Down-home dining sits at Beard's table
-- The James Beard Foundation is whetting appetites for its annual culinary awards gala June 8 in New York by announcing in advance the honorees in the America's Classics restaurants category. The five venerable down-home dining places that will receive tributes from gala co-hosts Kim Cattrall and Bobby Flay are:
•Bagaduce Lunch, Brooksville, Maine, a seafood shack overlooking Bagaduce Falls.
•Irma's Restaurant, Houston, a memorabilia-filled, breakfast/lunch eatery featuring Tex-Mex dishes.
•Maneki, Seattle, a century-old Japanese restaurant that's the lone survivor from the city's once-thriving Japantown area.
•Jumbo's, Miami, a seafood/soul food cafe that was one of the city's first restaurants to integrate, in 1966.
•Tufano's Vernon Park Tap, Chicago, a working-class bar with a kitchen that has been owned by the same family since the 1930s.