Restaurant review extravaganza 50

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

Broward-Palm Beach

Rock ‘N’ Roll Ribs

I barely even have to chew,” my friend Jeffrey said, pausing for a moment from sucking sticky-sweet barbecue sauce off the business end of a baby back rib. “They fall right off the bone.” He and I and about a dozen of my friends were hovering over aluminum trays outfitted with racks of the smoked-then-grilled ribs, each worthy of the ultimate rib compliment. More >>

Dallas

DISH

The egg must not be cold. Here we are in Oak Lawn’s dishiest new restaurant, DISH (the insistent capital letters an attempt to elevate the generic name). It is a frigid Saturday morning, and at 11:30 a.m., we two are the only patrons in a 5,500-square-foot space that seats about 100 diners (and 50 more if the covered patio is open). More >>

Sara Kerens

“At DISH, the lemon icebox pie with puffs of toasted meringue presents better than it tastes.”

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Houston

Thai Bistro

My dining companion asked for “three peppers” when we ordered the shrimp and pineapple curry at the new Thai Bistro location on Westheimer near Kirkwood. The restaurant employs a heat scale that starts with one pepper (mild) and goes to four peppers (Thai hot). The dish still wasn’t all that spicy, but it came with lots of juicy shrimp and just enough fresh pineapple. More >>

Los Angeles

The Gorbals

The Gorbals, perhaps, is a restaurant that should not be seen by the light of day, when the boxy tables look like a shop-class project, the artfully scuffed floors look worn, and the back-room speakeasy vibe is overtaken by the thought that the dim space may have once served as an industrial laundry room. More >>

Miami

D. Rodriguez Cuba

It was 20 years ago when partners Efrain Vega and Douglas Rodriguez opened the groundbreaking Yuca in Coral Gables. While running the radically innovative Cuban restaurant, Rodriguez was named the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Chef of the Year. Then came the ascent. More >>

Nashville

The Wild Cow

This being the season of romance, it’s worth remembering the surest route to the heart: through the stomach. It’s an adage that vegetarian advocates would do well to keep in mind. While there’s a strong intellectual case to be made that a fleshless diet is better for the body and the planet — and an even stronger emotional argument that it’s inhumane to eat Bambi, Thumper and Wilbur — neither line of reasoning appeals to the taste buds. Let’s face it: Critter-loving rhetoric and scientific evidence of herbivorous evolution are peachy, but they don’t mean a thing if the food ain’t got that zing. More >>

Carrington Fox

“East Nashville vegetarian restaurant shouldn’t hide its light under a bushel.”

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New York

Roman’s

“Do you know how our dishes work here at Roman’s?” the waiter intoned, bending over the table and sounding very much like a priest probing for a painful confession. Not waiting for an answer, he continued, “The servings are small, so with two people, each of you should order one dish from each category.” More >>

San Francisco

Taste of Formosa

Has it been long enough since the Great Pork Belly Craze of 2005 to stage a revival? The people who care about fashion have sneeringly returned bacon to its populist origins, though bacon is still giddy from the attention and just starting to realize it can’t get into the VIP lounges anymore. More >>

Jen Siska

“Taste of Formosa specializes in xiao chi, Taiwanese street snacks.”

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St. Louis

Sammy Scott’s

Like the H1N1 virus and the music of Lady Gaga, fast-casual dining is a fact of life. You can fret. You can gnash your teeth. Or you can accept that, for a vast majority of the restaurant-going public, fast-casual places offer the ideal compromise among convenience, quality and value. More >>