Or, as the license plates insist, New Mexico USA. I guess they have to put that on there so the Texans won't pull them out of their cars and beat them.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Cafe Pasqual's	New Mexican	Don Gaspar & Water, Santa Fe	16 May '08	4
This was pretty similar to all our meals in New Mexico, which would normally entitle it to more than a 4... but it also cost two or three times as much. Breakfast swamped in green chile, good; over $54 for breakfast for two, bad.
El Patio de Albuquerque	New Mexican	Harvard btw Central/Silver, Albuquerque	17 May '08	6
My last meal in New Mexico this trip, and yes, it was yet another meal made up of the usual standards drenched in green chile and cheddar cheese, and yes, it was still frickin' awesome. Highlights were the avocado burrito, filled with a really generous portion of delicious avocado, and the chile relleño, though I certainly can't complain about the stuffed sopaipilla either. Even the red sauce was good, though I remain loyal to green.
Frontier Restaurant	New Mexican	Central & Cornell, Albuquerque	15 May '08	6
This place was my introduction to New Mexican cuisine; I happened to be driving through Albuquerque on the way from Anaheim to Durham NC in 1996, and had no idea that New Mexican food was any different from Mexican. The fact that I return at fairly regular intervals just for the food should indicate how impressed I was. I always get the vegetarian burrito, full of pinto beans and smothered in cheddar cheese and green chile; on my most recent visit, with Elizabeth, I had a chance to try some more stuff, such as a very good guacamole and a decent if uninspiring tortilla soup (mostly corn and green chiles in a vegetable broth, with tortilla chips to float in it). And while I heard some guys in line complaining that "This shit ain't cheap anymore!", compared to prices in the Bay Area — or Cafe Pasqual's — it's still a bargain. I'll give it a 5 for the excellent food and a bonus point for the memories.
Maria's	New Mexican	Cordova & St. Francis, Santa Fe	31 Jan '02	3
This was suggested as a good place for a sampler of New Mexican cuisine, and indeed there is a vegetarian sampler: taco, enchilada, relleño, tamale, all smothered in chiles. Problem is, it's not very good. The taco and enchilada were quite disappointing, and while the relleño had a nice creamy cheese filling, it was nothing to get excited about.
Tomasita's	New Mexican	Guadalupe btw Read/Garfield, Santa Fe	15 May '08	4
This place, a converted railway station, is apparently incredibly popular, judging from the enormous crowd on a Thursday night. But there's pretty good throughput — one nice thing about pretty much everywhere we went in New Mexico was the prompt service. The best part of the meal was definitely the sopaipillas with honey butter; the rest of it was pretty good but unmemorable, but those sopas were good enough that I ordered some to go to snack on for the rest of the trip. Even after they got stale they were pretty good!
Tortilla Flats	New Mexican	Cerrillos & Calle del Cielo, Santa Fe	16 May '08	4
My first time in Santa Fe, back in '96, I stopped here and got the sopaipilla helada, a sopaipilla stuffed with ice cream and topped with strawberries and chocolate chips. It was the best dessert I'd ever had, at the time. My horizons have expanded since then, but I still order it every time I come here and it's usually really good. The exception would be the time I ordered it in January... not having yet really understood that fruit is, y'know, seasonal. But I gave it another chance, this time in May, and it was pretty dang great.
Upper Crust Pizza	Pizza	Old Santa Fe Trail & de Vargas, Santa Fe	16 May '08	1
I found myself wondering what green chile pizza would be like, so I did some poking around and found that this place was the consensus pick for best in the city. Yikes. It's pretty lousy. Bready, dull sauce, industrial cheese, minimal toppings. Oh, and the service was remarkably crappy too.

British Columbia

I know this is a food page, but please do not be scared off by the word "British."

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Il Terrazzo	Italian	Waddington near Johnson, Victoria	25 Mar '08	3
This is why I rarely eat at Italian restaurants: the only real vegetarian option was pasta, and the pasta was not nearly as good as what I make at home — I can't even say that it was good. The redeeming part of the meal was the tasty nut tart at the end.
La Casa Gelato	Gelato	Venables & Glen, Vancouver	08 Jun '07	6
This place blew my mind back in the 90s, when I had never had gelato before and certainly had never seen a lineup with flavors like pineapple poppyseed or pear gorgonzola. But many of the 218 flavors are simply a permutation problem in action (chocolate almond, chocolate cashew, chocolate coconut, chocolate macadamia, chocolate pistachio, chocolate mixed nut...), and very good gelato now tastes to me like very good gelato rather than like manna from heaven.
Mo:Lé	Breakfast and lunch	Pandora & Government, Victoria	10 Sep '06	4
This is one of those highfalutin' breakfast places where the potatoes come with pesto and the hollandaise has red pepper puree in it. But it's all in the execution, and the execution here is competent. I got a vegetarian eggs benedict with scrambled eggs on top of a dense breadstuff, topped with avocado and roasted tomatoes. It was okay.
Mount Royal Bagel Factory	Bagels	North Park near Cook, Victoria	28 Mar '08	3
Pretty decent bagels, considering the coast.
Rebar	Mostly vegetarian	Bastion Square & Langley, Victoria	27 Mar '08	5
Flip through the cookbook that you can take to your table and you'll find a lot of the same ingredients popping up in dish after dish, giving you a pretty good sense of what this place is about: chipotles, asiago, cilantro, brown rice... it's one of those "look, we're not hippie food! we have burritos!" places. I've had a number of excellent items along with a few clunkers. The berry salad, made of mixed greens tossed with strawberries, blueberries, almonds and asiago in a balsamic dressing, was awesome; migas were very good, as was the spicy homemade ketchup that came with the accompanying home fries; zucchini enchiladas were decent; spaghettini in chipotle cream sauce was preposterously over-salted; the smoothie was room temperature and bland.
the Tapa Bar	Tapas	Trounce Alley & Broad, Victoria	11 Jun '07	5
Lots of good vegetarian options make this one of the better tapas places I've been to. Selections include cheese and egg tarts in baked tortilla shells, focaccia with southwestern toppings, various pizzas and things.
Vij's	Upscale Indian	11th & Granville, Vancouver	06 Jun '07	6
I've heard this called the best Indian restaurant in North America, and if it's service and presentation you're into I can see why. As an experience, Vij's is far superior to schlumpfing down to the Indian House of Moghul Curry Palace or whatever and having a scowling man bring you a chipped bowl of dal makhani. I'm especially fond of the roving servers who randomly bring baskets of hors d'oeuvres by your table for you to snack from while you wait for your dinner. However, foodwise, it tends to be all downhill after the baskets stop coming (on my most recent trip, for instance, the free potato pooris were the highlight of the meal). Menu items are upscale and ambitious but that doesn't translate into deliciousness. This past time I sampled the portobello strips in porcini curry, the black-eyed peas in yogurt-masala sauce, the vegetable fritters in pomegranate curry, the saag paneer, and the sauteed vegetables over noodle pilaf, and they ranged from interesting at best (the curries) to subpar at worst (saag). So while it was a very pleasant evening out, there's probably an Indian restaurant near you whose main courses would make your taste buds equally happy. Good luck finding one with free potato pooris, though.
West	Upscale	Granville & 13th, Vancouver	07 Jun '07	4
With so many people calling this the best restaurant they'd ever been to, I had to give it a try. Verdict: absolutely wonderful service, friendly, professional, and accommodating. And the food was... what it always is at these places. Interesting, unusual, but not exactly what I would call delicious. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the tastiest dishes were the most "boring" ones: vegetarian risotto with wild mushrooms, chocolate toffee cake with vanilla ice cream. The more outlandish dishes — a cylinder of tiny pepper and avocado bits in a moat of gazpacho, thin pastry crackers with caramelized onions and hearts of palm, beet wafers bookending blobs of goat cheese — were more fun to look at than to actually eat.
Zambri's	Italian	Pandora near Quadra, Victoria	28 Mar '08	5
Putting together a vegetarian dinner at Zambri's meant cobbling something together out of appetizers: fried bread balls, mozzarella with mandarin oranges, braised greens. I also had some of Elizabeth's morel risotto, which was pretty standard except for the very generous serving of morels that came with it. Lunch a year later turned out to be superior: order off the ever-changing menu board, and get a plate of pasta very nearly as good as what I make at home, and without the trouble of doing dishes. I ordered maccheroni with braised greens, white beans, and chiles; what I got was rigatoni with braised greens, chickpeas, and red pepper flakes, but I didn't really mind the substitutions.

