Restaurant review extravaganza 26 page 2

Brasa / Barrio / The Bulldog

Something odd has happened to downtown St. Paul. In a city center that has often been desolate enough to film a zombie movie in, groups of people are gathering to eat and drink at night–every night. Even when there isn’t a Wild game or a concert going on. More >>

“Loading meat into the smoker at St. Paul’s Brasa”

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Nashville

Garden Brunch Cafe

If you’re a glass-is-half-full kind of person looking for an upside to the economic downturn, look no further than The Garden Brunch Café. The coffee cup–or the mimosa–is brimming at Karl and Jennifer Carpenter’s charming eatery, where the repertoire of breakfast foods, local art and inviting ambiance could prove to be more of a stimulus to the neighborhood than any funds coming out of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. More >>

New York

Saraghina

My cell phone vibrated like a small rodent chewing on my leg, and by the time I’d extracted it from my pants pocket, all I could hear was labored breathing on the other end of the line. Suddenly, a voice blurted out: “You’re not gonna believe this, but an incredible pizza parlor has just opened up in my neighborhood.” More >>

Orange County

The Crosby

“It’s time for the Crosby’s closeup!” Gustavo Arellano declared to me in a recent e-mail. “I’ve been eating there almost weekly for the past month and am astounded that they’ve become as good as they are.” More >>

Phoenix

Spices Mediterranean Kitchen

I’ve always considered myself a pretty DIY person, even when it comes to cooking. Although I haven’t tried to tackle a culinary masterpiece like Mastering the Art of French Cooking à la blogger Julie Powell, I can at least list from-scratch puff pastry among my kitchen accomplishments. More >>

San Francisco

Wexler’s

It’s easy to imagine the earliest form of cooking — throwing meat onto a wood fire, from which it emerges smoky and charred — evolving into what we now celebrate as barbecue, with all its attendant rituals. Despite our love of smoked and sauced meats, most local barbecue joints are places that don’t encourage lingering: brick or steel oven smokers behind a counter where you order your ribs, brisket, and pulled pork with mild, medium, or hot sauce, and from where you flee back to your cave, clutching your Styrofoam boxes. More >>

“Left: bourbon banana cream pie. Right: Wexler’s cool, modern, compact room.”

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Seattle

Cantinetta

Part of America’s enduring affection for neighborhood Italian restaurants like Cantinetta is that 95 percent of us grow up slurping down noodles before we grow molars and dumping red sauce out of a jar before we learn to cook. These days, rustic French cuisines seem affected, Chinese and Thai are still considered cheap eats, but Italian–Italian’s simultaneously nostalgic and romantic. Cantinetta’s owners and chef understand that instinctively. So does the rest of Wallingford. More >>

St. Louis

Café Mochi

A friend recently asked me a hypothetical question: If I could eat one meal anywhere in the world, and price were no object, what and where would it be? More >>