The Downside of Fame – Guy Fieri’s Cautionary Tale

On September 12, 2012, The Village Voice wrote a not-complimentary review of the new restaurant opened in Times Square by celebrity TV chef Guy Fieri. Three weeks later on October 2, the New York Observer published a scathing review of Guy's American Kitchen and Bar, which can be read here. The same day, October 2, the New York Post likewise published an equally blistering review. Not quite two weeks later on October 13, Time Out followed suit with a no-star review.

But it was not until November 13 when Pete Wells, food critic for the New York Times, wrote his now-famous critique of Guy's American Kitchen and Bar, that Guy Fieri got around to responding. Not surprisingly - but perhaps unwisely - Fieri accused Wells of going "into my restaurant with his mind already made up" and "having an agenda," though he did not say what that agenda might be. He also said that writing a bad review of his restaurant was "a great way to make a name for yourself." He seemed surprised that the review came out after the restaurant had been open only two months, but "wait till we're open six months" when everything will presumably be just dandy.

In the spirit of full disclosure, Femme de Joie will state that she purchased a teapot and a pair of earrings at Abraxas, the shop in Ferndale owned and operated by Guy Fieri's parents; however, she bought those in the 1980s, long before Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Also, she has never dined at any of Guy Fieri's restaurants and so cannot comment on whether Wells was spot-on or unduly cranky. In the spirit of fuller disclosure, M. de Joie will admit she isn't a big fan of Guy Fieri, and she's been feeling a certain amount of schadenfreude over the review and Fieri's blustering response to it. A couple of points she would like to throw out there:

The New York Times food critic already has a name and does not need to cling to the coattails of a Food Network star to enhance it. If anyone should be worried about a name, it's Fieri, trading on his fame to attract customers: if he doesn't deliver what they expect, his name will be besmirched by his own hand, not Wells'. Indeed, Wells was criticized by others not for what he said, but that he chose to review a restaurant in Times Square aimed squarely at the tourist trade instead of a "serious" restaurant; the response to that was that the Times' movie critic had reviewed "Dumb and Dumber" and that this was the culinary equivalent.

Agendas (sometimes called grudges): we haz em. It's to see if the food is any good. Most restaurant reviewers aren't going to be as kind as Marilyn Hagerty.

In this day of instantaneous internet reviews, restaurants can't afford to ignore valid complaints or deny the existence of problems. No one likes to be criticized, especially in a very public place, so it's natural to be on the defense. But when a sledgehammering review comes out, spin and finger-pointing isn't the answer. It's unfortunate that Guy Fieri chose to ignore the early negative reviews and only acted when the most well-known newspaper in the country printed a scathing takedown.

What's a restauranteur to do? Mistakes are inevitable and in this day of instantaneous internet check-ins, Yelpers can kick a restaurant to the curb before dessert arrives. But how a restaurant handles problems can go a long way in determining whether that viral review is good or bad. A few months ago Femme de Joie and Amico del Signore dined in a Wine Country restaurant. When we pointed out the earwig floating in the soup, it would have been smart for the chef-owner to be horrified and beg for forgiveness; instead, she denied that it was an earwig. She said it was the stem of a fresh herb. We pointed out the pincers and legs. She frowned and said she carefully washed all the produce and she just didn't know how the earwig wound up in the soup, and she still wasn't convinced it was a bug at all. Five minutes passed before she agreed to take the soup away and make something else. The restaurant comped us one meal, but by that time the damage was done. We'll never be back.

Conversely, when House of Prime Rib in San Francisco overlooked our reservation for nearly an hour, they apologized profusely and told us to order any glass of wine for free. Though we weren't knocked out by the food, the experience was a much more positive one.

Of course, preventing problems before they start is the best way; when the inevitable breakdowns occur, don't deny it. If the early returns indicate trouble in the kitchen or with staff, it would do owners/chefs well to pay attention. Saying, "Oh, they're just Yelpers, those people will complain about anything" is ignoring instant feedback that could be doing a restaurant a favor in the long run.

Guy Fieri does seem to be taking Pete Wells' review seriously: the watermelon margarita, which Wells said tasted like a combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde, has disappeared from the menu. (Still, it makes one wonder if Fieri had ever actually tasted one before it went on the menu in the first place.) In the end, he will probably do just fine. He's a famous brand, like Holiday Inn or McDonald's, a familiar face from TV in an unfamiliar landscape, a reassurance to tourists overwhelmed by the frenetic Big Apple. That's the part that will draw them in. If they have a good experience, they'll be back; if not, his famous name will be his own personal albatross.

Is all good publicity good publicity? It's up to Fieri to make it so.

Cantonese and More at SF’s Capital Restaurant

As they always are, Amico del Signore and Femme de Joie were in search of decent Chinese food when they got to San Francisco. There's no shortage of such restaurants, but weeding out the chaff from the wheat (to mix a metaphor or two) is the challenge. We already know to skip any restaurant being shilled by women on the street corner attempting to press menus into your hand, as well as any place with a sign out front reading "Tour bus parking in the back."

After that, though, it can be a series of dead-end streets where you barely escape with your life and guts intact, or an endless parade of La Choy-coated fried cubes of chewy packing peanuts served atop Minute Rice. It's not really surprising, then, that IHOP, Johnny Rocket's, Rainforest Cafe, and the like are planted firmly around touristy areas like Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach: after a long day of sightseeing, many people aren't interested in finding great sizzling rice soup. They just want to feed the kids and go to bed.

That's where the internet comes in. Yeah, Yelp may not always be the go-to place, but neither should it be completely dismissed out of hand. Neither should local websites writing about food. 7 X 7 and SF Weekly are two such reliable sources in the Bay Area, and that's how we learned about the Capital Restaurant.

We arrived about 7 PM on a Friday night, accompanied by the Ancient Mariner and Sailor Moon, both of whom like Chinese food but don't love it like we do. Capital Restaurant was packed, but we were invited to sit at the small counter and look at the menu until a table cleared, which it did in just a few minutes. The interior is brightly lit and clean, with mirrors around the room making it look more spacious. There are menus written in Chinese characters on the walls - always a good sign - and photos of some of the dishes.



We started with the usual pots of tea but also ordered Sho Chiku Bai hot sake. M. de Joie has never been a big fan of sake but this was smoother than some she's tried in the past, and it was the right choice for a Chinese meal. Most wines don't seem to go well with Chinese food, but sake (and beer) are better suited to the variety of differing heat levels and textures in a Chinese dinner.



Wor Won Ton Soup came topped with squid, Chinese BBQ pork, bok choy, chicken, prawns in a rich mixed pork-and-chicken broth. Squid was particularly tender - A. del Signore is not a squid fancier but he enjoyed this. There was enough soup in one order to serve four people with a little extra.



Sailor Moon chose Honey Walnut Prawns. M de Joie has never been enthused over sweet tastes with seafood (such as coconut shrimp); that combination has always struck her as colliding in a bad way. But this was rich without being goopy. Prawns were plump and not smothered by the sauce; the crisp honeyed walnuts made a nice textural contrast.



BBQ pork egg foo yong was tender and freshly cooked, with abundant pork and vegetables, but the bland gravy was on the oily side and didn't enhance the eggs so much as provide a slippery sheen to keep them moist.



On the other hand, Szechuan garlic eggplant was good enough that both Ancient Mariner and Sailor Moon - neither of whom are crazy about eggplant - came back for seconds, and then polished off the remaining bits on the plate. Spicy, yes, with whole dried chilis and garlic, but not searing, and not oily as this dish so often is.



Usually chow mein's ingredients are cut small and mixed in with the noodles so that the diner has to prod through to find a niblet of pork or beef. Here, tomato beef chow mein had generous chunks of tender beef and vegetables on top of the noodles and a few mixed in as well. The noodles, slightly crisp from pan-frying, had a light coating of non-sweet gingery, tomato-y sauce. Ancient Mariner confessed he didn't really like chow mein but he liked this one, as evidenced by him shoveling it onto his plate.



Roast duck was the star of the show, with a luscious lacquered skin and star anise-flavored meat. Duck is naturally very fatty and sometimes it arrives that way on your plate - making for a greasy meal. This duck, though, was mainly meat with just enough fat to keep it moist and flavorful but not be an unpleasant memory later.

Amico del Signore and Femme de Joie returned to the Capital on a Sunday night, when it was much less crowded. M. de Joie wasn't on her toes and so missed getting photos of their dinner.

The beef won ton noodle soup was a generous bowl of thick noodles in beef broth with shredded beef and vegetables - more of a stew, really, and a very large portion.

Gai lan (AKA Chinese broccoli) is a slightly bitter and austere green that makes a refreshing contrast to mixed stir-fries. It was also a very generous serving with lots of garlic, still very crunchy and a vibrant green.

However, the almond chicken went on M. de Joie's do-not-order-again list. It was as though the cook took the name literally: twists of cooked chicken were covered with almonds, and sent out on a plate, desert-dry and tasteless. Never again.

While there were a few dishes that didn't hit the mark, we liked the Capital Restaurant and would happily return. Portions are fair for the price and service is fast and efficient, and it's not on the tour bus schedule. Warning: Capital takes cash only.

Capital Restaurant, 839 Clay Street (between Stockton and Grant), San Francisco, CA. 415-397-6269 or 415-218-3883. Open daily, 8:00 AM - 9:30 PM. Sake, beer, wine. CASH ONLY (ATM at Bank of America on Grant Avenue). Street parking only; good luck. You'll be better off parking elsewhere and walking, or better yet take Muni. Lines 41-Union, 30-Stockton, 45 Union-Stockton, 8-Express, 10-Townsend, 12-Folsom, 27-Bryant, 1-California, and the Powell Street Cable Car all come within walking distance. Sample menu at http://sanfrancisco.menupages.com/restaurants/capital-restaurant/

Cottonwood Eatery – Worth the Drive

Cottonwood is one of those I-5 exits most people zoom on past. Unless they need to fill the tank or get a cup o' joe, the average driver sees it as a blip, another of the zillion green exit signs that freckle the roadside. Hardly anyone says, "Hey, Cottonwood! Bet that's a happening place - let's take a gander!"

Femme de Joie doesn't get down thataway much unless it's to check out the year-round Christmas shop or put gas in the car on her way to Somewhere Else. But she'd heard good things about Cottonwood Eatery, so this winter she made it a point to see if there was really something worthwhile to stop for.

The first visit was not auspicious. On a cold grey morning, M. de Joie talked Amico del Signore into trying breakfast at Cottonwood Eatery. It's not a propitious augury when you walk into a restaurant and the patrons have their parkas on. Half of the dining space seemed to be warmer than the other half; we were seated in the not-warm section. Finally a couple of customers asked that the heat be turned up, which the friendly waiter - apparently the only waiter - did cheerfully. By the time we left, the temperature was getting more comfortable.



The waiter asked A. del Signore if he wanted hash browns or country potatoes with the homemade corned beef hash. Hash browns, please, but when the hash arrived it was served atop a large pile of country potatoes. When it was pointed out to the waiter, he said that was the way their corned beef hash was served: on top of country potatoes. After a certain amount of negotiation, the order was returned to the kitchen; when it came back, there was a noticeably smaller amount of potatoes under the hash. The corned beef was sliced ultra-thin. It looked like chopped cold cuts, but tasted of the spices normally used in boiling corned beef, so we are assuming it was made from an actual brisket or round of beef, not deli slices. The corned beef was sauteed with bell peppers; apparently the country potatoes were supposed to be the potato part of the hash as a sort of deconstruction - not a food fad we love. Eggs ordered over easy were overcooked; the hash browns were crisp on the outside but gummy inside.





The Mediterranean omelet looked beautiful: diced tomatoes, freshly sauteed spinach, crumbled feta cheese. But though the eggs were tender, the whole thing was just parts piled on top with nothing to bind them together. Feta was cold and unmelted on the inside. The country potatoes were not done all the way through. A biscuit was underbaked and doughy inside; gravy was salty and very strongly reminiscent of a can of Campbell's cream of whatever.

After that A. del Signore was reluctant to return, so M. de Joie went alone for lunch a few weeks later.



Soup of the day, tomato with cavatappi (macaroni in a spiral) and vegetables. This was very reliant on tomato puree and would have gained flavor with the addition of a little chicken or vegetable broth or milk, but still was satisfying and hearty.