Los Angeles County

Where the best way to guarantee good service is to look like a casting agent.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Annapurna Cuisine	Indian	Venice & Vinton, Culver City	13 Dec '07	N/A
The first time I went here, back in 2005, it was the best Indian I'd had in years. Delicious dal, delicious korma, excellent fresh fruit, friendly service. It was just as good every time I went right up through February '07. But then in December '07 I went back, and it was terrible! The food was bad, there wasn't much of it, and the staff seemed sort of clueless and distracted. So I don't know what's going on.
Bennett's Ice Cream	Ice cream	3rd & Fairfax, Los Angeles	11 Dec '07	2
Here the ice cream is made fresh on the premises, so that's a plus, but I can think of innumerable places that are better.
Bob's Coffee & Donuts	Coffee and donuts	3rd & Fairfax, Los Angeles	13 Dec '07	3
After hearing many raves that this place had the best donuts in the city and that I had to try them, I did. Verdict: yes, this is about as good as you can expect a piece of sweetened white dough fried in oil to be. A top-notch effort in the medium of simplistic empty calories. All of which is a snide way of saying that I still don't like donuts.
City Mex Grill	Burritos	Cherry & Willow, Signal Hill	17 Feb '07	5
Once my favorite burrito shop, this place (part of the Pachanga mini-chain) has sadly declined somewhat, but is still good.
Cynthia's Restaurant	Upscale	3rd & Kings, Los Angeles	15 Jun '07	5
Good food — I had a very nice corn soup and then some linguini with a tasty assortment of vegetables. Then I looked up this place to get the address and discovered that the proprietor is... controversial, to put it delicately. Gosh.
Doughboy's Bakery	Breakfast, etc.	3rd & Kilkea, Los Angeles	13 Jun '07	2
I was astonished at the delicious-sounding array of choices on the menu, but the stuffed French toast I got was not good: the cream cheese disassembled itself into unpleasant curds and the strawberry jam was off. Then I got a peanut butter cookie for the road; it was $3 and was terrible, still pretty much a blob of dough.
the French Crêpe Company	Crêpes	3rd & Fairfax, Los Angeles	11 Dec '07	2
The crêpe I got here was pretty bland and contained some bad tomatoes and things. Not a disaster, but skippable.
Interim Cafe	Hippie-ish	Wilshire & 6th, Santa Monica	19 Feb '07	3
This used to be the Newsroom Cafe, where in 2005 I got the best breakfast I'd had in a couple of years. In 2007 I returned to find that it was now the "Interim Cafe," crunchier than its predecessor and sporting a scaled-down menu. It wasn't a bad breakfast, but compared to the Newsroom it was f'ing tragic.
Joan's on Third	Deli	3rd btw Kings/Flores, Los Angeles	15 Dec '07	6
Each time I have come here it has been better than the last. The first time I sampled some of the items in the deli case (penne with tomato artichoke sauce, new potatoes with watercress and avocado, etc.) and they were pretty good. Then I had an egg salad sandwich and it was even better. Most recently I tried some of the desserts (strawberry buttermilk muffin, orange chocolate chunk cake) and they were dyn-o-mite.
Kate Mantilini	Eclectic	Wilshire & Doheny, Beverly Hills	09 May '07	4
At this place, which is open until 1:30 am, I got a grilled artichoke with three dipping sauces. When I ordered it the waiter cried, "People love 'em!" I don't know whether I'd be quite so exclamatory but I thought it was an excellent late-night snack.
¡Loteria!	Mexican	3rd & Fairfax, Los Angeles	15 Dec '07	4
Like Moishe's (below), this place has a whole bunch of little bins of stuff — only instead of hummus and baba, it's calabacitas and poblano potatoes, which they stick into tacos and burritos and such. I had better luck when I went outside the bins and got enfrijoladas.
Moishe's Restaurant	Mediterranean	3rd & Fairfax, Los Angeles	10 Dec '07	4
Tasty falafels, and an interesting selection of spreads; I went with a couple of the basics (hummus and baba) and they weren't really extraordinary.
Newsroom Cafe	Vegetarian-friendly	Robertson near Beverly, Los Angeles	14 Dec '07	5
Hooray, it's not dead — it just moved. While my visit to the new location was not as revelatory as my visit with Jennifer back in '05, I was pleased to see that the transplanted Newsroom Cafe still features many tasty breakfasts and excellent smoothies.
Pizzeria Mozza	Pizza	Highland & Melrose, Los Angeles	09 Dec '07	5
Having not eaten for nearly 24 hours, I scoured the net to find a place in west LA that was open late on a Sunday and was surprised to find that among the Denny's franchises and 24/7 taco stands was this place with its Mario Batali pedigree and month-long wait lists. I managed to get a seat at the end of the counter, from which I ordered a pizza with chiles and "long-cooked broccoli." It was good! The crust here is designed to balloon up enormously, which some people apparently dislike but which was fine by me.
Polo Lounge	Upscale	Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills	28 Jan '05	2
You might well love it. I didn't love the fact that there were only four vegetarian options on the menu, one of them an appetizer and two of them salads.
Tart	American	Fairfax near 1st, Los Angeles	12 Dec '07	4
Mexican scramble: tasty enough. Leek hash browns: also okay. Toast: burnt. Waitress: total hottie.
Tortilla Grill	Mexican (taqueria)	Abbott Kinney & California, Venice	spring '07	4
Here I had a burrito that had been awkwardly folded into a flat rectangle that fell apart immediately. Fillings were pretty good. Agua fresca was bursting with flavor.
Vito's Pizza	Pizza	La Cienega btw Willoughby/Waring, West Hollywood	16 Jun '07	5
Open late, and good slices — I suspect the whole pies are even better. I also got very friendly and speedy service even though I was a non-LA type wandering in by myself at peak hours on a Saturday night.
Wolfgang Puck Express	Pizza and salads	Los Angeles International Airport	12 Jun '07	3
I was famished as I got of the plane and then, hey, wood-burning oven pizza right there in the terminal. It wasn't all that great but it beats the crap out of Pizza Hut Express.
Zen Grill	East Asian	3rd & Croft, Los Angeles	13 Jun '07	3
Here I had some miso soup and some vegetables that came with tortillas. They were okay.

