Franco’s Lounge (Williamsport, Pennsylvania)

When it comes to my favorite place in Williamsport, there’s no question: it’s Franco’s Lounge. I’d never used the restroom before this trip, and I was pleased to find that it is on par with their unique Italian food.

The men’s and women’s onesie stalls are labeled with “Romeo” and “Julieta” signs. The walls are painted purple, and a sheer maroon curtain separates the sink / entrance area from the toilet, which has a purple phaelaenopsis blooming atop the tank. Carved wooden elephants march toward a carved flower on a shelf hung between the sink and antique-style mirror. There are fantastic framed pieces of art on the walls, including Botticelli’s 15th-century “Birth of Venus,” one of my favorite paintings, and a drawing of an exuberantly leaping woman that is captioned “Everything I ingest turns into pure energy and divine power in my body. I am grateful to be me.” Considering how good Franco’s cuisine is, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did immediately transform into divine power; I’m certainly always grateful to be me when I’m eating there. Perhaps my favorite detail — so tiny that you could easily miss it — was a wrought iron coat hook shaped like a gazelle’s head.

It was Birthday Buddy who first introduced me to Franco’s in high school, and we’ve gone almost every year since to celebrate our birthdays, which are two days apart. When we told one of the owners about this tradition the other day, he gave us free orange creamsicle shots to mark the occasion, although it was 8 months late. He also spent time talking about where each of us lives and what we’ve been doing since leaving Williamsport — that’s service. But it’s the food that takes me back to Franco’s again and again. Gnocchi with several sauce options. Tortellini with some kind of beef and the best sauce I’ve ever eaten (I can’t remember what it was, but it made me rue now being gluten-free…). Fried pickles. And a French fries-topped grilled chicken salad — Pittsburgh-style, for you non-Pennsylvanians — that Birthday Buddy’s been getting for years. It’s gluten-free, so I finally ordered one on this visit, and I very very very quickly got over the fact that I couldn’t have tortellini anymore. Wow.

I also love Franco’s because it’s so iconic. The rounded, 1950s-looking storefront has been on West Fourth Street for as long as I can remember, with a vibrant red rose on its sign, and a red crab painted on the exterior wall. Every time you go south out of Williamsport on Market Street, one of the main drags, you pass right by it and are often stuck at a red light long enough to get a good view of the crab. A “Get a Taste of Williamsport Here” sign hangs on the door, and it’s no joke; even Orel Hershiser, former Dodgers pitcher, said he enjoyed eating at Franco’s when announcing the Little League World Series (invented and hosted each year in Williamsport) this past summer. It’s one of the tiniest restaurants I’ve seen outside of New York City, with just a bar and one short row of booths. Birthday Buddy and I always make sure we have a reservation, even on a Tuesday night, because it’s a no-brainer that Franco’s will be packed. And for every good reason in the book.

Restroom Rating: [rating=5]

 

T.G.I. Friday’s (Williamsport, Pennsylvania)

I remember well when T.G.I. Friday’s opened in Williamsport in the mid-90s, back when our city of 30,000 had even fewer kid-friendly national chains than it does now. It was one of our favorite places to hang out in high school, so even though there’s much better, less mass-produced food to be had in town, my friends and I recently returned for a post-Christmas lunch, for old time’s sake.

From the looks of our Friday’s, they haven’t renovated the restroom since the grand opening. The tilework is a dated combination of turquoise and maroon, and it’s terribly cold inside. Cold bathrooms are unpleasant, even when the decor is top notch. Sadly, my camera malfunctioned, so I didn’t get very good photos, but I was able to capture the coat room outside the bathroom (I guess that’s for the local patrons who hit up Friday’s bar on the weekends for a rockin’ good time), as well as the life-size image of the Three Stooges holding an autographed surfboard. I am not sure what this has to do with Friday’s.