The house-made veggie burger on an "artisian" roll with pesto mayonnaise was outstanding. Most veggie burgers in restaurants are either the frozen pre-made Garden/ Boca brands or soft fall-apart mushes, but the Cottonwood Eatery's version, made with lentils, seemed closer to tasting like meat than most. While it won't fool a dedicated carnivore, neither will it turn them off: this was an excellent, well-thought-out combination of tastes and textures. The house-made cole slaw was fresh and crisp; there was also a large fluff of undressed mesclun on the plate that seemed to cry out for a purpose in life. Solution: eat the burger over the lettuces and let the juices fall on them as a sort of dressing.

It was by taking half the veggie burger to A. del Signore that M. de Joie convinced him to try the Cottonwood Eatery again. That, and the fact that they serve prime rib on weekends.

On a Saturday night, the Cottonwood Eatery was hopping. As dusk fell, staff went around the dining room lifting the window shades so that anyone driving by would see they were open for business. By the number of patrons continually at the door, it appeared that everyone in town knew already.



We started with an order of sweet potato fries. The menu said they would come with chipotle aioli, but ranch dressing is what we got. No matter: it was a generous portion, crisp and savory, lightly salted and not heavy with oil.



The daily soup was Italian meatball noodle. Similar to the soup previously served to Femme de Joie, the strong tomato taste was smoothed with the addition of cheese and plenty of meatballs. Think of the flavors of lasagna in a soup and you've pretty much got it.



Mesclun is more expensive and wilts faster than sturdier but less flavorful lettuces, so for a small-town restaurant to have it in the kitchen shows attention to quality of ingredients. Restaurants that charge a lot more usually serve a plate of chopped iceberg and maybe Romaine - durable and cheaper - as their dinner salad. A nice touch.



One of the evening's specials was pork porterhouse - a pork chop with the tenderloin attached, served with pineapple grilled with feta. Pork nowadays is much leaner than many cookbooks admit to; as a result it's often overcooked and dried-out. But this was lusciously juicy and flavorful, with a slightly spicy rub. The pineapple with feta was wonderful, sweet and salty with light crunch, a great accompaniment. There wasn't a lot of garlic in the mash, though they were otherwise creamy and freshly made.



The prime rib was on the rare side of medium rare. It would have benefited from some au jus because this was not a well-marbled serving and as the meal progressed it seemed to dry out. Still, the exterior had excellent flavor from a peppery rub, and the meat was tender as is expected from this cut. It came with a creamy horseradish and also some hot horseradish called Atomic, which was entirely accurate. The baked potato seemed to have been rubbed with oil and also seasoned; it was much better than the standard starchy baked potato served just to take up space on a plate.

Both meals came with divine green beans, fresh and lightly cooked with bacon and onions, a far cry from the floppy strips of Cafeteria Land, and far, far better than the usual chopped melange of squash & company labeled "chef's selection of vegetables" on menus.



When you walk in the front door, there's a glass pastry case with a selection of desserts made in-house. Femme de Joie normally passes up restaurant desserts but in this case a coconut cupcake called to her. It was on the sweet side - well, it's cake; it's supposed to be - but light and not cloying.

When we left the restaurant after dark, it was the only place lit up and open for business on the street. Probably 99 percent of the Cottonwood Eatery's customers are very local. It's easy to see why they're lining up: aside from that unfortunate breakfast experience (which Femme de Joie is chalking up as a temporary aberration), the food is quite good and reasonably priced. Service is unfailingly friendly and helpful. While it's more cowboy than chic, the Cottonwood Eatery is striving to be more than just a place you go when you don't feel like cooking. Worth the drive from Redding.

Cottonwood Eatery, 20828 Front Street, Cottonwood, CA 96022. 530-347-1717. Open Monday 7:30 AM - 2:00 PM; Tuesday-Thursday 7:30 AM - 8:00 PM; Friday-Saturday 7:30 AM - 8:30 PM, Sunday 7:30 AM-3:00 PM. Cards, cash; no checks. Vegetarian and vegan options. Beer and wine. On-street parking. Follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cottonwood.eatery

Humboldt Brews in Arcata – Come for the Beer, Stay for the Food

Being in a traveling trade myself, I know the problem of asking someone in a strange city for the best restaurant in town and being led to some purple palace that serves "Continental cuisine" and has as its chief employee a menu-writer rather than a chef... a three-paragraph description of what the trout is wrapped in, how long it has been sauteed, what province its sauce comes from, and what it is likely to sounds like sizzling on my platter - a description lacking only the information that before the poor trout went through that process it had been frozen for eight and a half months... What is saddest about a visitor's sitting in the Continental cuisine palace chewing on what an honest menu would have identified as Frozen Duck a l'Orange Soda Pop is likely to have passed a spectacular restaurant on the way over.
- Calvin Trillin, American Fried

Long-time visitors to Eureka may recall and mourn places like Lazio's and Weatherbee's, gems that served locally caught fish. There's now a Subway where Weatherbee's was; you can buy yellowed postcards of Lazio's on eBay. But from our observations there are an increasing number of food purveyors who are seeking out the best Humboldt has to offer. The resurgence of farmer's markets, local bread bakeries, cheesemakers, chocolatiers, etc., would not be possible without a customer base willing to buy fresh food from small businesses.

Case in point: Humboldt Brews opened in Arcata in 1987, brewing their Red Nectar and Hemp Ale on site until they were bought out by Firestone Walker Brewing Company. In 2003 their doors closed, but then-employees formed Humboldt Brews LLC and reopened in 2004 as employee-owned. They've made some changes since then, most notably adding a venue next door. The focus is still on beer, but their food is high-caliber pub grub, with emphasis on using local products such as Cypress Grove chevre, bread from Brio Breadworks, and produce from the Arcata farmer's market. (As a side note, the owner told us that currently they are unable to procure the signature Humboldt beers they were initially famous for.)

Humbrews (as it's known locally) looks tiny from the outside, but is actually a long space with plenty of tables, a hammered metal bar, pool tables, surfboards lining the walls, and fast, friendly service. Clientele was a lively mix of students, parents, professionals, old hippies, and families.



Soup and salad, $7.79

Expecting to see a small bowl of bagged salad greens with bottled dressing, this gigantic plateful of fresh local greens and vegetables came as a wonderful surprise. Tzatziki dressing was tart with yogurt and lively with dill. House-made curried chicken soup, pleasantly masala-scented, was light and warming on a cold night. The plateful was a generous-enough serving to be dinner.



Fish and chips, $11.99

The vast majority of the time, fish and chips in a restaurant are uniform rectangles out of a freezer box, all too often a fish "product." Not at Humbrews. This was actual snapper filets fried in a beer batter. Non-greasy, tender, and without a "fishy" aroma or taste, three very large pieces were far more than expected, along with a huge portion of fries and house-made tartar sauce. A winner.



Sweet potato fries, $7.99

Femme de Joie doesn't know what kicked off the current craze for sweet potato fries, but it's one she approves of, though most are edible but undistinguished. These were made at the restaurant, served very crisp, and accompanied by an addictive chipotle-honey-ranch sauce. One serving = lunch.



Falafel wrap, $10.29

Vegans are served well at Humbrews. This falafel (garbanzo fritters) wrap packed with veggies and bound with a delicious lemon-sesame dressing was substantial enough that you'd never miss meat. If you didn't know it was vegan, you wouldn't guess. There was enough that M. de Joie wrapped half of it to go.

Arcata is a college town, so on Friday and Saturday nights the emphasis at Humbrews is almost certainly more on brewskis than on food. But the crowd is friendly, the food is quite good, and the restaurant is large enough to accommodate families and groups. There are frequent live music nights in the next-door venue; artists as well known as Leon Russell, New Riders of the Purple Sage, G. Love with Special Sauce, and Jackie Greene have performed there. The next time you're escaping the Redding summers, try it out.

Humboldt Brews, 856 10th Street (two blocks off the Plaza), Arcata, CA 95521. 707-826-BREW (2739). Open Noon-11 PM daily; on nights with live music, open until 2 AM. Cash, cards, no checks. Street parking (time limits are enforced). Beer and wine. Vegetarian and vegan options. Frequent live music. Website at http://www.humboldtbrews.com/index.php

Fine Dining at Clearie’s

Femme de Joie only dined twice at Doc Clearie's Skyroom, once on the occasion of her high school graduation and again a few years later for a reason she can't recall now. She remembers nothing whatsoever about the meal itself; her memory of the restaurant does not match the above postcard of the interior of Doc's, which says something or other about the illusions time creates.

A few years later Doc's became a bar/nightclub where the phrase "meat market" might fit; there is a modern office complex on that site now. Sic transit gloria mundi.

In 2011 Doc's granddaughter, Robbie, opened Clearie's, her homage to the late Skyroom in its halcyon days, on the site where The Shack had stood (another long-gone restaurant). Her aim was to create a fine-dining restaurant with a nod to Redding's past and another nod to modern culinary trends.

About fine dining: There's no definitive set of standards, no benchmarks a restaurant must meet in order to be thought of as fine dining. Taste in food, decor and atmosphere is subjective; one person's elegant and refined is another person's snobby and overpriced. But for our purposes today, we're going to say that fine dining encompasses luxury - that is, non-essentials - and refinement. We'll also state that fine dining and franchises do not go together; further, fine dining is not cheap.



But back to Clearie's. Enter through an unobtrusive doorway into the small but well-appointed lounge, where you can linger over a drink and order from the bar menu. Beyond bar is the L-shaped dining room, defined with booths along the windowed wall and tables across the aisle. Appointed in rich browns with subtle lighting, the feel is more like a gentleman's club than a dining room perched on a very unglamorous street corner. Service is professional and attentive without being overbearing or intrusive; waitstaff are informed and familiar with the menu. Music piped in evokes the Doc's era: Femme de Joie heard Steve Tyrell's version of "This Guy's in Love With You" twice in 20 minutes, as well as Bobby Darin and Ella Fitzgerald. A nice touch.

Clearie's has a full bar; the drinks menu features martinis and Manhattans at $9.50 each, as well as "Smokin' Martinis" (i.e. Strawberry Cosmopolitans, Lemon Meringue Martinis) at $8.50. The wine list is extensive and well thought out, with exceptional wines such as Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon ($110) and Rombauer Zinfandel ($52), as well as a good selection of wines available in 6- or 9-ounce pours. It's a pity the menu doesn't list the vintages.



Grilled cheese and smoked tomato soup, $10.00

On a lunchtime visit, dining companion Little Sparrow ordered Grilled Cheese with Tomato Soup. What's special about grilled cheese? If you're going to pay $10 for it, it better be good, and this one was. Blue cheese and Cheddar were melted together with bacon and apple slices on sourdough. The house soup is smoked tomato - a rich puree that is sweet like a butternut squash soup with a fire-roasted flavor.



Guinness Burger with French fries, $12.00

The Guinness Burger was a delight, a reduction of Guinness to a syrupy sauce was a fine foil for earthy blue cheese and sauteed mushrooms on brioche.The brioche in particular showed attention to detail - rather than create this melange of piquant tastes and then serve it on a spongy tasteless hamburger bun, the kitchen went the extra mile to get really good rolls to match.



Corned beef whole sandwich with loaded potato soup, $11.00

Stopping in one afternoon for lunch, Femme de Joie ordered the special sandwich of the day, corned beef, along with the Loaded Potato Soup . Not deli-sliced corned beef but thick chunks from a corned beef brisket, this was luscious and juicy. Loaded potato soup was rich and creamy, though once the toppings were gone the soup seemed a bit bland.

Amico del Signore and M. de Joie visited Clearie's one night to sample their dinner menu. Clearie's offers a "Fresh fifteen at five" - three mains offered at $15 if ordered before 6 p.m. - as well as "Double Date Night" - special for four people for $100 ($60 for two people). We chose to order from the regular dinner menu. Some hot crisp olive bread and garlic butter, addictive as crack, was served with dinner.





Green salad was crisp and freshly mixed (not out of a bag). House-made blue cheese Caesar dressing was an unusual but pleasing blend of lemony Caesar with pungent blue cheese. Special soup was a spicy carrot puree- which was quite spicy, flavored with cumin and cooled with a drizzle of cream. The carrot flavor was lively and sweetly roasted.