San Diego County

It's sort of like the South, only with lower humidity. And pandas.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Cantina Panaderia	Latin- and Asian-inspired	Felspar & Cass, San Diego	11 Nov '07	5
Pressed into service after the Spread fiasco, this place turned out to be a better backup option than we probably had a right to expect. I had custardy coconut French toast with raspberry puree, while Elizabeth had some potatoes with avocadoes and beans and things that she mentioned favorably several times during the rest of the trip.
Extraordinary Desserts	Dessert	5th & Palm, San Diego	12 Nov '07	3
Thumbs up for the variety — I got blood orange cake after eyeing a chocolate pecan pie and a pistachio almond chocolate thingie. But it is pricey and the actual desserts themselves, while not bad, were somewhat underwhelming.
Mamá Testa	Mexican (tacos)	University & Richmond, San Diego	12 Nov '07	4
Many many varieties of tacos. I got the combination of four tiny steamed ones with different fillings. Pretty tasty, but simple enough that unless I lived right nearby I might be tempted to just make my own.
Spread	Vegetarian, apparently	University & Granada, San Diego	11 Nov '07	N/A
"Our Sunday brunches, held from 11am-3pm, should not be missed!" crowed the web site. Well, then, uh, why did you miss the brunch that I flew down from the Bay Area for and planned my entire visit around? It sure is fun to be in a seedy neighborhood in a strange city standing in front of a storefront that is closed with no explanation whatsoever. Upsetting.

CA Central Coast

San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties. (The underlying theme of this section: Is there a reason to take the 101 instead of the 5?)

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
American Flatbread	Pizza	Bell btw Den/St. Joseph, Los Alamos	16 Feb '07	4
Two nights a week this place takes a break from making frozen pizzas for Whole Foods and makes fresh ones for the locals. They taste pretty much exactly like the boxed ones... maybe a little crisper. So if you want a sense of what this is like, get an American Flatbread pizza from the Whole Foods, cook it about a minute longer than the box recommends, and eat it while sitting in front of a blazing hot fireplace — because that oven is HOT.
Doc Burnstein's Ice Cream Lab	Ice cream	Branch btw Wesley/Nevada, Arroyo Grande	19 Feb '07	5
Good ice cream and a charming establishment. Apparently they create new flavors on Wednesday night in performances open to the public.
La Super-Rica	Mexican	Milpas & Alphonse, Santa Barbara	14 Jun '07	7
This is basically a taco shack, and it's pretty sensational. Most dishes are very simple. Rajas: peppers, onions, cheese and herbs on a pair of corn tortillas. Queso de cazuela: melted cheese in a bowl of tomato sauce, served with three corn tortillas. Gordita frijol: corn tortilla stuffed with spiced pintos. Simple and yet magnificent. The exceptions have been the specials: chilaquiles were above average but not great, and the tamal de verduras was bland. Still, a must-visit.

Monterey Bay area

Stretching from Salinas to Santa Cruz, this area is renowned both for growing leafy greens and for smoking them.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Allegro Pizza	Pizza	The Barnyard & Carmel Rancho, Carmel	01 Oct '06	2
Huge slabs of cheese and underprepared toppings on an underdone crust. Many pizzas on offer: I tried a weird one at first and didn't like it, so in the name of fairness I came back and tried a more traditional one. Still bad.
Bagel Corner	Breakfast	Acacia & Park Row, Salinas	07 Aug '06	1
More like Salty Hamburger Bun Corner.
Carmel Bakery	Bakery	Ocean btw Lincoln/Dolores, Carmel	04 May '07	4
This place has some pretty good stuff! Big pretzels, excellent rugelach, all sorts of cookies and coconut haystacks and things.
Central Avenue Bakery	Bakery	Central btw David/Dewey, Pacific Grove	02 Sep '06	2
The in-store hype said the banana nut bar was not to be missed. For free, I would have nodded politely. For $3.50 I was disappointed.
the Crepe Place	Crepes	Soquel btw Cayuga/Seabright, Santa Cruz	28 Aug '06	4
The crepes here are a much bigger production than those at Crepes a-Go-Go on University in Berkeley, but they're not as good.
First Awakenings	Breakfast	Main & Gabilan, Salinas	12 Aug '06	4
Decent breakfast place. On my first trip I had a crepe with cheese and avocado and mushrooms and whipped eggs and alfalfa sprouts. That was pretty good. On later trips I had alarmingly large pancakes and gringo huevos rancheros.
Giant Artichoke	Artichokes	Merritt btw Salinas/Pajaro, Castroville	28 Aug '06	1
I'd heard about the deep fried artichokes here, so when I randomly passed the place, I figured I'd stop in and try half an order. There was no real artichoke flavor left; it tasted like the food I ate at the Regal Lanes bowling alley back in junior high.
India's Clay Oven	Indian	Del Monte btw Alvarado/Tyler	02 Sep '06	5
This place has a lunch buffet, a brunch buffet and a dinner buffet; I showed up at the end of the brunch buffet when things had been sitting out for hours and were fairly picked-over... so I can only imagine how good it must be when it's fresh, because even in this state it was still pretty darn good! Lots more variety than your typical Indian buffet, with roasted Chinese melons and sauteed local eggplant and a sweet saffron rice dish called "zarda" that I could not get enough of. This was a tip from some locals which turned out well enough that I will be following their other recommendations on my next few visits.
La Fogata	Mexican	Main btw Gabilan/Alisal, Salinas	29 Jul '06	3
A throwback, pretty similar to Taqueria Los Pericos in San Leandro.
Little Napoli	Italian	Dolores btw Ocean/Seventh, Carmel	11 May '07	4
I very rarely get pasta at a restaurant because I figure I can generally make it better at home, but I had a coupon for this (expensive) place and there was a mushroom tagliatelle with truffle oil on the menu and I don't have truffle oil at home. The mushrooms were a little plumper than I prefer (I like a cooked-down mushroom) but the truffle oil was delicious. Note to self: buy truffle oil.
Loose Caboose	Sandwiches	Acacia & Park Row, Salinas	17 Aug '06	2
Not so much bad sandwiches as "this thing is how much?" sandwiches. But Salinas doesn't have a Togo's, so.
Malabar	Pan-Asian	Front btw Soquel/Cathcart, Santa Cruz	23 Feb '07	2
This vegetarian restaurant features dishes from all over southern and southeastern Asia, with particular emphasis on Sri Lanka. I gave it a 5 after going there in '06; since then, it has moved across town and down three notches. Service was ludicrously slow — we were stuck there for two hours! — and the food was generally undercooked and tasted primarily of scovilles.
Pacific Cookie Company	Cookies	Pacific btw Lincoln/Walnut, Santa Cruz	04 Mar '06	4
Pretty good cookies. I recommend the "Almond Joe," with chocolate chips, almonds and coconut.
Papa Riva's	Pizza	Main btw Gabilan/Central, Salinas	21 Aug '06	1
This pizza's about as good as Bagel Corner's bagels. That is to say, laughably bad.
Passionfish	Seafood	Lighthouse & Congress, Pacific Grove	21 Aug '06	4
I don't eat seafood, so finding a restaurant on the Monterey Peninsula is basically a matter of finding the best of the lone vegetarian options. Passionfish is purported to be the best restaurant in the area; I had a braised artichoke (which was mostly inedible leaves topped with shredded asiago) and a plate of corn ravioli (which was underdone, with a sauce that was too sharp somehow... too much salt? still pretty good!). Dessert was one of those molten chocolate cakes that are de rigueur at places like this.
Peninsula Pastries	Bakery	Acacia & Park Row, Salinas	01 Oct '06	3
Blackberry-cheese danish: very good! Chocolatine: enh. Weird flat moist almond "croissant": awful.
Saturn Cafe	Diner	Laurel & Pacific, Santa Cruz	04 Mar '06	3
When I was 17 I came here (at its old location) and got the Chocolate Madness, two brownies topped with dark chocolate ice cream, hot fudge, chocolate mousse, whipped cream and chocolate chips. I tried it again at age 32. It seemed like a much, much better idea when I was 17.
Stokes	Upscale	Hartnell & Polk, Monterey	26 Jan '07	4
Upscale places rarely are big on vegetarian options, and so here I had basically one option: crepes with root vegetables. Fortunately they were pretty good. I had a side of cauliflower gratin that was pretty bland — I need to stop ordering that. I keep thinking it'll be like the cauliflower at Delfina, only with cheese. I also got free dessert!
Tepa-Sahuayo	Mexican	First & Main, Watsonville	01 Jun '07	3
This rundown restaurant is in a strip mall in a rundown agribusiness town, but has gained a following for its astonishing handwritten menu full of esoteric dishes that it proudly proclaims are "hard to find even in Mexico." I decided to go for the vegetarian sopes, but it turned out that the vegetarian filling was just a pile of lettuce with a few slices of avocado. Disappointing.
Turtle Bay Taqueria	Mexican (taqueria)	Tyler & Bonifacio, Monterey	11 Feb '07	1
This place just sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Since I got a table flag, I initially assumed meals were brought to one's table, but my order sat on a counter for several minutes, so I began to wonder whether I was supposed to come collect it. When I tried, though, one of the guys behind the counter snapped that my order would be coming up soon, so I thought maybe it wasn't mine... but then, sure enough, someone eventually collected it and brought it to my table. Bah. Anyway, weird flavors, too seafood-centric, and just plain old bad vibes.

