Pho is becoming so common that the noodle soup shops are popping up in even New York and Chicago, where few Vietnamese people actually live. Competition between restaurants has become so fierce that highly fetishized ingredients like bull penis are popping up (sorry) on menus as restaurants try to distinguish themselves. You won’t find bull penis in Houston, where food is less of a fashion statement, but with the third largest Vietnamese population in the country, you will find noodle shops so good they run out of pho before lunch.
That’s not to say Houston doesn’t have its share of disappointments. Too often, it tastes like seasoned Swanson’s original formula studded with overcooked noodles and tough meat; or, a restaurant might excel at one or two—but not all—elements of the pho. But more often than not, Pho Binh excels at every piece of the pho puzzle.
There are three locations including… [More]
9.3 Chez Roux
9.2 Tony’s
9.1 Catalan
9.0 Dolce Vita
9.0 Feast
9.0 Rainbow Lodge
9.0 Huynh
9.0 Vic & Anthony’s
9.0 Hubcap Grill
Top Ice cream: [More]
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]
