You can get almost everything—falafel hoagies, Jamaican goat, pork belly with medicinal herbs (and even an assist from Hello Kitty Land)—without a lot of hype.

Exploring an edible continuum, from dried eel to catfish chips.

Tennessee tinkers with its liquor laws, to good and ill effect.

One Ring Zero sets recipes to music.

Learning to love New Orleans’s most beloved dowager.

A tale of kitchen downshifting, wherein a gratin begets a casserole.

Chasing a pastrami sandwich with a can of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda may be a time-honored New York tradition, but down South Eudora Welty drank her celery, too.

(OXFORD) - The Snackbar vibe is straightforward: shellacked wainscoting accessorized by taxidermied deer heads; louvered blinds to filter the parking lot light; raw bar in front; drinking bar in back.

Wherein the author praises scum suckers, bottom dwellers, and other ne’er-do-wells of the deep.

(CHAPEL HILL) - This birdhouse of a space is on Franklin Street, the local restaurant row, cater-corner from Lantern, Andrea Reusing’s Asian hothouse, and just down the street from Elaine’s on Franklin, where Brett Jennings mans the...