What is your favorite "go to" Restaurant in your area?

[Roy Hersh]

Not only the name, but what style of cuisine, please ...

[Chris D]

Sagres- Columbia Street Fall River, MA-- Portuguese.

[Glenn E.]

My wife and I have a couple of favorites:

JaK's Steakhouse in Issaquah
The Purple Cafe & Wine Bar - several locations, but Kirkland is the one we frequent most often
Marzano's (Italian cuisine) in Parkland next to the PLU campus

[Peter W. Meek]

In Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, MI?

Paesanos - great Italian food and an excellent Italian Wine list. They have fair (but not cheap) prices for take-out bottles of wine. If I like something I've had with dinner, I can buy a bottle or a case to take home. They also keep a few Tawny Ports for we few Port lovers among the clientele.

[Marc J.]

Capo in Santa Monica, CA. - Great food, fantastic atmosphere, friendly staff and a very nice wine list. Dinner there is an experience.....

Marc

[Eric Ifune]

In Las Vegas,
Lotus of Siam, Northern Thai
Rosemary's, American with a touch of New Orleans creole.

[Moses Botbol]

Boston:

Eastern Standard: Brasserie style, but updated and hip. Happening every night of the week. Good wine list. RWC Boston Bual on the glass list. The bar connected to it Foundation Lounge serves port in wine glasses on request and ever neat Scotch pour is at least three fingers.

[Eric Menchen]

Sugarbeet, with "Eclectic American Cuisine."

[Roy Hersh]

Anyone else?

[Michael Hann]

A restaurant named Tejas de Brazil, a Brazilian steakhouse ('churrascaria'). Excellent grilled meats served from heavy skewers by roving waiters. Roast leg of lamb, lamb chops, fillet mignon, sirloin steak, other steaks. You don't order a specific dish, you just indicate whether you want your plate replenished or not and then select what meats you want as the roving waiters pass. We usually drink a serviceable California cabernet sauvignon. I haven't been there since the port bug bit me. Given the large Brazilian market for port (at least I get the impression it is big from Richard Mayson's book "Port and the Douro"), maybe I ought to see what ports are available by the glass?

I have interpreted "go to" restaurant as the restaurant we would take out-of-town guests or business clients with the expectation that the guests would be happy and the restaurant would consistently deliver and good wine would be available. The restaurant we visit most often is closer to home, "rice lovers," which is a chinese chain restaurant. I like the food I eat there, but I'm not suggesting it is the epitome of great Chinese food.

[Moses Botbol]

Given the large Brazilian market for port (at least I get the impression it is big from Richard Mayson's book "Port and the Douro"), maybe I ought to see what ports are available by the glass?

Generally at those places, the port selection will be minimal, but there should be some good value Dao's. We are going to a similar place this Saturday.

[dan s]

We have several that we frequent.

Troquet - a favorite with the wine BBS people. I want to call it bistro style american cuisine.

Il Capricio - Italian with a very good wine list.

Summer Winter - Reasonably priced food from the owners of Arrow's. Wine list has some real bargains.

Dan

[Glenn E.]

I almost forgot! Another always reliable restaurant that my wife and I frequent is the Icon Grill in downtown Seattle. Upscale American comfort food!

[Peter W. Meek]

Again in Ann Arbor, MI
(These are "go-to"s for specific foods.)

The Parthenon - greek cuisine, family owned for decades - and here's the kicker: their Gyros, the standard by which I judge all gyros elsewhere. Real built up rounds of meat, rotating in front of a vertical heater and the "done" meat shaved off only when the pita is hot and ready to be made up into the Gyros. Good home-made sajiki to go with; generous tomato and onion. Start with a plate of olives, a plate of anchovies, some good bread and butter, and OPA!! (Saganaki: flaming, melted cheese.) Then a small Greek salad and the Gyros. Small wine list including some nice Greek wines. (Don't get Retsina unless you KNOW that you like it.)


Dominicks - a noisy, crowded, student-infested "house" (expanded in every legal way until it is nearly a cube occupying the front of the lot) near the UMich Law Quad. Menu eclectic, beer & wine list eclectic (no port)(served in a variety of sizes of Mason jars), but again, one item stands out: their Italian Sub, with Hot Giardiniera (super hot peppers pickled in oil and vinegar with lots of other vegetables; the oil leaches out the oils from the peppers and gets everywhere) as an extra. Again, the standard I judge all other Italian Subs by. On good bread, good selection of meats and cheeses, broiled to perfection, covered in shredded lettuce, and HOT G!!! Once or twice a summer (when there are fewer students on campus) I make the drive, find parking, and get my sub fix. Make your order at a little counter and hope you hear your name when they call you. Nice garden dining area out back, if you can find room; otherwise it's upstairs, downstairs, or under the shelter, front or back. Again, one family for a very long time; I remember eating there - or just hanging out - in the 1960s. Huge arts-related poster collection on the walls; concerts, happenings, you name it, if it happened in A2 in the 60s or 70s, it's on the wall at Dominicks.

