A former Utopia turns Latin

Trying to do multiple things at once is tricky: just ask President Obama, who's been working hard on ending wars, fixing health care, and the BP oil spill, just so he can get back to the real issue -- adding a plus-one game to the BCS!!! Seriously, it's a great idea. Simplifying things in order to give you food & drinks, La Vida.

Boasting a fully redesigned interior after its last incarnation as the complex that housed both Ice and Utopia, Vida's an awesomely inexpensive Latin tapas, dinner & cocktail lounge taking over both spaces: the old Utopia's got brown marble & green glass tiling on the bar top and super-polished brown tables, while ex-Ice now sports salmon/green brick walls, dark brown leather couches, and a big garage door that opens for breezy weather/staring admiringly at your "Sunday" Miata. Tapas include braised sugarcane pork, crispy basil pork belly, beef brisket w/ cilantro mashed potato, and jalapeno-tamarind wings; bigger eatin' means soft tacos (pork, chicken, beef, shrimp, fish), fajitas, burritos, and the Cheesey Chicken Enchilada, which attempts to pick up those gentle tacos by asking "where you bean all my life?". The house drank roster's filled with tipples like the Cadillac margarita (Cuervo, Grand Ma, OJ & sour), mojitos, the "Rumba" (Malibu, sugarcane/pineapple juice, amaretto), the passion fruit-rum-fueled "Havana Sunset", and the sugar-rimmed Grey Goose, Champagne, Chambord "La Vida Tango", which still isn't sure how it feels about La Vida Cash possibly banging its La Vida Sister.

Every Thursday thru Saturday, Brazilian guest chef Chris Foy churns out one-time-only entrees (empanadas, Brazilian smoked sausage...), while nightly specials include $1 tacos/beer on Mon, $2 tapas/margs on Tue, and Wed night salsa classes alongside $3 mojitos & pina coladas, which often improve people's abilities to simultaneously take walks in the rain and make love at midnight.