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My top five reviewed restaurants of 2022 (and five more favorites, for good measure)
It has been a real pleasure to return to restaurant reviewing this year. I knew I missed it; what I didn’t realize was just how much. As we close out 2022 — a year that has been personally challenging for me on many levels — I just want to say a quick word of thanks…
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Review: Seafood and steak still rule at the newly reopened Twisted Cork Bistro
The Dungeness crab pot, one of the new dishes on the menu at the newly reopened Twisted Cork Bistro, is a contact sport, in the best possible way. I barely took any notes while I was eating it, and for good reason: I was eating crab, mussels, tiny roast potatoes, crisp-tender green beans and bread…
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Review: At Hacienda Real, home cooked Mexican and Tex-Mex hits the spot
Sometimes when I’m deciding whether or not to review a place, I turn to Google, simply to learn a little bit more. When I googled “Hacienda Real,” the Lincoln-based, locally owned chain of Mexican restaurants that opened its third location in Omaha in August, this line popped up inside the box devoted to recent Google…
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Review: At the tiny Khao Niao, Thai and Vietnamese classics are made with care
Whenever a friend says something along the lines of “have you tried the Thai place on 155th and Ruggles?” a little light flips on in my head. After two recent visits to that west Omaha hole-in-the-wall — which turns out to be called Khao Niao Thai-Lao Restaurant — I’m glad I have such friends. This…
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Review: West Omaha’s popular Crumbl Cookies are worth the hype
Sometimes a restaurant opening creates such an intense amount of buzz, it becomes unavoidable. In those rare cases, I simply have to check out whatever it is people are finding so irresistible. That’s what happened after I started hearing murmurs about a cookie place called Crumbl, which opened nine weeks ago in West Omaha. As…
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Berkshire Hathaway is back. Here’s where to eat.
It’s been a minute since the Berkshire Hathaway crowd made its way to Omaha, but thousands of shareholders are coming back this week. (I’ve already seen a few strolling around downtown, in fact.) A lot has changed since the last time I put together one of these lists — in fact, I didn’t even have…
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Omaha’s best steaks (and one in Lincoln) to eat during BRK weekend
This year marks the return of the in-person Berkshire Hathaway weekend and it also marks the 100-year anniversary of Johnny’s Cafe, the city’s most iconic steakhouse, at 4702 S. 27th St. It was a pleasure to write the definitive story on the Kawa family, who has owned and run Johnny’s for a century, earlier this…
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The 2022 heart-shaped pizza list
I wasn’t planning to make a heart shaped pizza list this year — a lot of other local outlets do their own version now — but then, while scrolling Instagram, as one does, I changed my mind. There’s three reasons, really: Wednesday is National Pizza Day, next week is Valentine’s Day, and I saw a…
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On the Edge of Essential: Six more spots worth checking out
There’s been no shortage of suggestions as to the spots I may have left off my list of 38 Essential Omaha restaurants. To that end, I decided to share six that made my first working list, but didn’t make the final cut. But that doesn’t mean I like them any less — or that they’re…
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Review: West Omaha’s Kinaara is serving some of the most singular Indian food in town
It is a rare experience these days to be truly surprised by a dish, at least for this writer. But Kinaara’s fish Pollichathu? I was, as the kids say, shook. I found several hits and only a few complaints during a recent visit to the tiny but extremely busy Kinaara, which opened just before the…
Neighborhood: West Omaha
Anything west of 90th that’s considered Omaha