I've only been to the Greek Festival once, but nearly every year I think, we should go again! It's a great chance for the whole family to sample some Greek food and culture.

The annual festival is Sept. 11-13 at the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Cathedral at 208 19th St. South. It runs from 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m. and admission is free. Enjoy Greek dancing exhibitions while you eat Souvlakia, Greek Chicken, Pasticho, Gyros, Dolmathes, Greek salad, and baklava and other Greek pastries.

For more information, go to http://bhamgreekfestival.org/index.html.

Wine Spectator magazine has given its annual Award of Excellence to several Birmingham restaurants: Brock's, Fleming's, Hot and Hot Fish Club, Ocean, Ruth's Chris, Satterfield's, Standard Bistro, Veranda on Highand, and Village Tavern.

Congratulations to these restaurants. We've been to most of them and they're all good.

However, keep in mind that these awards are not the be-all and end-all of restaurant excellence. For one thing, unless you're one of the Grand Award winners, it has nothing to do with the food or service. The basic award level, which applies to all the Alabama restaurants in the list, is awarded for wine lists "that offer a well-chosen selection of quality producers, along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style. Typically, these lists offer at least 100 selections." The overall presentation and appearance of the list is also taken into consideration. To enter, restaurants must submit a copy of their current wine list and dinner menu, plus a cover letter that describes their wine program -- and a $250 entry fee.

In fact, this year, one enterprising wine critic even made up a fake restaurant and got an Award of Excellence for it.

It's for reasons like that that while Frank Stitt's restaurants (Highlands Bar & Grill, Bottega, Chez FonFon) have some of the best wine lists in town, they have opted not to participate in recent years. 

So again, congratulations to this year's winners, but just because a restaurant is not on the list, don't assume its wines are not just as good if not better.

I'd like to say thanks to all our site visitors who post their own experiences about restaurants, both good and bad -- they help make this web site unique and truly useful.

Just a reminder, please be specific about your experience. If you think the food was bad, WHY was it bad? Was it undercooked or burned? Flavorless or overly salty? Tough and chewy? And vice versa if you had a great experience -- what did you really like and why?

Also, please no name-calling or nasty remarks about other review posters or about restaurant owners. If you had a bad experience with a restaurant owner or manager, be specific about it.

Reviews that are too vague or we feel are unduly insulting of other people will be edited or removed. We do this to try to make the site a better tool for anyone wanting more information about Birmingham's local restaurants. Thanks again for your participation.

Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar (103 Summit Blvd.) will host the Fourth Annual Wine Dinner and Auction Sunday, Sept. 14 to benefit the UAB Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Children’s Hospital.
 
The evening event begins with wine and hors d’oeuvres at 6 p.m., followed by a seated dinner, program and live auction at 7 p.m. Ken Jackson will emcee the auction.
 
Reservations are preferred by Sept. 7. Individual tickets are $250 and tables of four, six and eight are available. For reservations and tickets, contact Emily Hornak at 205/939-5841 or emily.hornak@chsys.org.
 
Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar was launched in Newport Beach, Calif. in 1998 by successful restaurant industry veterans Paul Fleming and Bill Allen. Today there are 57 locations nationwide.
 
The Children’s Hospital of Alabama is the 10th busiest pediatric medical center in the United States. The UAB Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Children’s is the single largest provider of specialized pediatric services for all forms of cancer, leukemia, brain and spinal cord tumors, hemophilia and other bleeding disorders and sickle cell diseases. It is also home to the Lowder Bone Marrow Transplant program, the only pediatric bone marrow transplant program in the state. Ninety-five percent of the children in Alabama diagnosed with childhood cancer and other blood disorders are treated by the UAB Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Children’s Hospital.

We had a brief moment of panic Saturday night when our server at Little Savannah told us they had sold out of the herb-marinated wild boar tenderloin that Evan was salivating over. Thanks goodness chef Clif Holt had put one aside for us after his wife/partner Maureen told him we had expressed interest in it to her during a pre-dinner chat.

