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Once upon a time – at about age 16 – I worked as a bus boy and dish washer at a small dinner club. For some reason, I was bitten by the restaurant bug, and it changed forever the way I looked at food and food preparation. Very much like my good friend from Illinois, I went on to work as a pantry boy, saucier, sauté and grill man, sous-chef, chef, bar tender and bar manager. Pretty much all of the bases were covered, except that I never owned a place of my own. I did, however, learn a lot in the 25 or so years during which I gave my blood, sweat and tears to the business. As you may expect, many people contributed to what I know, but one man will always stand out in my memory: Joseph Insalago. I can never thank him enough.
Importantly, I’m just an ordinary guy with a taste for great food. I have had the good fortune to have dined at restaurants across much of the country, from Florida to Maine and Massachusetts, to Wisconsin and Minnesota, Seattle, and California. Some were very fine, and some not so fine. For a number of years in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, I was afforded the opportunity to critique restaurants around the Illinois Fox Valley at which I dined exchange for space to write reviews on www.OntheFox.com. The time has now come for me to share my experiences about restaurants in other places as well. Since many of them are outside the Fox Valley area and the cities of Geneva, St. Charles and Batavia, I needed a new place to share my thoughts with you.
The words on these pages are the result of my dining experiences. They are not embellished in any way; they are the truth. Rarely will anyone know when I will join them for dinner, therefore my experiences would be as yours would if you walked in off the street. I hope that they will help you to determine just where you dine this evening or this weekend. Bon appetite! —
In my career are twenty-five-plus years learning the restaurant business – from top to bottom – and six years in a Midwest university learning and polishing my writing skills. I have spent a good number of those years (just how many yet to be determined) on the road and authored well over 150 reviews & articles – and still counting.
I’ve traveled from Maine to Florida, from Boston to San Francisco, from Seattle to San Diego, and from Dallas to way north of Duluth, sampling and writing about food. And Yes, I love restaurants, I love preparing, writing about, and eating, food. I hope you enjoy reading what I have written!
