Restaurant review extravaganza 42

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

Broward-Palm Beach

Beachside Grill

My friends Mike and Tara and I were parked in front of a big bowl of Beachside Grill’s Sunday gravy, each trying to determine how it stacked up against our own version. We worked small bites of the thickly coated rigatoni around our mouths with an almost scientific precision. More >>

Dallas

Samar

A friend tells me that when she dined at Samar, the waiter was forced to reach around and serve wine from the wrong side–an act for which he apologized in advance. More >>

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Denver

Nepal Cuisine

In Nepal, momo — the small, white-flour dumplings that represent the Nepali contribution to the world dumpling culture — are used as currency. Goats and yaks can be bartered for on the streets with buckets of momo. A fine woman is said to be worth her weight in momo. The best momo-makers in any city are numbered among the most wealthy, blessed and handsome in all the land. More >>

Houston

Thien Thanh

Carl Han ordered spicy snail soup, three kinds of banh cuon, and Hanoi grilled pork at Thien Thanh restaurant on Bellaire. Then he prepared several bowls of dipping sauces. For the meat-stuffed banh cuon, he mixed chile peppers with the nuoc cham (fish sauce and lime juice mixed with sugar) that was already sitting on the table. Then he added a couple drops of ca cuong essence from a tiny glass eyedropper into each bowl. More >>

Kansas City

JP Wine Bar

Signs that say “Store Closing” are posted in front of West Elm, the snazzy, upscale home-furnishings and home-décor shop at the One Nineteen strip center in Leawood. But a few feet away, at another upscale joint, the suburban branch of JP Wine Bar has a nice crowd for a frigid Monday night. If you can’t buy expensive home furnishings in this economy — even if they’re on sale — then, damn it, console yourself with an $8 glass of Château Desclau Bordeaux Superiore and a plate of pommes frites. More >>

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Miami

Pamela’s Delicatessen

A Chilean acquaintance thinks Pablo Neruda might be the best poet in the world and that Roberto Bolaño is second to none as a novelist. The same fellow fervently believes Pamela’s Delicatessen is the best Chilean restaurant in Miami-Dade County. So after enjoying Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, I traveled to Westchester to check out Pamela’s. Now I owe him twice. More >>

Minneapolis

Sweets Bakeshop / Sugar Sugar Candy

Growing up, I was always the weird kid at birthday parties because I never ate the cake. You know the cakes I’m talking about: the flat, white, rectangular sheet cakes, smooth as a just-made bed, edged with lacy scallops and decorated with bright bunches of balloons or one-legged flamingoes. The cakes were bought from the closest supermarket bakery, and inevitably one of the kids would suggest that, on the count of three, we each stuff a whole piece into our mouths, triggering a big ol’ giggly mess. More >>