The new Fearless Critic Portland Restaurant Guide (paperback, 384 pages, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-6081600-4-4) is now available online at Powell’s, Amazon.com, and other local and national bookstores, as well as New Seasons, Whole Foods, and other food and wine stores.

The book features brutally honest full-page reviews of 300 restaurants, coffeeshops, food carts, and food stores in Portland and its suburbs, including Beaverton, McMinnville, and more, plus more than 40 pages of extensive cross-referenced lists, including a special vegetarian dining guide and late-night dining guide.

Each restaurant in the book is rated on a rigorous 1-to-10 scale for food and feel. Reviews are based on the evaluations of an independent team of local food bloggers, food critics, and chefs, who visit restaurants incognito and don’t accept free meals. Fearless Critic is reader-supported, not ad-supported, and we don’t accept print or online ads from restaurants.

Also now live is the online version of the Portland guide offers a complete, searchable database of Fearless Critic ratings and… [More]

In wake of some of the latest chatter about The Wine Trials 2010 (this one from Joe Briand, wine buyer for New Orleans’ excellent Link Restaurant Group, e.g. Cochon, Herbsaint, with a response from Wine Spectator executive editor Thomas Matthews), I thought it was time for a quick clarification of first principles here.

People have sometimes (often, maybe) misinterpreted The Wine Trials (and The Wine Trials 2010) as making the claim that no expensive wines are worth the money, or that cheap wine is generally “better” than expensive wine. In fact, I make neither one of those claims in the book.

Rather, my basic points are these:

(1) Evidence has shown that most everyday wine drinkers (not wine professionals) don’t prefer more expensive wines to cheaper wines in blind tastings. This is separate from the question of whether the properties of expensive wines are aesthetically superior in… [More]