Doggy Bag: Today's Odds and Ends

Can't we all just get along?: Sure, you've lived a life devoted to moral relativism, but can you handle taco relatvisim? At Bay Area Bites, Thy Tran fills up the Hyundai and heads to the reservation for Native American fry-bread tacos. Note to the haters: She ain't havin' none of your bull-honky purism. For the taco aficionados among you: Do not pepper me with hate comments about what constitutes a "real" taco. Instead, Tran finds bliss in discs of shallow-fried biscuit dough topped with nacho-like bric-a-brac. Hell, call it a galette if you want to -- looks good to us.

The China syndrome: Is it just us, or does Foodhoe's meticulously documented report on dinner at Masa's make the place seem -- um -- tacky? It's not the food. That looks predictably seared and glisten-y, with the odd swipe of sauce on the plate. It's the plates themselves that appear hotel hefty, starting with the freebie amuse of turnip greens soup served in a clunky cup. We know -- scale can be deceiving. What looks like an office lunchroom mug is probably a tad more petite. Still, the truffle flan on a ziggurat of crockery? Just not feelin' it.