J. Kevin Wolfe

Behold the wonders of a dim sum palace.

A venerable downtown Italian joint makes comfort food you can’t refuse

In a world where you’re cashed out at your discount or grocery store by someone who went to The Walking Dead Customer Service Academy, Sports Page seems to have found the last real people who serve with a smile that’s genuine.

Why is an Indian lunch buffet so enticing? Is it the smugness we feel when going back to work reeking of curry so that everyone knows where we ate—and wishes they came with us?

The truth is: for an ethnic restaurant to survive it must adapt to the expectations of the locale.

If you call Myra Griffin’s little eatery a health food restaurant, you wouldn’t be doing it an injustice. The idea of healthy eating has evolved into something very different—and more manufactured—since the ’70s when Myra’s Dionysus opened. But this place remains wonderfully stuck in a holistically wholesome era.

Last September this North Bend dive got a complete overhaul, courtesy of Restaurant: Impossible.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to be blunt. I can’t sugar-coat it: At Demetrio’s IV, it’s all about the portions. Everybody walks out with a doggie bag.

Pizza and beer. When you’re in college, isn’t that pretty much all you need to get by? Other than a 2.1 GPA? For NKU students, Raniero’s is pizza and beer. Just off campus (and U.S. Route 27), Raniero’s has firmly established itself as the place a student with a nearly-maxed credit card can get a crispy slice and a brew.

In this chili kind of town, there are still brutal arguments over the origin of Cincinnati chili, since neither the concept of chili nor coneys originated here. But everyone agrees the first Cincinnati chili parlor had an Empress sign dangling above it.