I know "pizza" is more of a category than a specific dish, and encompasses food as disparate as crappy takeout square-cut crackers with grease on them all the way to Chicago stuffed pies, but to me, if there is a pizza ideal, it must live in Naples, because Punch's version that they claim is pure Neapolitan is, to me, what pizza should be.

Sauce Pizza and Wine

I finally ate something at the Shops At West End.

For you non-locals, or even you locals who don't partake of the western border of Minneapolis / eastern border of St. Louis Park, the Shops At West End is a new, huge retail complex installed at 394 and 100, where the Costco and the new, frequently irritating, St. Louis Park Rainbow are.

We belatedly continue our backwards journey through Chicago cuisine with Sunday evening's trip to Chinatown, and Joy Yee's Noodle Shop.

Depending on how you look at things, there is, for the most part, only one Indian restaurant in Minneapolis. It has different owners, and goes by different names (Taste of India, India Palace, etc.) but it generally serves the same dishes in the same way. You've got your chicken, beef, or lamb options for your vindaloo, korma, and tikka masala. And it's decent food, but there's nothing particularly inspiring about it.

OK, I will give them this. Despite analogies that border on a Parrothead spring break kind of deal, City Pages' Hot Dish blog wasn't fucking kidding about the ceviche at La Sirena Gorda.

Pasta in a cream sauce with cajun chicken.

Before I go into further details, let me mention that I went to Jake's City Grille in Eden Prairie with my parents for my dad's birthday, and they like it, and it's not what I would call bad food. As such.

But there's something about a place like Jake's, a place that's still serving cajun chicken pasta in 2010, that makes me want to scream. A place that puts their name on things (Jakesauce, Jakewings, Jakefries) when, at least in the case of the Jakefries, clearly came frozen off the back of a truck.

As I've mentioned in the past, when I go out to eat, more often than not it's at a fast-casual place with counter service. Sure, I see the value in going to a nice restaurant, sitting down, and enjoying a nice, long meal with good service and pleasant conversation. But I don't always have the time or money for that, and neither do you. And so I find myself at a Chipotle, or a Panera, or a Noodles, or, from time to time, a Pei Wei.

I have made no secret of my love for the glorious taco. But it is not a boundless love. It has boundaries.

Case in point - I have been to Taqueria Los Ocampos, in the Midtown Global Market, at least a dozen times, and probably more. And I have never, ever, ever ordered a taco. Not even a gordita. And that is because they sell the huarachazo.

My plan was to do a short write-up of Tensuke Sushi, in the Baker Building, in the Minneapolis skyway. It's a place I used to eat at a lot before the economy went in the shitter, and I loved it. Simple rolls, of the usual fish-avocado-cucumber-spicy mayo variety, but fresh and well-made and inexpensive. And today, circumstances lined up so that I'd be going there for the first time in a long time. Only it wasn't Tensuke Sushi anymore. It was Sushi-Do.

We continue our review of the new burger places that opened up in Minneapolis in the past couple of months. As of last night, I have completed the trifecta, but you'll have to wait a bit for my thoughts on Smashburger, because like everyone else, I'm going to talk about Burger Jones.