We've never had wild boar before (and I only got one taste!), but it was incredibly flavorful, yet not what I would call gamey. It bore very little resemblance to commercial pork. Where a domesticated pork tenderloin is light pink, fine-grained and tender, the boar was deep ruby red, coarser-grained and firmer, though not tough or chewy.

(Read more about wild boar at Chow.com)

My seared scallops, while perhaps not as adventurous, were divine, perfectly cooked and seasoned. They were served with braised pork cheeks, which was another new experience for us.

Here's what theotherwhitemeat.com has to say about pork cheeks: "As suggested by the name, pork cheek is a rich, highly flavorful cut that originates in the hog’s cheek. Because the cheek muscles do considerable chewing, the cut is typically rich in fat. Cheek also is not traditionally a tender cut, so it is best when prepared using gentle, moist-heat cooking methods such as braising and stewing." Braised as they were at Little Savannah, they fell apart into tender shreds that I ate with the wonderful grilled asparagus and some sauteed mushrooms that I could have eaten a whole plate of.

Little Savannah also has a cocktail menu that's one of our favorites, a nice mix of classics and creative originals, several using infused vodkas. I had a drink that was new, not on the list, a mojito-style drink with vodka, grapefruit juice and sage. We chuckled over the "Southern Baptist Martini" -- Absolut Mandarin, coconut and sprite.

Not everything was perfect; the red wine a bit too warm, a few dishes needed some salt, but those were fairly minor details.

We also enjoyed chatting with Clif and Maureen. (Hope they don't mind us borrowing the photo from their web site, where you'll find recent menus, cooking class schedules and a full bio.) Clif is a Cullman boy who traveled the world in the Navy; Maureen, a Birmingham native, turned to the restaurant world to finance her education but ended up staying. If you've ever found other restaurants too stuffy, chefs too full of themselves, Little Savannah is the antidote. The atmosphere is nice-casual and funky, with wine menu headings spelled out in a sort of Southern phonics ("Seer-aahhh", "Peeno-nwire"), and a logo that looks to be inspired by Harley-Davidson's.

Little Savannah is the type of neighborhood restaurant that makes us wish we lived in that neighborhood.

Years ago, before you could find anything you wanted on the Internet, we used to drool over catalogs from Salsa Express, with every sort of salsa and hot sauce imaginable. One year I even ordered hubby some habanero brittle for Christmas!

These days, we're finding some fantastic hot sauce locally. Earlier this year, we discovered African Rhino Peri-Peri Hot Sauce, made in Vestavia Hills.

Recently at the Pepper Place Market, we discovered another great local hot sauce: Not Yo Mama's, based in Homewood. Their original product is a pepper marmalade, made with red and yellow sweet bell peppers, cane sugar, cider vinegar, orange zest, mango, and serrano peppers. The slightly spicy, sweet and sour marmalade is great poured over cream cheese with crackers for a quick and easy appetizer, or as a glaze for pork or chicken or seafood. I'm not usually wild about the salsa-poured-over-cream-cheese trick, but this was really good, and I promptly bought a jar. There's also a hotter version made with habanero peppers. The marmalade was featured in Southern Living last December.

What I really loved, though, was the habanero hot sauce. Many habanero hot sauces have so much heat, it's hard to taste anything else. Not Yo Mama's is nice and hot, but also has a great flavor. We've had it on beans and rice, a spinach-and-goat-cheese quesadilla, eggs and more. 

Right now, the hot sauce is only available at the Not Yo Mama's booths at Pepper Place Market and the Ross Bridge farmers market. It should be available for retail before the end of the year. You can order the marmalades online and find it at stores, and their Bloody Mary mix will be on the site and in stores hopefully by the end of the month.

Enjoy a top-rated barbecue competition and live music this weekend at Sloss Furnaces at the fourth annual Stokin' the Fire BBQ and Music Festival.

The BBQ competition is KCBS (Kansas City Barbeque Society) professionally sanctioned and judged event. A maximum of 54 teams will compete for $20,000 in cash and prizes. Winners advance to national competition. Amateurs will be competing in a separate competition (all spot are full).

