Categories

Beard Thoughts

Restaurants awards

I created a map of 79 of this year’s Beard nominees. The 79 are all of the nominees in the categories that would influence my decision to visit a restaurant. That excludes the two alcohol categories, the service category and the restaurateur category. It includes outstanding chef, outstanding restaurant, new restaurant, all of the [...]

Sushi: The Trough of Less Flavor

chirashi sushi at Pacific East

Before I begin, the title of this post does not refer to my low opinion of the quality of sushi available in this area. It may sound that way for the first couple paragraphs, but I actually mean something else entirely. That’s explained below if you’re intersted.

A few years ago [...]

A Collection of Thoughts As the End of the Year Approaches

My Year

Awesome chicken from Sapore

I started eating hamburgers again this year. And pizza. And chicken, pancakes and falafel. I had given up hope of finding decent renditions of those items so long ago that I forgot I even liked some of them. Rediscovering them was just like that Claritin commercial. I can see clearly [...]

Should Chicago be its own category for the Beard Awards?

Or: Why won’t Chicago stop picking on Cleveland?

New York is sui generis. The New York metro area has more than 100% higher population than the Chicago Metro and  Nearly 50% higher than the Los Angeles Metro. New York also has nearly 500% higher foreign tourist visits than Chicago and nearly 200% higher than Los Angeles. [...]