it does not disturb
me that the disgusting elements of gay
communities are presented on film. Gay
society, like any other society, does have
certain problems that it must face up to
and deal with. However, a director and
writer, or anyone else for that matter, is
not doing anyone a favor by being ex
clusively fascinated with the weaknesses of a
group or individual.
To know one's true weaknesses is to
know his or her strengths as well. There
fore, the problem with Cruising is not what
is in it, but what is not in it.
With directors like William Friedkin and
. Gordon Willis (who just released Windows,
a story about a psychotic lesbian), who
only pay attention to pathological homo
sexuals instead of healthy ones, Anita
Bryant can sit back and let Hollywood do
her dirty work for her.