Category: Rating: N/R (Not Rated)

BurgersCaliforniaRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

The Squeeze Inn – Roseville, California

Gil Garduno7:46 AM

Tried to amend my carnivorous habits Made it nearly seventy days Losin’ weight without speed, eatin’ sunflower seeds Drinkin’ lots of carrot juice and soakin’ up rays But at night I’d had these wonderful dreams Some kind of sensuous treat Not zucchini, fettucini or Bulgar wheat But a big warm bun and a huge hunk of meat Cheeseburger in paradise (paradise) Heaven on earth with an onion slice (paradise) Not too particular not too precise (paradise) I’m just a cheeseburger in paradise ~Jimmy Buffett Just what is a cheeseburger in paradise?  In his top 40 song Cheeseburger in Paradise, Jimmy Buffett seems to infer that a cheeseburger in paradise can be any cheeseburger you consume after depriving yourself, or as he put it, “after trying to amend your carnivorous habits.”  There’s much truth in this.  Every dieter with whom I’ve spoken admits that what they dream about most after any period of deliciousness deprivation are cheeseburgers.  Cheeseburgers are, after all, America’s most popular, arguably most delicious, fast food offering. In Buffett’s case, the cheeseburger in paradise was inspired by a boating excursion on the azure waters of the Caribbean.  While sustaining himself on peanut butter and canned foods, he fantasized…

AmericanCaliforniaChineseRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Chuck’s Restaurant – Placerville, California

Gil Garduno10:48 AM

In 2009, James Beard Award-winning food journalists Jane and Michael Stern published a terrific tome entitled 500 Things to Eat Before It’s Too Late. Despite the ominous (some might say fatalistic) name, the book is actually a celebration of the best dishes that are unique to this country. The Sterns, who have been focusing on quirky All-American food haunts since 1977, describe in delicious detail, the best dishes proffered at roadside stands, cafes, street carts throughout the fruited plain.  It’s a marvelous tribute to those dishes that are uniquely American. As encompassing as the book is, it could not possibly have included every single culinary rarity and singularly distinctive dish.  Leave it to my friend Barbara Trembath to lead me to a uniquely American dish that the Sterns did not mention.  When she found out about my business trip to the Sacramento area, Barbara encouraged me to stray from the well-beaten, well-eaten paths to the local favorites and to drive nearly one-hundred miles east to experience culinary history.  She urged me to try what she described as potentially the “dodo bird of food,” a “rare American original that’s in danger of becoming extinct.”  She had me at “hello.” The dish…

AmericanArizonaRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Cafe Cornucopia – Bisbee, Arizona

Gil Garduno7:46 AM

The Hollywood stereotype of restaurant critics paints them rather unflatteringly as condescending misanthropes to be feared. Those stereotypes would have you believe restaurant critics are eager to pounce on and expose the slightest imperfection.  Armed with pedantic palates and polysyllabic vocabularies overflowing with unfavorable adjectives, critics are painted as joyless beings whose quest it is to impart their misery on the restaurants they evaluate.  To the critic, the exemplar is French cuisine and everything else is so much schlock to be disdained. Consider the 1988 movie Mystic Pizza in which a snobbish restaurant critic renown for his “make or break” reviews deigned to visit a pizza parlor of all places.  With a stern countenance and belittling attitude, he based his entire review on having sampled little more than one bite.  Ostensibly his palate was sophisticated enough to render a verdict on the pizza after a minuscule sample. Even the restaurant critics on animated features tend to be snotty. The aptly named Anton Ego from the delightful 2007 Pixar movie Ratatouille may have summed it up best: “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy.  We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work…

ArizonaHot DogsMexicanRating: N/R (Not Rated)SandwichUnited States

BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs – Tucson, Arizona

Gil Garduno9:48 PM

Every region across the fruited plain seems to have its iconic foods–incomparable dishes that define the area because they’re prepared better in that region than anywhere else.  Though there may be many capable practitioners in the preparation of these beloved and celebrated regional favorites, invariably there are restaurants with legitimate claims to superiority–stand-outs which, by virtue of consistent excellence over time, have earned acclaim from savvy locals and pundits. When these paragons of mastery in the iconic cuisine are in close proximity to one another, spirited disputes generally ensue among locals as to which restaurant’s rendition truly reigns above all others.  The City of Brotherly Love, for example, becomes a dysfunctional family when proponents of its eponymous Philly Cheesesteak sandwich get together to debate the supremacy of either Pat’s King of Steaks or Geno’s.   To a lesser and certainly more civil extent, New Mexicans will dispute who makes the better green chile cheeseburger–the venerable Owl Cafe or the relative upstart, Manny’s Buckhorn Tavern. The premise of the Travel Channel’s Food Wars program is to settle rivalries among those most celebrated of local favorites, pitting “the nation’s most famous culinary rivals against one another for a final showdown, where a blind…

