Restaurant Roundup
I’ve always felt awkward recommending restaurants at Crispy since half our readership lives outside southern Connecticut and the other two are incarcerated — but what the hell. Here’s a list of good eats where I’ve dined in the last 365 days:
In South Norwalk, I highly recommend Match and its eclectic menu (Mediterranean-Asian fusion?), especially its abundant seafood offerings. I also advise starting your evening off at nearby Papaya Thai (not a bad restaurant either) and its five-seat tiki bar hidden in the back rather than having to elbow your way through Match’s mob scene of a bar. Reservations definitely suggested.
For whatever reason, I resisted going to Zinc in New Haven but when finally dragged there by Mrs. Kuhl, I was hooked by the inventiveness of the vaguely Asian menu incorporating New England produce: Vermont cheeses, Maine scallops, Connecticut vegetables and sausages. Also, the bar and its nightly specials demonstrate the value of a professional bartender (*cough, cough*) in elevating a certain reprobate’s beer-and-rum-soaked palate.
Also recommended: Lalibela in New Haven. Whenever friends and I plan to go for Ethiopian, someone has to ask, Are they still open? Yes, even though they refuse to believe in the Internet, Lalibela is as open and delicious as ever. Last time I checked.
It’s instructive that in Fairfield, the ritziest and most well-established French restaurant, La Colline Verte, went bust while the year-old bistro Cafe Lola thrives. I believe the biggest roadblock to greater acceptance of French cuisine is its association with expense (let me stress: not its association with fine dining, but its deserved perception of costliness). Cafe Lola is proof French food can be neither pretentious nor an anniversaries-birthdays-and-Mother’s-Day-only experience. The hot chocolate is real (not cocoa) and the chef (actually Belgian) puts a fried egg on my steak. That’s enough to get me in the door right there.
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Darien
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entropica