Filet Mignon Meat Loaf, $20.00

Amico del Signore ordered the Filet Mignon Meat Loaf, made from scraps after the entire filet is trimmed. Two thick slices wrapped in bacon and lightly blanketed with a spicy tomato sauce, the meat loaf was served atop perfectly cooked green beans and smashed red potatoes. While the meat loaf was good, it didn't really live up to the luxurious expectations that the words filet mignon imply. It was not substantially different than meat loaf that you might make at home. Scattered across the dish were tiny shards of crisp-fried onions, sweet and delicate; they would have been delicious on their own with a beer.



Sweetbreads, $30.00

Femme de Joie has long adored sweetbreads and mourned their disappearance from restaurant menus. (Sweetbreads are not what you think they are. They are the thymus gland, an organ in the throat and chest cavity that helps fight disease; it disappears when the calf is about six months old.) She was happy to see them on Clearie's menu, but while the sweetbreads themselves were perfectly cooked tender pillows, they were hopelessly overcome by the dark red garlicky sauce. Their delicate richness was lost amidst all the competing flavors and textures. They were served with vegetable risotto, again cooked beautifully but lost underneath too much of the same sauce. It seemed a waste to make a lovely al dente risotto - or for that matter, rich little sweetbreads - and then obfuscate it all with a sauce better suited to be served on red meat. The same onion pieces as served on the meat loaf appeared on the sweetbreads.

While many people will sneer, calling it a white-tablecloth kind of place that's too expensive, too snobby, etc., Clearie's does not attempt to be all things to all people. There are many, many casual dining places in the North Valley but very few restaurants offering this kind of elegant, old-school refuge from some of the noisy herd-'em-in-herd-'em-out chain restaurants that multiply like rabbits in Redding.

Clearie's knows their target clientele and what they expect when they come for dinner, and that is the secret to their success. It isn't a place Femme de Joie is going to revisit for dinner every month unless someone generous is footing the bill, but lunch is quite a reasonable way to enjoy high-quality, well-prepared food in a pleasantly quiet and refined atmosphere. The level of cooking is very high, though a couple of the dishes need rethinking as far as saucing and seasoning. Further, if she were to drop $50 or more on a bottle of wine, M. de Joie expects to know the vintage. Overall, though, Clearie's fills a need in the Redding restaurant lineup that hasn't been met in many years, and she wishes them a long run.

Clearie's Restaurant & Lounge, 1325 Eureka Way (at Market), Redding, CA 96001. 530-241-4535. Open Monday-Saturday 11 AM - 3 PM for lunch, 5 PM - 9 PM for dinner. Closed Sundays. Cash, cards, no checks. On-site parking lot. Lounge menu and early dining specials. Gluten-free and vegetarian options. Full bar. Website at http://www.cleariesrestaurant.com/

Fast Mex at Baja Burrito

The late Dame Anita Roddick (founder of The Body Shop cosmetics chain) wrote of a visit to Mexico City when she was taken to Fonda Meson de Alonso, where she was promised "real Mayan cooking." The house special was a taco filled with live beetles. Roddick kept her menu firmly in front of her face until the bill was paid and she could leave. But food writer Raymond Sokolov, in "Why We Eat What We Eat," declared that Fonda Meson de Alonso merely made a pretense at serving authentic pre-Columbian dishes as a publicity stunt; though the ant eggs in green sauce and iguana consomme were sure to grab the diner's attention, those were mere novelties: the rest of the menu featured beef, pork, and goat - all post-Spanish meats. Sokolov sneered that Fonda Meson de Alonso used wine in a quail dish - a European technique. ( In case you were going to be in Mexico City and wanted to sample the mosquito eggs in mole, Fonda Meson de Alonso does not appear to be in business any longer.)

Now here comes Gustavo Arellano, author of "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America" and the syndicated column, "Ask a Mexican!" Raised on nopalitos, birria, and Asadero cheese served by his Zacatecas-born parents, he was confounded by the Mexican combo plate put in front of him at an Anaheim restaurant. After researching the history and evolution of Mexican food as well as tracking the inroads into American culture, Arellano now says that Mexican food is too complex, too varied to be neatly summed up by whether a taco is deep-fried or what kind of cheese is used. It's not a static cuisine, bound forever by Escoffier-like rigidity and rules. According to Arellano, if it was made by a Mexican, it's Mexican food.

Which brings us to Baja Burrito, a teacup of a storefront in a tiny strip mall on South Bonnyview Road that occupies a spot vacated by Blimpie's, near the ever-present Starbucks. Many was the time that Femme de Joie and Amico del Signore drove past and wondered aloud, "Suppose that place is any good?" It was just out of convenience that A. del Signore did stop in one day, buying lunch for a friend, and reported back to M. de Joie with great enthusiasm that this was a place worth visiting.

To get to it, you either have to be driving west on South Bonnyview, or turn at the light onto Eastside Road and swing around through the back of the strip mall. There are a couple of tables out front, along with the special-of-the-day board. Inside are more tables, including a couple of surfboard-shaped bar tables in the window. Order at the counter from the menu board and your food will be assembled as you like it, Subway-style. There's likely to be a line around lunchtime, but it moves fast.



Burritos are the specialty of the house, and you can have it your way: carne asada to al pastor, chile verde, chicken, vegetarian. Never previously a big fan of burritos - that pasty white tortilla always put him off his feed - Amico del Signore has been converted. After trying several kinds, he has settled on the pulled pork as his favorite: a pile of ultra-tender shredded pork in a flavorful but not spicy sauce. Black beans and refried beans are both made in-house, and the difference between them and canned is quite noticeable - try one or both, plus the fresh toppings (none of which were shredded last week to save time; their bright colors spoke to their very recent prep). Secret ingredients: try the roasted corn salsa and the roasted tomato salsa, as well as the hot pickled carrots on the side.



This might be Femme de Joie's new favorite fish taco in town. After ordering, she watched the counter staff carefully stir the batter and dip the fish filet, then deep fry it for a very brief time. There are no pre-packaged fish sticks here. Topped with a slightly sweet creamy sauce and pico de gallo, these fish tacos were light, not greasy, and full of fresh flavors.



Hot mess? No sir, that's the nachos with pulled pork and cheese sauce. On our first visit as we stood and dithered about what to order, two ladies came in who knew what they wanted - nacho lunches for each. Watching their orders being assembled put the nachos on our to-try list. A far cry from the dry nacho plate appetizer offered on most menus, this was a full meal.



There are two salads on the Baja Burrito menu, one involving that ubiquitous deep-fried tortilla shell bowl, and this one: just the fillings with your choice of toppings. Chile verde was pleasantly piquant with tomatillos and cubed pork, a great tart contrast to the other rich ingredients.




Tuesday is the only day tamales are offered at Baja Burrito, so Femme de Joie took advantage of the daily special. Soft, moist masa had a savory corn taste and the generous amount of pork filling was tender and not overwhelmingly spicy. While the rice is pretty average, the black beans are delicious with a simple fresh salsa topping.

Baja Burrito serves a very steady stream of hungry customers in a very under-served area of town. On weekdays starting at 7 AM, they make a breakfast burrito, and stay open late enough to pick up a fast meal for dinner. Daily specials include chile rellanos on Wednesday, tortas ("the best in town!" the owner crowed) on Thursday, and menudo Saturday and Sunday. The food is freshly prepped every day and is just different enough to place it above similar burrito places around town. It's fast without being unhealthy, inexpensive, and a good value. Service is quick and always friendly, with a great willingness to show the customer the different ingredients and explain how each one is prepared. So is it authentic? Frankly, we don't care; we think Gustavo Arellano would approve. On your way to I-5, or on your way home, stop in.

Baja Burrito, 2400 South Bonnyview, Suite 130, Redding, CA 96001. 530-243-2244. Open Monday-Friday, 7:00 AM - 7:00 PM, Saturday 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM, Sunday 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Cash, cards. On-site parking lot. Daily specials. Vegetarian and vegan options. Bottled beer. Follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Baja-Burrito/159725954071932

Mazatlan Grill – Well, cover me with guacamole and call me Sally

Longtime Redding residents will remember the old Italian Cottage on Hilltop Drive, pre-dating even the Mount Shasta Mall. Sawdust was piled high enough on the floor to get in your shoes, they put an olive in your beer, and the minestrone had hard vegetables mixed with squashy ones. Femme de Joie has fond memories of trying to fit a small group of friends into one of those corner booths without getting jabbed by the sharp table corner; she remembers even more fondly the pastrami sandwich. Italian Cottage morphed into Corina's; when that closed, the building lay vacant and unloved for years, increasing amounts of trash gathering in the dead landscaping, until a Mexican restaurant-cum-tequila bar opened a few years ago and closed again last year.

Now Mazatlan Grill lives in the old Italian Cottage spot. There are a lot of restaurants named Mazatlan Grill in the US but this one is independently owned and operated. Spacious and airy inside, the decor is bright, fresh and cheerful, with patio seating available. M. de Joie's first visit was after the lunch hour, where she pretty much had the entire place to herself. Staff - who are efficient and friendly in a perfunctory way - greeted her immediately. The menu is lengthy and not easy to read, with one of those cutesy fonts that make you squint.



Femme de Joie ordered a margarita, which came within 30 seconds of the waiter taking the order. Is there a giant margarita truck in back with a hose hooked up to the bar? It had to have come from a bucket or hose to be delivered that fast. It was quite sweet. The standard chips-in-a-basket plus salsa were put on the table. While the salsa was adequate, the chips seemed to have been around since the first "Star Wars" movie came out.



Shrimp enchiladas ($14.99, though the menu read $13.49)

When the shrimp enchiladas were placed on the table, a waiter made a point of smiling broadly and saying, "Senorita, I am so jealous of you!" which confused Femme de Joie. "That looks so good!" It was at that moment that M. de Joie had a flashback to Papa de Joie, who suffered no fools gladly and would snap, "Ya wanna bite?" when dealing with a fatuous remark like that However, she restrained herself from doing the same.

The menu description of the shrimp enchiladas read that they were covered in "creamy sauce made with tomatillos." There may have been a tomatillo present in the kitchen when the sauce was made, but none made it into the cheesy creamy sauce. If the tortilla chips had been around since the first Star Wars movie, the shrimp in the enchiladas had been languishing in the freezer since the first "Star Trek" television series.



Chimichanga, $8.99

M.de Joie's second visit was during the lunch hour proper, and once again there was a shortage of other customers. It's hard to tell from the photo, but under that sour cream and guacamole is a chile verde chimichanga. It was on her table precisely four minutes after she ordered it. The bottom of the chimichanga had a little crispness from a very brief encounter with a frying surface, but the top - beneath that blanket of goo - was unfried tortilla. Inside was a lot of shredded pork and no verde. Well, that isn't quite true - after prodding around, Femme de Joie spotted a thin, thin layer of something green in a fold of tortilla, but it didn't seem to have any taste. There was certainly none of the green sauce that one associates with chile verde. In fact, there was nothing inside the tortilla - excusez-moi, the chimichanga - except plain unseasoned shredded pork.



Burrito Panchito Deluxe, $8.99

Femme de Joie was a bit surprised on her third visit to actually be among other customers. Where had they been before? No matter. She ordered Burrito Panchito Deluxe with chicken. Unlike her previous meals delivered at the speed of sound, it took a good ten minutes to arrive. She isn't sure what was Deluxe about it. The filling was a lot of shredded chicken with nothing else, no sauce, no seasonings, though as with the chimichanga there was a surplus of sour cream and guacamole. The guacamole worried her a little, as it had that color she associates with guacamole seen in the freezer section of supermarkets.

What to conclude about Mazatlan? It's all over the place. Those elderly shrimp shouldn't have been served at all. Pork and chicken fillings were tender and moist but utterly without any taste. Sides of rice and beans were just taking up space on the plate - nothing to recommend them or not recommend them; the diner eats them because they come with the meal, not because they're delicious. Waitstaff is efficient and polite. Some people may love getting their food so fast, but M. de Joie wonders what is going on in the kitchen that one meal takes four minutes and a virtually identical one takes ten. While Mazatlan Grill is inoffensive, she thinks there is better Mexican food for your dollar elsewhere.

Mazatlan Grill, 1630 Hilltop Drive, Redding, CA 96002. 530-223-2454. Open Sunday-Thursday 11 AM - 10 PM; Friday & Saturday 11 AM - 11 PM. Cards, cash; no checks. Full bar. Children's menu. Patio dining. Vegetarian options. Parking lot.