Mediocre restroom and food aside, I love returning to Friday’s every now and again, especially with my high school friends, because it really does take me back in time without having to bring out the hilariously embarrassing video of our 6th grade play… It brings me back to the evening when 8 of us crammed into the world’s biggest booth, and I accidentally smacked the waiter while I was gesticulating. (We’re still a bit disappointed when they don’t seat us there.) It brings me back to the 18+ Brownie Obsessions — 2000 calories each! — I ordered during 12th grade and freshman year of college. It brings me back to the time my mother and I fled the Chinese buffet restaurant where we were eating with my brother and dad, because we found hair in the macaroni and cheese (they stayed). And it brings me back to the very first time I went to Friday’s with my parents, right after it opened, and that turquoise-and-maroon bathroom was stylish. I ordered a giant platter of fettuccini alfredo and was sick as a dog the rest of the day — thanks to this experience, Friday’s played a key role in me finally figuring out that I was lactose intolerant. Thanks, Friday’s, for all of the memories.

Restroom Rating: [rating=1]

Old Corner Hotel (Williamsport, Pennsylvania)

When I go back home to Pennsylvania, the Old Corner Hotel is one of my favorite spots to meet up with old friends — and certainly not because of the restroom.

My friend Birthday Buddy had never heard of the Porcelain Press until Christmas Eve Eve (Dear Facebook: How do you determine what appears on people’s news feeds?), but once she had, she understood that it was critical that I get photos of the bathroom. I went in, Woodchuck in hand, and snapped a couple of pictures of a cold, blah, messy bathroom, with random beer bottles on the sink and a trashcan overflowing with paper towels. The stalls were painted a sickly elementary school blue, and the only thing remotely interesting about the sinks was an 8.5×11 sheet of paper on which they’d printed “WE WILL BE OPEN XMAS NIGHT AT 7PM.” I wonder how long that sheet of paper lasted before it was totally drenched and torn off the counter. Fortunately, I had better things to do on Christmas night (i.e., eat massive slices of pumpkin cheesecake and sickening quantities of molasses cookies), so I didn’t have to take advantage of the fact that the Old Corner was open.

As far as bars go, though, I do really enjoy the Old Corner, especially since they banned smoking in public places in Pennsylvania in 2008 (it was sort of a temple of nicotine disgustingness prior to that). The bar is an enormous four-sided square, so there’s plenty of space all around, and every now and again, you can do a full “tour,” walking around the entire room to see if anyone else you knew in high school has showed up. This is a unique setup that I’d like to see replicated more back in New York City, although I suppose the high Manhattan real estate costs make it tough to construct such a massive bar. And you can’t argue with the Old Corner’s small town drink prices; you can get two Miller Lights and a strong jack and coke for about $10, including tip. The downsides of the Old Corner, besides its nasty-rific bathroom, include the fact that fewer and fewer people from my high school seem to be here these days (how else are we going to have faux reunions on major holidays?!), and they play dance music, and NO ONE DANCES. I mean, okay, I get it — most people are less inclined to be in a dancing mood than I generally am unless they are totally sloshed. But if that’s the case, don’t play dance music.

Restroom Rating: [rating=1]

Merry Christmas Edition (Williamsport, Pennsylvania)

In celebration of “the most wonderful time of the year,” I’m featuring the bathroom back home at my parents’ house. Please note that even our bathroom is decorated for Christmas, as my mother has put a wax candle shaped like a candy cane-topped gift on top the toilet (see bottom photo).

There’s a lot of history in this bathroom; I’ll share a smattering of anecdotes:

• When we moved to this house in 1993, the bathroom had gold fish wallpaper. Not goldfish wallpaper. Like, the fish were gold.
• In 2002, the year I graduated from high school, my parents decided it was time to fully renovate the bathroom (as opposed to the semi-renovation they’d done before — i.e., pulling down the gold fish wallpaper). This involved the two of them spending an entire day chopping the swanky 1950s peach-and-black tile out off the walls; my job was to sit on the couch, all day, waiting for them to tell me there was another bucket full of tile that I needed to throw into the dumpster on the driveway. At the end of the day, we went to Burger King, and nothing ever tasted so good.
• The next phase of the renovation project involved my dad building a makeshift shower out of plastic tubes in the basement. We hung our towels with wooden clothespins that were labeled with our initials.
• My mother and I spent lots of time at Lowes picking out the paint colors, sink, faucet, lighting fixtures, floor tiles, etc., etc., etc. We also bought the soap dispenser that you see pictured. Always the aspiring painter, I painted that beauteous blue flower you see hanging on the wall (photo below) — it’s supposed to match the equally beauteous blue flower on the side of the soap dispenser.
• My mom decided to slightly re-renovate a couple of years ago, and she wanted to add a wallpaper “chair rail.” She picked out butterflies. It was awful. I brought her around to the much nicer flowers you see here.

