Here’s an exercise in advanced parenting for you: try taking your kid with you to the kind of restaurant where the tablecloths are white, the waits are long, and the service is formal at best, snotty at worst. With all but the best behaved of children, this is an exercise in hubris, and your fellow […]
James Leach
Posted inCulture
Primary flavors
I’m always grateful to restaurants that give me something to nibble on while I’m mulling over the menu. Sodam Korean in Henrietta, like all Korean restaurants, offers you a full meal while you think about what to order for dinner — an assortment of small dishes known as banchan. These tasty offerings, which walk the […]
Posted inCulture
The difference a week makes
I picked Max at the Gallery for review this week in part because it was a sure thing: with any of the restaurants that bear the Max name you can be certain you’ll have a good, perhaps even great, experience. The brand, established by chef and restaurateur Tony Gullace with the opening of Max at […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
DISH ’10: Flambe guide
 [ RECIPES ] Several years ago, I acquired the “Time Life Picture Cookbook” — a gigantic coffee table-style book published in 1958. Aside from its cool pictures of men barbecuing in suits and ties, and children eating their lunches in kitchens with atomic symbols on the curtains, the cookbook gave me a window into a […]
Posted inCulture
Make momma proud
Mother’s Day is right around the corner, and if a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee delivered to Mom’s bedside isn’t cutting it anymore, it’s time to consider going out for brunch or dinner — with the whole family. Finding a restaurant that’s accepting of (well behaved) children, yet nice enough to retain […]
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Out of the ashes
At the risk of invoking a tired cliché, Henrietta’s newest Indian restaurant really is a phoenix from the ashes. Brothers Gurpal and Harcharnjid Singh opened their first restaurant, Namaste Diner, on West Henrietta Road in July 2008, an outgrowth of their successful Indian grocery store down the road. A bit over three months later, a […]
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Immigrant restaurants: a taste of home
Romy Sial, owner of the Bombay Chaat House in Henrietta, is watching anxiously as I bite into a creamy, cardamom-scented ball of gulab jamun. A few moments ago, after I’d already eaten a plate of bhel puri (curried rice crispies topped with tamarind and mint chutneys, raita, and a generous shake of chili powder), two […]
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Some like it hots
Dave Miran has been on the streets for almost 22 years. A Rochester native, Miran is the proprietor of Dave’s Sidewalk Café, a hot dog cart — or “mobile vending unit,” in Rochester City Code parlance — that has operated on the corner of Court Street and St. Mary’s Place for the past eight years. […]
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DISH ’08: New York Wine & Culinary Center
 [ PROFILE ] It was a chilly day in late April when I sat down with the New YorkWine & CulinaryCenter’s new executive chef, Carlo Peretti. Peretti had been on the job for only about four hours, but he seemed excited by the prospect ahead of him: local asparagus was only a couple of weeks […]
