Restaurant review extravaganza 43 page 2

Talavera Cocina Mexicana

We are apt to think of “real” Mexican restaurants as those rickety, rustic, romantically recalled taquerias frequented during adventurous excursions south of the border. When a modern, well-designed dining establishment such as Talavera Cocina Mexicana opens and serves fare defined as much by mindful fuss as heartfelt passion, we tend to dismiss it as less than authentic. More >>

Minneapolis

Good Day Cafe

On a recent Sunday morning, an older woman in a long wool coat stood in the vestibule of the jam-packed Good Day Cafe and shouted into her cell phone. “Can you think of someplace else to go?” she pleaded over the din.

The scene was typical of a weekend morning at the Golden Valley cafe, which opened next to the Metropolitan Ballroom nearly three years ago. The place serves bang-up breakfast fare in a neighborhood that’s short on brunch options, so hour-long waits are to be expected. I was tempted to give the cell phone woman a little advice: Grab a cup of coffee and just wait it out. More >>

Alma Guzman

“Comfort food, and plenty of it: Mac and cheese for grownups (foreground); Cajun chicken pasta.”

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Nashville

Coco’s Italian Market

A third-generation restaurateur, Chuck Cinelli is working on his third dining enterprise, which happens to be the third incarnation of the Italian Market. After taking over the pizza-purveying import [get_bloginfo]url[/get_bloginfo]/files/2009/12/grocery about 18 months ago, cinelli redesigned the interior and the menu, recasting the establishment as a slightly more refined restaurant–that is to say, a restaurant that is more refined than it used to be and more refined than cinelli’s all-night elliston place landmark, café coco. more >>

Orange County

AnQi

Let’s just say my visit to Helene An’s Crustacean in Beverly Hills was memorable for the wrong reasons. I was just out of college and wanted to impress a date with an expensive dinner when I saw the restaurant on a show called Travel Cafe. The program–produced and hosted by local news reporter Chuck Henry as an excuse to do anything but report the news–had essentially been a half-hour-long commercial for Crustacean. And it worked on me. More >>

San Francisco

Queen’s Louisiana Po-Boy Cafe

Finding honest-to-God Louisiana cooking in this town is as difficult as tracking down a proper deep-dish pizza, an outstanding haggis, or a really good goulash. The cuisine of New Orleans is as multilayered, evocative, and elusive as the Big Easy itself, and doesn’t adapt well to our cool climate and fear of powdered sugar and pig lard. More >>

Lara Hata

“Andouille gets dressed before appearing in a po’boy.”

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