Restroom Rating: [rating=4]

Malibu Diner

New York City can be frustrating. Dining out is one of our favorite pastimes, but it can often be expensive, and you’re generally expected to vacate your table not long after finishing your meal to free up space for other patrons, which, when you calculate how much you’re paying for each minute of entertainment, can make restaurant meals seem even more discouragingly expensive. Therein lies the beauty of the diner, which are plentiful here, yet I don’t go often because they’re “boring” and can be hit or miss. But one Sunday, when I was really fiending a cheeseburger and had already spent $60 on “Chicago” tickets, Malibu Diner fit the bill (23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues).

After ordering, which generally takes three times as long at a diner because a) their menu is 526 pages long, b) there are all sorts of rules, especially in the omelet and burger sections, and c) when you decide what you want, it can take a couple of tries to communicate to your waiter the menu rules you want to follow and / or break, I headed to the restroom for my typical scouting mission. I waited for a while, giving me plenty of time to enjoy the robin’s egg blue tile outside the men’s and women’s onesies, and to notice the men’s room was tiled with blue, too. This was interesting because the women’s room was a pale pink. I thought that, by 2011, we’d gotten over “blue is for boys, and pink is for girls,” with the exception of baby congratulations cards and infant pajamas. Because of Malibu Diner’s color-coded tile, they escaped having a vanilla bathroom — nope, this one was cotton candy. The toilet seat, lid and bowl were an unusual shape that I’m not sure how to describe other than “wide, rounded V,” and the sink faucet sort of matched. Keeping with the matching theme, the restroom featured a coordinating sanitation suite: the toilet paper, paper towel and soap dispensers, as well as the air freshener, were all Sanis products, manufactured by Cintas. They were all hideously ugly milky plastic things, but I guess they get points for matching.

Malibu Diner also scores points for my Soho burger (that means it was topped with ham, cheese and grilled onions), which was remarkably not overcooked, despite being from a run-of-the-mill diner. Maybe it’s because I stressed several times that I wanted it “between medium rare and medium, and definitely still a little pink inside.” The lessons you learn when your burger excitement is extinguished by a bland, well-done patty… However, Malibu Diner royally screwed up Lady RaRa’s ham, egg, cheese and potato burrito, which came off the grill as a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs. Hahaha. I’m not sure which is the fluke here — the successful burger or the failed burrito — or if it’s just more evidence that, when you sign yourself up for a diner, you never know what to expect. Still, it was worth it, because Lady RaRa got to spend nearly two hours chatting, without feeling pressured to relinquish our booth.

Restroom Rating: [rating=1]

Arte Cafe

Ms. Mani and I planned to get afternoon tea before manicures (thus her pseudonym), but we failed and instead went to Arte Cafe (73rd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam), where there was no wait. Having chosen to break my gluten fast for the complimentary cornbread, I headed to the bathroom after ordering for a hand scrub. Oh, the unhygienic joys of New York.

Ms. Mani is a fan of the Porcelain Press (thank you!), so she knew I’d closely inspect the restroom. I surveyed the dining room as I stood up and commented that it’d probably be a good one, if Arte Cafe in any way tried to keep up with the beautifully displayed rows of wine bottles in the back of the house. Sometimes, like this time, I get excited to check out the bathroom (I am so cool), and it’s fantastic when it lives up to my expectations, as Arte Cafe’s bathroom did. The row of onesies is preceded by a beautifully wallpapered waiting area with leather upholstered chairs lining the wall. Dark cherry wood, red-and-gold damask patterns. Just my style. The stalls were similarly decorated, and had wide square sinks, shelves for paper towels, and bins above the toilet to hold plenty of extra rolls of paper. The first thing I noticed, though, was the bottle of Pepto Bismol pink hand soap atop the sink — such a stark, absurd, Ronald McDonald contrast to the otherwise austere interior, and what’s with that color pink, which finds its way into so many public restrooms?