Orange County

In a place notorious for landslides, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that seemingly every restaurant I used to enjoy has gone downhill.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Campitelli Cookies	Cookies	Santa Ana Canyon & Avenida Margarita, Anaheim	17 Feb '07	4
This place has declined a bit from its heyday twenty years ago; the cookies are smaller, doughier, and needless to say, more expensive. But I wouldn't, like, spit them out or anything.
Cinnamon Works	Baked goods	Santa Ana Canyon & Avenida Margarita, Anaheim	17 Feb '07	2
As recently as five years ago this place sold some of the best muffins I'd ever had. Now it appears that everything is oversweet and underdone. I'm sure I would have loved that when I was six.
Juice Stop	Smoothies	La Palma & Imperial, Anaheim	18 Feb '07	6
This is still the best smoothie place I've ever been. Nice to see that something out here hasn't gone drastically downhill.
Papa Hassan's	Middle Eastern	Glassell & University, Orange	28 Jan '02	5
The adaas (lentil soup with rice and pasta bits) is terrific, and the foul maddamas is great, but now that I have more than memory to use as a basis for comparison, I have to admit that the foul here is not quite in the class as that at the Kabab Cafe in Queens. Still good, though.
Rockwell's	Breakfast	Santiago & Santiago, Villa Park	18 Feb '07	3
This used to be an 8, thanks to the heavenly spinach omelette. That omelette, on my most recent visit, had become decidedly mundane: both the cream in the filling and the egg itself had become three times as thick. It was a sad parody of what it once had been.
Roma D'Italia	Italian	El Camino Real & Sixth, Tustin	16 Aug '05	6
Roma D'Italia is an archetypal red-sauce place with checkered tablecloths, but very good. I've had some okay meals here and some great ones: perfect gnocchi in a nuanced and delicious tomato cream sauce or cheese ravioli in a bright, tasty "fresco" sauce. The dessert menu also kicks no small amount of ass, featuring a slice of amazing German chocolate cheesecake the size of a small car. This isn't just "good Italian considering the area" — it'd hold its own anywhere.
Taco Mesa	Taqueria	Chapman & James, Orange	18 Feb '07	5
This place has held up. It's an unusual taqueria — they have weird red tortillas and a unique bean preparation and a heavy emphasis on lettuce — but it's pretty good in its way.

Washington state

Home of Seattle town and the famous Space Needle tower.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Araya's Vegetarian Place	Thai	NE 45th btw 11th/12th, Seattle	20 Oct '06	7
When I lived in the Seattle area I used to eat here all the time. It wasn't the tastiest Thai food I'd ever had, but at the time it was the only place in the US serving true vegan Thai, without fish sauce and shrimp paste hidden in the "vegetarian" dishes. Six years later I returned to find that it's moved into a bigger and swankier space — and, shockingly, the food has improved. It has gone from pretty good to flat-out great. Yes, they could stand to trim the vegetables a bit more, and the menu is still far too reliant on tofu chunks and fake meat, but I was astounded at how good the tom kha and panang were. Hooray.
Cafe Flora	Vegetarian	E Madison & 29th, Seattle	21 Oct '06	6
This is another place that was decent when I lived near Seattle and an order of magnitude better when I returned for a visit. I had brunch here the morning I left, and decided that instead of getting a breakfasty food I would go for the sweet pepper sandwich, the peppers served on open-face toasted focaccia with cilantro bean paté, red onion and ricotta salata. I'm going to have to try to make something like this at home sometime! It was good enough that I was able to contain my tears at the closure of the Green Cat.

