Malaysia is located so far from here most of my friends couldn’t point it out on a map. But lucky for us, Ohio just welcomed its first Malaysian restaurant right outside Cincinnati. In the belly of an old municipal building in Mason is the new restaurant Straits of Malacca.  

Here we sit at the breakfast table, in the year 20-freakin’-12, and we can’t get a special edition of Cap’n Crunch’s Halloween Crunch that actually turns the milk glow-in-the-dark green!  

Cooking for Martha Stewart has got to be a little like sharing your film project with Woody Allen, right? Surreal is the word Cincinnati chef and caterer Renee Schuler of Eat Well Celebrations and Feasts uses to describe her recent experience cooking for Martha, someone who set the bar for beautiful food when Schuler was growing up.  

“These are quality wines under $15 that taste expensive as hell,” said my neighbor and one of my go-to wine guys, Alfonse Mele, senior wine consultant at Dep’s Fine Wines in Covington. “They’re all unique. You could pour these in order for a great tasting, or pair them with just about any holiday meal and impress your guests.”  

There’s a certain wave of reassurance that washes over a person while in the presence of someone radiating with confidence and passion for his craft.  Chef Nathan Jolley — who operates his tiny restaurant, Burnell’s, out of the former Mayberry location on Vine Street — is such a man.
  

New and notable on the dining scene is the latest addition to the Washington Park/OTR/Gateway District — The Anchor (14th and Race, Over-the-Rhine). After a few days of serving family and friends to get in the groove, full-service operations started on Sept. 18.  

Hamilton Avenue in Northside is home to a slew of eclectic storefronts like Melt and Shake It Records, and, since April, Northsiders have enjoyed The Listing Loon as a place to swing by and load up on bottles of hand-selected microbrews by a couple of Cincinnati’s tenured bartenders.  

Chef Michael Shields opened BrewRiver GastroPub with local craft beer and thoughtfully paired cuisine in mind. You will find no Budweiser, Guinness or other popular (inter)national brands here, only a rotating list of his more than 50 hand-picked, locally brewed draughts, bottled and canned beers.  

In the 1880s, George Renninger created one of the most known pieces of Halloween candy ever invented, one that has endured over a century — candy corn. Considering it’s also one of the most maligned candy treats ever invented, how has it remained a fixture of autumn so long?
  

I’m more inclined to pop open a bottle from the experts, but, hey, I don’t have the White House staff on hand to fix what “ales” me. So I asked a home brewing friend, Matt Canale, a video game developer in L.A., to fill me in on his experience and give our readers some tips on how to get started.  

Shanghai Mama’s was closed for nine months following a fire last October. There was some despair among downtowners as the months dragged on. Call it the dark night of the soul. But Mama’s back, and I’m happy to report that she’s better than ever.  

Today, gourmet dining is wheeled around in carts or prepared to order in trucks. Local food vendor Jamie Williams jumped on the bandwagon and launched Cincy Bag Ladies in the spring of 2012 with one mission: Let people eat without plates.  

By 2006, phase one of the Gateway Quarter redevelopment plan was well underway. Crime quickly gave way to safer, brightly lit streets. Hints of a flourishing arts district soon took root. Emerging from “The Quarter’s” fresh renovation came its first new restaurant, Lavomatic Cafe, a name that pays homage to its predecessor, a laundromat.
  

Washington Park is without a doubt the jewel of this excellent summer in Cincinnati. And it’s drawing crowds — whether to its well-chosen events or just to enjoy its well-designed spaces. And crowds, we know, travel on their stomachs.
  

Lisa Kagen is an artist, a chef, a parent and an entrepreneur — and all of those identities factor heavily into the operation of her two Northside businesses: Melt Eclectic Deli and Picnic and Pantry, a market that serves healthy, sustainable groceries and prepared foods.