Absinthe is having a moment. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier—see our new August, 2008 listing for Best Absinthe Bar. Still, I’m just not sure how you’re supposed to take more than three sips of the stuff without ceasing to exist the next day. “Hangover” is far too mild a word to describe the way I felt for the 24 hours following the Full Moon Absinthe Party I attended with a friend at Cedd Moses’ new-ish private club, the Doheny. As the anise-flavored spirit wended its way through my veins, then installed itself permanently in my sinus cavities, I realized that getting hit by a truck might have actually been better easier this. Okay, I kid. But it was still pretty bad. ...

OK, so it’s two mornings after… Wednesday night was the first Whole Foods beer tasting dinner at the new Pasadena store, organized by none other than LA Mag contributor Randy Clemens.

Stopped by 8 oz—Govind Armstrong’s new burger bar—the other night around 10:30 for a late dinner. (Why is it that a party’s passed appetizers always seem to pass me by?). The place was still packed 10 minutes to close, but we squeezed into a table near the back. The transformation is pretty incredible. All traces of Table 8 are gone; in their place are white subway tile, an old-timey pressed tin ceiling, and a big central bar. Volume level: deafening. Service: what you’d expect from a beer, burgers, and fries place. Food: not messing around. Drinks: loved the Pacific Daylight Lager from the new Dale Bros. Brewery in Upland. ...

These things happen, but it never gets any easier. Exactly three weeks after our review of Lot 1 hit the newsstand (one of the few unequivocally positive write-ups we’ve felt inspired to do in a while), I hear chef Josef Centeno is leaving. Daily Dish reports that tomorrow will be his last meal service at the small, Echo Park café, and that he won’t be cooking anywhere anytime soon. My feelings are once again unequivocal: this sucks. It’s not often I get so quickly seduced by a restaurant. It was the spot that shouldn’t be, but was—a lauded chef putting out inspired, smart cuisine in a cramped little spot on a less-than-gentrified strip of Sunset Boulevard. That’s what made me like it and also why I’m not surprised to hear it’s gone. Not to write-off the restaurant completely, but I won’t count on them finding a comparable chef willing to work under such bare-bones conditions.

Patric Kuh said it well in his two-star review of the restaurant, out this month [after the jump]

You’d think I would have smelled this one from a mile away (I’m usually way up on the cheese tip), but somehow this slipped under my nose. The Globe and Mail reports that last week, Quebec legalized raw, unpasteurized cheeses aged fewer than 60 days, which up until now have been illegal throughout North America. (Though, if you know the right people…). ...