Dial 808 for Delicious Food

In "Square Meals," their love letter to American suburban cuisine, the very tongue-in-cheek food & pop culture writers Jane and Michael Stern have this to say about Hawaiian food: "There is no cuisine more adventurous, or more totally spurious, than that called Polynesian. We don't know what Polynesians eat, but that doesn't matter, because it has no bearing on Polynesian food, suburban style. Polynesian dining is the ultimate in exotica. It is a cuisine that encourages you to flame foods, tint them unnatural shades of red and blue, and generally create a very sexy mood. It is the food of love, suggesting a Hawaiian honeymoon or moonlight cruise.

"Polynesian Night calls for a romantic setting, the dining area lit with pagoda lanterns, the table set with fragrant gardenias bobbing in glasses of tinted water, and centerpieces constructed from tropical fruits and nuts. The man of the house wears his most colorful aloha shirt, the woman her muumuu or grass skirt... a good luau concludes with the singing of Hawaiian love chants such as 'O Makala Pua," "Imi Ao Ia Oe," or "Lovely Hula Hands.' What? You say Hawaii isn't Polynesia? Who cares? To the suburban gourmet, that is a petty distinction. All Pacific cuisines are one, their escutcheon a Maraschino-red banner bearing a parasol and scowling Tiki god engulfed in the Sterno-blue flames of the pu pu platter." From there the Sterns go on to offer recipes for Flaming Cabbage Head Weenies with Pu Pu Sauce and Kilauea Purple Passion Rice.

Femme de Joie has never experienced the Hawaiian tourist luau or been offered a bowl of poi to be washed down with a Blue Hawaii. But she does know that the stereotypes about any regional cuisine are just that - stereotypes - and that savvy chefs use the best local foods to create their finest dishes. But you won't find that kind of cooking in the tourist areas. You'll have to seek it out.

And that brings us to 808 Bistro, which is about as hidden as a restaurant can possibly get. Improbably located in the basement of the Department of Transportation building, it's highly unlikely any non-Reddingite ever darkened its doorway unless they happened to be in that building on business. Those who did almost certainly walked away smiling: Oahu-born & raised Chef Keith Kakiuchi is turning out some of the best food in town, and not just Hawaiian - he covers a range of Asian cuisines as well as French, Greek, and other western-style preparations. Yes, you can get Kalua Pork or Ahi Poke - but there's so much more.

808 Bistro is only open for breakfast and lunch, and only on weekdays. You have to sign in with the security guard, then walk down the stairs and through below-ground hallways to get to it. The dining room doubles as the CalTrans break/lunch room, but unlike most workplace lunchrooms with their scary refrigerators and sinks full of dirty dishes left by co-workers who think the Good Fairy will wash them, this dining room is cheerful and clean with Hawaiian motif artwork and cool aqua paint throughout. On hot Redding days, it's a cool relief to step down to 808, order at the counter, and relax while Chef Kakiuchi prepares your order.



Macadamia nut pancakes came with guava syrup and lilikoi syrup (lilikoi might be better known as Passion Fruit) - all made by Chef Kakiuchi. These were some of the lightest, fluffiest pancakes we've ever tasted, with a generous amount of macadamias; the house-made syrups were fruity and not overly sweet.



Omelet with bacon and sausage was tender with crisp bites of salty meat folded inside. The house-made hash browns were perfect, with a crusty exterior and creamy shredded potatoes inside. That tart green tomatillo salsa was hot enough to make Tabasco redundant, and was far tastier.



Breakfast wrap with egg and ham was enlivened with more of that hot green salsa. Freshly made (as is almost everything at 808), it didn't have that pile-everything-on-and-wrap-it-up quality of most breakfast burritos/wraps: simple ingredients well-prepared.



Loco moco is wildly popular in Hawaii; there's even a restaurant chain by the same name. The basic version consists of rice topped with a hamburger patty, which is in turn topped with brown gravy and a fried egg. Bad versions are gummy and salty, but this one was piquant and more-ish, with flavorful house-made gravy saucing the entire dish together. Amico del Signore spent a bit of time waxing surfboards and catching waves at Waikiki so he knows his way around a plate of loco moco. He thought this was one of the best versions he's tried. M. de Joie was impressed with the dish as indicative of the level of cooking at 808: this could easily be thrown together with leftovers and gravy out of a packet, but was made with the same care as any other dish on the menu.



Chef Kakiuchi runs a daily special, and on this lucky day it was Korean-style ribs with rice and macaroni salad. Two racks of beef short ribs were cut flanken-style (across the bone) and marinated, then grilled to order. We can't say enough good things about those ribs. We detected high levels of garlic plus shoyu, some sugar - but there was such a masterful blending of spices and flavors that no one ingredient overwhelmed the dish. Truly one of the very best versions of ribs ever; definitely the best Asian-style ribs in Redding.



A puff pastry turnover was filled with fresh - not dessicated - coconut paste, which wasn't nearly as sweet as it first appeared, with genuine coconut taste and texture. It had been sitting since early in the morning so the puff pastry was a bit soggy but wasn't so bad that we didn't lick up all the icing.

808 Bistro really is one of those undiscovered gems and M. de Joie feels it deserves more patronage than it's getting. The level of cooking is very high indeed and prices are more than reasonable. A couple of caveats: while prices are low, the serving sizes usually reflect that. And everything is cooked to order, so be prepared to sit down and wait. This isn't fast food or "Polynesian" either, for which we are grateful. There's not a pu pu platter in sight - just fine cooking.

808 Bistro & Catering Company, 1657 Riverside Drive (in the basement of the Department of Transportation/CalTrans Building), Redding, CA. 530-225-3370. Open Monday-Friday, 7 AM - 3 PM. Vegetarian and vegan options. No alcohol. Street Parking. Website at http://www.808bistroandcatering.com/index.html

Bruciante’s Stole a Pizza My Heart

Bruciante, adj, Italian, m/f. .che brucia, accesa, acceso, brillante. English: Burning, fired, lit up, blazing, on fire. Verb, to scorch, to sear, to burn, to burn up

Though there have been ovens as long as people have been cooking (any covered vessel or firepit containing food and heated from an external source may be said to work on the same principle as an oven), it was not until tribes stopped wandering and settled into stable non-nomadic groups that ovens began to be developed past the rudimentary stage. (Interestingly, ovens were apparently developed worldwide independently by peoples who had no knowledge of the folks 6000 miles away.)Flues were added as was insulation to prevent fires from escaping and to ensure a continuous heat. As these little villages moved from hunting food to growing it, grains and grasses were harvested, dried, ground, and made into breads. Likewise, yeast has captured and used in cookery since 4000 BC (give or take a few years), making leavened bread possible. It probably wasn't great bread, but provender is provender. When your main objective in life is to escape the plague, the Barbarians at the gate, and Things That Go Bump In The Night, seeking out the perfect baguette is low on your priority list.

For the next several millennia, cooks dealt with the imperfections and fluctuations of ovens heated with wood, coal, oil, kerosene, peat, and dung (yes). Given the guesswork involved in gauging oven temperatures as well as the laughably vague recipes passed down from previous generations of cooks, there must have been an enormous failure rate for baked grain products. It wasn't until the first quarter of the 20th Century that ovens with temperature regulation became widely available, coinciding with a brief mania for a "scientific" approach to food preparation. As modern kitchen equipment & techniques evolved with precise temperatures and measurements spelled out, perfection seemed virtually guaranteed. Nowadays the plague, Barbarians, and ghoulies & ghosties & long-legged beasties aren't as worrisome as they once were, so we have the luxury of enjoying perfectly-baked bread and related foods for more than just their life-sustaining properties.

It may seem a few giant steps backwards, then, that purveyors of bread products are now embracing a return to wood-fired ovens. Why would anyone in their right mind willingly give up the convenience of gas- or electric-fired ovens to stand over a huge primitive oven, feeding it handfuls of wood, just to bake? You can talk all you want about the purity of such foods, the creation of artisan breads & pizzas, exploring ancient methods of food production, but the only answer that matters: it's better.

Bruciante Wood Fired Pizza opened on Hilltop Drive late last year in a kiosk formerly occupied by a drive-through coffee flogger. Pizzas are made to order and baked on a portable wood-fired oven hauled around on a trailer. It takes no longer and costs no more to get a 10-inch pizza than it does to go into a cafe and get a sandwich - and this is truly wonderful pizza.



House salad, $6.00

Just because there's always someone who says, "Oooh, I'm on a diet," Bruciante makes a colorful, delicious house salad, and it's worth ordering whether you're on a diet or not. Mixed organic greens with dried cranberries, candied pecans, a choice of blue cheese or feta, and a perfect blend of Lucero olive oil and balsamic vinegar - this is one of the very best salads in Redding, and at a bargain price. We picked the last tiny leaves out of the container and squabbled over the last of the balsamic-soaked cranberries.



Blue moo, $9.00 plus $1.00 for tomato addition

Blue cheese on a pizza? Yes, please. This tangy pizza combined bits of top sirloin, blue and mozzarella cheeses on red sauce, Femme de Joie requested cooked tomatoes to be added for an acid bite to contrast with the rich cheeses. This was the first pizza we tried at Bruciante, and how very fine it was. M. de Joie and Amico del Signore exulted over the tender crust that still supported the ingredients without collapsing, the quality of ingredients, and the smoky edge of wood-fired flavor.



Smokey basil, $8.00 plus $1.00 for tomato addition

A variation of the classic margherita pizza, smoked mozzarella substitutes for plain and gives the impression that you're eating a pizza with meaty flavors. A thin drizzle of basil olive oil set off the raw cherry tomatoes (added by request) beautifully. Think of bruschetta - this was a like a cheesy baked bruschetta, though not overwhelmed with so much cheese that it was a fatty globule atop a crust.



Caesar salad, $6.00

In addition to the house salad, Bruciante makes a special salad every day. Caesar was the traditional Romaine lettuce with a lemony-tart creamy dressing, croutons, and mizithra cheese in place of the usual Parmesan. Femme de Joie practically requires anchovies on her Caesar but recognizes that most people run screaming from the room if faced with one of those salty, oily little fillets, so she will let this matter slide for now. The mizithra cheese almost made up for it. Not familiar with mizithra? Well, if Parmesan is subtle, earthy and aged, the essence of umami of cheeses, then mizithra is sharp, snappy, and in-your-face.



Blazin' Buffalo, $9.00

Chicken on pizza has never appealed to M. de Joie. It just seems so wrong. But here the chicken breast is shredded into a spicy Buffalo-wing sauce to keep it moist - none of those odd little moon rock-like pellets of desiccated chicken here - and topped with mozzarella, blue cheese, and more of that delectable mizithra cheese. For full enjoyment: have cold bottles of beer in refrigerator. Put beer mug in freezer. Call Bruciante and order Blazin' Buffalo (maybe two). Go pick up pizza and bring home. Pop open beer, pour into frozen mug. Stuff face. You'll thank us later.

Let us be clear: this is not pizza as most Americans think of pizza. No pile-it-all-on combinations. No extra-gargantuan-stuffed-crust pizza to feed six people. You don't have a choice of twenty-five toppings. No, this is the Mies van de Rohe of pizza. The ingredients are sourced locally and organic if possible - you can get an additional veggie (say, zucchini or bell peppers) from the farmer's market added to your pizza for one measly buck; sometimes Sweetie's Barbecue is called up to provide smoked meats for specialty pizzas. Dough and sauces are house-made. It's too bad that beer isn't served because this pizza really deserves a cold one with it, but that problem is solved by taking it home and enjoying it there. M. de Joie wasn't expecting to see top-quality pizza in Redding anytime soon, so the appearance of Bruciante has made her - and A. del Signore - very, very happy. This place deserves to succeed.

Bruciante Wood Fired Pizza, 2491 Hilltop Drive #C, at the corner of Commerce (north of IHOP in a parking lot by Remax), Redding. 530-242-6128. Open Monday-Friday, 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM. Cash, cards. Closed weekends. Drive-though or eat at one of the tables. No alcohol. Vegetarian & vegan options. Small parking lot on-site. Follow them on Facebook here.

