You want dramatic scenery? Arizona’s got it. You want an azure sky? Arizona’s got it. You want a cool ocean breeze? Arizona doesn’t got it. That’s why a half-million summer-baked Zonies trek across mountain and desert to reach San Diego and exclaim, “This is the place!” But vacationing Zonies don’t…
You have to leave the beach sometime. Here are other recommendations for when you do. BREAKFAST: For an early-morning breakfast, with ocean breeze and view, pop over to Kirby’s in Del Mar, 215 15th Street, 1-619-481-1001. Sit up on the new deck, grab a newspaper and inhale the sea air…
Most Americans’ ideas about Greece, like their ideas about almost everything else, have been shaped by the movies. In Never on Sunday and Zorba the Greek, zesty, fun-loving Greeks seem to do little except dance, make love and toss endless amounts of dinnerware against cafe walls. After visiting a couple…
The grazer’s edge: China Doll’s dim sum adds up to total My less-adventurous friends have always suspected that “dim sum” is Chinese for “duck feet in a steamed bun.” Steamed buns are indeed a staple on the dim sum menu. And an occasional dish does contain a suspiciously webbed piece…
“Give me the luxuries,” said Oscar Wilde, “and I will dispense with the necessities.” We recently put Wilde’s theory to the test at two of the Valley’s poshest eateries. Each features an entrepreneurial young chef with a national reputation. And both will inflict a king-size beating on your wallet. At…
What do you call a neighborhood Italian joint featuring friendly service, good value and solid, occasionally outstanding food? These days I’d call it a miracle. The old-fashioned family Italian restaurant seems to be going the way of the family farm. Now, recipes get their first tests in the accounting department,…
Sometimes a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Fifty weeks a year I suppress all the instincts that Freud warned us about. Instead, I sublimate them through dutiful rounds of household activities: shopping for groceries, cleaning the pool and chauffeuring the kids. But every six months…
I wish I were born on the bayou. Not that I can’t do without a few of the area’s less-savory features: man-eating alligators, sticky heat and David Duke. But Cajun food just might be this country’s best regional cuisine. Four hundred years ago, the Cajuns’ ancestors left France and moved…
My visiting mother-in-law gave out a low moan. My next foray, I had just told her, would not take us to posh resorts, cozy bistros or funky ethnic joints. Instead, I was going to eat my way through the food court at Arizona Center, from A to . I welcomed…
Remember Mork and Mindy? On that TV series, writers used Robin Williams’ alien to make trenchant observations about American culture. Because the lines came from Mork, they seemed amusing and thoughtful, not threatening. Several years ago, my wife and I hosted our own Mork. Only his name was Moulaye and…
I feel like the baseball scout who spotted Willie Mays playing sandlot ball. Or the producer who caught Meryl Streep acting in a college drama. While I haven’t been looking for love in all the wrong places, as the song says, I certainly haven’t been looking in the right places…
The main dish has always been my least favorite part of a restaurant meal. Give me some warm bread right out of the oven, and a zesty salad with lots of greens, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and a zippy homemade dressing. Let me nibble on hot wings, pan-fried dumplings, crispy pakora,…
Absorbing with gentle Buddhist harmony the fragrances of India and the flavors of China, Thai cuisine no longer seems as foreign as a snowplow to most Valley residents. Over the past 15 years, it has given Chinese food a stiff run for the Asian-restaurant dollar. How have exotic ingredients like…
Call me the deli lama. My temple is the New York deli. I’ve downed enough matzo balls, stuffed cabbage and corned beef that I could be hung above the deli counter, next to the Hebrew National salami. Pictures of me as a teenager confirm it: I looked like a knish…
Spending a week’s worth of grocery money on one meal is a great way to fuel what economists call “negative revenue enhancement.” But sometimes I yearn for water glasses filled with Evian, napkins refolded if I step away from the table and used cutlery whisked away by waiters who are…
If you’re Jewish and from New York, you know three things. Guilt. Suffering. Chinese food. My earliest memories go back to Sunday evenings, when my family, abandoning with pagan intensity all the strict dietary provisions of keeping kosher, always went out for Chinese food. On one memorable occasion, guilt, suffering…
The singles-bar scene isn’t exactly my home turf. The last time I made a serious foray was before Danny Partridge started dating. But I’d heard the scene at a couple of Valley after-work mating grounds could jump-start anyone’s battery. So on a recent Friday night, I dragged along my friend…
I don’t go to Middle Eastern restaurants for the same reason I don’t look up old flames. There’s no way the present can compete with my memories of the past. Recalling years of living and eating in the Middle East-the scented rice, the fragrant lamb, the perfumed spices-stirs feelings in…