Oregon

Where waiters have to cut your food for you because it takes a trained professional to operate a set of silverware. Ha ha ha ha! Just kidding. I mean, that's almost as ridiculous as not being allowed to pump your own gas.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Apizza Scholls	Pizza	SE Hawthorne btw 47th/48th, Portland	19 Aug '06	4
This place serves what, from above, is one of the most beautiful pizzas I've ever seen. From below, however, it betrays its New Haven heritage. Yes, this is one of those places, like Sally's and Modern Apizza, where the pizza isn't considered done until the edge and bottom are mostly black. Lamentable. With a less burnt crust this could be a 6 or 7.
the Farm Cafe	Northwestern	7th & Burnside, Portland	26 Aug '06	5
This place serves reasonably upscale cuisine based on local organic produce. For instance, because this is Oregon, I had a dish of rosemary-roasted hazelnuts to start, and then had a blackberry salad. Jennifer had goat cheese ravioli, the cheese coming from a local farm. It was all quite good. One tip: bring dental floss. After the hazelnuts, the almonds in the salad, the pine nuts in Jen's dish and the pecans on the mascarpone cheesecake with dulce de leche sauce we had for dessert, we knew that a mere toothbrush wasn't going to be enough.
Garlic Jim's	Pizza	chain	26 Aug '06	3
Here I had a pizza with chipotle pesto, mozzarella, black beans, roasted garlic, and tortilla chips, which I topped with slices of an avocado I'd bought next door at Zupan's Market. The pizza itself was nothing to write home about but the fact that I was able to order that combination earned Garlic Jim's a thumbs up.

Sacramento area

Waiter, there's a gold nugget in my soup. Oh, wait, that's a crouton.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Bistro 33	American	F & 3rd, Davis	09 Jun '06	3
Sort of like a toned-down TGI Friday's with higher-quality food.
Cafe Bernardo	Breakfast/lunch	D & 3rd, Davis	13 Jun '06	2
The "eggs Bernardo" were a little gross, but perhaps other items are better.
Ciocolat	Dessert	B & 3rd, Davis	15 Jun '06	4
Many, many mousses; also cakes and chocolates and scones and things. Plus some real food which I haven't tried.
Crepeville	Crepes	C & 3rd, Davis	12 Jul '06	3
I got a crepe here with avocado, spinach, sundried tomato pesto, and provolone. It was pretty good — a little rubbery, maybe.
Osteria Fasulo	Italian	Portage Bay btw Russell/Hudson, Davis	21 Jun '06	4
Negative points for foisting a "complimentary cocktail" at me that made my table stink of alcohol until I had them take it away. Negative points for a menu that had about 10% as many vegetarian options as the sample menu that lured me in. Negative points for taking an hour and forty-five minutes to finish serving me a small meal in an empty restaurant. So why is this a four and not a zero? Because the pan-seared gnocchi were the best I've ever had.
Tapa the World	Spanish	J & 21st, Sacramento	29 Oct '05	2
This was my first experience with tapas. I have to hope future ones will be better. "Pan-fried potato cubes with a spicy tomato sauce" turned out to be French fries with ketchup. The romesco sauce on my grilled vegetables was purely decorative. I wanted dessert but wasn't offered any. Good times!

Michigan

Where if someone asks you if you want a pap, you're being offered a beverage and not a screening for uterine cancer. If you would like one, answer "oak eye."

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Anthony's Gourmet Pizza	Pizza	Packard btw King George/Pine Valley, Ann Arbor	23 Jun '06	4
The stuffed pizza is not as good as Zachary's, or even Giordano's. But it's better than Patxi's. About on par with Little Star, I guess.
Zingerman's Delicatessen	Sandwiches	Detroit btw 5th/Kingsley, Ann Arbor	24 Jun '06	4
Crazy-expensive grilled sandwiches: for twelve bucks I expected a huge sub, not a square sandwich like I used to find in my lunch bag back in fourth grade. The gourmet food items are similarly overpriced compared to their counterparts in other cities. But all that said, the sandwiches are pretty good.

San Joaquin Valley

For all those folks in So-Cal who yearn to move to Nebraska but would miss the smog too much.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Taste of India	Indian	Tracy & CA-58, Buttonwillow	16 Dec '05	5
This is a nice Indian restaurant with good food. If it were in the Bay Area I would give it a mild recommendation and probably forget all about it. But it is not in the Bay Area. It is in Buttonwillow. Buttonwillow! Let's enjoy that again: there is a very nice Indian restaurant with genuinely good food — not "good for I-5," but genuinely high quality — in fricking BUTTONWILLOW. Oh brave new world!

Tennessee

Take me to another place. Take me to another land.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Sole Mio's	Italian	3rd & Molloy, Nashville	13 Dec '05	5
Decent Italian place right off the freeway. Sundried tomato bisque was very good; manicotti was just okay, but gets bonus points for clearly having been assembled by someone with an eye for food rather than looking like a microwaved Stouffer's entree.

Utah

Where there's always room for jay-ee-ell-ell-OH.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Oasis Cafe	Mostly vegetarian	151 S 500 E, Salt Lake City	15 Oct '05	5
Considering that Salt Lake is pretty much the only locus of civilization along I-80 between Sacramento and Omaha (or possibly Chicago), "Oasis" is definitely the right word. Hours earlier I had been in redneck country where the options were Subway, Pizza Hut or starvation. Then I reached Salt Lake and found myself at a pleasant bookstore cafe eating a roasted vegetable sandwich with basil aioli on homemade focaccia and a side salad of spinach, avocado and Mandarin oranges, while sipping a lime Torani soda with lime wedges. I tell you, if the continent ended at Reno, I might well have made like Brigham Young and stayed here.

Nebraska

Don't open your mouth or you'll ruin your appetite filling up on bugs.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Maggie's Vegetarian Wraps	Vegetarian wraps, I presume	8th & Q, Lincoln	13 Oct '05	N/A
This place closes at three, so I was a couple of hours too late to try it. I'm just including it because, holy crow, a vegetarian restaurant in Lincoln, Nebraska!
The Oven	Indian	8th & P, Lincoln	13 Oct '05	3
The mulligatawny suggested great things to come, but the pureed saag paneer and ketchuppy dal were as mediocre as you'd expect from an Indian restaurant in cowboy country. I was reading some of the clippings out front as I waited for the place to open, and they said pretty much what you might expect: the place caters in large part to people who have come from the coasts for conventions (or, as in my case, because they're going from one coast to another and Nebraska is in the way and this might be the last recognizable food in a long while).

Iowa

I'll have a large corn with a side of corn and a glass of corn, please.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Biaggi's	Italian	Utica Ridge & 53rd, Davenport	12 Oct '05	5
This is a branch of what is apparently quite a large chain here in flyover country. I was skeptical but hungry and couldn't quickly find a more promising prospect near my hotel. As it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised: my bruschetta was very good with large slices of bread, decent tomatoes even in October, unmelted fresh mozzarella and lots of basil; the ravioli appetizer in scallion cream sauce was even better, and the bread pudding with hot white chocolate sauce and strawberries was also a fine choice. I guess this shows that the tide of decent food is bit by bit lifting all boats... nowadays I have had enough exposure to good food that I can't really stand the big chains like the Olive Garden and Chili's and such, but I grew up in suburbia in the 1980s, and I can tell you when restaurants like these started appearing in our shopping centers we greeted them as liberators, because they were such a huge step up from the Burger King and Taco Bell and Denny's. Now fifteen years later you can get a meal that is another standard deviation or two above the Olive Garden even in a strip mall in Davenport, Iowa, and that is very encouraging.

