a velvet hole?

This article contains a lot of things that smiller doesn't like. First, there are a lot of mentions of Ruth's Chris Steak House which is a nonsensical business name that drives him insane. Then there is the phrase "hunker down". When I first started reading this article, which is about the Broiler and more specifically the female head chef, I could tell that Mike Dunne was not writing it. It's way overwritten. Although Dunne is too afraid to criticize in his reviews, he's a good, concise, writer. Sure enough, it's written in the characteristically folksy style of Bob Sylva. Here's a sample sentence that makes very little sense (and contains 4 adjectives-well, unless wide-eyed is somehow not an adjective, my last grammar lesson was a long time ago) I can picture Sylva writing this article with his thesaurus clutched close to his breast:

Stice - apprehensive, alarmingly wide-eyed - gives the impression that she might be the tender entree.

And exactly how is she giving that impression? I've read the whole article and I don't know.

How about this sentence?

The Broiler's history, though old, isn't quite as stupendous. It was started in 1950 by a Croatian immigrant named Joseph B. Anticevich, who opened the restaurant in a velvet hole, at 1013 J St.

A velvet hole?

Some bad news in this article is that Sam's Kosher Style Deli in CH has closed. Now that that place and the Hot Pastrami are both closed there aren't many places to get a pile o' meat style sandwich.

I was glad to see that the Bee had an article on Espanol, which is not a favorite of mine but it's a piece of Sac restaurant history, but here's the pointless little piece. It's cool to find out that it was started to feed Basque shepherds, but no review of the food.

And in a review that Dunne wrote, which he starts by saying that people call him asking why there are no French bistros in Sac (so I'm not the only one that wonders. I've been contemplating writing a letter to the chef of the Waterboy and imploring him to think about a homey French bistro for the new place he's going to open), and he writes a pretty critical review of the only one, L'Image. But not as critical as the one that was in sacrag. I felt really sorry for the writer. Nothing is more disappointing than dropping that much on a subpar prix-fixe meal. Well, except maybe showboating right when you are about to win a gold medal and then biting it really hard in front of a global audience. That's why no one should go out to fancy places on Valentines Day.

This entry has taken me a while to compile so I'm going to post my review of the Greek Village Inn in a little bit.