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HOUSING
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The Sleep Inn in Allendale is reserving a block of rooms for
conference participants. The rate is $65 per night plus 8% tax.
To reserve a room, call the Sleep Inn at (616) 892-8000 and identify
yourself as involved with the Czech and Slovak Music conference
at GVSU. Some of the rooms have two queen-size beds, so anyone who
would like to seek a roommate can be
in touch with us, and we will try to match you up.
We will arrange for transportation from the Sleep Inn to the conference
early in the day and back to the Sleep Inn at the end
of the day.
FOOD
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Lunches with
music on Friday and Saturday are part of our conference
schedule and will be provided to all presenters.
The Sleep Inn provides free continental breakfast, and light
breakfast foods are available from campus coffee shops.
For dinners, we will suggest some of Grand Rapids’ interesting
and inexpensive restaurants and we will offer rides each
evening
to selected destinations between paper sessions and concerts.
This information is for presenters and their guests.
We will be shuttling you to dinner on Friday and Saturday
evenings. What follows is descriptions of the restaurant
choices. Please look these over if you have a chance.
We will be asking you for your choices each morning so that
we can plan drop-offs and make reservations as needed.
Friday : Ethnic Restaurants of Grand Rapids
The reputation of West Michigan emphasizes its Dutch heritage,
but for a long time, one of the secrets of the region has
been its great ethnic diversity, going back to pre-Civil
War days, when large numbers of African-Americans rode the
Underground Railroad up here and scattered into well-concealed
settlements in the thick Michigan woods. Now, a trip down
South Division quickly brings you to places where English
seems like an exotic foreign language.
Bus Stop #1
[1A] Pupuseria El Salvador La Original
2019 S. Division
Pupusas are the specialty of El Salvador: hand-made stuffed
tortillas, served with marinated fresh cabbage (and hot
sauce, if you are so inclined). There is also a full menu
of soups, stews, tamales that are quite different from Mexican
ones, side dishes (do you want your fried yuca with or without
dried anchovies?), and unusual desserts that you probably
won't have any room for after all that. There is a substantial
community in Grand Rapids of people from Guatemala and El
Salvador, who found this area while following the produce-picking
seasons and decided to stay. ($7-$12)
[1B] Mariscos Veracruzanos
2023 S. Division
It's hard to find generic Mexican food in Grand Rapids.
There are numerous small Mexican restaurants that reflect
their regional origins, including (at least) three that
represent the seafood traditions of the coastal cities.
If you have a desperate need for a crabmeat quesadilla,
but you're in the north woods, this is your place. And they
make the best fresh hand-made tortillas and chips for miles
around. The service can be disorganized, and it helps if
you know a little Spanish (for example, you might want to
order your shrimps "sin conchas", unless you actually like
tearing them apart with your hands), but the food is well
worth the trouble. ($7-$15)
Bus Stop #2
[2] India Town
3760 S. Division
A very friendly family-run restaurant and grocery store
that serves the finest Indian food in town. The family is
three generations of Sikhs from the Punjab (the daughter
is a GVSU student) who keep in touch with their traditions.
The menu features mostly the northwest Indian dishes that
have become familiar to Americans, but they are made very,
very well. (The vegetable koftas are particularly delicious,
and if they happen to have any laddoos in the dessert case,
you'd better buy some.) This is also probably the best place
in the state to buy DVDs of Bollywood films (although many
of them don't have English subtitles). ($12-$20)
Bus Stop #3
[3A] Pho Soc Trang
4242 S. Division (Golden Bridge Plaza)
A classic Vietnamese soup and noodle house, in a classic
California-Asian strip-mall setting. The menu offers all
kinds of combinations and permutations, the plates of garnishes
(bean sprouts, basil, lime) are crisp and bountiful, and
those who like it hot can get bowls of well-flavored curry
in the Southeast Asian style (or the French-Vietnamese beef
stew, which looks innocent but is dangerously spicy). The
television sets are almost always playing Vietnamese music
videos (usually in a soap-opera romantic style that forms
an interesting contrast to the definitely non-mushy food).