French Canada

Ah, donuts. Qu'est-ce qu'on deviendrait si ils existaient pas !

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
la Chilenita	Chilean	Marie-Anne & Clark, Montréal	12 Sep '05	4
Good empanadas.
Chuch	Vegetarian Thai	St-Denis btw Rachel/Duluth, Montréal	11 Sep '05	5
I can't eat at most Thai restaurants because even the supposedly vegetarian dishes include shrimp paste and fish sauce and the like. Chuch, the less-fancy spinoff of Chuchai, is one of the rare exceptions. The curries are not quite up to the standard of the vegan Thai curry I make at home, but on the flip side, I only know how to make one kind of curry, and Chuch's menu is many pages long. The appetizer and soups I've tried here were very good.
le Commensal	Vegetarian buffet	St-Denis btw Ontario/Émery, Montréal	24 Aug '03	3
This is a vegetarian buffet with a huge selection — you grab a tray, load up your plates, and pay by weight. Unfortunately, the fare isn't especially better than what I remember of the dining commons food back in college.
En Compagnie des Crêpes	Crêpes	Jean-Talon Market, Henri-Julien & Marché-du-Nord, Montréal	12 Sep '05	3
Okay crêpes with microwaved fillings, situated in the middle of a very impressive produce market.
Havre-aux-Glaces	Ice cream	Jean-Talon Market, Henri-Julien & Marché-du-Nord, Montréal	12 Sep '05	6
Excellent ice cream.
Juliette & Chocolat	Crêpes and chocolate	St-Denis btw Émery/Maisonneuve, Montréal	24 Aug '03	4
The crêpe I had was pretty bad — way overdone, just shy of burnt. But I also had a tall glass of white chocolate milk that was quite excellent.
Meu Meu	Ice cream	St-Denis btw Marie-Anne/Mont-Royal, Montréal	10 Sep '05	4
Decent ice cream; some weird-looking flavors, and I didn't trust my French enough to believe some of the ingredients (clay? coal?). I got vanilla.
le Nil Bleu	Ethiopian	St-Denis btw Pins/St-Louis, Montréal	10 Sep '05	5
Pretty decent Ethiopian.
Pâtisserie de Gascogne	Pastries etc.	Laurier & Jeanne-Mance, Montréal	12 Sep '05	4
This is a fair-sized shop with breads, pastries, chocolate and so on. Not bad, but nothing memorable.
Rockaberry	Pie etc.	St-Denis btw Rachel/Marie-Anne, Montréal	11 Sep '05	1
Saw a couple of glowing writeups on this place, and it was right near the hotel. Too bad for me. Bad pie, bad beverage, friendly but slow service, smoke in the non-smoking section.
St-Viateur Bagel	Bagels	Mont-Royal btw Christophe-Colomb/la Roche, Montréal	10 Sep '05	4
I'd heard that (a) Montreal had surpassed New York as the world's bagel capital and (b) St-Viateur offered the best bagels in Montreal. They're not bad, but in the end, they're just bagels.

New York state

I anticipate that every review that will ever appear in this section will begin "I got lost."

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Koh-I-Nor	Indian	Lexington & Main, Lake Mohegan	20 Aug '05	5
I got lost driving around the infuriating tangle of streets that meander around the Hudson Valley and randomly ended up motoring past this Indian restaurant. Starving, I figured I might as well give it a try. It was really good! I got a platter that came not only with a good navratan korma but also with some very tasty dal. Better than any of the Indian places in western MA, I have to say.

Arizona

Where kitchens don't need ovens — a window will do the job.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
El Bravo	Mexican	Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix	13 Aug '05	4
I knew I was in the Southwest when even the fast food at the airport was good. I got a green chile tamale that made me wonder what the fuck people were thinking lining up at the Wendy's one stall over.

eastern New England

The frightening thing about the Northeast is that the other big cities actually make New York look pretty good.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Addis Red Sea	Ethiopian	Tremont btw Waltham/Hanson, Boston, MA	07 Dec '03	4
Pretty good Ethiopian. I am spoiled in that I have had lots of Ethiopian food, so I know that this is middle-of-the-pack fare; if I'd never had Ethiopian before I'm sure I'd consider it awesome, because Ethiopian is such a cool cuisine.
Al-Hassoun	Middle Eastern	Commonwealth btw St. Mary's/Cummington, Boston, MA	25 Jan '03	3
Was out at Boston University on business, ran across the street to get lunch, and this was the only place that looked potentially decent. It was okay. Grape leaves were better than the falafel, which was better than the hummus.
Big Sky Bread Co.	Bakery	Union btw Beacon/Herrick, Newton, MA	28 Feb '03	1
I saw the "free slices" sign in the window and thought, ah, a would-be Great Harvest. Well, they're never going to be another Great Harvest so long as they offer stale bread slices and desiccated scones at jacked-up prices. It wasn't even like I tried it in the afternoon when you might expect things to be a bit dried out. Awful.
Burrito Max	Burritos	Beacon & Commonwealth, Boston, MA	03 Aug '03	2
On the one hand, on a stretch of road with little to offer beyond McDonald's and Burger King and Taco Bell, it's nice to find a place serving actual food; but it's still not very good.
Cafe Jaffa	Middle Eastern	Gloucester & Public Alley 443, Boston, MA	25 Apr '01	2
Steered clear of the falafel after a couple of bad experiences with it elsewhere and got the grape leaves with hummus. The grape leaves themselves were fine, but the pita was inferior and the whole affair was dominated by roughage that was pure filler. Can't recommend it.
India Paradise	Indian	Union btw Herrick/Langley, Newton, MA	27 Feb '03	4
I tried this Chinese-run Indian place because it seemed to offer more than the usual suspects: I tried an appetizer of puffed grains and crushed pooris (too much like rice crispies for dinner) and some spinach naan along with my less daring navratan korma. Perfectly fine but nothing noteworthy.
JP Licks	Ice cream	Beacon & Langley, Newton, MA	28 Feb '03	2
Okay ice cream, but ridiculously expensive. Three bucks for two spoonfuls. Gramercy Tavern can get away with that. This place can't.
Laureen's	Bistro	Main & Town Hall, Falmouth, MA	08 Jun '05	3
It was nice to find a place on Cape Cod that wasn't all about the seafood. That said, I wasn't too thrilled about the fact that the roasted vegetable quesadilla on lavosh that I ordered turned out to be mostly eggplant, or about the fact that the soup I ordered was bland enough that, for the first time ever, I actually made use of the salt shaker in a restaurant.
Pat's Pizza	Pizza	Mill & US-2, Orono, ME	13 Sep '04	2
This is apparently the consensus choice for best pizza in Maine. So, a pretty good reason not to move to Maine.
Sweet Tomatoes	Pizza	Langley btw Beacon/Union, Newton, MA; E. Falmouth & Davisville, Falmouth, MA	09 Jun '05	3
Okay ultra-thin crust pizza with fresh sauce, but toppings are bad (raw cubes of green pepper, for instance).

