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I was absolutely gutted this morning to find out that my favorite restaurant in NYC, Takashi, is closing due to the economic hit from the COVID. They were a grill-your-own-meat place, but totally next level, with a truly daring selection of offal. There was a magnificent Korean-seasoned beef tartare, and this thing where you got a slice of raw beef topped with a piece of uni, the whole served on a shiso leaf to be eaten in a single decadent bite. The original owner passed away suddenly a few years back, and they were committed to keeping it going, but These Times proved to be too much. I'm really going to miss them. (Also I'd learned about them via Anthony Bourdain, so that makes this sting even more.)

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DC’s Little Red Fox, a cafe and small market. We’ve been going since it opened around 2013. My partner worked at the bookshop next door at the time, so we’d be in LRF multiple times daily for their rotating dinner selections or their sandwiches or just coffee and snacks. Their breakfast burritos are heavenly. Their hot sauce amazing. It’s the second cafe in my life where we’ve been known by name and friends with the owners and staff. We live a bit farther out now but would make it once a month or so. Since the pandemic began, we’ve done curbside pickup almost weekly to make sure they stay afloat.

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My wife and I are regulars at our local Hobee's, which is a very small chain of restaurants in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area with a sort of hippie take on diner food and utterly delicious coffee cake. There are lots of other places we like around here too (from an Afghan restaurant called Kabul that does amazingly good lamb, to a little hole-in-the-wall Indian place called Biryani & Kababs that we only discovered by walking past it and smelling the food), but Hobee's is the one we're at pretty much every weekend.

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It is not necessarily my MOST beloved restaurant, but it is a beloved one, and one that is particularly close to my heart today as its founder/owner passed away this morning. Hecky's Barbecue in Evanston, IL, is THE place to go if you want the best BBQ ribs, chicken, or anything else in the Chicago area. The smell of the sauce extended along a 2-block radius, and I have so many childhood memories of biking past it and wishing I could just stop in for a quick bit. When my mom was too sick to cook Thanksgiving this year we ordered a whole smoked duck from them and it was incredible, I am never going back to turkey again. Hecky Powell did so much for the community and gave back so much: served on the school board, ran programs for youths in the city, started at least two foundations that I know of. I wish I could be eating barbecue in his honor tonight.

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My very fav is a grab-n-go joint in Covent Garden called Koshari Street. Hands-down the best koshari I've ever had. When I lived in Surrey years ago it became ritual that I'd go by every time I was in London and take it back to Waterloo to wait for my train home. The staff was always so friendly and welcoming and it was so appreciated since I was so isolated there. I was lucky enough to be back in London last year and I made sure to stop in on my one free day. It was like going home.

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My favourite restaurant in Montreal is a Japanese place called Kazu. They serve various traditional FRESH Japanese foods, fish, ramen, and tea-flavoured ice creams. There is always a line-up to get in. The staff serve you quickly and try to get you out quickly to make room for more customers--although I haven't yet been to their new location, so it's possible they do that less. There's a bar you can sit and watch the cooks do their thing as you eat. Sometimes, if I need to treat myself after work, I'll sit there at the bar and have lunch. I miss it!

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I'm not really a favorites person, but the one restaurant I keep anxiously checking on is the Corner Bistro in Greenwich Village, because I can't really imagine life in New York without it, even though it hasn't been my neighborhood burger joint for 20 years. (I'm relieved to see that they've got three locations, they're doing takeout from one of them, and they're committed to reopening all of them as soon as they can.)

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I can't ever do favorites, I'm incapable of picking just one. But the one that I've probably missed the most since COVID shut everything down is Blue Door Pub. My partner and I had been trekking across town to one of their locations on the regular, then they opened one three blocks from our condo, and it became a pretty regular haunt. Sometimes you don't want to cook, you don't want to think too hard about the menu, you just want a jucy lucy (burger stuffed with cheese for the non-minnesotans) and a beer. Blue Door was just a few minutes walk away. Sadly our location hasn't even opened for takeout, and the food doesn't travel well. At some point we'll go to a location that IS open, and eat our burgers in a nearby park, but it won't be the same. I just hope they're able to reopen when the time comes.

