Kournikova’s Cantina
Located in Brooklyn, New York’s heavily Russian Brighton Beach neighborhood, this is a must visit place for fans of Anna K. Our waitress, a blonde Anna lookalike (as were all the waitresses here) dressed in tennis attire, scribbled our orders on a menu attached to a tennis racket as we enjoyed the ambient sound of accordion music. While waiting for our food, we were mesmerized by the bobbing-breast Kournikova dolls on our table. After dinner (borscht and caviar were good, stuffed cabbage subpar), we were treated to vodka and a cabaret show featuring Martina Hingis and Anna wannabes singing duets.
Billy Cheese
This Detroit diner is owned by Pistons great Bill Lambeers, who doubles as host and chef. The cuisine is plain American: cheeseburgers, steaks, fries, and fried chicken. It’s not a bad place to go star searching: we were lucky enough to be eating at 3AM, when Lambeers’ old teammate Dennis Rodman and musician Kid Rock strolled in to fill up on food before beginning their nights out on the town. The diner features an old jukebox, a 50's style counter, and an interesting way to eat for free. Anyone who finds the chef’s (armpit) hair in their food eats for free – but don’t think you can rip the restaurant off. After we finished eating most of our food, we put some hair into the bun to get a free ride. When we alerted our situation to the Kitchen, Lambeers emerged from the kitchen, took the hair, sniffed it, and said it wasn’t his. Still, the $20 tab wasn’t bad.
McCarver’s Barbecue
A Memphis eatery owned by Tennessee native and baseball announcer Tim McCarver, this place gets a thumbs down from us. The food, mostly barbecued chicken and ribs, gets there quickly and the service is good, but the atmosphere sucks. Diners are forced to listen to audio recordings of McCarver telling them how to position their forks and use them to complement their knives. In the middle of dinner, one of us had his hand slapped for chewing with his mouth open. Later, a waiter chastised us for casting our vegetables aside. During dessert, diners were forced to listen to a recording of Bob Costas lamenting the state of baking and how he would change it if he was commissioner of the French Culinary Institute.
Tiger’s Soul Food
Don’t be fooled by the name of this Greenwich, CT dining room. Tiger Wood’s eatery has no soul. Its staff, a bunch of caddy wannabes dressed in golf shirts, carry themselves and talk like arrogant country club members. What’s worse, there’s no soul food. Instead, we were offered goose liver pate and hoer d’ouvres as appetizers and a main course choice of either Beef Wellington or Grilled Salmon. Overpriced and too stuffy for us.
Jerry Bailey’s Eating Derby
Jockey Jerry Bailey has taken a big gamble with the exotic cuisine at his new Louisville, KY restaurant. The decor has nice 30's style wood paneled walls and murals of Kentucky Derby winners past. Little does the uneducated diner know that he is about to eat a Derby winner! Bailey’s is a horsemeat-only eatery serving broiled, roasted, and fried former champions to the public. The menu lists an assortment of horses who have won one of the Triple Crown races in the past decade. One may order a steak, chops, or even ribs. For the diner not willing to spend much money, there is a separate menu of horses renowned only for accomplishments in small races. All we can say is that horsemeat isn’t for everyone.
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