[Moses Botbol]

Again in Ann Arbor, MI
(These are "go-to"s for specific foods.)

The Parthenon - greek cuisine, family owned for decades - and here's the kicker: their Gyros, the standard by which I judge all gyros elsewhere. Real built up rounds of meat, rotating in front of a vertical heater and the "done" meat shaved off only when the pita is hot and ready to be made up into the Gyros.

I am a huge fan of Middle Eastern and Greek food. I just love Gyro and Shawarma!

[Roy Hersh]

Too lazy to start a new thread? No. This is somewhat relevant and an interesting read:

http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/uniont ... 4read.html

[Glenn E.]

http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/uniont ... 4read.html

Well he obviously doesn't dot his i's and cross his t's or he'd have known not to assert the type of steak when it is unknown. If you order "steak frites" then you shouldn't refer to the steak portion as "strip steak" whether or not that's what you think it is because that's not what you're reviewing.

He could say something like "I ordered steak frites and what I ate appeared to be a strip steak, which was miserably tough..." or "the steak that came with my order was miserably tough..." but not "my strip steak was miserably tough."

[Peter W. Meek]

Re: the San Diego critic

Well, there is always a downside to attacking a critic. Many years ago Bose sued Consumers Reports for a negative comment in a review of one of their products. My response was to add Bose to my Do-Not-Buy list. I don't care how bad or good their products are, if they attack a legitimate critic, they don't deserve or get my financial support. Everyone is entitled to their honest opinion. I wouldn't eat at that restaurant, ever - period. The quality of their food is irrelevant; the nature of their management is unacceptable.

Mind, I would be just as strongly against a critic who dishonestly (for whatever reason) published a false good or bad review.

(BTW, Bose lost the suit.)

[Glenn E.]

I don't care how bad or good their products are, if they attack a legitimate critic, they don't deserve or get my financial support.

And therein lies the rub. To me, this critic isn't legitimate.

Everyone is entitled to an honest opinion, but it seems to me that a lot of critics take that far beyond the extreme.

"Miserably tough" is a pretty awful description of a steak, wouldn't you agree? In fact, I find it hard to believe that it was as bad as he claims. I've never had a "miserably tough" steak at a sit-down restaurant, let alone one that is allegedly nice. In other words, at best he's exaggerating to make a point. I think it is more likely that he's deliberately using overly harsh terminology in order to raise his own reputation as a food critic. Being nasty gives him street cred, or something to that effect.

The problem is that in order to build up his own reputation he feels he has to knock someone else down. He loses credibility in my eyes because of it. If he were a good critic he'd have found a better way to express his dissatisfaction with the meal. Don't like the meal? Then say you don't like the meal. Think the steak is tougher than it should be? Then say that the steak was tougher than you thought it should be. But "miserably tough?" That crosses the line into hyperbole.

I see this lawsuit as the restaurant owners responding something along these lines:

"Back off, dirtbag. You want to build up your own reputation by destroying ours? Fine, we can play that game. We can't sue you for being a dirtbag, but we can sue you for your otherwise insignificant factual errors. And drag you to court, where you'll have to appear on camera. You want to make our job harder? Fine, we can make your job harder too. See you in court, dirtbag, with an emphasis on see."

An unrelated example: does anyone believe anything that Simon Cowell says on American Idol? Every other performance is the worst one he's ever seen. That's not legitimate criticism, that's peacocking. To me, the San Diego critic is just a foodie version of Simon Cowell. He may be extremely smart, but since he cannot express his criticism politely he loses what credibility that he may have otherwise deserved.

[Andy Velebil]

Too lazy to start a new thread? No. This is somewhat relevant and an interesting read:

http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/uniont ... 4read.html

what a waste of our Courts time and resources. I am surprised the judge alllowed this to go on, as it is clearly his opinion. The restaurant has already admitted it wasn't a steak sandwich as the stated in their original lawsuit. Now they are trying to cover their arse by calling it a Rib-Eye....does it really matter. I say No! Obviously whatever type of steak he was served wasn't very good in his eyes. This is a classic case of a frivolous lawsuit if I've ever seen one.