English Canada excluding BC

Ah, donuts. Is there anything they can't do?

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Baked Expectations	Dessert	Osborne & Wardlaw, Winnipeg, MB	23 Aug '03	3
This place was packed solid at quarter after eleven at night: Winnipeggers love their dessert, I guess. They must be getting something different from what we got the first time I went there. I had a slice of peanut butter cheesecake that tasted bizarrely sharp and sorta fruity; Bridget got a cookie torte that was better by virtue of not tasting like much of anything but whipped cream. Later (as in, two years later) I had a slice of German chocolate cheesecake that was much better.
Basil's	Eclectic	Osborne & Stradbrook, Winnipeg, MB	19 Aug '03	3
Had a non-awful ultra-thin-crust pizza here while trying not to be creeped out by the Hitler mermaid hanging above our table.
Big John's Bar and Grill	Bar and grill	Sioux Narrows, ON	24 Aug '02	3
Sioux Narrows is apparently a vacation town, with lakefront cottages and houseboats and so forth. Not many eateries, however. At this one I got some radioactive-looking raspberry lemonade (undoubtedly from a powder) plus soggy bruschetta plus the quesadillas. What are quesadillas like in central Canada? Surprisingly good, probably because they're so unlike actual quesadillas as to count as a different food altogether. These were crispy and cheddary and full of green onions and really not bad at all.
Bonfire Bistro	Mostly pizzas	Corydon & Waterloo, Winnipeg, MB	21 Aug '03	4
More ultra-thin pizzas from a wood-fired stove... which are okay. A bit too much emphasis on being froufrou and exotic and not enough emphasis on being tasty. Salad and desserts were good.
Cora's	Breakfast/lunch	Dresden Row btw Spring Garden/Sackville, Halifax, NS	13 Sep '04	5
This is part of a Montreal-based chain with some interesting items on the menu. I got chocolate brioche French toast with sliced bananas and crème anglais... not a knockout, but interesting enough to be memorable.
Earls	Eclectic	York & Main, Winnipeg, MB	04 Jul '01	2
TGIF, eh? A big loud chamber with funky art and everything from Asian noodles to personal-sized pizzas to rosemary pan bread, and none of it's particularly good. Highlight of the meal: waiter brings Bridget a plate of balsamic vinegar. It sits there for five minutes, then ten, with no obvious followup. "Um, so why exactly did he bring you a plate of vinegar?" I ask. "It's the Canadian way!" Meredith hisses.
Fude	Eclectic	Osborne & River, Winnipeg, MB	25 Aug '02	4
This place is basically a Canadian version of Judie's in Amherst, right down to the multicolored pasta swamped in vegetables and sauce... though that wasn't actually all that terrific (unless you like olives a lot more than I do.) Bridget's warm artichoke dip thingie was quite excellent, however, and even the bitter strawberry lemonade (which you have to mix yourself) grew on me after a while.
G.G. Gelati	Gelato	Corydon btw Hugo/Cockburn, Winnipeg, MB	23 Aug '03	5
Not the selection of Vancouver's Casa Gelato, but that place is a landmark. This is just a place with excellent gelato. Which is more than enough.
Il Fornello	Italian	Pearson International Airport, Toronto, ON	22 Aug '02	2
Starving, I took advantage of my layover in Toronto to grab an early dinner at the airport... though I don't know if dinner at the airport can ever actually be described as an "advantage." This certainly couldn't, with its TV dinner manicotti, but at that point I would have eaten Spaghetti-O's had that been all that was on the menu.
Il Mercato	Italian	Spring Garden & Brenton, Halifax, NS	11 Sep '04	3
Okay mid-range Italian place.
The Keg	Steakhouse	Pembina & Southwood, Winnipeg, MB	07 Jul '01	4
I was less than thrilled when I found out we were going to a steakhouse — and a bit puzzled, since I wasn't the only vegetarian in the group. But it was pretty much the only thing in the area with space for us, so off we went. And I was pleasantly surprised: I figured a steakhouse would concentrate on the steak and let the peripherals slide. But no — the salad was very good, the bread was just terrific, and the portobello fajitas... did I mention the bread was good?
La Cave	Italian	Blowers & Grafton, Halifax, NS	12 Sep '04	2
The name is appropriate. If sitting hunched in a claustrophobic cave eating an enh cheesecake is your thing, this might be the place for you.
Massawa	Ethiopian	Osborne & Stradbrook, Winnipeg, MB	20 Aug '03	2
I saw one report hailing this as Winnipeg's best restaurant, which is a frightening prospect. It's passable Ethiopian... probably more impressive if you haven't had Ethiopian elsewhere, as I imagine is the case for a fair number of Massawa's guests. But it's distinctly less impressive when served after a wait of over 90 minutes. This is so much more the rule than the exception that the menus scold customers in advance for complaining about the wait. Feh. I've had much better Ethiopian served in a reasonable amount of time.
Monviso	Italian	Corydon btw Hugo/Daly, Winnipeg, MB	23 Aug '03	1
Lousy food served at a glacial pace while wasps divebomb the tables. Awful.
Mrs. D's Chips	Fries	Second S btw Main S and the lake, Kenora, ON	07 Jul '01	2
Soggy, overly salty rectangles of potato. Nice view, though. (And I don't just mean Meredith.)
Second Street Bakery	Bakery	Second & Park, Kenora, ON	23 Aug '02	4
You can get sandwiches here, but as you might expect from a bakery, they're basically two big slabs of bread with a little bit of filling in the middle. Which is fine, because the bread's quite good. One oddity is that the sign that lists possible sandwich add-ons includes "dill," but if you order that you get not the herb but a pickle. You'd think that if you were going to leave one word out of the phrase "dill pickle"... oh, and also the pole with the "Second Street Bakery" sign on it is poorly placed, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Colorado

Where all the chefs have to follow the high-altitude directions.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Narayan's	Himalayan	Baseline & Meadows, Boulder	23 June '04	3
This place is billed as a Nepalese restaurant, but the menu is primarily Indian and Tibetan. I don't know enough about Tibetan food to say how Narayan's stacks up — perhaps noodles blandly mixed with unpleasant mixtures of vegetable bits are par for the course — but the Indian side of things is definitely subpar. It's not terrible, but I've had better saag paneer and samosas in most Indian restaurants I've visited (and some grocery stores). I will give Narayan's this: the service was terrific. The proprietor was helpful and enthusiastic, and made special dishes for people with allergies without even being asked.
Zolo	Southwestern	Arapahoe & Folsom, Boulder	21 June '04	6
This seems like a very casual place parked away in a shopping center, but they're serious about the food. I got a huge bowl of tortilla soup (the soup poured onto the tortilla strips tableside) and a chile relleño stuffed with vegetables in a creamy cheese sauce, topped with cumin cream and green chile. There are few more pleasing questions to be asked in a restaurant than "red or green chile?"

