We can't use profanity here, can we? It's hard not to when you're reading something where the writer has so nailed it, said it so well, that you resort to foul language. This week's articles on restaurants and dining were fiery, elegant and utterly enjoyable.

The critics bring us to an underground supper club, a Chicago steak joint that time forgot, and a super-cool Santa Monica re-do that merits a journalistic body slam. Touring all of these places, if only in a literary way, is enough to inspire even the hardest among us. It's tough to read some of this stuff and not pour yourself a stiff drink and start swearing and toasting no one in particular. Maybe we're just too easily excited, but good writing's good writing, no?

Secret Supper Club: Love (and Butter) Is All You Need

This week we are including The Boston Globe in our roundup because it has this great piece on what is reportedly this city's first underground restaurant -- or supper club, as people will call it. Love+Butter has no sign, no phone number; "It's in a private home, where on weekend nights you can secure a seat at a table for six by making an online reservation." This is a trend that started on the West Coast and has made its way east. There's no set price; there's a suggested donation for the five-course meal you get, and it's BYO as far as beverages go.

The secrecy and the mystery of the place is a huge draw, for sure, but listen to what they make for you: "Amuse-bouches ... punctuate the meal, such as an apple fritter with a crisp outside and springy inside, offered with a shot glass of apple essence and a palate-cleansing spoonful of salty-sweet cucumber jelly over preserved-lemon ice ... A fourth course, called 'Herbs & Spices' on the hand-printed menu, includes an unusual trio, beginning with a tablespoon of Greek yogurt topped with rosemary sugar, a buttery cookie with juniper icing, and a bay-leaf gelatin cube."

Under the El Since 1941

This is the one that wrecked us -- it's N.Y. Times writer Alex Witchel's ode to a Chicago steakhouse called Gene & Georgetti, slinging cow and cocktails (and its trademark "garbage salad") since 1941. Here, you can still see "children, lips stained pink by Shirley Temples. Men with coal black hair in coal black leather jackets. Women in beehive hairdos, no kidding." The fact that Chicago won't go smoke-free til Jan. 1, 2008 ups the throwback factor of the place.

Witchel, a New Yorker who loves the tradition and permanence of spots like this -- her city is a place where the old is heartlessly dumped in favor of the new and cute -- captures something many of us feel about places we've known since we were kids: "that’s what Chicago is for me, what Gene & Georgetti is, the grown-up realization of glamour mixed with the safety of childhood."

Avenue B Goes Fancypants, Again

We have watched as Manhattan's Alphabet City neighborhood has become progressively more posh. Hot Plates was asleep on Avenue B, actually, when the first plane hit the towers in 2001. It is a formerly scary 'hood that has turned quite upscale, but has managed to retain its scrappy, mangy feel in places.

That is why it is a crapshoot as to whether a place like Back Forty will survive. Read our man Peter Meehan's review and see what we mean about the cuisine. This is a street where good, simple pizza will sell really well even if it's a tad pricey, and where a solid margaritas-and-chips joint will print money so long as the surly service has an underbelly of polish.

Meehan says it better than we ever could: "young East Villagers will take their parents there ("Don’t worry, Dad, there’s a burger on the menu"); fancier folks slumming will continue to fill its tables ("Don’t worry, Bitsy, the chef cooked at that nice place in SoHo where we drank that bottle of rosé after you cleared out the Prada store"); and the neighborhood will have figured out if it’s a $10 or $20 burger place and adopt or reject it accordingly."

Petworth Pizza?

Speaking of 'za, we're curious about "the slowly changing face of upper Georgia Avenue NW" in the District of Columbia. It's a Salvadoran/pizza hybrid called Moroni & Brothers, and the guy who makes the pizza worked for eight years doing the same at D.C. fave Pizza Paradiso. The Salvadoran breakfasts draw a crowd, and then in the evening people come for the pies, which this Washington Post review says are "even better" than the owners' native cuisine. There is only a little bit going on in Petworth, despite the rise in real estate prices there, so this is a good sign.

When Cool Is Too Complicated

"Confusing," "lame," and "inept" are just a few of the tough words you'll find in S. Irene Virbila's review of Hidden, home of a very disappointing $250 pizza. Her review grills, fries and sautees this place on Main Street Santa Monica, which looks cool in the photo but is apparently no place for food people. Virbila's writing is a riot; it's line after line loaded with hilarious disdain. Hidden sounds like the sort-of pretty girl who is very put together, but once you start talking to her you'll see why she's alone.

Rotisserie? We'll Take Tandoori Instead

Tom Sietsema says this is the place to go for carry-out chicken. This is some big talk, at a time when it seems like people are nuts for building a quick dinner around a take-away roasted chicken from any of the grocery stores. Punjab Dhaba's chicken is "marinated in a yogurt spiked with herbs and mild spices ... with a trademark red hue and a perfect char." The sides don't sound bad either.

The Poodle Wears Prada

Our last item today is a case where the review and the food are on equal ground. Fiamma, recently redone with Fabio Trabocchi at the helm, has received a lot of attention; it has been mentioned here at least twice in recent months. Frank Bruni of the N.Y. Times, who gives it three stars, explains the central question about Fiamma: Is it really an Italian restaurant? "Fiamma is about as Italian as a poodle in a Prada scarf," Bruni says. The ingredients are Italian, but "It owes its classically indulgent soul to France."

What's yummier, the food or the words? Don't ask us -- we're sometimes biased.