The weeklies roundup is a bit more cheerful than the Chronicle. Or maybe it’s just that all that Look Around You is working on us. Either way, good times abound:
From the San Francisco Guardian:
In what is ostensibly a review of Daniel Walker Howe’s What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848, Paul Reidinger joins the chorus booing the main course. In a piece that frankly uses the word “mammoth” too many times for us, he compares the rising sizing of entrees to “a culinary version of grade inflation.” Ha, funny. [Remember the main]
Next, Reidinger turns to Cafe Andree, which, perched as it is inside the Hotel Rex, he describes as “a bistro that’s somehow been engulfed by a London men’s club.” The restaurant, Reidinger concludes, is expensive, but worth it. Noted. [Cafe Andree: Eat global, meet locals]
Okay, out of L.E. Leone’s 1,000-or-so-word column, the following quote includes every word dedicated to a San Francisco restaurant:
My new favorite restaurant is Taqueria Reina’s.
It has the cheesiest chiles rellenos ever, very good carnitas, and excellent salsa. My only complaint was we had to eat with gloves on, it was so cold in there. And speaking of cheesy, there were Mexican soap operas instead of soccer on TV.
One of these days we’ll simply have to stop being so surprised by Leone’s lack of actual restaurant reviews. She’s a good writer otherwise. [Cheap Eats]
And finally, Paula Connelly visits Chiaroscuro Ristorante, which she praises in a short review. Good polenta, apparently, but high prices. Chiaroscuro Ristorante]
Meanwhile, at the San Francisco Weekly:
It’s somehow different for L.E. Leone, partly because she reviews low-end restaurants and partly because it’s long been her “think” to talk about everything but food in her reviews, but we’re getting pretty tired of Meredith Brody, the Weekly’s sole full-time restaurant reviewer, pontificating for paragraph after paragraph before even mentioning the restaurant she’s here to review. It’s time for Brody to go back to J-school and read up on that ol’ “inverted pyramid” approach. Even if that tried-and-true formula won’t take her to Pulitzer-winning food reviews, some version of it will likely keep her readers interested long enough to read thing one about the restaurant. [South Food & Wine Bar’s Australian Food Overthought, Overwrought]
