Dada Restaurant and Lounge

Dada Restaurant and Lounge is dark — mysterious, even. Its shell, a renovated Jazz Age home, is an appropriate house for this random collection of art, food, alcohol, and music. Inside the old house/restaurant/bar/lounge, you'll see Dadaist paintings and near-pitch-black corridors and rooms, each as mysterious as the last. The staff is black-clad, tattooed, pierced, and not afraid to yell on your behalf — they want to get you that order pronto — and you'll hear it all too clearly, as the house has the acoustics of a college house party. The bar is the only illuminated area. It's rustic yet modish. The back of the bar is a large window that watches over the rear patio. There's no draft fountain, but there is a nearly endless list of mojitos. It's two pages long, which adds up to about 25 of the tasty Cuban highballs. Atop the bar are the tools of the mojito master's trade: a bowl of mint leaves, sugar, lime, and strawberries and blackberries for sweeter adaptations. The bar area is tiny — and after midnight, it gets too hectic to loiter, so instead of lollygagging, head outside. The beer-garden-style area is the antithesis of the quiet darkness found inside. It's well-lit with lamps, bubble lights, and string lights everywhere, and it's the place to catch the weekly live music acts. My favorite seating is the hexagonal bench anchored to the tree right up front. Besides the music and the jolly atmosphere, check out the random objects scattered about. The antique carousel pony in the back patio is awesomely creepy. The entire place is so, um, irrational and antithetical to traditional artistic values. Surprisingly, though, I found no urinal fountain.