The Regular

After I had a serious altercation with the chumps at Andy's Chinese (they delivered the wrong order after a 50-minute wait, and it was cold, and when I called to complain they didn't care to fix it), I needed another lousy Chinese joint to take their…

Okay, my friends who turned me on to this joint are gonna kill me for mentioning this place, but hey, you gotta share the wealth. SAI JAI THAI (a name worthy of yelling three times fast before unloading a series of swift kicks on some crazed ninja opponent wielding customized…

*THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED* There are some restaurants you never manage to try, and AZIE has been on my list for a long time. I was actually supposed to dine there with a couple friends on the night of September 11th, but for obvious reasons that reservation got cancelled. (Wow,…

Okay, check it out: a new Italian restaurant has opened and whaddya know, it's not some 49-seat number that's tucked into [insert your neighborhood here] with wood chairs, a traditional menu of minestrone, a radicchio salad with gorgonzola cheese, and a few classic pasta (don'…

I started a tradition with my friends a year or so ago called 'family dinner'—we get a group of 20 or so pals together and go hit some unusual restaurants around town (some highlights: an intriguing Shanghaiese dinner at Jai Yun, and a dumpling-fest at Taiwan on…

*THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED* There is strange mojo around restaurants—sometimes things can't be totally explained. Like why do people continue to line up for an hour to eat at places that you can’t pay me to dine at? (e.g. Nan King, Puerto Alegre. Unless you&…

*THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED* Oh yeah, I definitely caught the spirit here. The owner of MEDITERRANEAN SPIRIT, Khalil Aboudamous, and his wife, Lubna, really have the spirit. Their regular customers totally have the spirit. You will too. Because at this little hole-in-the-wall joint, man, are they doing good things to…

Okay, I'll admit it: I was a bit skeptical about POLENG LOUNGE when I initially heard about it. Let's just say the transformation from the 1751 Social Club (o' troublemakers) into a tea lounge and Asian street food hotspot made me arch at least one…

NOTE: Chef Guddu is no longer at Lahore Karahi; he is opening his own place in the Outer Sunset. Since  the talented cook is no longer at the helm at my favorite Indian joint, Little Delhi, I figured it was time to write up LAHORE KARAHI, a strong contender to…

When the Hatfields departed CORTEZ for Los Angeles in the beginning of 2006, the McCoys thumped their chests and said, "Ha! We kicked some major hillbilly ass." Uh, no, wrong story. What actually happened is opening sous chefs Louis Maldonado and Seth Bowden were each promoted to the…