Savory Spoon – the Price of Nonprofit

The phrase “tote-bag hell” was first coined during the 1970s for those interminable weeks when public television programming was interrupted every six minutes to beg the viewers to pledge money. In exchange, the pledger received a “token of appreciation” – a tote bag or a coffee mug. Tote bags and coffee mugs are now apparently passe – instead, the lucky donor gets a CD/DVD of Live from the Andorra Opera House, Peter Lemongello Salutes Allan Sherman! Even a die-hard Peter Lemongello fan must surely be aware that no matter how shiny and new that DVD may be, it’s just an enticement to get you to send money for the greater good.

There’s been a restaurant of some kind in the courtyard of the Hartnell Castle for many years. Femme de Joie knows she dined there a few times, but it was so unmemorable she cannot recall now if it was Mexican, Chinese, or what. Savory Spoon opened in that oft-abandoned spot in late 2011. M. de Joie immediately filed it away in her soon-to-close-due-to-bad-location file cabinet. But it didn’t close; it prospered and grew from being open three days a week to six days. Good things were heard about the food and the pay-what-you-can Mondays. It was time to drive east on Hartnell to visit.

The dining room features perhaps 20 small tables (no booths) topped with butcher paper; a cup of crayons is provided. Also on the tables are small pepper grinders and salt grinders – a very nice touch. Collections of vintage menus and kitchen tools make more interesting wall decor than the usual starving-artist paintings found in small cafes. It was perhaps half-full and not crowded on any of our visits.

M. de Joie was surprised at how varied Savory Spoon’s menu is. There are numerous vegan options (including seitan) as well as gluten-free dishes (though Femme de Joie did not ask whether cross-contamination measures are taken).



VLAT (Vegetarian bacon, lettuce, tomato & avocado) potato salad, $11.00

When vegetarian meat substitutes were first widely available, most of them were on the disgusting side. M. de Joie remembers a booth at the Shasta District Fair circa 1970 that was handing out fake steak bites. She has blocked out exactly how nasty that bite was. There’s been a lot of progress since then, and this sandwich was a good example. Crisp and smoky veg bacon stood in for the real porker product. Matched with local tomatoes and buttery avocados, this was a healthier take on the classic with a strong resemblance to the real thing. On the side, potato salad was good enough to be compared to homemade – this definitely did not come off the Sysco truck. However good the food was, we did expect more food for $11.00.

Monte Meat Burger (brown rice, legumes, mushrooms & vegetables) with chipotle sauce, side of cod chowder, $12.00

It’s easy for most restaurants to offer a veggie burger by just defrosting a Boca or Garden burger, but kudos go to anyone who makes their own. The Monte Meat burger had a meat-like texture (it held together rather than falling into sorry lumps like many veggie burgers do) and taste (though again, it isn’t going to be mistaken for ground chuck). Femme de Joie was rather taken aback at the size, reminiscent of a kiddie burger at a fast-food place, though the homegrown yellow tomato soothed some of the disappointment. Chipotle sauce was very mild and bland. Cod chowder was full of vegetables but a bit short on actual cod, though it had the fishy taste of a cod swimming in the cauldron.



Strawhouse Morning Blend coffee, $2.50

Savory Spoon uses a lot of local food purveyors, including coffee from Strawhouse on Highway 299 at Big Flat. Why would you get coffee from a wide spot in the road on your way to the coast? Because this is exceptionally good coffee and worth the extra trouble.



California omelet (bacon, tomato, avocado, blue cheese) with red house potatoes and rye toast, $9.00

It isn’t that easy to find a really good breakfast in Redding, but Savory Spoon does them right. A tender omelet with a harmonious combination of fillings (blue cheese on an omelet? Yes, please) was the centerpiece. Red house potatoes were a delight – not burned or underdone or out of a freezer bag, seasoned lightly, they made the plate complete. Rye bread from The Oven Bakery in Mount Shasta was a surprise – toast is often just on the side to take up room, but fine rye bread is actually worth eating. A nice touch was jam served in tiny bowls rather than the peel-away plastic tubs.



Biscuits and gravy, $8.00/$5.00

House-made sausage gravy isn’t on the dieter’s list, but this gravy was worth at least a taste or two. Not overly salty or greasy, creamy gravy had plenty of sausage bits (unfortunately, a bit of gristle too). It would have been nice to have the gravy served on the side rather than poured over the biscuit so the biscuit could have remained unsoggy.



Tofu scramble with potato, red bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, with hash browns and rye toast, $9.00

Scrambled tofu? It’s been a staple of vegetarian & vegan breakfasts for years, and is worth exploring if you’re looking for a low-fat alternative to eggs. Colored with turmeric to look like eggs, tofu takes on the taste of whatever it’s cooked with. This was a pleasing mix of vegetables with soft tofu curds. It’s been a mission of Amico del Signore to find really great hash browns, and these were pretty close to potato Nirvana: very crisp, nongreasy house-made shreds of browned potatoes.

The food is delicious with so many nice touches, and the undertaking of the Savory Spoon is noble and in line with everything M. de Joie agrees with. It is located in an underserved area for restaurants and also attempts to serve the disenfranchised population. Savory Spoon has so many good things about it – ingredients sourced from local purveyors, dedication to high-quality organic foods, gluten-free and vegan options, a pay-what-you-can day on Monday for the poor & indigent. Having said all of that, Femme de Joie found this to be by far the most difficult review she has ever written.She walked out of Savory Spoon feeling uneasy, unsettled about some niggling little discrepancy, something that just wasn’t sitting well with her. It finally came to her, not in an enlightening moment of shimmering clarity, but after hours of boring Amico del Signore with existential questions and general angst. It’s the pricing.

Take the coffee, Morning Blend, retailing at Strawhouse for $13.00/pound. It is very good coffee and a very good deal at $2.50. But Cheesecakes Unlimited in Redding serves coffee for $2.79, Clearie’s for $4.00, a French press of coffee (2-3 cups) at Moonstone costs $5.95. Wines: Savory Spoon has a nice selection of primarily local wines. A bottle of Burnsini 2009 Tehama Red sells for $24.00 at Vintage Wine Bar but $18.00 at Savory Spoon. The food pricing seems askew: a large spaghetti lunch (including garlic bread but not soup or salad) costs $15.00 but a 1/3 pound Prather Ranch bacon cheeseburger (including a choice of sides) is priced at $12.50. Chicken and dumplings at dinner is $15.00, more than meatloaf ($14.50). And at breakfast, a bowl of cream of wheat or oatmeal seems sky-high at $7.00, compared to an English muffin with meat, Cheddar, and a fried egg for $5.00. Should a seitan sandwich cost more than a Reuben? Why do inexpensive pasta and chicken cost more than beef? Why is a simple bowl of hot cereal more than a ham-egg-cheese breakfast sandwich?

M. de Joie wondered what’s wrong with the chicken if the pasta costs more? Why do pancakes cost more than an omelet? There must be something she is missing here. It would seem logical to her that a nonprofit restaurant capitalize on the same things that for-profit restaurants make money on – i.e. the huge markup in beverages – so that the other menu items are not so far out of line with other restaurant menu pricing. Does getting a cup of coffee for $2.50 make up for a seven dollar bowl of oatmeal? At what point does “It’s for a good cause” trump actual value? Like the DVD sent out by PBS in exchange for a donation of $120, is it enough to keep people coming back for more, or will it eventually dissuade consumers?

These are questions M. de Joie does not have a satisfactory answer to, but thus far the customer base seems quite happy with the food at Savory Spoon – and in the end, that is what will keep it alive.

Savory Spoon, 1647 Hartnell Avenue #1, Redding, CA 96002. 530-222-7200. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 9 AM – 8:00 PM. Sunday brunch from 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM. Community Monday, 12:00 noon to 4:00 PM; pay what you can. Cash and cards. Beer and wine. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free options. Parking lot. Website at www.SavorySpoon.org

Wilda’s Grill – Fast Lunches Downtown

There's been a small concrete block building on Placer Street near downtown for well over 40 years. It housed Jan's Frost Shop, run by a cheerful round man with stunningly hairy arms who called everyone sweetheart and dished up memorably greasy French fries and pastrami sandwiches. After Jan's closed it morphed into Between The Buns - Femme de Joie doesn't remember the state of the arms of the owners - Willie Dogs, Brick's (now on Eureka Way), and possibly another place or two lost to the steamy fog of memory.

Wilda's Grill opened nearly two years ago in that little building. There's no Wilda behind the counter; owners Bret & Dayna Speers (former owners of nearby Carnegie's) bought the Wilda's Mustard name & recipe from the eponymous creator (who made and sold it at the Ono Store some 30 years ago). Downtown Redding is chockablock with offices but surprisingly underserved for fast, inexpensive lunches, so Wilda's quickly filled a longtime need. Extravagantly popular since their opening, they only serve lunch five days a week.



Buddha bowl, $6.00

If the photo seems blurry, it was because M. de Joie was attempting to wrest the Buddha Bowl from Amico Del Signore's grip in a hurry before it was completely obliterated. If Wilda's has a signature dish, it would be this creative Asian-inspired combo. On a base of brown rice and red beans is piled deliciously spicy tofu or chicken, shredded cabbage, slices of avocado, cilantro, Jalapenos, garlic chili sauce and a sesame-flavored dressing. We lifted the Chinese take-out carton it's served in and estimated the weight at around 1.5 to 2 pounds, so it makes complete sense to serve it in a to-go box. Unfortunately, that also is a terribly awkward way to eat it, as the greens on top never get a chance to be amalgamated with the rice and beans underneath. A nearby diner solved the problem by ordering it to be served in a basket on a paper liner, which would also make an ideal way to share it with one or more additional diners. If Wilda's asked how the Buddha bowl could be improved - which they haven't, but if they did - black beans would be a better choice than red. Otherwise this is a wonderful lunch and can be made vegan easily.



Sweet potato fries, $3.00

There are only three sides available, and sweet potato fries are one of them. Non-greasy and nicely crispy, they're not made in-house and are served with what was described by the server as garlic aioli, but which tasted like plain Best Foods to us.



Falafel sandwich, $6.00

Falafels are deep-fried patties or balls made from ground chickpeas (garbanzos). You can't see them here under the toppings, but they were indeed there, wrapped in soft naan, drizzled with cucumber dressing, providing a nice nutty crunch under the cole slaw-like toppings. Deceptively light, this turned out to be quite a filling sandwich with subtle Middle Eastern flavors.



Roasted garlic dog, $5.25

When the garlic dog was delivered, it looked like the BBQ dog or the chili cheese dog. Reassured that this was the item we ordered, we took a couple of bites and wondered, where's the garlic? This was a case of too much stuff and too many competing flavors. Soft sweet roasted garlic was unrecognizable and untasteable under an avalanche of grilled balsamic red pepper & onions, blue cheese (also nearly obliterated) and what the menu says is garlic-Parmesan aioli. There was so much goop that the bun quickly became soggy and squishy. The grilled mixture tasted more like sour wine than balsamic vinegar - not a great companion for the other toppings. If we had to order this again we'd ask for the red peppers and onions to be left off.



Blue cheese and bacon salad, $5.25

Femme de Joie understands why restaurants love iceberg lettuce: cases of it arrive in good shape without wilting, it's cheap, it keeps very well, it can be cut without bruising the leaves, and it takes up room on a plate that would otherwise have to be filled with spendy temperamental leaf lettuces. There's a restaurant mania for iceberg wedge salads - a hunk of iceberg lettuce coated with blue cheese dressing. Every time she tries one of those M. de Joie thinks, "This would be a great salad with decent lettuce." She thought that again as she tried this salad. Good blue cheese, fresh sweet red onions and tomatoes, bacon crumbles - on a mesclun mix or spinach, this would be great. As it is, it's good toppings trying to disguise the bland watery crunch underneath. It was undistinguished. Fans of iceberg lettuce may love it.



Hot pastrami sandwich, $5.95

While this pastrami sandwich didn't match M. de Joie's memories of Jan's Frost Shop's pastrami, nevertheless it was quite good, with plenty of pastrami under sweetly sauteed onions with Wilda's mustard, pepperoncinis and jack cheese. Sometimes cured meats like pastrami are overly salty but these thin slices were mild and lean. It would have been nice to have a pickle spear alongside.

