Name Game

While mulling over the name of a soon-to-open Lake Bluff eatery, Pasta Palooza, I began to think about how restaurants, foods, drinks and other things for public consumption are named. It seems to me that there is often a very fine line between what is trendy and clever versus absurd and awful. And that line moves from person to person--a restaurant that's delightfully named for some is someplace another wouldn't be caught dead in, often by virtue of name alone.

There is a tradition in rock music, since the 1960's at least, for absurd or random names: Moby Grape, Mothers of Invention and so on (yes, I'm too old to know the names of any band after 1980).

Some wineries have dabbled in the name game (Big House Red, for one, has multiple puns) but it doesn't seem to be a huge trend.

Craft breweries, as of late, seem to have embraced the let's-outdo-the-next-guy-with the-most-ridiculous-name-evah in a big way, as evidenced by this recent compilation:

http://aleheads.com/2013/02/20/the-best ... revisited/

Yes, I agree with them the the winner here is Fort Collins Brewery's "Carl Weathers as Dillon in Predator Imperial Cascadian Dark Ale"--by a long shot. Though I'm also fond of many of the runner-ups: "Dirtbag McQuaig’s Malt Liquor for Fine Gentlemen" (Great Lakes), "William Holden Belgian Golden" (Drake’s) [Bill woulda been fine if he hadn't owned a coffee table to fall on--a good reason not to own furniture if you REALLY enjoy your tippling], "Fermentation without Representation" (Epic), "Citra Ass Down!" (Against the Grain), "Judas Yeast (Beer Valley)", "Me, My Spelt, and Rye" (Cambridge)...and on and on.

What are YOUR favorite clever/absurd/ridiculous/awful names for restaurants, foods or drinks?

My restaurant held a contest to help us pick out our name and we awarded the winner with a monthly gift certificate for one year to our restaurant. We had over 300 entries and I can tell you most of them were pretty far out there. It's a sushi restaurant so you can imagine the thought that went into some entries.

In the end we went with a name that had meaning to the restaurant, Enso, meaning 'circle' in Japanese and also the moment when the mind is free for the body or spirit to create.

Naming things can be fun though. We have a drink called the Snowpocalypse and a sushi roll called the Wocka-Wocka.