We’re beginning to feel a little smug around here at Chowder Central. For the second time this month, a Boston eatery has been named “best in the country” (that’s after the New York Times’s Frank Bruni named O Ya the best new American restaurant). Hah!

In this case it’s Speed’s Hot Dogs, the Newmarket Square stand where franks are marinated in apple cider and brown sugar, grilled over charcoal, then topped with homemade condiments. Raymond Sokolov of the Wall Street Journal calls them “the dog[s] against which I now measure all others.” (more…)

There was a time when I considered driving tours little more than field trips for grownups—who, presumably, should have worthier, more-grownup things to do. That outlook was bred from my growing up in the heart of Kentucky’s bluegrass country: Blessed with both legendary horse farms and notorious bourbon distilleries, its back roads play host to an ant-line of tourists who keep slowing down to either ogle a few million dollars on the hoof or simply let the boozy vapors of the car’s occupants dissipate a bit, or both. It’s hard to grasp the allure of such pilgrimages when you’ve been jaded by grade-school outings to Wild Turkey and Maker’s Mark. (Possibly the racetrack, too.)

As an adult, though, and especially as an adult living in New England, I find I’m as big a sucker as anyone for these things. Pub crawls, wine loops, diner treks, even (gah!) foliage tours—I’ve done them all. And now along comes The Vermont Cheese Book by Ellen Ecker Ogden (The Countryman Press, $19.95), and I discover a whole new reason to get out the map and gas up the car. (more…)

Keeping track of Boston’s dining scene can feel almost as daunting as completing the Eagle Deli’s Challenge Burger. Chowder scours the internet for the latest news on what’s coming, what’s closing, and who’s on Iron Chef.

Closing
The North End’s La Brace has closed, according to Boston Restaurant Talk. The site also reports that Coolidge Corner sushi joint Takeshima shut its doors and reopened as Blue Ocean, which has a similar menu. Thank God another sushi place replaced Takeshima. That way Brookline will continue to be well on its way to 17th sushi restaurant.

Chain dining aficionados will be sad to learn that the Chili’s in the Copley Place Mall has gone to that great fajita skillet in the sky. Mall representatives wouldn’t tell Boston Menu Pages what will fill the vacancy, but there’s always hope for another Margarita’s. (more…)

Every March, the James Beard Foundation announces its list of nominees for Beard Awards: the foodie equivalent of the Oscars. This prestigious list honors the country’s top restaurants, chefs, journalists, authors, restaurant designers, sommeliers…even websites. The foundation then hosts a big gala in May or June to announce the winners, and everyone has a big party and compares medals and the cycle begins anew.

We send out our hearty congratulations to this year’s “Best Chef, Northeast” nominees:

Patrick Connoly, Radius

Rob Evans, Hugo’s (Portland)

Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier, Arrows (Ogunquit)

Michael Leviton, Lumiere

Marc Orfally, Pigalle

These are all worthy contenders, and they make New England a great place to live and eat.

So why do we yawn?

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Toro, Ken Oringer’s boutique tapas restaurant in the South End has some of the best ambiance in the city: chic but cozy, with a quirky fake bull’s head hanging above a wood-burning fireplace. Some of the food leans more nuevo americano than authentically español (case in point: the garlic shrimp are, a traditionally robust dish, is made overly delicate with the addition of saffron). But any quibbles I have were recently swept aside with one choice tapa. (more…)

There’s a new book for food lovers in stores this month, and one well worth finding. Rebecca Gray’s American Artisanal (Rizzoli, $26.95, 258 pages) is a modest-looking thing: a small hardback with a dun-colored, matte cover of recycled paper, ornamented with a woodcut-style image of an apple. Like the food it honors, it’s light on packaging and fillers, and big on satisfying content.

Each well-reported, engagingly told chapter profiles one of the country’s best food artisans, punctuated by a recipe or two inspired by that maker’s work. No surprise that New England—where you seemingly can’t swing a wheel of hand-ladled, ash-ripened goat cheese without hitting a regional food artist—is amply represented here. (more…)

Our heartiest congratulations to Tim and Nancy Cushman, whose O Ya restaurant (winner of 2007 Best of Boston awards for “Best New Restaurant” and “Best Sushi“), won the coveted top spot on New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni’s list of the ten best new restaurants in the country.

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At Chowder, even we find ourselves in food ruts from time to time. And my rut usually involves the Whole Foods salad bar. What a surprise, then, to be greeted by a new, expanded spread at my favorite overpriced food purveyor today. Huzzah!

Instead of spending 10 bucks on my usual spinach salad, I could spend it on two kinds of chickpea salad! Couscous with mint! And several types of similar-looking Indian food!

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Persephone, the recently opened Michael Leviton restaurant in Fort Point Channel, puts its eco-friendly values at the center of its sales pitch. “None of our fish is from further away than the Chesapeake Bay,” the restaurant’s website reads, “and our beef, lamb, and veal all come from New England or Southern Canadian farms.”

I love to see this kind of commitment in a restaurant. It takes time and effort to piece together a local network of distributors, rather than simply ordering from a mega-distributor. And there are so many good reasons to do it: the quality and freshness of the product, the opportunity to support local farmers, the reduced environmental impact. Isn’t it better for the environment, after all, to buy ingredients from nearby farms, given that the makings of the average American dinner must be trucked about 1500 miles from their source to your table, according to a 2001 Iowa State University study?

Well, it’s not quite so simple, as an interesting story on CNN.com today points out.

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By now, you’ve probably caught on to Chowder’s undying passion for all things sweet. Chocolate shop openings, cake batter ice cream, the ultimate vegan bakery treats—if it involves anything containing even a drop of vanilla extract, a dash of cocoa powder, or a dollop of whipped cream, we’re there faster than you can say “sugar rush.” And did we mention we’re pretty good in the kitchen, too?

But there is-for me at least-one confectionery road left untraveled until very recently: gooey homemade cinnamon buns, baked on a lazy late-winter Sunday morning. (more…)