The plan is for Ms. Mani and me to re-schedule our afternoon tea “friend date,” but I don’t mind if we fail again and have to go back to Arte Cafe. My ham and cheddar omelette was perfect, a homemade-tasting, oozy-goozy, perfectly salty and satisfying pile of deliciousness with sides of salad and home fries. And this girl doesn’t even like ham, so that should tell you something.

Restroom Rating: [rating=4]

Amtrak Concourse, Penn Station

In my six years in the New York City area, I’ve used the Penn Station restrooms countless times, and even spent a couple of hours sitting adjacent to the Amtrak women’s room while waiting for the next LIRR train to depart at 3:19 a.m. Just thinking about that is painful…

I take Amtrak home to Pennsylvania every now and again, and although I’m somehow almost always running late, I usually manage to squeeze in a quick trip to the restroom before boarding the train so that I can avoid the on-board bathroom (I’m afraid of these, like airplane bathrooms). And it’s literally a squeeze. The Amtrak restroom is normally fairly packed, with a line long enough to start an “I’m going to miss my train” panic attack. Once you finally get a stall, there’s another squeeze: maneuvering your suitcase, your bulky winter coat, your carry-on bag, your plastic bag full of food you don’t want to rot in your fridge while you’re away and your actual self is a bit of a challenge, with everything competing for space with the toilet (see photo above). And whoever decided to make the stall doors swing inwards was a cruel, cruel person. It’s hard enough getting everything in the stall, but then you have to rearrange everything so that you can open the door and get out. Fortunately, living in NYC makes you sort of an expert at carrying things with two hands that were meant to be carried with eight hands. And my parents always wonder why, when they pick me up at the train station in Pennsylvania, I don’t need help lugging my stuff to their car… Puh-lease. Once you’ve somehow magically hauled a suitcase packed for a 2-week trip to Europe over a subway turnstile, you can handle anything – including the miniature stalls in the Amtrak bathroom.

My favorite feature in the Amtrak restroom is a bright blue metal grid above the sinks – it’s an unexpectedly artistic touch in an otherwise sterile-looking (but not actually sterile at all) bathroom. The sink is a long trough-like thing with multiple automatic faucets and soap dispensers that are always empty. Living in NYC also teaches you to tote around your own hand sanitizer. The faucets shoot out a poor excuse for a stream of water, so you stand there awkwardly for quite a while, your body titled in just the right way so that all of your belongings stay balanced and don’t fall in the sink, trying to scrub your hands. And then you use the equally weak hand dryers, all the while panicking that you’re going to miss your train. So far, I haven’t.

Restroom Rating: [rating=1]

Papatzul

Whitney, the King and I met for margaritas at Papatzul (55 Grand St.), where the restroom felt like a tiny chapel in Mexico, a sort of temple to all things related to toilets.

Two heavy, half-arched oak doors flanked a mirror and a handpainted “Baños” sign. Inside, the bathroom was a very narrow, cream-tiled cell, but it had a very high ceiling. The tiny room glowed, as if someone had recently lit candles to speed their prayers to the heavens. Turns out, though, that the restroom’s theme was more political than religious: a poster from 1910, depicting a flag-carrying woman in a flowing, Grecian-style robe, marked the 100th anniversary of Mexico’s independence. Final touches included a mirror made of handpainted tiles, and a rooster-shaped hook on the back of the door for hanging bags and coats.

The food at Papatzul was a tad on the pricey side, but it was worth it because this wasn’t run-of-the-mill Mexican cuisine. For example, I ordered duck enchiladas with mole sauce — which were delicious — and I’m not sure where else you’ll find that dish.

Restroom Rating: [rating=4]

Blockhead’s Burritos

If you ask me what my favorite place is in New York City, the answer is easy: Blockhead’s, especially the one on 107th Street and Amsterdam, which is on a tour bus route, and they’re fun to wave at after a couple of margaritas. The place is kitschy rather than classy, and the food is mediocre at best, but there is no place like Blockhead’s, with its $4 frozen margaritas, bottomless chips and salsa (which, despite the blah quality of the rest of their dishes are very good), and no-pressure waiters who let you take up an outdoor table forever and ever, and still keep the chips coming. A high school friend introduced me to Blockhead’s way back in February 2007, and I thought it was great; little did I know how much greater it was in the summer (answer: greatest place in Manhattan to hang out and people watch with a few friends on a blistering hot day, without racking up a huge bill).

