Restaurant review extravaganza 23 page 2

The Smith

When the Spotted Pig grunted into town four years ago, it was hailed as our first gastropub. It wasn’t, really, though. Piggy was indeed superb, but, in actuality, it was an upscale Italian restaurant masquerading as a gastropub. But the label had been applied with Krazy Glue, and it stuck. Concurrently, real gastropubs like Ulysses and St. Andrews appeared and remained largely unheralded–places where you went first and foremost to drink, but stayed because the vittles were so damn good. More >>

Orange County

Andrei’s Conscious Cuisine & Cocktails

With Food, Inc. screenings changing minds every two hours, this is as good a time as any for restaurants to tap into the growing unease that people have about their food and where it comes from. Sure, plenty of places– Avanti, Slowfish, the original incarnation of Manhattan Supper Club–already source produce from local farmers, meat from free-range ranchers and seafood from sustainable fisheries. But when it comes to marketing this do-good philosophy, most have been gun-shy, offering web-only flirtations with telling the public of such virtues. Walk in off the street, and you’d be oblivious as to whether the food came from a factory farm. More >>

Edwin Goei

“Clam it up” at Andrei’s

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Phoenix

Ted’s Hotdogs / Mary Coyle / Lucky Boy Burger Shop / MacAlpine’s Soda Fountain / Burger Studio / Udder Delights / McDonald’s

When I was pregnant with my first daughter four years ago, a craving for chocolate milkshakes grabbed hold of me. I blissfully spent my pregnancy drinking shake after shake. When I was in the hospital for the delivery, a nurse asked whether I had tried milkshakes all around town and wanted to know where I found my favorite one. I stared at her and then slapped my forehead. What a wasted opportunity! How could I have been so lazy all those months with my boring, lame milkshake choices? I hadn’t paid attention and would just grab anything — and this during a time when calories don’t count! More >>

San Francisco

Crème Brûlée Car / Left Coast Smoke / Sexy Soup Cart / Wholesome Bakery / Tanguito / Spencer on the Go!

The renegade food-cart craze currently sweeping San Francisco depends on word of mouth for its very existence, which is why Twitter, everyone’s favorite punchline, is so vital to the movement’s late-breaking, social-networking persona. Although the technology has been around for three years, keeping everyone in the loop about everyone else’s musings and grocery store shopping lists, it’s only in the past year or so that Twitter has become a social phenomenon, entering the general zeitgeist just about the time the economy tanked and out-of-work foodies looked around for inexpensive means to express their talents. More >>

Seattle

Mashiko

Given that a) Seattleites are sushi-crazy, b) the city is filled with sustainability fetishists, and c) we have easy access to some of the best-managed fisheries in the world, you’d think sushi chefs and sushi diners would be engaging in battles of one-upmanship to show off their commitment to green eating. But sushi appears to be a blind spot in our environmental consciousness. Walk into any sushi restaurant in the city, from Wasabi Bistro in Belltown to Madison Valley’s Nishino, and you’ll spot perilously endangered species on the menu: bluefin tuna belly (O-toro), yellowtail (hamachi), freshwater eel (unagi). Indeed, these species are endangered precisely because of the world’s growing demand for sushi. More >>

Steven Miller

“Hajime Sato, holding the future of sushi?”

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St. Louis

Laganini Pizzeria & Restaurant

As I’m reminded whenever I mention (however glancingly) my opinion of the native style, pizza is a contentious subject in St. Louis. Let me fan the flames once again by asserting that Laganini Pizzeria & Restaurant serves the best pizza that you have never heard of. More >>