Restaurant review extravaganza 35

Here are some of this week’s most noteworthy restaurant reviews from across the country:

Broward-Palm Beach

Bamboo Fire Café

It was about 7 on a Wednesday night when we arrived at Bamboo Fire in Delray Beach. We picked out a cozy seat near the restaurant’s front window looking out on Fourth Avenue. Fifteen minutes later, we were still waiting to be recognized by someone other than the riotous five-top sitting dead center in the shoebox of a dining room. Over the pulse of reggae music on the sound system, we could barely make out some gentle clinking coming from the kitchen, the only sign that the staff wasn’t on vacation in Barbados. More >>

Dallas

York Street

Sharon Hage went about everything the wrong way when she opened York Street way back in May 2001. Not only was she among the first to tie her menu to the vagaries of seasonal, often local, organically grown ingredients, the chef also violated all the rules of small business success. More >>

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Denver

Mark & Isabella

I was out eating when I heard that my father had died. Drinking, actually. But the place where I was — standing on a patio in a warm rain at ten o’clock at night, surrounded by new friends, a stiff whiskey in my hand — served food, too, and nothing important that has happened to me since I was fifteen years old has happened in the calm and quiet that important moments probably deserve. More >>

Houston

Lola

Three eggs cooked sunny-side up occupied one side of the big white oval platter that held my “home skillet” breakfast at Lola, the hip new diner on 11th Street at Yale. The cheese grits came in a bowl in the middle, and the other side was filled with a petite chicken-fried steak with the cream gravy on the side. More >>

Kansas City

Hot Basil

Plenty of things attracted me to Hot Basil, restaurateur Lee Chai’s cozy little Thai dining room hidden away in a remote corner of the Rosana Square Shopping Center. Most of all, the name: It’s short, clever and sexy, and without the typical florid touch that turns any Asian restaurant into a garden, a palace, a pavilion or a lotus blossom. More >>

Los Angeles

Al & Bea’s / J&S; No. 3 / Lupe’s / Lupe’s #2 / Tonia’s

I have never been able to change a Taiwanese woman’s mind when I tilt against her favorite soy milk, and there is no arguing rigatoni with a certain kind of Italian-American, at least unless your opinion is that his mother makes the single best version in the world. When I praise one kind of ramen at the expense of another, I half expect to end the evening with a brace of feathered banderillas stuck into my flanks, as if I were a panting bull. Discussing the finer points of fried clams with a New Englander has all the charm of sticking a fork into a wall socket. More >>

Anne Fishbein

“Burritos, Lupe’s #2: Legendary stuff”

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Miami

Casale

The world’s best pizza is found just outside Oliena, a dusty mountain town in central Sardinia. Pies there get flung into weathered wood-burning hearths and pulled out as thin, blistered crusts topped with crisp, papery potato slices; a drizzle of fruity olive oil; perfumed needles of fresh rosemary; and speckles of sea salt. That’s it. The simple yet stunning balance of flavors sets a standard that has not yet been eclipsed — for my wife and me, that is. I’m not claiming the rest of the world is in agreement. More >>