I’ve been to at least 5 locations, but I’m blogging about the one on 108th — what you could call my neighborhood Blockhead’s. The restaurant’s mascot is a sock monkey (I find this amusing, because my brother’s favorite childhood toy was a sock monkey, aptly — and very creatively — named Monkey), and the bathroom is marked with sock monkey photos that say “Men’s Room” and “Ladie’s Room” [sic]. The funny part is that, at least at 108th, there is only one bathroom, so these placards are haphazardly stuck to the same door. Restroom highlights include enormous Mexican beer ads — Corona and Model Especial — and an Oscar the Grouch-ish trashcan lid that’s wedged behind the handicap bar. The best part is the grainy little TV that’s tuned to a Spanish channel; you can watch it directly, or watch the reflection in the mirror above the sink. I got what seemed like monster truck obstacle course races. Fascinating stuff.

For Blockhead’s, the question is not “Will I go back?” but “When?” and “With whom?” And, of course, “What will be playing on the bathroom television?”

Restroom Rating: [rating=2]

Wetherspoon (London, United Kingdom)

It’s fitting that I ended my tour of London with a trip to Wetherspoon, which Whitney informed me after my return has recently received “Loo of the Year” — a most distinguished and brilliant honour in the United Kingdom, I’m sure. Although I’d had a full English breakfast at Coco Momo, I was disappointed that I hadn’t tried black pudding; Scott, who enjoys a good full English (see photo at bottom), offered to take a short break from work to get one with me at Wetherspoon before I headed to Heathrow to trek back to home sweet home.

Naturally, I wanted one last semi-normal pit stop before boarding my plane back to JFK, so I went downstairs to the restaurant’s cavernous restroom, and I was as blown away as one can be by a bunch of toilets and sinks. Upon descending a couple of flights of stairs and making a few turns, I went through a pair of metal doors with rounded windows — very grocery store stockroom. The doors were patterned with protruding nubs, a theme echoed throughout, and it played nicely off the royal blue and turquoise tiles, which were turned on their sides to create a diamond pattern. The toilets in the onesie stalls had no visible plumbing; they were essentially just sleek, seated bowls. Mirrors abounded, with broad, scallop-trimmed ones above metal shelves for primping, because that’s critical when inhaling grease and baked beans, and round, frameless ones above the sinks. The sinks were the crowning glory: spread throughout the restroom, they were wide, funnel-shaped things set atop oddly shaped hunks of wood reminiscent of one of the blocks from the magnificent old game “Blockhead” my grandma played with us. (The wooden pillars in the restroom looked sort of like Blockhead stacks, too. What a wonderful game… Mother dearest: Potential Christmas / birthday gift alert.) The faucets were straight rods, perpendicular to the wall, and they sprayed a soft little shower for your hands. If that were not enough to deserve public accolades, each sink positively glowed, with a light around the faucet, a light above the mirror and, for good measure, a light halfway between the mirror light and the ceiling light.

It’s no wonder Wetherspoon won “Loo of the Year” — of all the bathrooms I saw, they deserve it, although I’m sure they had a heated competition with Wahaca. And the full English? I ordered a large, partly because I knew I wouldn’t eat a real meal for endless hours (I did have a phenomenal but puny banana toffee “pud” on the plane”), and because you only got hash browns with the large. Me + fried potatoes = yes, please. The breakfast was delicious, but the black pudding…? If Scott hadn’t previously described quite vividly that the production process involves bleeding pigs and sheep, and then cooking down the blood, I might have enjoyed. I adore scrapple, after all, which is also essentially animal rubbish, but I didn’t know that at the age of 3. Black pudding doesn’t actually taste bad — in fact, it’s quite good — but the thought of squealing Wilburs and congealed blood gave me the shakes every time I took a bite. I looked at the nutrition facts online, and the large full English has 1558 calories and 91.9 grams of fat; I wonder how I’m not dead yet.

And that, my dear readers, is a short tour of London by bathroom. An incredible trip, and incredible personal journey and an incredible new-found love of English tea. But now, back to New York City!

Restroom Rating: [rating=5]