Restaurants & Bars

Is a taco truck pulled up outside a great restaurant at midnight an ominous sign? Is it comparable, symbolically, to the raven perched outside the house of someone at death's door?

If I tell you that the picture below was taken at Zuni (which you already should have recognized), what do you find significant about  the scene?

 

After months of traveling and nose-to-the-grindstone work, I finally made it to Orson, only about six months after it opened. Considering that restaurant critics don't even give new joints the customary two-month lag before reviewing them anymore, my tardiness could be seen as more than genteel. Anyway, I wasn't going in to review it but to enjoy it. And, largely, that's what I did.

I'm just back from the annual Peay Vineyards Sommelier Love Fest. For the wine trade only, it's an event that I am fortunate enough to insinuate myself into. I bring you pictures for two reasons.

Well, she's been back for a while, but I never made a note of it. If you remember, I posted back in January about Range bartender Brooke Arthur, who was injured with smoke inhalation in an apartment fire back on New Year's Eve. Well, after several long months of recuperation, she returned first to the city and, a couple of months ago, then to her job.

Thursday night, I was fortunate enough to have wrangled an invitation to one of the many spirited dinners going on throughout town, in which fine food and cocktails were paired on a fixed menu. Then my good fortune continued as I was able to end up at a table with Jen Colliau (sorry about the blur) of the Slanted Door, John Santer of Beretta, and Jill Santer of Laszlo.

Ground zero for Tales of the Cocktail was the Hotel Monteleone, which is where most of the seminars took place and where most everybody stayed (I did not). But ground zero of ground zero was definitely the Carousel Bar, right off the old lobby. As you can see from the place’s publicity shot (below), it's built of an old circus piece.

The hit restaurant of the festival was Cochon. It seemed to be where everyone was going all the time. With its slightly elevated down-home Cajun cuisine, Cochon represented a pinnacle of well-executed but un-gussied greatness. It was where I went within 30 minutes of getting to my hotel.

(Or, why I'm excited about the opening of the Michael Mina's Clock Bar in the Westin St. Francis)