MaineRating: N/R (Not Rated)SeafoodUnited States

Mabel’s Lobster Claw Restaurant – Kennebunkport, Maine

Gil Garduno9:06 PM

What comes to mind when you think of lobster?  A rare treat or special event meal?   A delicacy?  Would you believe some cultures still consider lobster “the cockroach of the sea?”  There’s a scientific basis for that.  Neither fish nor mammal, lobsters are arthropods, closely related to the lowly insect.  Like the insect, lobsters belong to the invertebrate (lacking a backbone or spinal column) family. Today you have to pay dearly for an excellent lobster meal, but that hasn’t always been the case.  Lobsters were once so abundant that Native Peoples used them as fish bait and fertilizer.  According to early Colonists in the Plymouth, Massachusetts area, lobsters sometimes washed up on the beaches in piles two feet high.  It was hard to get gustatorily excited about something so common.  It’s conceivable that lobsters of exaggerated proportions may not only have been frightening, but tough to eat considering they supposedly grew to forty pounds or more. As such, in Colonial New England, they were considered poverty food and were served to servants, slaves, children and prisoners.  Children bringing lobster sandwiches to school were considered the poor kids (similar to the children who came to school with tortilla sandwiches instead of…

MaineRating: N/R (Not Rated)SeafoodUnited States

The Clam Shack – Kennebunkport, Maine

Gil Garduno8:45 PM

The late George Plimpton was a pioneering journalist who garnered much of his acclaim from competing in professional sporting events then recording the experience from an amateur’s standpoint.  From pitching against the National League prior to an All-Star baseball game to quarterbacking the Detroit Lions in an intrasquad scrimmage, Plimpton momentarily lived the dream of every would-be professional athlete. Today, it seems every network and cable channel has a competing reality show in which an unabashed combatant or group of contestants undertake unsavory jobs–such as bullfighter or oil driller–for which they are wholly unqualified.  The Discovery channel even has a show in which a poor sap “exposes the grimy underbelly of America’s dirtiest jobs.”  Participants in these reality shows run the gamut–from risking life and limb to almost certain humiliation. It came as no surprise when the Food Network announced its 2009 launch of its own job related reality show.  On “Will Work for Food” host Adam Gertler travels across the fruited plain trying out different jobs in the food industry for a day.  The show calls for him to do literally learn every job in the world of food.  The good-natured Gertler has had jobs in which he’s had…

Diners Drive-Ins and DivesMaineRating: N/R (Not Rated)SeafoodUnited States

Maine Diner – Wells, Maine

Gil Garduno9:38 PM

How do you know when a restaurant has really made it?  Is it when that restaurant is recognized by national publications as one of the very best diners in the country?  Or when celebrities go out of their way to dine at its tables?  Is it when more than five-million people have been warmly welcomed at its doors?  When neither rain, nor sleet nor the most stern and frigid of Maine winters can dissuade visitors? The Maine Diner has achieved all of this and so much more.  Richly deserving of all the accolades bestowed upon it, the telltale sign that it’s made it–at least from a pop culture perspective–is when it’s recognized as the restaurant after which Flo’s Offshore Diner is patterned.  If you’ve never heard of Flo’s Offshore Diner, it might be because the Albuquerque Journal isn’t one of the 700 newspapers across America in which Non Sequitur is syndicated. Non Sequitur is simply one of the most creative and honored comic strips in syndication today, winner of four National Cartoonists Society divisional awards, the most prestigious accolade in cartooning.  It is creator Wiley Miller’s vehicle for sharing his wry observations about the absurdities of everyday life.  There are…

