Frank Bruni goes coast-to-coast to check out 15 promising new restaurants, but… :

I bypassed Portland — where, for example, Le Pigeon might have lured me — because readers were introduced to new restaurants there in an article by Eric Asimov last fall.

While I appreciate that this won’t be providing more fodder for the “Portland is overrated” camp, it is disappointing not to see how Bruni ranks Portland restaurants against other national greats. Could’ve been edifying/humbling.

Read the article anyway, though.

“Thank you for calling Ubuntu,” a woman chirped, pausing for a comma before adding, “restaurant and yoga studio.”

And yoga studio?

Somehow that hadn’t sunk in before. And the way she said it, putting the lotus on a par with the lettuce, filled me with skepticism about this promised vegetarian Eden in the Edenic Napa Valley.

Her response when I vowed to hustle there from the San Francisco airport as quickly as possible didn’t help.

“Please,” she intoned in the kind of ultrasoothing voice that only a person with perfectly aligned chakras and the entire Deepak Chopra library can summon. “Drive safely.”

What kind of Kumbaya cuisine was I in for?

Several fistfuls of lavender-dusted almonds, some truffle-flecked polenta and an avocado pudding later, I had my answer: inspired, exhilarating cooking of a caliber I couldn’t have imagined.

I like that: He got his digs in, but didn’t let his preconceptions get in the way of a good meal. (Reminds me of taking my dad to Nutshell. We went from, “Where’s the protein?” to “Can I have another bite of your yam-stuffed orange?”)