What do you want in a restaurant?
Good food? Of course.
Wood-fired cooking? Tell me more.
Decent price? That would be nice.
Inviting atmosphere? That helps.
Top-drawer entertainment? Ooh.
A great view. Yeah, I’d like that.
If you've lived in the Valley long enough to care about how you pronounce Spanish, you'll probably try to say, "Kay-sa-dee-ya Go-ree-ya."
Wrong.
It's "Kay-sa-dill-a Go-rill-a."
Menus are important to restaurants and customers. They tell you what to expect. They are the advertisements of coming attractions for your plate. But…are they necessary?
Imagine walking into a spacious room where delectable dishes are laid before you, fresh and hot, ready for your repast. That is the lure of the buffet, and one has recently opened in Sanger.
Restaurants are risky businesses. They cost a lot to start, it’s hard to keep them going, and they can disappear overnight.
For decades in Sanger, Tea Garden was “that Chinese restaurant on 10th Street.” It’s gone. In its place at 1335 10th Street is Sun China. Gone are the boxing pictures of Muhammed Ali in the ring.
Sometimes, it’s new. Sometimes, it’s been there a while, and you just haven’t had a good reason to go there. Sometimes, you never noticed it, before, and you wonder if it popped up overnight, and will magically disappear tomorrow. I tried some of those, lately. Here’s what happened.
Tamales—friendly little bundles of cornmeal and good stuff, wrapped and steamed in corn husks. Yummy stuff, and that is the subject of this Great Food Search. I go out to restaurants and other food venues, reporting what is best and what’s the rest.
If I had wings to fly…Better yet, if I had wings to eat. Hot wings, cold wings, buffalo wings…Who knew the arms of a chicken would become so popular?
Baseball, fairs, barbecues…Homes of the Hot Dog.
One of the great American comfort foods, I loved those frankfurters and wieners nestled in their buns, squiggles of mustard and ketchup making racing stripes along the meat. Today, the Great Food Search seeks hot dogs in the wilds of…Fresno?
Parts of the Castillo family have been feeding Fresnans for decades, and one section of the clan is dishing it up at Castillo’s Mexican Restaurant in the Tower District, 568 E. Olive Ave.
It used to be that cupcakes were made by mom’s for class parties or mass-produced by the Hostess Company. Now, the cupcake has become a specialty niche, with shops specializing in the single-serving-size treats. This month, The Great Food Search has risked life and digestion to bring you samples of the Valley’s variety of micro-cakes.