While not every menu item was indisputably wonderful, there are plenty of office workers nearby who love Wilda's. We arrived for each visit either before or just after their 11 AM opening time and were amazed to see the tiny dining room packed with 15 or more hungry patrons within just a few minutes. Large portions and dirt cheap prices as well as a super-efficient system of getting orders out fast certainly contribute to its popularity. We'd visit it again for the Buddha bowl and to try the eggplant sandwich. If you're parked downtown already on a weekday, walk over to give it a try and maybe pick up a jar of mustard ($3.99).

Wilda's Grill, 1718 Placer Street (between Court and Oregon), Redding, CA 96001. 530-246-3502. Open Monday-Friday, 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM. Closed weekends. No alcohol. Cards, cash. Vegan and vegetarian options. Gluten-free bread available. Outdoor seating; small indoor dining room. The world's smallest parking lot: better to park on Yuba or Oregon Street and walk. Follow Wilda's Grill on Facebook.

You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden

The blue cinder-block building on South Market Street that now houses Rose Garden was once home to a liquor store (name long forgotten), then an Asian market, then a series of restaurants including The Experience (which came and went before Femme de Joie had a chance to experience it) and a couple of Thai cafes of varying quality and longevity. Most recently Kanya Garden occupied that spot; it has hosted Rose Garden for some months now.

The Good:

The interior is bright and cheerful with a fresh coat of paint and good lighting. Service is fast and attentive with cheerful waitstaff. Prices are fair for the portion sizes.

The Food:



Yum Nam Tok, $6.95

Grilled beef with vegetables on a bed of iceberg lettuce was coated with what the menu calls "a house spicy cilantro lime sauce." The lime was up front and present as was a fair amount of fish sauce, but we couldn't discern any cilantro or much that was spicy. "Nam tok" means waterfall, and the salad seemed to get a bit watery as time passed, the salty fish sauce wilting the iceberg lettuce and diluting the dressing.



Red curry with tofu and sticky rice, $8.50

Red curry was ordered with medium heat but was very much on the mild side. Heavy on the canned bamboo shoots and light on tofu cubes, the liquid curry lacked that punch of flavor that makes a diner crave it again - it could have used an infusion of galangal, lemon grass, garlic - just about anything to elevate the complexity. It wasn't bad, but neither was it great.



The sticky rice that accompanied the curry was wrapped in clingfilm and brought to the table in a small wicker pagoda that fell over frequently. It was kind of cute but also kind of a pain every time it tipped over, which was any time it was touched.



Pad chow mein with pork, $6.95

The Thai version of chow mein was filled with nicely-cooked vegetables and thin-sliced pork. Not overly salty with too much soy or too oily, this would have been very good if the noodles hadn't been overcooked and on the gummy side.



Get to know the Thai condiment tray (kreung prung): judicious use of these can make a difference in your food. They encompass sour, sweet, salty, and spicy flavors. Clockwise from top: in squeeze bottles, oyster sauce, chili garlic sauce, hoisin sauce, prik pon (dried ground hot chilis), sugar (used to balance flavors), Sriracha, Tamarind soup mix (sour flavor), salt, pepper, soy sauce, fish sauce (nam pla). Just behind the soup mix is a small jar of pickled Jalapenos.



Beef pho, $5.00 lunch special

A small bowl of beef pho was accompanied by a plate of Romaine leaves, fresh basil and cilantro leaves, and bean sprouts, plus the condiment tray. With a goodly amount of rice noodles, some beef slices and halved meatballs, this made a satisfying light lunch. But other than a strong star anise flavor, the broth didn't have the rich melange of flavors that make the difference between an adequate bowl of pho and a really memorable one.

The Not Good:

The moment we walked in we noticed a strong scent in the air. Femme de Joie thought optimistically that maybe it was fresh herbs. Amico del Signore thought it was some kind of cleaning fluid. Eventually it became clear that it was perfume on one of the waitstaff, who had not sprayed it on so much as saturated herself in it.

On M. de Joie's last visit to Rose Garden, she approached the cash register to pay where she saw a sign saying that any debit or credit card purchase under $10.00 would be charged fifty cents for the privilege. The cashier pointed out the sign and asked if that was okay. M. de Joie told her it was illegal, and got exactly the response she expected: a blank uncomprehending look. A $5.00 pho suddenly became a $5.50 bowl of pho. After a lengthy discussion with her bank, Femme de Joie found out how the consumer protection laws in California can be sidestepped, which is apparently what happened here. Caveat emptor.(Sources: http://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/credit_card_surcharges and http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=4e20e4b0-bd7e-47a5-824b-4f7920a45a1b and http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/checkout_fees/)

Femme de Joie had higher hopes for Rose Garden, especially since their predecessor had such good food. But her overall take on the food was that it was pretty average, uninspired, and utilitarian. She wouldn't protest loudly if she was dragged there, but she wouldn't advocate for it, either.

Rose Garden, 2825 South Market Street, Redding, CA 96001. 530-243-8863. Open Sunday-Friday, 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM, Saturday 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM. No checks; debit and credit cards (watch for that user fee). Beer and wine. Vegan and vegetarian options. Small parking lot on south side of building. Follow them on Facebook.

Head to Airport Road for Smoked BBQ

Up on North Market Street just at the western foot of Sulphur Creek Hill stands a now-empty building. For years it housed El Papagayo, then another restaurant that escapes Femme de Joie's memory just now, followed by Catanio's. M. de Joie only visited Catanio's once; she remembers it fondly as an upscale Italian restaurant that provided a musical interlude during dinner by Joe Catanio. After it closed, Catanio moved on to run the cafe at Turtle Bay until The Powers That Be closed it pending the construction of a Sheraton Hotel. Not idle for long, Catanio paired with Scott Rawson to open Smoked BBQ on Airport Road.

Fitted inside what appears to have been a drive-through coffee kiosk (and located next to Dutch Brothers), the restaurant has just three small tables. The meat is smoked on the premises and sides are house-made. The menu is short and sweet and quite reasonably priced. Each item comes with a choice of sides.



Hot pastrami sandwich, $7.99

M. de Joie has long been a pastrami fan - Amico del SIgnore, not so much; he always found it greasy, salty, and fatty. This sandwich converted him; plenty of very lean, mildly spiced pastrami with a pleasant smokiness didn't have that off-putting greasiness. The sauce was served on the side instead of glopped on, which we approve heartily of - and this sauce is a far cry from the dark brownish-purple sauces that fall off the Sysco Truck by the gallon. A tomato base made tangy with apple cider vinegar and slightly sweet, it complimented the pastrami rather than smothered it. We liked the macaroni salad too - not sweet but slightly mustardy with tiny bits of celery.



Pulled pork sandwich, $7.50

The pulled pork was likewise non-greasy, little niblets of tender smoked pork piled on a bun. Moist and tender, it didn't need sauce, but we poured it on anyway. The smoked sweet potatoes were wonderful: though they look like plain sliced white potatoes, they are made from yellow sweet potatoes rather than red Garnet yams. M. de Joie has never cared much for yellow sweet potatoes, finding them dry and chalky, but this was delightful, especially when we scraped the bottom of the container to scoop up the caramelized juices that had puddled there.



Combo meal, four pork ribs and sliced tri-tip, $8.99

Tri-tip isn't an easy cut to cook. Tough sinews and connective tissue riddle it; though it's flavorful, it can necessitate a yard or two of dental floss afterwards. But at Smoked BBQ the tri-tip was meltingly tender and smoky, luscious and juicy. Pork ribs had a crackly crust and were fall-off-the-bone tender. Alongside, potato salad was not overcooked and mushy (as often happens) and slightly on the tart side. The only disappointment was that the combo meal was not as generous a serving as the sandwiches, so not really a great value.



Smoked Stack (tri-tip. pastrami, pulled pork), $8.99

A terrific combo of the best of Smoked BBQ, this was a most satisfying sandwich. Even though it was heavy on the protein, the smoked meats were trimmed of excess fat so it didn't have a soporific effect, Scott's slaw was a winner too: freshly made with, cubes of apple teamed with dried cranberries and thin-sliced cabbage in a light vinegary dressing. If a diner was so inclined, they could certainly pile the slaw on the sandwich.

Even though it's all the way out on Airport Road. Smoked BBQ is worth a drive. Now that Thanksgiving has been ticked off the list for another year, there may be a few turkey tidbits lurking in the far reaches of the refrigerator. There may well be people who are pointedly ignoring those leftovers, crying for surcease, for something that isn't turkey, isn't covering in gravy and cranberry sauce. For them, a trip to Smoked BBQ may be in order. For those still happily snarfing up the ends of that bird, head on out there anyway.


Smoked BBQ, 8540 Airport Road at Rancho Road, Redding, CA 96002. 530-364-2085. Open Monday-Saturday, 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM. Closed Sundays. Very small dining area; better to order take-out. Parking lot. No alcohol. Cards, no checks. Not much for vegetarians to see here except side orders. Follow them on Facebook.

Joe’s Giant Orange – Yesterday’s Kitsch Becomes Today’s Diner

Long, long ago, in a space of time after dirt was discovered but before Interstate 5, there were only two-lane roads. Incredible, yes, yet it's true. Femme de Joie saw it with her own two eyes. She traveled those roads often whenever the de Joies went on a weekend trip . Mostly the trips were modest ventures, as the crow flies: Crater Lake, Lassen Park, Reno, Eureka. But if the crow is not flying, if the crow is driving a Ford Falcon on a two-lane blacktop with thousands of other travelers, in those days before roadside towing service and emergency phones, then it's a much different - and much longer trip - than it is now.

For one thing, cars overheated a lot more then than they do now. Auto air conditioning was in its infancy and it generally resulted in hoses bursting at very inconvenient places. The de Joies spent more than one hot Sunday afternoon in a very, very long line of cars crawling along what is now Interstate 5, creeping through the Sacramento River Canyon between Redding and Dunsmuir as we all slowly passed some unfortunate family and their sizzling car.

That's why the Giant Orange stands were very popular, not just in California, but anywhere it got miserably dog-tired hot in summer. They were absolutely everywhere along Highway 99 (I-5's predecessor). It was so wonderful to come across one of those funny round orange buildings as you drove along California's Central Valley, and go in and get a cold orange juice.

Times change, freeways and off-ramps and McDonald's came in, and nowadays if you're driving on an old highway, maybe you will see an occasional forlorn Giant Orange stand boarded up. There are still a few in business, resurrected as restaurants - there's one just north of Redding that is now serving Mexican food, and it must be a puzzler to younger folk who wonder why the place serving tacos looks like an orange. A green orange.

Joe's Giant Orange has been serving up breakfast and lunch since 2006. Colorfully painted booths and wall murals inform the diner that this place specializes in Mexican dishes - though there is plenty of American food available as well. Service is friendly and fast.



Ham and cheese omelet, $8.99

Tender eggs folded squarely around generous portions of mild cheese and diced ham - not a breakfast that's breaking any new ground, but a constant favorite. Filling and non-greasy with crisp hash browns alongside, this was better than some more expensive versions.



Arizona Enchilada Omelet, $9.99

While the name is a little confusing - nuthin' really screams enchilada about this - chile verde draped over a folded egg omelet does bring Tex-Mex to mind. Femme de Joie loved the verde's tartness and shreds of pork laced throughout. This is not a spicy-hot sauce so chiliphobes can enjoy it without fear.



Tamales, $10.99

House-made beef tamales seemed on the dry side. While the filling was flavorful and abundant, it was also on the salty side; a bite of masa and filling together made us wish for some badly needed sauce. Fortunately, the house-made salsa is quite good and was necessary to resuscitate the tamales and give them a bit of oomph. Refried beans were also house-made, creamy and smoky. The rice was undistinguished.



Enchiladas Colima Style, $9.99

The house-made enchilada sauce was evidently salted in the same way the tamale filling was. Femme de Joie admits to an unholy passion for salty foods, but this overdid it even for her. Too bad, because the rest of the dish - freshly prepared pork filling and not too much cheese - was really delicious.



A side order of fresh green salad was crammed into a small soup bowl, a plating that makes M. de Joie start twitching: instead of forcing greenery into a too-small container, put that salad on a plate where it won't fall off.

We did love a vanilla milkshake ($3.99) made with real ice cream (that may sound obvious, but there's a reason McDonald's calls it a shake - so as not to imply anything by the title) with the metal can plopped onto the table alongside the glass for a second serving, as every devotee of Fifties-style diners knows it should be.

