Grilled cheese: It's what's for dinner...at home.

​Since everybody and anybody has his/her/its own "day" these days, April 12 is the one chosen to honor the humble grilled cheese sandwich.

Most cheese sandwiches aren't something particularly worth celebrating, but grill one up and suddenly simplistic turns spectacular: The bread's buttered crust cracks open to reveal a soft, spongy side saturated with melted cheese. The filling doesn't even have to be sharp cheddar--hell, it even could be American. The process of heating cheese to a semi-liquid state even makes Velveeta palatable.

But while grilled cheese is certainly delicious, it's not something to order at a restaurant. Unless you are an out-of-options vegetarian or a religiously observant kosher-keeper, or a penny pincher in a situation where you feel socially obligated to order a meal, grilled cheese is a food to make at home.

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​How do you approach restaurant reservations? Do you go freestyle, sans reservation? Call ahead? Or do you use OpenTable? Almost 200 metro-area restaurants use OpenTable, the online restaurant reservation service. So something's obviously working, but there are some quirks to the system that have some local diners confused.

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I was on Mischke's show yesterday discussing this list of "9 Phrases to Ban from Restaurant Menus" from the Chicago Tribune.

--"Grilled to perfection"
--"World famous"
--"Kobe burger"
--"Shrimp Scampi"; "Eggplant alla melanzane"; "With au jus"
--"Garden Fresh"
--"Homemade [anything]"
--"Melt in your mouth"

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micklpickl/Flickr

We sort of got all excited and mini-inspired when we saw what we thought was a real live genuine artist ordering a bag full of burgers and taking it back to his "studio" to make art. And ok, yes, things did get a little fishy when we saw that said "artist" elected to take what seems like such an unusual concept -- burger grease art! -- to merely create a Mona Lisa rendition. But so what, it's ART we thought, and we suspended our disbelief in the name of ART. Then we noticed the "artist's" web address and thought "Hey, we'd like to know more about this artist. Maybe his other stuff is more edgy, cause it seems like he's kind of on to something. Maybe he knows Banksy," we thought. And maybe we're just super gullible, but seeing what "burger grease art" is really all about was really sort of crushing. And also a little embarrassing.

I've been having some less-than-stellar service experiences lately...First, there was the Great Soy Sauce Spill of 2009, when my server spilled a vast inky puddle all over our table, somehow without noticing, and then neglected to wipe it up after several return visits. Then there was the Information Gap Incident, in which the server was unable to identify a major component of a dish, even though that item was listed in the menu description. And finally, was the Takeout Travesty, in which the server told me the kitchen was "closed" for 20 minutes during the early part of regular dinner service hours with no further explaination or apology--and she said this as she carried plates of hot food out to other diners. Sigh.

It seemed appropriate, then, that I noticed the Strib ran the list of "129 Cardinal Sins" of service compiled by Le Bernardin's maître d', which was published last fall in Eric Ripert and Christine Muhlke's On the Line: Inside the World of Le Bernardin. Anything else you'd care to add?

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StormySleep/Flickr

People are all fuh-reaking about Barack Obama's "burger incident" last week. Those weighing in seem to fall in one of two camps: They're either 1) foaming at the mouth about just how elitist it was for him to have his burger without ketchup and to ask for Dijon on it instead (some are calling it "Dijon Derangement Syndrome") or 2) sneering about the opportunism stemming from the incident, which includes businesses capitalizing on it (which, c'mon, duh!), and hence "Barack Burgers!"

May I introduce a third camp? 3) Thank you, Obama. Finally. Ketchup is gross. It is merely a vehicle for sugar, plus it is weirdly slick and shiny. You can practically see your reflection in a pool of Heinz. That is not ok. Burgers with mere mustard (and all the other fixings, including tomatoes -- real, live tomatoes) are superior. When is everyone else going to realize this? Bulldog? Blue Door? I could see you doing a good Barack Burger! Can you will you? Capitalize away!

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that Minnesota needs more than $5.4 billion in the next twenty years to repair and maintain the state's water infrastructure. And it's probably no surprise that budget cuts have pushed public water further down the list of funding priorities.

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If I wanted a Jucy Lucy, breakfast all day, or chicken and ribs, I might just as well stay in Minneapolis. But the promise of authentic Filipino cuisine? Definitely worth crossing the river.

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Orin Optiglot/Flickr

I'm sorry, what? Did I just see a billboard encouraging me to eat a candy bar for breakfast? To, in fact, "enjoy my chewmute?" Yes, yes I did. Let me just put my Pepsi down for a second to consider this.

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crabchick/Flickr

A friend recently lamented the dearth of delivery options to get us Minnesotans through winter hibernation.

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