On paper, Northside Social makes about as much sense as a drive-through steakhouse. A coffee shop, a wine bar and a gourmet pastry/sandwich shop? Right. After 5 p.m., the communal table upstairs and its smattering of surrounding two-tops becomes a full-service wine bar under sommelier Alison Christ’s smart and unassuming direction. Believe me, her internationally [...]

The last time I visited Mr. P’s converted school bus in the back of a Safeway parking lot, the aging senior responsible for this mobile barbecue operation was nowhere to be found. Perhaps that’s not unusual for a 74-year-old pitmaster trying to quit the smoke business. But if I know anything about barbecue, it’s this: [...]

If you want to understand the difference between Meaza and every other Ethiopian joint in the area, just look down at your table. That spongy pancake dimpled with about a zillion little moonlike craters? You know the name: injera. Owner Meaza Zemedu makes her own in house, which, in a certain sense, makes Meaza the [...]

Atul Bhola of Masala Art It happens to rock bands all the time: They start rolling in dough and having to push through a barricade of groupies on the way from the green room, and suddenly their music turns to crap. It can happen to restaurants, too. But while there are signs that Masala Art, [...]

For years, yours truly and just about every other food writer, whether local or national, described Makoto as a kaiseki house. And for years, every one of us was dead wrong. Last year, a manager at the tiny Palisades restaurant informed me that the place prefers to be called an omakase house. The difference between [...]

Few restaurants have the pedigree of Locolat, yet the place barely rates more than a passing reference from most professional palates, as if we can’t be bothered with a mere chocolate shop that caters to a lunchtime crowd with a line of humble sandwiches. But let’s review the facts: Owner Niel Piferoen has studied with, [...]

There must be about a billion Korean barbecue houses in Annandale, and I really wish I had the time, money, and clothes budget to eat at all of them. I suspect the subtle variations among them would say something about the owners, their hometowns, and the clientele that they’re catering to. I say this because [...]

Janet Yu from Hollywood East Hollywood East’s forced relocation wasn’t easy on anybody, neither the owners nor the many diners who had come to rely on Janet Yu’s University Boulevard outpost for their daily dose of dim sum. When the Yu family finally reopened its place in April, it was in the Westfield Shopping Center, [...]

Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the stories about General Store customers feeling as welcome as guns in the Wizards locker room. The truth is, I’ve stood there at the counter myself and felt the storm clouds roll in, as chef Gillian Clark and business partner Robin Smith performed their jobs with a tight-lipped austerity, as if [...]

Not that I was actively looking for it, but I finally found Eventide’s weakness: its brunch menu, into which chef Miles Vaden has injected a little whimsy and sophistication in an attempt to shake up that most predictable of services. The dish I’m thinking about specifically is the BPLT, the standard three-ingredient sandwich but with [...]