Restaurants 2011

This page lists 133 meals I ate in restaurants in 2011. Cities are in California except as noted, cost is per person including tip. I have kept complete restaurant data since 2010, though I generally don't list Costco shopping trip hot dog lunches or banh mi to go. In rare instances where a restaurant experience is particularly noteworthy, I post a review on Yelp under a pseudonym.

This page is dedicated to a few old favorites, gone but not forgotten: Elsie's, Kapok, Hsi Nan, El Tazumal, Cendrillon, Thanh Da, Le P'tit Laurent.

My 2011 travel included six short business trips to Chicago, a short trip to Monterey/Carmel, and a week in Louisiana and Mississippi. This list would be a lot shorter without those trips; we don't eat out often when we're at home (about 1.5 times per week, never breakfast, half lunch, half dinner).

Our local favorites in the city, both in Glen Park not far from our house, remain unchanged from last year: bistro Le P'tit Laurent and taqueria La Corneta. In Calaveras, I particularly love El Vaquero's great mole poblano. Breakfasts at Highlands Inn in Carmel were simple but memorable for the amazing view, what a pleasure! More or less by chance, we landed at 1833 Restaurant in Monterey, which got a very positive review shortly after in the Chronicle; we loved it too.

I did a substantial amount of restaurant research before our trip to New Orleans, so we ate in several excellent (albeit pricey) restaurants there. I liked Upperline Restaurant the best, and Gautreau's was wonderful too. 1818 Restaurant at Monmouth in Natchez tried hard, but we thought the food didn't really work. Café des Amis in Breaux Bridge was great fun, with memorable cajun music (from Scandanavian musicians, go figure). Perrains in Baton Rouge is a classic seafood joint (mostly fried, of course). Our best discovery in LA/MS was a tiny shack, Bellue's Fine Cajun, across the highway from the entrance to Port Hudson, north of Baton Rouge; Bari and I shared a delicious, simple shrimp po'boy, dressed; wow.

I see little point in yelp'ing restaurants in big cities, as I find the yelp signal-to-noise ratio to be much too low, but now and then I find myself compelled to yelp (under a pseudonym) about a bad experience. I thought Baby Blues BBQ (on Mission Street in SF) was terrible. And I'm totally baffled by the great popularity of Bob Chinn's Crab House in Wheeling IL; I really don't get it.

See also: 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 All

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