You also can buy barbecue from Nashville-based Governor's BBQ and Carolina Barbeque Company, both previous award winners, as well as shaved ice treats from Tropical Adventure and homemade ice cream and freshly roasted hot dogs.

Festival hours are Friday 4pm to 11pm and Saturday 11am to 11pm.

More info at their website: http://stokin.slossfurnaces.com/index.html

In a blog entry at Epicurious.com, Michael Y. Park writes about how the author of The Wine Trials, Robin Goldstein, set out to test Wine Spectator magazine's method of determining its awards of excellence. As part of research for an academic paper, he got the magazine to give its Award of Excellence to a restaurant that doesn't exist.

Read Goldstein's blog about the experiment here. As he notes, "While Osteria L’Intrepido may be the first to win an Award of Excellence for an imaginary restaurant, it’s unlikely that it was the first submission that didn’t accurately reflect the contents of a restaurant’s wine cellar. Restaurants, like all businesses, have strong incentives to embellish their images online."

We first became skeptical of Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence nearly 10 years ago, when a visit to a local restaurant that advertised its award was so disappointing that it prompted us to start Bhamdining.com. We talked about our own concerns about the awards in this blog entry a year ago, and in a follow-up where Pardis Stitt explained her and Frank's decision to stop applying for the awards for Highlands and Bottega, which arguably have some of the best wine lists in town, several years ago.

In short, there are no doubt many restaurants that deserve their Wine Spectator award, but some don't. I wouldn't let the award be your only determining factor in deciding whether an establishment is worth trying.

After many delays, it looks like o kafés! coffeehouse will finally open in the Martin Biscuit Building at Pepper Place this weekend, assuming they pass a final Health Department inspection.
 
Owners Kirk Summers and Erin Isbell roast their coffee locally and sell it online and through local stores such as V. Richard's. If you go to Pepper Place Saturday Market, you've seen their popular booth selling hot and iced coffees.

To celebrate the coffee shop opening, the owners are holding a concert in the coffeehouse Sunday night, Aug. 24 at 7 p.m. Sally Barris from Nashville (www.myspace.com/sallybarris) will be playing and some local musicians will be joining in. A $10 donation is requested to defray the singer’s expenses.
 
"If we are officially open and operational, we will have food and drinks available for purchase," Kirk writes. "Regardless, feel free to bring your own alcoholic beverages."
 
o kafés! coffeehouse
2901 2nd Ave S.
Suite 120
Birmingham, AL  35233
www.okafes.com

Mudtown Eat & Drink in the Cahaba Heights area of Vestavia Hills has a new wine list and updated draft beer selection.

On Aug. 28, Mudtown's wine list and food will be featured at a wine tasting at the Wine Cellar in Vestavia Hills; see more info at www.thewinecellar.info.

Mudtown also has Wine Down Wednesdays every Wednesday, with ½ all bottles; ½ house wine by the glass, and Thirsty Thursdays, with $2 for everything on tap all day. 

The new draft list includes Good People Brown, which is brewed here in Birmingham, and two Emerald Coast beers, which is locally owned and brewed in Melbourne, Fla. Georgia companies Sweetwater and Terrapin are also featured on the list (including a Terrapin rye ale, which sounds interesting), with Stella Artois, Blue Moon and for you less adventurous types, Miller Light, filling out the list.

The wine list is not large but looks great -- none of those same-old-same-old mass market names you often see on smaller lists, with mouth-watering descriptions. There's wine from California, Washington, Australia and Spain. For instance, theres an Oxford Landing Sauvignon Blanc from South Australia, with "classic aromas of freshly cut grass with flavors of passionfruit, zesty citrus and green tropical fruits," and an Esperanza from Spain with "lots of mineral, fresh herbs and melons on the nose followed by concentrated fruit flavors and great balance." On the red side, the description of the Parducci Merlot from Medocino is almost enough to make me try Merlot again: "smoky black cherry, tobacco, mint and toasty oak aromas with black cherry, plum, and rich earth and clove spice flavors."