When Raymond Jackson started interviewing for the chef position at Today & Always in Crosstown Arts, he started eating a vegan diet for the first time in his life.

Belle Tavern owner/bartender Chris Ferri has a nice list of cocktails at the ready, but when I walked in last week and saw cherries marinating, bottles of syrups on one counter, a nice collection of bitters on another and a wall full of spirits, I was moved to request an on-the-spot cocktail.

Sakura has been serving big fat sushi rolls for about 30 years, and we all love 'em. From the crunchies on top of Pickwick to the Big Mac extravagance of the Joyce roll, we can’t stay away. I’m there about once a week and I know that many of you are too, because we say hello.

This is a big week for some Memphis cooks as they head south for the 7th Annual World Food Championships in Orange Beach, Alabama. Several will make the trip, included two first-place winners from last year.

Downtown Dining Week ushers in its 10th year Monday with more than 50 restaurants, about triple the number it started with back in 2008. But all those extra choices will cost you: This year a three-course dinner is $20.18, up 10 cents from $20.08 when it started.

Global Cafe is one of the newest restaurants in Crosstown Concourse and it's different from any other place in Memphis.

Vintage901 guests will be journeying to Kenton for the organization’s first outing outside of the Memphis-area on Saturday, Nov. 3.

I took a peek inside the soon-to-open Elwood’s Shells last week and was surprised to see how much owner Tim Bednarski has accomplished in the last month or so.

It’s a boy meets boy story that started almost three decades ago and most of you know it by now. Two Italian kids, different schools, different families, but on Sundays, they were the same, gathered around the Sunday table with parents, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and the all-important grandmother.

Open Flame Bar and Grill opened last month in the former Rock ‘n Dough at Poplar and Highland, but don’t get too excited about the first part just yet. The bar is still there but so far the only alcohol sold is beer.

Business partners Chad Foreman and Kirk Cotham, the creative minds behind Pyro’s Fire Fresh Pizza, The Levee Coffee and Creamery, and Wolf River Brisket, have had a very busy year.

When the weather turns chilly, we turn to soup. When it gets chilly and wet, very little beats a bowl of Vietnamese beef stew, pho no. 20, at Vietnam Restaurant on Cleveland.

The drinks list at Char has always been divided by spirits and when the restaurant opened, this was simply the whiskey cocktail.

Mark Travis is a Facebook friend who posted a photo of a plate of barely-seared tuna a few weeks ago. He seared it frozen, he said, then sliced and refrigerated it until it thawed. It sounded too easy, so I contacted him for step-by-step instructions and, well, that was pretty much all there was to it.

Asian Eatery is the restaurant that started life as Tao Too and has changed its name a time or two. But it’s the same place with mostly the same menu it had when I ate my first bowl of Devil’s Nest Soup in 2010.

Relax. Elemento Neapolitan Pizza is open in Crosstown Concourse and despite more than a few hiccups, you should be able to get pizza today and every day except Sundays henceforth.

When the doors of Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen opened in 2008, the owners had a good idea where they’d be in 10 years but we diners did not. What we saw was a cozy Italian restaurant run by two baby-faced kids who surprised us by actually knowing what they were doing.

Nabbing a $10 deal at a Mexican restaurant for lunch doesn’t take much effort – go to just about any place in town. But Steak Monterrey at Las Margaritas in Cordova is heads above your typical tacos and tamales with rice and beans.

Nothing gets old at Hog & Hominy, where the cocktail menu changes at least seasonally and sometimes more often.

Rebecca Hartman almost threw her golden ticket away because she didn’t know what it was, then almost gave it away when she found out. But in the end, she kept it and on Thursday afternoon created a chocolate known as The Hartman at Phillip Ashley Chocolates in Cooper-Young.

I hate to push Christmas on you when Halloween isn't even here, but we all know I'm not the first to do that. And this is for a good reason.

Gary Williams can cook and Memphians know it: We’ve been eating his mashup menu of Creole, soul and vegan food for 10 years now. But there have been some ups and downs – including a complete shutdown – in that time.

Memphis Made Brewing is one of six breweries in Memphis and so happens to be the one in Cooper-Young, just across the street from where the ninth Cooper-Young Beerfest will be held Oct. 20.

Jonathan Cole is the founder of the blog placeatthetable.net and the Memphis Cooks Facebook group. The Midtown resident (and native Memphian) is a social worker by day and a home cook who likes to cook for sustenance and for fun (noodle around on his blog and check out his upscale adaptation of the bologna cake with Ranch dressing that periodically makes the Facebook rounds). We recently caught up with him to make a batch of soup.

Visitation for Jack Dyson is Friday, Oct. 12, 4-7 p.m. at Bethel AME Church, 2011 Alcy Road. The funeral will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, at Brown Baptist Church, 7200 Swinnea Road in Southaven, and burial is 1:15 p.m. Monday, Oct. 15, at Forest Hill Funeral Home and Memorial Park East, 2440 Whitten Road.