Welcome back, discerning fans of food and entertainment. This week, your devoted reviewer paid a visit to the Merry Vixen in the Entertainment District, on Bright Street near Drum Avenue. As with most of our establishments, entertainment is offered only two nights a week, in this case Sixthday and Seventhday, and in the interests of a comprehensive review, this visit took place on Sixthday evening.
From outside, the building is a red brick construction built in the Helleori style, complete with embedded arches of cut limestone blocks and smaller arches highlighting the graceful upper curves of Etria’s common high long-and-narrow windows. It’s an excellent and pleasant example of the style. As was common during the height of the Helleori craze, only a short span of the building is directly on the streetfront, giving access to the interior, while the rest of the space has been used for citrus trees in stone planters shading stone benches.
The interior also reflects the Helleori era. The palm-sized mosaic tiles on the floor, natural dark dull green and blue and red, may well be original to the building, and the walls are striped with woods of multiple contrasting and harmonizing colours in the style of the day. There are inevitably few windows below the high ones offering fresh air and excluding the day’s heat. Notably, not far inside one will see a delightful example of a Minith stained glass, stretching across three windows and showing the abundant fertility of nature across Etria’s seasons. The era is not quite in keeping with the rest but it fits so beautifully in the setting that it feels petty to complain about that. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that the Vixen has upgraded to the new electric lighting, not only on the stage but for the entire dining room. The clean white light shows off the colours of the walls and the tiles beautifully, despite being at a comfortably low level in the dining room.
The Vixen has a total of thirty-two tables, each for four occupants, on multiple levels that allow an excellent view of the stage, with several additional stools lining one side of the rectangular bar on the top level. That makes it about an average size for our independent meal-and-entertainment establishments. The stage, likewise, is of approximately average size, with a semicircular extension that protrudes a short distance into the dining room.
Everything in sight is meticulously clean, and as the Vixen has not received so much as a warning on a city inspection while under the current management, one can reasonably trust that it is also clean in the areas not within public view.
With the setting thus established, allow your humble reviewer to share the personal experience of a meal and show.
I was asked about preferences and escorted to a table that offered an excellent view of the stage, where I perused the menu at leisure while sipping on a custom juice blend that was quite refreshing, although perhaps just a hint heavy on the lemon. As the menu changes as determined by the head chef, taking into account the best available ingredients, it is written on two large slate boards mounted on opposite walls. The server was friendly, efficient, neatly-dressed, obliging about questions, and to all appearances quite knowledgeable about the various offerings.
I cannot recommend highly enough the chef’s signature sweet salad, particularly paired with the savoury bread made on the premises. On a hot day in particular, it would be satisfying without being heavy. It can be requested as an appetizer or as a meal in itself.
The sea bass arrived tender and moist and flawlessly cooked, and the serving size was average. It had been poached in coconut milk with wonderful notes of ginger and citrus, and it was served with a drizzle of creamy sauce that enhanced it further. The vegetable rice mixture that formed its bed, unfortunately, was a trifle too sticky to be entirely pleasant, and I would have preferred a higher percentage and diversity of vegetables.
Dessert was a slice of dark chocolate cake, with limited sweetening, contrasted with a salted caramel filling between layers and icing the top. Each slice was adorned with a stylized fox face crafted from chocolate of several colours. The cake was moist and fresh, the icing smooth and creamy, but the flavour combination and the near-bitterness of the cake itself did not work out as well as one might have hoped. Sweets are, however, highly subjective, so readers may feel differently, and considering the skill involved, a different type of dessert could easily prove to be delectable.
The bar has a moderate but unremarkable selection of common alcoholic drinks in the most popular forms. The bartender is acceptably skillful at prepared drinks, and they arrive looking as well as tasting as they should, but clearly, this is not the highest priority of the establishment.
Now, dear readers, we come to the entertainment.
The Merry Vixen offers a variety show. They have a trio of resident musicians, who play elsewhere as the modern popular-music trio Insomnia, five resident entertainers who will always be present both nights every week, and a variable number of other performers whose presence varies from night to night. The current resident lineup includes, in simplest and most reductive terms, a stage magician, an animal trainer, a juggler, a modern dancer, and what I can only call a sword-dancer. The coordination and cooperation between them is worth noting, as they often combine their skills in varied pairings, as is the combination of orthodoxy and novelty, eclectic adoption and outright invention. The more casual performers vary dramatically, but of note is a brilliant comedian with a range of abilities to win laughter.
Every establishment, of course, has its hook, its unique characteristic. The hook at the Merry Vixen, dear readers, is that the performers are not what they may seem. This is an epicene show. For those unfamiliar with that new and essential word in our growing cosmopolitan vocabulary, it refers without judgement to those who combine both masculine and feminine traits in body, behaviour, or otherwise. That is not in any way played for laughs or lewdness, or even made much of although it is openly acknowledged. Nor have any of them, resident or casual, gained their jobs simply on those grounds. You will not, in fact, believe it to be true of all of them. Every performer I saw was very good at whatever they happen to do, and often they are very good at assisting or working with each other as well, at least within the core group. The primary vocalist of the musician trio acts largely as Mistress of Ceremonies, and the show, as a whole, moves swiftly and smoothly through a very enjoyable mixture of talents, flowing between humour, aesthetics, and excitement with moments of awe or eroticism.
Unsurprisingly, the offer of a modest tip or to buy them a drink will gain you the attention of one of the performers during the generous break between their three evening sets. One of the residents offered thoughts and history along with a pleasant conversation, including a firm assertion that their manager is one of the best in the city. You would find it difficult to believe she had not been born a woman. Earlier, I watched this same individual dancing in the sinuous style of the Sabeans with a pair of fans trailing long veils, folding into an astonishingly small space for a stage magic act, and dancing with the animal handler while a trio of fancy rats kept their balance and ran back and forth between them without ever touching the ground.
The Merry Vixen, I have learned, is the origin of a current trend among dine-and-entertain establishments: a resident group of entertainers are paid for two shows a week plus a day of rehearsal time together, with the expectation of doing more on their own, but we all know how difficult it is to live on that in Etria, and performances have often suffered from the necessities of finding a second source of income. Gabriel Ilmasri, who manages the Vixen on behalf of his father, offered the eight residents each one day a week waiting tables as well. On Fourthday and Fifthday, dining at the Vixen will allow an opportunity to be served by and chat with the same individuals who put on such an impressive show on Sixthday and Seventhday.
Your reviewer intends to return to the Vixen soon to investigate that in person. It’s a charming idea that is, by all reports, working quite well in several places recently reviewed, such as the Belltower and the Sun and Moon.
All in all, the Merry Vixen is well worth your time. If you don’t care for their unique performers, drop by on Secondday or Thirdday, when the tables are attended by other servers. That will still allow you to sample the above-average food offerings. The doors open to guests at four o’clock and close at midnight, every day except Firstday. Recommended for: business dinners, casual dinners with friends, anyone who appreciates well-cooked food, anyone looking for new highly-enjoyable variety entertainment.
