Restaurant review extravaganza 17 page 2

Ri’Chard’s Louisiana Café

We pulled onto the I-440 ramp at West End Avenue at 10:45 a.m., Sunday, May 31, 2009, and arrived at Ri’Chard’s Louisiana Café at 11:03 a.m., Sunday, May 31, 1945. Give or take a decade or two. Surely there is no easier trip back in time than the journey to the intersection of Whites Creek Pike and Old Hickory Boulevard, where Richard Trest is seeding a live-music landmark in a historic building at the sleepy crossroads. More >>

A taste of the bayou at Ri’Chard’s Louisiana Café

New York

Harbour

“This place is doomed,” I said to my date at we entered for the first time. “I’m not even sure the concept is sound.” We were discussing Harbour, a new seafooder in the Spring Street corridor west of Soho, where most of the restaurants–like Giorgione and Ear Inn–have been around forever. Both of those places have extensive street exposure, with tables spilling out onto the pavement, occupied by groups drinking late into the evening in otherwise darkened byways. More >>

Orange County

Kéan Coffee

When we broke the news last September that Martin Diedrich was opening a second Kéan Coffee–in what used to be Starbucks in Tustin–I scrounged for analogies to pair with the moment. David triumphs over Goliath. Luke Skywalker defeats the Empire. But more than anything, it made me remember Lewis Black and his now-classic rant, the one in which the comic postulates that he had arrived at “the end of the universe” when he saw a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks. So naturally, I thought, with this development, Diedrich had staved off the apocalypse. More >>

Wolfies Deli

A request to all present and future OC restaurateurs: Never call yourself “World Famous.” You’re not. Wolfies Deli in Westminster? A damn-fine place, but not world-famous by any stretch of the imagination, as the owners claim their subs to be. Indeed, this tiny dive is more of an afterthought in the local Italian-deli scene: It’s no Cortina’s, De Simone’s, or even Quizno’s. Wolfies sits just west of the 405, in a section of Westminster caught in a time warp of mostly white- and Mexican-themed businesses, with run-down strip malls standing in front of houses. They sell Wolfies shirts inside, but nowhere on the walls are there testimonials or articles attesting to the existence of a cult surrounding the restaurant’s legend. Why, they can’t even inspire that many Yelp reviews–and the kids over there will rave about anything. More >>

Phoenix

Great Wall Hong Kong Cuisine

Summer travel season has arrived.

It seems everyone’s starting to leave town, talk about their vacation plans, or post quirky Facebook updates from far-off places. Me? I’m looking forward to an overdue jaunt to New York City, but it can’t come soon enough. And in the meantime, a good friend of mine is there as we speak, taking in all the sights and sounds, shopping like a pro, celeb-spotting, and eating well. More >>

San Francisco

RN74

There may have been no more eagerly anticipated restaurant opening this year than that of RN74, familiarly known as “Michael Mina’s new wine bar.” Fans of his complicated and very pricey cooking at his eponymous restaurant in the Westin St. Francis were excited not only by the idea of the wine program put together by award-winning wine director Rajat Parr, but also by the small-plates menu: bargain Mina! Even in a restaurant that cost $4.5 million to open. Within a couple of weeks, however, the small-plates concept was replaced by a conventional menu; accounts vary as to why this happened. More >>

Seattle

Frank’s Oyster House and Champagne Parlor

Fifteen years ago, just before the dot-com boom turned West Coast cities into havens for high-tech douchitude, we rediscovered the Swing Era. People too young to have rebelled against the supper clubs, pinup girls, and martinis of their grandparents’ youths figured out what was so great about everything the 1960s counterculture dismissed. Steakhouses became fashionable again. Cigar smoking earned its own lifestyle magazine. Couples who wouldn’t have been caught dead shaking their hips at a club signed up to learn the foxtrot and Lindy Hop. More >>

St. Louis

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

Friday evening I cooked steak. That should have sated my carnivorous desires for at least 24 hours, but I woke Saturday morning craving a burger. Not just any burger, either. I needed a bacon cheeseburger with raw jalapeño slices and grilled onions from Five Guys Burgers and Fries. More >>