Overall, we enjoyed Joe's Giant Orange. It's a truly local place, mainly patronized by regulars who know each other and think nothing of sharing their opinions of the Raiders with you at length as your food gets cold. While we might not drive north every day to dine, if we were headed thataway and were feeling peckish, we'd stop in. Femme de Joie is curious, though: is the water in the first toilet in the women's restroom always heated, or was that just a temporary interesting feature?

For more on Giant Oranges or to buy one for your own front yard, see http://www.agilitynut.com/food/oranges.html

Joe's Giant Orange, 3104 Cascade Boulevard, Shasta Lake City, CA 530-275-9582. Breakfast and lunch. Open daily 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Vegetarian options. No alcohol. Parking lot. No checks.

Cafe Paradiso – French food in Redding? Mais oui!

Ever since the Cascade Theater reopened gloriously in 2004 with that sublime Mark O'Connor concert, there's been a certain mumbling and rumbling from patrons: why isn't there anywhere to go downtown after a show? Well, there's Spoon Me... and... Bombay's.... aaaannnnd.... uh.... ummmm... well... let's go to Denny's. Or IHOP. Or home.

To that end, Cafe Paradiso opened in early 2013 to fill a need: a place to go late at night for a drink and a snack without going to a bar. Housed in the former Thai Bistro location on Yuba Street between Sally's (Salvation Army) and a florist, it's an unlikely bistro home of French cooking. A very small space of about a dozen tables seating two to four and a limited menu ensures service doesn't become overwhelmed. More importantly, the food is prepared to order, not defrosted or waiting on a steam table. The interior is painted olive green, gold, and orchid; bare-topped tables at lunch get the white cloth treatment in the evening.

Femme de Joie was interested in trying this new venture downtown. While the food is quite good, there were a few things that made her go, "Hmmmm...."



Caesar salad, $5.00

This Caesar salad was lovely to look at and delicious to eat, once Femme de Joie located the part of the salad that had dressing on it. For reasons untold, the top inch or so of Romaine was sprinkled with Parmesan cheese but otherwise was naked as a jay bird. Once she prodded around in the dish, the dressed salad was located underneath the first layer of inexplicably plain lettuce.



Fettucine with shrimp, scallops, and crab, $12.00

Let us be honest: this was the smallest serving of fettucine - nay, of any kind of pasta - ever placed before M. de Joie. Ever. She wondered if perhaps this was some kind of test to see if she would explode in righteous indignation, or if she would shut up and eat it. Not one to make a scene on most occasions, she ate it. Four large grilled shrimp were perfectly cooked with a slightly crisp exterior and tender meat. Two or three scallops had been sauteed to a light brown - not easy to do well - without being dried out. The crab was completely lost in the mixture of fettucine, cream, and cheese, though the fettucine was al dente and not gummy. However, the dish was on the dry side and needed more sauce.



Cream of mushroom soup, $4.00

Creamed soups often remind one of Campbell's Cream of Mystery, but the version at Cafe Paradiso was excellent. Fresh sauteed mushrooms floated in a delicate creamy base of half-and-half tempered with broth so as not to feel fatty and globulous. One of the few versions that doesn't make the diner call out for a defibrillator afterwards.



Large Southwestern Salad with avocado, $8.00

This started out as a $6.00 Southwestern Salad with an addition of avocado to make it an $8.00 Southwestern Salad. If you look closely, you can see four scalpel-cut slices of avocado on the upper left side. Crispy tortilla strips, diced tomato, corn kernels, and cotija cheese decorated a lovely stack of arugula-strong mesclun. Served with an addictively tart lime-chipotle aioli, this was a very good rendition of a salad that's become a staple on many menus. As Femme de Joie happily worked her way down through the salad, she discovered a stratum of chopped Romaine underneath the mesclun. Normally, all green leafy participants in a salad are tossed together like college youth of yore in a telephone booth, so she was bemused to find the Romaine looking like a poor relative of the privileged lettuces, hiding its head in embarrassment, Perhaps the person assembling the salad started to make a Caesar, then rather than toss out the Romaine, covered it up. Perhaps this is the Bump-it of salads - like Snooki wearing that plastic dome on her head, Romaine is used to artificially floof up the mesclun. Perhaps this is the new trend in salads - rather than mix all the greens, they will be layered like cakes. It's a mystery. The truth may never be known.



Wine flight, $8.00 for one person, $15.00 for two people

A wine flight is a offering of several wines, usually (but not always) with a common theme - varietal, terroir, maker, and so on. This wine flight is served as an appetizer and seemed to not have anything binding them together. From left to right, a Ruffino white from Tuscany with Granny Smith apples, a Mouton-Cadet Bordeaux with aged Cheddar on a Carr's water cracker, and Chocolate Shop with a house-made brownie. By far the Ruffino and apple was the most successful pairing. Mineral and flinty, the cold Ruffino bounced off tart apples that was stimulating and exciting. Mouton-Cadet sounds prestigious but it is a brand - perhaps the first brand name of wines in France - and the wines are generic and inexpensive. Owned now by Constellation, it's a wine to not get one's hopes up over. After tasting the Ruffino, the blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc was disappointing and muddy. A flake of aged Cheddar needed a little stage to star on, but what it got was a Carr's Water Cracker. For a thankfully brief time, M. de Joie thought it was a sign of good taste and prestige to serve Carr's; she now knows that if you're going to serve crackers, be sure to get ones that don't taste like burned cardboard. Merlot infused with chocolate sounds like a dessert wine, and it is, but it went surprisingly well as part of this flight. The brownie was on the dry side but it made the chocolate wine sing.



Ahi with lemon, garlic, butter, and capers ($19.00) and twice-baked potato ($4.00)



Beet salad, $5.00

Ahi (tuna) resembles beef more than other fish; slices of prime ahi look very much like rare steak. The texture is firmer than many other fish and it lends itself well to strong seasonings and sauces. It is frequently served seared so the interior remains dark red and meaty. At Cafe Paradiso, it was served medium, meaning the narrow end of the steak as well at the edges were well-done - which is overdone. Coated with a lemon, garlic, butter, and caper sauce that seemed to be losing its emulsion rapidly, it was a disappointment compared to what it could have been. On the side, a twice-baked potato was leaking butter that mixed with the caper sauce, creating a lemony oleaginous puddle. In a separate bowl was beet salad - roasted cubed beets reclining on greens. It tasted like beets and nothing but beets - M. de Joie could not detect any flavorings, sauces, dressings or other garnishes. She likes beets quite a lot, and these were tasty enough, but there was nothing about it that made her want to order it again.

Femme de Joie would like to see Cafe Paradiso succeed. The food is quite good, though the preparation and presentation are uneven. She has a little laundry list of opinions, of course:

• Every French restaurant in France - and every Italian restaurant in Italy - includes bread as part of the meal. The cost is worked into the price already. Why isn't it here?


• Include one or two prix-fixe meals. A la carte is fine and dandy but the cost adds up faster than one imagines. Femme de Joie pictures a young couple out for a nice dinner who fall over in a dead faint when they get the bill at the end of the evening - and then have to call someone to come bail them out.


• The premium wine list is delightful but if someone is paying $26.00 a glass or $95.00 for a bottle of wine, the year should be printed on the wine list. The not-premium wine list has some bright spots such as the Darcie Kent Zinfandel, but it would be lovely to see Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and/or Syrah offered by the glass.


• Rethink the fettucine serving size. Really.

Cafe Paradiso, 1270 Yuba Street (between Pine and East), Redding, CA 96001. 530-215-3499. Open Monday through Saturday for lunch, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, dinner 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM. Open late nights Thursday through Saturday for wine/beer/special menu, 10:00 PM - 1:00 AM. Closed Sunday. Beer and wine. Vegetarian and vegan options. Street parking. Website here or follow them on Facebook.

Popular Guadalajara – No hay milpa sin cuitlacoche

Long ago - long ago being relative, of course - there was a Mexican restaurant in Hamilton City which was apparently the bee's knees to Hamilton City diners. The exact name of it escapes Femme de Joie just now, and after doing a brief search on the internet, apparently no one else remembers it either. But what M. de Joie does recall is that there was a fever upon the land when the word came down that this restaurant was going to expand to Redding. And so it came to pass; said restaurant built on East Cypress Avenue, not far from where the fabled and infamous El-Bo Room lived out its days. It opened and after a certain amount of time, shut the doors; M. de Joie seems to remember at least one other Mexican restaurant opened and closed in turn in the same location. For about the last 14 years, Guadalajara has held down the spot where others came and went.

Approaching Guadalajara is easiest if you're heading east on Cypress and can just swing right into the parking lot. It's trickier to slide in there from the westbound lanes, especially during the noon hour and around 5 PM, when the traffic is unforgiving and unrelenting. The interior is spacious and colorful with what appear to be large tin stars hanging from the ceiling and brightly painted chairs. Service is generally friendly and speedy.



House salad, $5.29

The basic house salad was one of the better menu items at Guadalajara. Expecting just a bowl of iceberg lettuce, we were pleasantly surprised to get fresh Romaine with grated cheese, olives, tomatoes, avocados and onions, a definite step up from the side salad at most restaurants.



Lunch special, enchilada and tamale, $8.29

A chicken tamale was quite doughy with a ponderosity of heavyweight masa corseting an shredded chicken filling. It was slow going through the doughy masa to get to the oily filling - the oil had already spread to the cornhusks, so it had plenty to spare - and the filling itself was surprisingly bland considering the oil was vividly red, presumably from chili powder. Sharing the plate was a chicken enchilada that was likewise bland and tired, like it had been up since 2 AM and just couldn't muster any enthusiasm. Refried beans were creamy but not especially flavorful; rice had odd crispy bits here and there, like it had been sitting uncovered and part had dried out while what lay beneath remained moist. It was salty.



Lunch special, enchilada and tamale, $8.29

A chicken tamale was quite doughy with a ponderosity of heavyweight masa corseting an shredded chicken filling. It was slow going through the doughy masa to get to the oily filling - the oil had already spread to the cornhusks, so it had plenty to spare - and the filling itself was surprisingly bland considering the oil was vividly red, presumably from chili powder. Sharing the plate was a chicken enchilada that was likewise bland and tired, like it had been up since 2 AM and just couldn't muster any enthusiasm. Refried beans were creamy but not especially flavorful; rice had odd crispy bits here and there, like it had been sitting uncovered and part had dried out while what lay beneath remained moist. It was salty.



Cup of albondigas soup, $3.50

Though not stated on the menu, the soups can be ordered as a cup instead of a bowl (which is a quite large serving). Albondigas soup was apparently cooked to order and it was a winner. A more-than-generous cup with two large tender meatballs, freshly cooked carrots, zucchini, and potatoes in a really delicious savory tomato-tinged broth came with a dish of cilantro, chopped onion, and one very dry lime half on the side. Whoever is making the soup knows what they're doing in terms of seasoning and timing the doneness of each ingredient.



Lunch special, chile verde burrito, $7.49

This lunch special was everything the others were not. Chile verde - tender pork cubes in a tart green tomatillo sauce - wrapped in a flour tortilla with a moderate amount of cheese melted on top was piquant and lively, as well as a bargain for the price.

Femme de Joie is of two minds about Guadalajara. Clearly it's quite popular, both with locals and with Interstate 5 travelers who rave about it in online reviews. You do get generous portions, the salsa is fresh and tasty, and it's a family-friendly place with a kiddie menu of under-$2 items. But they're missing the mark on preparations for some standard Mexican restaurant dishes. The care taken with the soup and the chile verde indicates the kitchen can deliver; M. de Joie hopes they can raise the bar and take steps to increase quality across the board.

Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant, 435 East Cypress Avenue, Redding, 96002. 530-223-2540. Open Monday-Thursday, 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM, Friday-Saturday 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM, Sunday 10:00 AM - 9:00 PM. Vegetarian and vegan options. Children's menu. No checks. Full bar. Parking lot. Website at http://www.guadalajararestaurant.net/

Maxwell’s – food for the hip and not-so-hip downtown

Back in the late 1970s there was a Maxwell's Restaurant in Redding. Femme de Joie's memory is a bit fuzzy on this, but she recalls it being on the corner of Market and Sacramento, where Vintage Wine Bar sits now. But she also seems to remember it on Market Street north of the mall, so perhaps it skated through town now and then. It was what current parlance calls "casual elegance" - that level between coffee shop and white tablecloths. They served a lovely Chicken Jerusalem. Versions of that restaurant came and went into the 1980s and perhaps into the 1990s if memory serves.

