Cheng, whose family immigrated to the New York area in 1982 from the Fujian province in southeast China, has been in the restaurant business for most of his life. He’s seen what works in New York, the Midwest and China. In this country, at least, flux is the state of existence.

A lunch buffet is new to the location and the menu has expanded, too. Valdez says customers have gone crazy over her caldo, a stew and soup hybrid loaded with beef and vegetables. Menudo is new, too, and pan dulce (Mexican sweet bread) will be coming soon.

Reborn in comfortable new digs on Saginaw Road near Creyts Road, Dimitri’s is now run by Stamiti Stathopoulos, son of the restaurant’s namesake. The decision to reopen was not easy (or cheap), and a name change was considered. But in the end, Stathopoulos stuck with a proven commodity.

The annual spring media event sponsored April 16 by the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association provided ample support for the buzz about the 2010 wine vintage in northwest Michigan.

Retirement is a dirty word to Valentine Korrey. The 88-year-old drives himself to work at 2 a.m. five mornings a week, to the same grill he’s been cracking eggs on, to the same stainless steel counters he’s been making Coney sauce on, to the same restaurant he’s owned for over five decades.

Xiao (pronounced shee-ow) China Grille & Lounge had a soft opening earlier this month, but it plans to roll out a grand opening event the first week of May. In his location at 3415 E. Saginaw Street, just beyond Coolidge Road, Xiao owner Frank Cheng has created an Chinese and American fusion bistro with a full bar and contemporary style.

While some diners are happy their meal is simply edible, Thai Princess should please a higher standard gourmand with a kitchen that combines years of experience developing flavors in the toughest of restaurateur proving grounds ' New York City ' with an artist’s eye for aesthetic presentation.

The recent wine-tasting fundraiser at the Kellogg Center, benefiting the Michigan State University Museum, provided a cornucopia of the wines of the world ' or the world of wine. But where to start when confronted with more than 200 versions of tasty juice?.

Mama’s Kitchen may offer breakfast bacon that could be sold by the gram on street corners and hamburgers loaded enough to require a third jaw hinge, but it just doesn’t feel right to call the little diner that bookends the north side of the Chandler Crossings strip mall a greasy spoon.

A mound rubble ' broken concrete cuboids with tendrils of amputated rebar ' rests on the desolate lot formerly occupied by a General Motors plant on Verlinden Avenue near Harry’s Place, an old-time bar and restaurant, rebuilding its image in a post-industrial neighborhood.