Restaurant review extravaganza 60 page 1

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

Broward-Palm Beach

SoLita Restaurant and Ultra Lounge

It was a Friday night, and my fiancée and I were getting ready to go out to SoLita, an Italian-themed restaurant and “ultra lounge” on Las Olas. I rummaged through my dresser drawer and pulled out a gold chain I hadn’t worn since high school. I slipped it around my neck and unbuttoned the top button of my collared shirt. More >>

Eric Barton

Italian poppers filled with ricota.

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Dallas

Arcodoro & Pomodoro

Even the parsley at Arcodoro & Pomodoro is reason for excitement. Rather than garnish a dish with a sprig or a scattering of minced leaves, the kitchen places a few crispy cooked shoots of the herb atop certain dishes. It’s a novel touch–and the slightly salty, slightly oily taste is a delightful contrast to rich sauces and thick soups. More >>

Houston

Bowl

Fondue, sandwiches and hot pot, they’re fun and all, but food just tastes better when other people make it for you. And salads are no exception. I’m always entranced by the gleaming surfaces and myriad toppings at the Central Market salad bar, yet the resulting concoction usually ends up more like a train wreck than a prize winner. Beets, mandarins, anchovies and feta, topped with Thousand Island? No, thank you. Instead, mosey on over to Bowl, where they’ll make a gorgeous salad for you with toppings that are exactly to your choosing. No more runaway tongs, death by dressing, or mismatched proportions. Just a beautiful salad that looks good and tastes great. More >>

Kansas City

Los Cabos Mexican Restaurant & Cantina

I have to hand it to the folks who took over a ridiculously large, ugly restaurant space in Mission Farms and transformed it into something exceptional. The dining area at the short-lived Boudreaux’s Louisiana Seafood & Steaks, which seemed as vast as a high school gym, has been cleverly reconfigured into a serpentine swirl of different eating areas with curvy booths and walls painted in tropical shades of melon, terra cotta and chile-pepper red. More >>

Los Angeles

Mac & Cheeza

Hamburger whisperers often find entente at Father’s Office, at least when they can find a seat. Dumpling freaks mostly agree on Din Tai Fung. Even the gnarliest of pizza mavens can occasionally be held to an accord. But macaroni and cheese is a subject on which no two people agree, a war between fanciers of aged English cheddar and those who claim that nothing but plastic-smooth Velveeta will do; people who like expensive Italian pennette and people who insist on American elbow macaroni; admirers of elaborate panko-buttressed crusts and cranks who would just as soon vote for a Democrat as admit anything like a bread crumb into the dish. More >>

Anne Fishbein

“Mac & awkward silence.”

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Miami

STK Miami

Not your daddy’s steakhouse” is STK’s tag line, although after an abnormally long delay in opening — even by Miami standards — a more apropos slogan might be “Not your granddaddy’s steakhouse.” However you put it, following months of advance publicity, the trendy restaurant from Manhattan’s Meatpacking District (with outlets in Los Angeles and Las Vegas) debuted at the Gansevoort Hotel in South Beach this past January. More >>