Maxwell's Downtown Eatery today seems to share little with that Maxwell's of old save the name and perhaps the address. From the outside it looks like a hipster's dive bar, and even on the inside you might get that impression. It looks to be decorated entirely in black at first glimpse until your eyes adjust to the light, when you can see the brick wall behind the bar and the dark olive green wall with paintings on the other side of the room. Tables and chairs are the elevated tall bar variety, though there are a couple of regular height tables as well. One room to the side is dedicated to occasional live music performances. The crowd is largely young-ish, though M. de Joie overheard a dedicated beerhound behind her speak the words, "Lew Alcindor," a name largely unknown to most 20-somethings. Music ranges from reggae to Robin Trower to 1970s staples.

There's no chicken Jerusalem on this menu and no pretense. All the offerings pair well with beer and are listed with a minimum of poetic descriptions. "Our hamburgers are made from cows who were lovingly hand-fed the finest hay and lulled to sleep by a Mozart Quartet" doesn't appear here.



Buffalo Bacon Blue Pizza - "buffalo sauce," bacon, tomato, blue cheese $15.99

This is exactly the kind of pizza M. de Joie would want if she planned to down a few brews to go with. She ordered it sans chicken - chicken on pizza is a travesty - and while it was not the most incredible blow-your-skirt-up pizza she has ever eaten in her life, it had a lot going for it. A thin, airy crust supported a not-spicy "creamy buffalo sauce" with crisp, salty bacon and fresh tomatoes; there was a definite paucity of blue cheese, though. This was enough for one greedy diner or two restrained polite people.



Spicy Jalapeno Burger with onion rings, $9.99

A fat, generous burger was tasty enough, but what really set this apart was the breaded and deep-fried Jalapenos. M. de Joie has seen both raw and pickled Jalapenos on burgers and loves those, but these were quite delightful and addictive. A bonus too was the hamburger bun: a Kaiser-type roll did not fall apart or get greasy and soggy.

A word about the onion rings: wonderful large rings with a thin, delicate shatteringly-crisp batter - definitely the best-cooked onion rings M. de Joie has ever had in Redding, but the batter badly needed some salt.



Trout Slayer Chili, $3.50

On the bean/no bean chili discussion, Femme de Joie is Switzerland. She doesn't care. However, she is less forgiving on the tomato issue: they do not belong in chili. Now having said that, she found the Trout Slayer Chili really wonderful, meaty and well-seasoned, not so spicy that a chiliphobe would reject it; even the bits of tomato were not distracting. The name can't help but make her think that there's fish in it, though. (There isn't.)



Maxwell's Club with salad, $8.99

Expecting a pile of shredded iceberg lettuce alongside the club sandwich, it was a pleasure to instead get an actual composed salad with Romaine, cheese, olives, pepperoncini, and tomatoes: the extra mile gone. The club was one layer instead of the usual triple-decker and stuffed with lots of ham, turkey, cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce. However, the bacon was completely uncooked. It had apparently been placed on a heat source because it was warm, but all that did was bring the fat to the surface. Floppy and flabby bacon may have its fans, but M. de Joie is not one of them. After the care taken with the salad, it seemed sloppy or uncaring: it isn't as though a cook wouldn't notice that.

Overall, Femme de Joie liked Maxwell's. Service was friendly and efficient and the food was better than average pub-type food. While she's a bit older than its target audience, M. de Joie felt perfectly comfortable and wouldn't hesitate to go back. It's a local downtown enterprise providing a badly-needed venue for live music and the food, even with a couple of issues, is well-prepared and a good value. Try it out.

Maxwell's Downtown Eatery, 1344 Market Street, Redding, CA 96001. 530-247-7200. Open for lunch and dinner Monday through Friday, 11:00 AM - 11:00 PM; Saturday 12:00 PM to 11:30 PM; Sunday 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM. Occasional live music. Beer and wine. Street parking, Cards, cash. Website here.

El Rinconcito’s little corner of good food

After Senor Rosa's upped sticks and moved into the old Leatherby's Family Creamery at the south end of the Downtown Mall (call it the Promenade all you like, it's still the old Downtown Mall) that funny little cinder block building set back from Eureka Way didn't sit vacant for long. Salvador Hernandez stepped up and opened El Rinconcito a few months ago, joining other locally-owned restaurants like Brick's and The Best Little Sandwich Shop as havens in a sea of chain fast food spots.

It looks pretty much the same - park next to the gas station and squeeze past some nasty-looking cactus to get inside, or share parking with the auto repair. The cinder blocks are painted blue, and the old green canopy is gone. Inside it's still fairly spartan. But Hernandez serves his food on actual ceramic plates with metal cutlery instead of wrapped in foil or in squeaky disposable boxes with plastic forks, which is a big improvement in Femme de Joie's eyes. The menu is typed on both sides of a single piece of paper and tucked inside plastic sleeve protectors. There are all the usual suspects plus a few less-common items. A few daily specials are written on a board above the cash register. Service is helpful and friendly.

Salsa - not the usual pico de gallo, but instead a smooth puree of chilis and tomatoes - and chips come with your meal.



Tortilla soup, $5.95

Many Mexican restaurants offer tortilla soup; it's usually pleasant if undistinguished. This one was simply the best version Femme de Joie has ever had the pleasure to eat. A savory rich cilantro-spotted tomatoey chicken broth was topped with crisp tortilla ribbons and diced avocado. Underneath was what appeared to be fine noodles; on closer inspection the noodles turned out to be filament-fine shreds of poached chicken. That kind of attention to detail made M. de Joie realize the kitchen was run by serious cooks.



Carnitas burrito, $9.95

Delicious niblets of carnitas pork were layered with house-made refried beans and rice. Instead of the usual practice of stuffing a flour tortilla with as much filler as possible, minimal was the word: when the ingredients are all beautifully seasoned and cooked, you don't need globs of cheese, salsa, tomatoes, onions, and so forth. Just a little crema drizzled decoratively over was the only concession to the usual restaurant burrito.



Taco salad, $7.95

To the best of Femme de Joie's knowledge, taco salad is an unknown beast in Mexico; it appears to be a American hybrid creation of the 1960s when comida Mexicana began to creep into the American kitchen. Most versions involve a sizable mountain of iceberg lettuce centered inside a pre-made oversized fried taco shell and decorated with fried ground beef mixed with a packet of taco seasoning, some diced tomatoes, shredded cheese and sour cream - in other words, a lot of cheap lettuce with a modicum of toppings. El Rinconcito's taco salad started with a homemade shell and a modest amount of lettuce, went on with lightly seasoned morsels of steak, fresh tomatoes and olives, and finished with a generous scoop of house-made guacamole. That crisp shell was as different from pre-made shells as a homegrown tomato is from one of those miserable pinkish winter tomatoes. Instead of a scoop of made-ahead filling, the steak bits were cooked to order. Again, it's the best ingredients combined skillfully, sans fatty, creamy sauces, that distinguish this dish.



Sope with chicken, $3.50

A sope is essentially a small, thick tortilla made of masa fried and served with some sort of savory topping, also known as huaraches, gorditas, and other names. House-prepared and freshly cooked revealed the delicate corn taste of the masa. Lightly grilled chicken cubes were sprinkled with cotija cheese and a thick wash of crema . There was a bit of oil oozing from the sope itself, so this was not as successful an execution as some of their other dishes.



Al pastor taco and lengue taco, $2.50 each

"Regular" size tacos are made with house-made tortillas, and they are worth it. Puffy and tender, thicker than commercial tortillas, they're the perfect wrapping for the simple fillings of diced al pastor (spicy pork) and lengue (tongue) accented with cilantro, diced onion, and a fresh green salsa.

El Rinconcito is probably our new favorite Mexican restaurant. Everything is made in-house (with the exception of the chips, which appear to be commercial). As Femme de Joie stood waiting to pay, she observed a tiny woman behind the counter serenely turning fresh pasilla peppers on a gas flame, blackening and blistering them to make chile rellanos. That is the kind of time-consuming detail that makes this food so good. But let it be known: if you are expecting the servings to be the giant platefuls found at most Mexican restaurants, you will be sorely disappointed. Portions are modest. But this is carefully prepared food to be savored, not gobbled. Take your time and really taste it.

El Rinconcito, 2030 Eureka Way (behind the smoke shop and auto repair), Redding, CA 96001. 530-262-8646. Open daily, 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM. Parking lot. Cards, cash, no checks. Vegetarian and vegan options.

Positive Affirmations and Sandwiches at Turbo’z Deli

It just occurred to Femme de Joie that someone who works in the area of Market and Tehama is spoiled for choice at lunchtime. Within a block each way lie two sandwich shops, two Mexican restaurants, one pizza place, one pub, a Japanese restaurant, and probably another place or two that escape her just now. If what you're actually craving is none of the above, well then, you're probably outta luck.

So after Village Delicatessen closed last autumn, Premier Solutions of Shasta Lake took over that spot to use as an work experience site for disabled adults, helping them to integrate into the community and learn skills that will enable them to become independent as well as earn their own paycheck. There was already a Turbo'z Deli on Airport Road; this is branch #2 with the same menu and also run by Premier Solutions.



This is likely the first job for the people behind the counter, but you wouldn't know that. Customers are greeted with cheerfulness and enthusiasm. You aren't the next order in line; you're a real person and staff is very eager to please. Service is speedy (though there seem to be a hiccup or two with the POS device at the counter). M. de Joie noted all employees wear plastic gloves when preparing the food. Prices are proportionate to the serving size.



High Octane, $6.89, with side of potato salad, 99 cents

The classic Reuben sandwich gets a new name at Turbo'z but is otherwise the same, corned beef-Swiss-sauerkraut. The menu says it's grilled on marble rye, but there was no grill in evidence. It seems more likely that the corned beef was given a couple of minutes on high in a microwave to give it that frizzled crackly taste and texture. It would have been nice to have the entire sandwich grilled, and Femme de Joie wished for a kosher pickle on the side, but she really has no complaints, Note: this sandwich is very juicy and you'll need a handful of napkins.

Potato salad is one of those things you never know about when you order it. Will it be house-made or will it be out of one of those plastic tubs packed in Eden Prairie, Minnesota - slippery lumpkins purported to be potato and saturated in a quicksand of gummy, sugary mayonnaise-like sauce? On her first visit, M. de Joie was delighted to find the potato salad made in-house of wedges of new potato in a mustardy dressing. It was so good that she ordered it again on a subsequent visit, when it was horribly oversalted and swimming in far too much sauce.



The Burn Out, $5.89

AKA Buffalo chicken wrap, this was made to order with warm chicken breast slices, spicy Buffalo sauce and ranch dressing plus fresh vegetables (avocado on request) and enveloped in the tortilla of your choice. Overall Femme de Joie liked it, though there seemed to be a streak through the wrap where it had been salted too well - perhaps on the chicken itself. She liked the spicy Buffalo sauce tempered with the tart ranch dressing and the crunchy red onion, though the avocado got a bit lost in the mix.



The Low Rider, $6.99, with side of macaroni salad, 99 cents

This was Femme de Joie's favorite sandwich at Turbo'z, pulled pork smeared with barbecue sauce, then topped with pepper jack cheese and cole slaw on a crunchy roll. Unbelievably messy to eat, it was nevertheless a delight. The cole slaw was meant to go on the side but the counter staff asked if it should be placed on top, which was a very good idea. The celery seed-flecked slaw itself was very fresh and crunchy, a cool contrast to the kiblets of pork and sauce. Macaroni salad was on the bland side.

Overall, M. de Joie liked Turbo'z. They offer salads, hot dogs, and pizza along with the deli sandwiches, so there is a little something for everyone. Service is fast and very friendly, and while this isn't breaking new culinary ground, it's a good stop for a quick lunch downtown to grab a bite from someone who is really glad to see you.

Turbo'z Deli, 1300 Market Street (at Shasta), Suite 102, Redding, CA 96001. 530-241-1600, fax 530-241-1604. Open Monday through Friday, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Saturday 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Closed Sunday. Street parking. Cards, cash; no checks. No alcohol. Indoor and outside seating. Vegetarian and vegan options. Follow them on Facebook at Turbo'z Deli 2 or Turbo'z Deli 1