Be sure to say good-bye to the waving wooden cat when you
leave. ($7-$12)
[3B] Wei Wei Palace
4242 S. Division (Golden Bridge Plaza)
Generic Chinese food, on the other hand, is easy to find
in West Michigan. But the smoked ducks and chickens in the
window and the tanks of fish in the dining room are good
clues that this one is the exception. There are items on
the mostly Cantonese menu that most Americans have never
heard of, and no meal here seems complete without a bowl
of congee (rice porridge, straight or flavored) and a big
plate of the special Chinese greens of the day. They do
the dim sum thing for lunch, and some of those interesting
objects are sometimes available for dinner (our favorite
is the taro balls stuffed with shrimp paste). ($12-$25)
Saturday : European Restaurants of Holland
There are substantial numbers of people of Czech and Slovak
descent in Michigan, but not in the Grand Rapids area. The
European heritage of the area is best preserved in the towns
of Holland and Zeeland, near Lake Michigan. Dutch cooking
never developed into much of an artistic tradition (and
the Dutch people who settled in West Michigan were from
among the most conservative), so Holland's classiest restaurants
are Italian and Austrian. Which does make a certain amount
of sense: historically, Austria and Italy have had political,
economic, and cultural connections with the Netherlands.
But Grand Rapids and Holland remain classic examples of
the idea that some parts of America are more like a salad
bowl than a melting pot.
Bus Stop #1
[1] Pereddies
447 Washington Square
An Italian deli and restaurant hidden away in a quiet residential
neighborhood. Great atmosphere (the perfect place for conference
planning meetings), excellent food (centered around various
kinds of pasta with very artistic sauces), and they make
the best Italian bread in the area (we are particularly
fond of their olive oil bread). There is also a large and
impressive selection of wine, priced quite moderately for
a restaurant of this quality. ($15-$30, plus drinks)
Bus Stop #2
[2A] Alpenrose
4 E. Eighth (downtown)
This is the spot in the area for a Central European experience.
You're walking along through a classic small-town American
downtown, you step into this storefront, and suddenly you're
in a large restaurant that looks like places we've been
in Austria, decorated with the kind of European-style woodwork
that was, a century ago, what West Michigan was famous for.
The food is a bit pricey, but the spaetzle are excellent,
and they do give you the choice of getting a big entree
plate, or building a dinner out of smaller dishes in a sort
of West Michigan version of the Viennese Heurigen style.
($20-$30, plus drinks)
[2B] Via Maria Trattoria
13 W. Seventh (downtown)
And this is the spot in Holland for postmodern cooking,
in a spacious Italian-American indoor garden setting. They
make upscale pizzas and calzones that are more Italian than
American, and they invent dishes that feature an artistic
style of presentation. They decide in the morning what they're
going to cook, so the menu changes every day. There is an
extensive wine list here, too, but their wine prices are
not so moderate. ($15-$30, plus drinks)
Bus Stop #3
[3] Taqueria Azteca
2027 N. Park Drive
If your per diem can't support a Continental lifestyle,
or you want to see the other side of Holland, there are
also quite substantial communities of people who have recently
arrived from Latin America and Southeast Asia. This is our
favorite spot for a cold glass of horchata after a summer
afternoon at the beach, and it's much more than your basic
taqueria. They also offer a long menu of homestyle Mexican
dinners. Even though it's in tourist country, the patrons
are mostly Mexican - so be careful with the hot sauce. ($8-12)
DIRECTIONS |
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I-196 to Lake Michigan Drive (Exit 75). Lake Michigan Drive
(M-45) west 10 miles.
University entrance
at intersection of M-45 and N Campus Drive on left
Distance from the Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR) 26.5
miles (cca 40 minutes)
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