Texas

Once it was an independent country. If only it still were.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Kerbey Lane Cafe	24-hours	Guadalupe & 26th, Austin	23 Mar '03	5
Jen and I had six hours to kill before heading to the airport (and no place to stay) and decided to try setting up shop here. Good choice: even in a packed restaurant (packed at 3am! though mostly with promgoers) we were allowed to just sit and monopolize a table for hours after we'd finished eating — "You're paid out, so you can do what you want," shrugged the waiters. (Admittedly, it was kind of loud and uncomfortable, but it beat wandering the streets of a strange city in the middle of the night.) As for the food: well, it was a step down from Polvo's, but still quite good. I had migas (scrambled eggs with bits of tortilla chips, apparently an Austin institution) and a pecan pie that excelled by replacing the usual corn syrup with chocolate. I think I'll try to make both of these at some point.
Las Manitas	Mexican	Congress & 2nd, Austin	03 Feb '02	6
I had a delicious breakfast here, the "migas especiales con hongos": eggs scrambled with mushrooms and garlic, tossed with crunchy tortilla strips and topped with cheese and a very good, bright ranchero sauce. It came with black beans and my favorite kind of tortillas, the slightly fluffy flour ones made with a bit of baking powder. If I lived in Austin I'm sure I'd come here every few days at least.
Magnolia Cafe	24-hours	Lake Austin & Veterans, Austin	02 Feb '02	4
This is a funky 24-hours place whose menu has a little bit of everything; I had the black bean dealie, which comes with avocado slices and lemon sour cream and a corn cake and other twists, but it was still pretty bland.
Patu	Thai	Rice & Kelvin, Houston	03 Feb '02	3
Thai food is usually a no-go for me owing to the fish sauce in most every dish, but this was someone else's treat and I didn't want to be difficult. As it turned out, instead of a menu this place offered a buffet and I was able to find some safe items like fried yams and such.
Polvo's	Mexican	S. 1st & Johanna, Austin	22 Mar '03	7
I was really looking forward to a good Mexican meal after a year in New England, and man oh man did this place not disappoint. Things looked good right from the get-go, when the customary tortilla chips were offered with salsa negrita, and just got better from there. From a menu loaded with tempting veggie options, I decided to try the chiles relleños al nogal (ie, covered in a delicious pecan cream sauce), and not only was it excellent, but it came with the best Spanish rice I've ever had, plus wonderful oniony black beans, those flour tortillas that are just impossible to find in the Northeast... all I'd been looking forward to and more.

North Carolina

Which I remembered as being full of good food, but maybe it just seemed that way after living in Evanston for a year. Foodwise, this was a very disappointing visit.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Francesca's	Dessert	Ninth btw Perry/Markham, Durham	06 Feb '02	3
Everything looks delicious, but I came here after discovering that Wellspring's pie counter is no more following another round of Whole Foods assimilation and the coconut custard pie I got was just plain not good. That wasn't custard — it was goop. I seem to recall having better stuff here, though, so maybe it was an aberration.
International Delights	Mediterranean	Ninth btw Perry/Markham, Durham	06 Feb '02	4
This was the one place on my trip where the food lived up to my memory of it, but the guy who runs the place is such a cranky grouch that he makes eating here a pretty unpleasant experience. The bread used for the falafel sandwiches is just terrific, though.
Irregardless	Eclectic	Morgan & Tryon, Raleigh	07 Feb '02	5
This is an interesting place where the menu changes daily and usually features a fair number of veggie options and some excellent desserts. They're better for dinner than for lunch, where it's mostly a matter of picking a sandwich, but we weren't going to wait around till dinnertime to start heading back to New York, so lunch it was. I got an egg salad sandwich with a side salad and potato salad (it was a Day Of Salads) and they were good but a bit pedestrian for the price. The banana cake we got for dessert was awesome, though.
Pulcinella's	Pizza/Italian	Hope Valley & Woodcroft, Durham	06 Feb '02	3
I'd remembered the Sicilian pizza here as an almost Di Fara-like creation, with lots of olive oil and so forth... but no, it's actually huge and bready and not very good. The little dollop of bright semi-chunky tomato sauce on every piece is nice, but otherwise this is missable. I guess the pasta might be okay, given that the sauce is good, but the pizza was a big disappointment.
Silk Road	was Turkish, now just tea	Franklin & Roberson, Chapel Hill	06 Feb '02	1
It used to be that you could walk in, order absolutely anything off the whiteboard, and be assured of an absolutely delicious meal. I had something here called "lubia aur mukhbi," black-eyed peas and mushrooms in a tomato broth, that was one of the best things I've ever had. Then, a couple years after I left the area, I went back with friends, and the food was just sort of mediocre — I went twice to be sure it wasn't a fluke, but no, the quality had dropped significantly and the chef seemed not to be around. And then on this trip I was told that they dropped dinner altogether and now just have tea and bad snacks to go with it. Sad.

Georgia

Where I came thisclose to growing up, but didn't actually go until 22 years after our aborted move.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
the Flying Biscuit Cafe	Eclectic	Piedmont & 10th, Atlanta	04 Feb '02	6
We sort of randomly ended up here after some wandering, which was a lucky break as the place turned out to be quite good. The appetizer was the highlight, pan-seared ravioli filled with smoked mozz and roasted red pepper on a bed of spinach and tomato vinaigrette. Absolutely delicious. Also very good was the biscuit that came with the mesclun salad. The entree I got, a plate of asparagus, spaghetti squash and sweet potatoes in a balsamic reduction, was okay, if self-limiting — my last bite would have been my last even if I hadn't cleaned the plate. And the hot chocolate brownie pie for dessert was a sort of cousin to NYC's legion of molten chocolate cakes. But I'm telling you, that ravioli — I could've had three more plates of the stuff, easy.

Pennsylvania

The frightening thing about the Northeast is that... oh, yeah, already mentioned that.

Name	Cuisine	Location	Last update	Score
Rangoon	Burmese	9th btw Arch/Cherry, Philadelphia	26 Sep '01	0
This is the first time I've given out a black rating to a restaurant that didn't make me physically ill, but I figure that when you find yourself fleeing the restaurant to get away from your food and thus have an excuse not to eat it when you get back ("Sorry, I was off feeding the meter — oh, has everyone else finished? Well, don't let me hold you up. This is probably cold by now anyway. Oh well!"), what other assessment can there be? I'd never had Burmese food before and if the stuff I tried was representative I may never do so again. Start with some oily lentil fritters like undercooked falafel full of odds and ends of onion, then move on to a gigantic triangular version or more or less the same thing only more dubious still, and add a few bites of day-glo coconut curry. "Thousand-layer bread" was probably the best thing I had, but it was about 997 layers short as the bread was doughy and squishy with oil. Service was pretty bad with long waits for stuff, the wrong stuff delivered to our table and the right stuff delivered at the wrong time. And to top it all off, when they broke out the cake for someone birthday party, the whole place swelled with the sound of a lo-fi recording of a roomful of Asian toddlers singing the "happy birthday" song over a syrupy string section. That alone may have scarred me for life.