Refried Disaster

Stephanie of Minneapolis

Dear Stephanie,

La la la. I cannot hear you. La la la.

Sincerely,

Dara

Dear Dara,

I went to Chico's based on your review, and I loved it! It was the best burrito I've had in the Twin Cities!

Unfortunately, I went back last week and found the place under sudden new ownership! The chefs are gone, and the food is absolutely not the same. In fact, it's quite avoidable.

Virtually everyone coming into Chico's asked, "Where did they go?" But the new owners just kept repeating, "We don't know. We don't know. We don't know."

Dara, do you know if the chefs are relocating/reopening under another name? Please let me know. Thank you!

Dan of Minneapolis

Dear Dan,

What's that out the window? Is that a bird?

Or what?

Sincerely,

Dara

Dear Dara,

[insert 200 more of the same]

[Every vigilant citizen of the entire metro, growing increasingly angry]

Dear Everyone,

Fine! Fine already! Do you know what it does to me to contemplate the vanishing of the restaurant that will heretofore be known as The Good Chico's? Do you have any idea how many crappy, unpromising restaurants I went to before I found Chico's? Do you have any idea how many bouts of food poisoning I endured, how many wasted afternoons dumping plates of crud into yawning dumpsters, how many extra steps on the StairMaster endured for plates of refried beans that tasted like window caulk?

You, you might have liked The Good Chico's, but me? For me, the vanishing of Chico's represents a thousand levels of calculation that ultimately failed. Failed! The way an entire year's worth of Harvey Wallbangers have failed to erase the memory of that unfortunate incident in Karachi with the fan dancer and the locomotive. Failed!

Because every single week I sit here and try to do several things at once, not counting the fan dancer. I mean, I try to adhere to this rigorous, exhausting set of self-imposed criteria.

One, I try to review the prominent and important restaurants, good or bad. Except sometimes I skip the ones that are so predictably bad that visiting them would again result in all that blood in the drapery and being Medivacced to Happydale, which does terrible things to the health insurance premiums around here. Second, I try to find good things. Good things to eat, good stories to hear, good chefs to talk to. Because this is a harsh and forbidding land, and if I didn't, we'd all hack each other apart with sharpened soup ladles within a year--that much is clear. Then, I try to not to waste anybody's time: I'll write about something inconvenient to all you readers (whom I imagine all living somewhere where, if you could levitate six stories above your bedroom, you would see with the naked eye either the IDS Center or the state capitol) only if it's fantastic, and consistently so. Why would you care about a pretty-good place in the middle of nowhere? Why would you care about fantastic food that can be had in a repellent place, erratically? Of course, I try to write about only the places that I think are going to be around for a while. Because otherwise, why waste your time? Wouldn't you rather know about something you can use? And naturally, I never write negative reviews of little mom-and-pop shops in remote locations: Why would I warn you against doing something you'd never do anyway? (Don't chew on that fern over there! Don't cover your clothes with tapioca and bake them in a low oven overnight! Don't... Look, if I wanted to devote myself to dispensing patronizing bits of common sense, I'd go into public health.)