/meat combo though. I love fruit in sauces and glazes or things like prunes and apricots in tagines or lychees and macadamias stir-fried with something like chicken. However, melon is a different story altogether. I actively...

. And with that, I step off my soap box (and also suggest that you read Fast Food Nation, which is SOOOO helpful in killing burger and fries cravings).

I’m not sure about larb, but Thai House Express’s shrimp paste fried rice satisfies the same sort of craving. Angkor Borei’s prahok is wonderful. Not very spicy except for the jalapeños included among the...

I’d have to say that it’s hard for me to imagine an urban neighbourhood completely devoid of chow. In the suburbs, certainly — Yorba Linda, California, for example, has absolutely no chow worthy of the name....

the past two years as the great savior of Downtown Dallas dining. One of the appeals of this place is that it is supposedly “hip” and "urbane" because it is located in an authentically old building, and not in a...

, I think a bit of urban grit shouldn’t be too hard for you. I will list some restaurants around that you can search on to read about that are all within walking distance of this area unless otherwise noted. Grocery - Whole...

dough baked in a varkpan. I don’t know what American soldiers and backpackers call a varkpan. It consists of two rectangular aluminum containers, one fitting into the other, each with fold-up handles. You cook, warm or fry...

be influenced by the international interest in such things. The fact that someone like Diana Kennedy is admired by New York food critics adds respectability to traditional Mexican dishes in the US, Europe, and in urban Mexico....

of stores. Expansion in N. Virginia is much simpler than Boston because N.Va is a growth market in which semi-rural areas are becoming suburban and urban. The area around Boston has many undeveloped parts but they are all in...

to compare notes!). But if Leslie’s fed up with NY (and she surely has other reasons than the sodden home fries,etc, on 7th ave), we all wish her brighter horizons in LA. Change is good! ciao

) very Slow Food/organic/grass-fed beef/etc. oriented. L.A. is not that kind of place. L.A. is like what NYC was 100 years ago — an urban area widely populated by foreign communities that have been transplanted lock,...

stingy – two spears by my count. Chris had frog’s legs, battered much too heavily in a soggy, oily crust – somewhat reminiscent of the bar food one might get at TGI-Fridays; he described them as being outshined by the...

neighborhoods, look for hyper neat and tidy houses converted to restaurants. This one almost never fails. Certain menu items signal to avoid a place: —i.e. fried cheese and fried mozzarella .and the bakery corollary: if the...

there? Why is Lobsterfest a Red Lobster advertisement (with Langustinos!)? Fried clamfest? Scrodfest? Geez – now I’m sounding like one of those Andelman brothers.

Jayer Vosne-Romanee ‘Cros Parantoux’. Marc Meneau’s signature foie gras preparation involves a deep fried dollup of foie gras that comes to the table as a very hot(the foie gras is liquified from the deep frying...