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We became regulars at Monk's Cafe in Philly, originally because they have an amazing selection of beer but then because they had this amaaazing duck salad with raspberry vinaigrette and candied walnuts, and their vegan dishes were interesting and unique so there was always an option if I needed a veg-only meal. Plus they were all so so friendly, and cheered for me when I got my new job. :) They've been doing curbside pickup that includes the duck salad, but we haven't indulged yet because I'm high-risk and things aren't social-distanced enough here for us to be comfortable about it. We keep doing gut-checks on it, though, because we want them to make it through this!

In the meantime I'm dreaming of when I can go back to NYC and go to the Strip House (burlesque-themed steak house that does the wee-tiniest pours of wine if you want) or Blue Ribbon (the narrow one on Thompson that has the vertical-cut bone marrow instead of the horizontal-cut and the incredible Brussels sprouts).

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It's called The Pink Pony and it is on Mackinac Island. The first time Angie and I ate there was on our honeymoon. They have this incredible dish that's homemade kettle chips covered in pulled pork and gorgonzola. We try to go there around our anniversary every year, usually the week before Memorial Day. Last year, for the first time, we stayed at the Chippewa Hotel on the island - the hotel where the restaurant is located.

This year, we would have been there again to kick off an extra-long trip, but COVID-19 happened, and Angie's still only 18 months out from her transplant. We'll be home for a while, but we're going to try to recreate the dish tomorrow.

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Let's see; we got take out sushi from Cafe Sushi tonight, courtesy of my brother who works there during normal times (they're running a skeleton crew doing super-limited-menu take-out as of this week). For a restaurant a five minute walk away, we don't go as much as we'd like, but we're friends with the owners through my brother, and we're glad to see them making food again.

Probably our favorite restaurant - and the one we'll miss the most when we move - is Alden and Harlow, where we got married in 2016. Why get married at a restaurant? We wanted really good food, and when we met with them, they seemed like they'd have fun making our wedding happen. They did, we had a blast, and we go back whenever we want a treat / celebrate something.

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Two for me: one far distant, one long gone. The first is Ajax Diner on the square in Oxford, MS. Terrible town full of amazing food, and Ajax is the best of the best. Collard greens, fried catfish, field peas, red beans and rice, cornbread--all the foods I grew up with, pushed to their Platonic ideal forms. The second is--was--Miki's Japanese Restaurant in Saratoga Springs, NY. I've chased their yakisoba in many a dream during the long, cold years since they closed their doors.

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There are two.

The true, original source of Nashville hot chicken is Prince's Hot Chicken. Since the fire took out its original location, it carries on in a small strip mall near my best friend's house. Nashville hot chicken is home. Spicy, fiery, with mac and cheese and a big drink on the side to cut the heat. Chess pie for afters, beer for those who like it. Black foodways by Black people who have been often copied but never matched. Classic Black hits on the stereo. Always busy. Always the best.

In Memphis there is a fancy small plates spot called Flight. I don't ordinarily care much about fine dining or gimmicks like small plates, except that the food here is so amazing I dream about it. They do a chicken and waffles with mushrooms and savory gravy that is good enough to make me weep. I go there with one of my best friends as a special treat when I'm in Memphis and watch downtown and remember law school when I was always on the trolley line. We sit on the patio, usually, and always get dessert.

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Ugh. This question is hard. I have a lot of potential answers and nothing that stands out... Let's see, there's The Elk in the Woods (closed now), used to be on Camden Passage in Angel. It was where my sister and I usually went for birthdays/special occasions. A little out of the way, a little odd. Super fond memories.

Then there's two in Tokyo. Cicada's a pan-Mediterranean restaurant (a bit like Ottolenghi's restaurants, if you're familiar). Ridiculously good sangria (a phrase I have never uttered before). It's where we went as a family because my sister is vegetarian, and it was much easier for her than most Japanese restaurants. (The common theme so far: places I went with my family a lot). The other one's a sushi bar that I can't actually remember the name of, but it's where I learnt to like sushi & where I had the best sake I've ever had, so it has probably done more for my culinary development than any other restaurant.

And then of course there's at least two or three cute, casual restaurants for every place I've ever lived... Damn. This was a tough question. I'm finding that restaurants really build my memories of a place. Now I feel nostalgic for London and Ljubljana and Canberra and Tokyo. :D/:(

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