MassachusettsRating: N/R (Not Rated)Seafood

Woodman’s of Essex – Essex, Massachusetts

Gil Garduno9:34 PM

If you can imagine what New Mexico would be like without green chile or the South without barbecue, you can understand what New England would be without fried clams.  Like our beloved green chile, fried clams are an iconic food, so much so that they are almost synonymous with states like Maine and Massachusetts in which they are harvested and sold.  It’s almost a wonder the license plate mottos in at least one of those two states isn’t “The Fried Clam State.” As with our cherished chile, fried clams have a distinctive, unforgettable flavor that not everybody “gets.”  Similar to chile, those who love fried clams are usually ensnared at first bite by this distinctly delicious delicacy.  Like green chile, they are positively addictive and have a flavor that once enjoyed imprints itself indelibly upon your taste buds and your memories. There is some dispute as to the progenitor of fried clams.  They were on the menu at Boston’s hallowed Parker House in 1865 though there is no indication if they were deep-fried or batter-dipped.  The Parker House is already credited with having invented Boston Cream Pie and Parker House Rolls, so posterity doesn’t seem to mind that someone else…

MassachusettsRating: N/R (Not Rated)Seafood

Union Oyster House – Boston, Massachusetts

Gil Garduno9:50 PM

The Union Oyster House, in continuous operation since 1826, is not only the oldest restaurant in Boston, it’s the oldest restaurant in continuous service in America.  In fact, it’s housed in a building which predates the American Revolution.  Union Street in which it is situated was laid out in 1626 and while there are no municipal records documenting the Oyster House’s construction, there is more than anecdotal evidence that it was built as early as the 1710s. A major landmark for more than a quarter millennium, the Union Oyster House is not officially one of the sixteen nationally significant historic sites that comprise the Freedom Trail, a 2.5 mile red-brick walking trail that leads you through treasured American landmarks.  Still many regard it on nearly equal stature as the unique collection of museums, churches, meeting houses, burying grounds, a ship and historic markets that recount the story of the American Revolution and which comprise the Freedom Trail.  In fact, no excursion along the Freedom Trail would be complete without a slight detour to the Union Oyster House. Originally named the “Atwood and Bacon Oyster House” after its founding owners, it was launched when an oyster obsession swept across the colonies.…

ItalianMassachusettsRating: N/R (Not Rated)Steak

Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse – Boston, Massachusetts

Gil Garduno8:16 PM

“When I talk about a great dish, I often get goose bumps. I’m like, whoa, I’ll never forget that one. The Italians are just like that. It’s not all about food. It’s part of the memory.” ~Mario Batali When discussing my upcoming trip to Boston with Dave Hurayt, it evoked a nostalgic sentiment in a fellow gastronome whose opinion on food I respect.  As a graduate student matriculating at one of the fine universities in the “Cradle of Modern America,” Dave knew where his priorities lay.  Academic pursuits aside, Dave’s priorities included discovering the best restaurants in Boston, a pursuit I engaged in myself when living there from 1977-1979. One of Dave’s favorite Boston restaurants was Davio’s which he describes as being “as perfect as anything you’re likely to find here or in italy, Boston having some of the best Italian restaurants this side of Napoli.”  Dave remembered the pasta as “floating off the plate” and “incredibly lovely,” “as good as anything I ate in Italy.”  All rousing endorsements, indeed, but what sold me on a visit to his favorite Italian restaurant were his comparisons to an Italian grandmother’s cooking.  When someone evokes the “grandma sphere” you’ve got to listen.…

Closed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenItalianMassachusettsRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Sportello – Boston, Massachusetts (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:24 PM

In its April, 2009 edition Saveur magazine feted “12 restaurants that matter,” profiling a dozen restaurants that “represent the best of dining in America today.”  Although that title may at first browse sound a bit condescending, the premise of the article was that restaurants are special places.  ”Everybody has to eat, but going out to eat is a choice.” The one choice of the Saveur sages which most intrigued me was a restaurant in Boston that had been open for less than one year, but which had already been drawing rave reviews.  It wasn’t those reviews that likely swayed the decision to name Sportello one of a distinctive dozen.  It was probably the execution of a concept under the masterful hands of a creative genius. Sportello is an Italian word for counter service and the restaurant is certainly based on that concept.  As a modern interpretation of the classic diner, Sportello has only a handful of traditional tables.  Most of the seating is on a serpentine counter that zigs and zags around the room like the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag of the American Revolution.  Padded stools in close proximity to one another mean there are no strangers here.  This…