click to enlarge Yelp, Heng. L

This is the kind of touch Symon has, combining simple and regional cuisine with higher levels of cooking, and at his flagship Lola – where he won his James Beard Best Chef Award – one of my favorite standout dishes was his take on an old Cleveland favorite, the pierogi. This doughy eastern European dumpling is a hearty staple in the region, but hardly considered gourmet fare, until Symon upscales it with lighter dough and a filling of beef cheek and wild mushrooms, slathered in a horseradish creme freche, and it is one of few such attempts to turn comfort foods gourmet that really works.

The nation's love affair with Michael Symon is well documented and apparently never ending, as it should be. And while we all already know that it's still nice to hear it. As year-end lists popped up during the last week, Forbes' contributor Larry Olmsted lined up his annual listings of his favorite restaurant dishes of 2015. Included there, amongst many notable locales and names, was Michael Symon and the beef cheek pierogi at Lola. Sure, it's a menu item that isn't new in any sense of the word, but it was new to Forbes and here's a snippet of what Olmsted had to say: