Hungry Travelers - Page 43 of 82 - Bringing the tastes of travel back home

Breaking bread over bourbon with Michael Veach

Posted on November 3, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

While we were in Louisville, we met historian Michael R. Veach for dinner one night at Decca (812 E. Market St., 502-749-8128, deccarestaurant.com). It was a felicitous convergence of Kentucky food and spirits. Veach, pictured above, is the author of Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage (University Press of Kentucky, $24.95). And under chef Annie Pettry, the farm-to-table restaurant is one of the city's best. Veach absorbed bourbon history as archivist for United Distillers and later for the Filson Historical Society. He has also worked closely with the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History in Bardstown, Kentucky. While at United Distillers, he sharpened his palate by joining the quality control sampling of barrels in the warehouse. “We did ten a day,” he recalled, describing what...Read More

Evan Williams stakes claim to bourbon history

Posted on November 1, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

When Heaven Hill Distillery opened the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience (528 West Main St., Louisville, 502-272-2611, evanwilliams.com/visit.php) in 2013, it marked the first new bourbon distillery in downtown Louisville since the late 19th century. The brand is named for the man said to be Kentucky's first licensed commercial distiller, Evan Williams. Some folks dispute that, pointing to Elijah Craig. What is known is that Williams erected a still on a spot across Main Street in 1783 and began making corn whiskey that he shipped downriver in oak barrels. Other distillers soon followed suit and by 1800 the street was known as Whiskey Row. Everyone on the street was making, selling, or shipping bourbon. The Evan Williams Bourbon Experience is a delightful blend of low-tech history...Read More

Bon appétit, y’all! (At the English Grill)

Posted on October 30, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

Louisville certainly has some nice new hotels, but for old-city ambience and sheer Southern comfort it's hard to beat the Brown Hotel (335 West Broadway, Louisville, 502-583-1234, brownhotel.com). A bastion of hospitality since 1923, it's a pillar of the New Old South. Its English Renaissance-inspired architecture has a polite reserve that reflects Louisville's role as the epicenter of bourbon and thoroughbred racing. If we were true barflies, it would be hard to pry us out of the Brown's elegant sepia-toned lobby bar. The room opens at 3 p.m. and by late afternoon it begins to fill with Louisville's business elite. As befits one of the city's finest and most storied bars, it even has a bourbon steward. On our last stay, it was Troy Ritchie,...Read More

Tastes from two banks of the mighty Ohio

Posted on October 27, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

Long-time readers of HungryTravelers already know that we have a soft spot for the state of Kentucky. (David was born there and Pat's a Kentucky Colonel.) On our recent visit to Louisville, though, we ventured across the Ohio River to explore the newfound hipster cachet of the southern Indiana communities that go by the catchy rubric of SoIN—as in SoIN to food, SoIN to you, SoIN to music, and so on. It was a tasty journey. Sorry, folks: some history Geography is destiny. The Falls of the Ohio made Louisville possible—and necessary. The 26-foot drop in the Ohio River meant river traffic from the east had to unload at Louisville. Goods were then transported overland and reloaded downriver to make the journey to Cairo, Illinois,...Read More

Crème de la crème ignites apple crisp

Posted on October 25, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat

On my first visit to London many years ago, I ordered a bowl of apple crumble for dessert in a casual eatery catering to students. It was so good that I went back the next night for another serving. I wanted to figure out why the dish seemed so much better than the very similar apple crisp that I enjoyed every autumn at home in New England. I finally decided that the difference wasn't the apple variety or the recipe. It was the custard that topped each serving. Thick, silky, and redolent of vanilla, the delicious custard just seemed so much more elegant than my usual scoop of vanilla ice cream. Even the custard's more formal name—crème anglaise—lent a certain sophistication to a homey dessert....Read More

1865 wines push Chilean boundaries

Posted on October 21, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

As the planet's temperature rises, wine regions creep into zones once considered inhospitable for Vitis vinifera. Chile is no exception. Matias Cruzat, the young winemaker for Viña San Pedro's 1865 brand (sanpedro.cl/en/1865-single-vineyard), casts the newer cold-climate vineyards as “seeking Burgundy in Chile.” To his credit, Cruzat isn't imitating the Burgundians. But he has steered the 1865 wines toward a balance between old and new world styles. Bargain-priced in the $12-$18 range, these are nonetheless premium wines. (Viña San Pedro's entry-level wines sell under the GatoNegro label.) Cruzat's reference to Burgundy refers to the newest 1865 single-vineyard wines: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Elqui Valley. “It is really the southern end of the Atacama Desert,” he points out. The region has grown grapes since the...Read More

As frost looms, fried green tomatoes beckon

Posted on October 16, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

Jeffersonville, Indiana, is a fascinating little town with a deep history and a lot of good eats. We will soon be featuring several spots there in upcoming posts about our visit to Louisville, Kentucky, and the towns across the Ohio River in Indiana. But right now we're looking at frost forecasts this week. So we're busy harvesting everything left in our garden. That includes a lot of tomatoes that haven't yet shown the first blush of ripening. Jeffersonville happens to be the home of Red Yeti Restaurant and Red Foot Brewing Company (256 Spring St., Jeffersonville; 812-288-5788, redyetijeff.com). We enjoyed a beer flight with a bountiful board of cheeses from five Indiana and Kentucky creameries and along with sausages and other charcuterie from Henpecked Farm...Read More

Relicatessen: heavenly products for earthly delights

Posted on October 1, 2017February 28, 2018 by Pat and David

Relicatessen in Barcelona solved a problem for us. When we're in Spain for any extended period, we enjoy seeking out the cookies, sweets, and other foodstuffs from the country's 38 monasteries and convents that make products for sale. Often that means placing money on a revolving window (called a retorno) and getting a box of cookies, a jar of jam, or a pot of honey in return. But we're not always in a town with a cloistered order that makes products for sale. Thank god (so to speak) that Francisco Vera opened Relicatessen (www.relicatessen.com) three years ago in stall 988 in the Mercat Sant Josep, better known as La Boqueria. Located right on La Rambla in a Modernista-style iron frame shed, the Boqueria is one...Read More

Bassus Pinot Noir from Utiel Requena exudes elegance

Posted on September 29, 2017February 28, 2018 by Pat and David

Regular readers might recall our summer series on the wines of D.O. Utiel Requena. By and large, those wines represented intriguing expressions of the Bobal grape. The wine we're talking about today was an outlier. Made by Bodegas Hispano+Suizas (bodegashispanosuizas.com), Bassus is the only 100 percent Pinot Noir wine carrying the D.O. Utiel Requena imprimatur. As we tried to figure out what kind of food would go with it, we came across Alia Ristorante (395 Shirley St., Winthrop; 617-539-1600; aliaristorante.com) in Winthrop—a peninsular village east of Boston's Logan Airport. Best of all, Alia (as the chalkboard sign outside indicates) is a BYOB restaurant. Chef-owner Saeed Lahyani named the place for his hometown on the outskirts of Casablanca in Morocco. He has a pretty impressive culinary...Read More

Backhouse realizes Niagara’s great potential

Posted on September 25, 2017February 28, 2018 by Pat and David

Too bad the great French gourmand Christian Millau didn't live long enough to visit Ryan and Bev Campbell's Backhouse in Niagara-on-the-Lake (242 Mary St.; 289-272-1242; backhouse.xyz). In 1968, Millau revolutionized the way the French (and, given the era, the world) regarded haute cuisine when he announced that he had discovered “the best restaurant in the world” in the provincial town of Roanne. He might have said something similar had he discovered this grill-centric, hyper-locavore restaurant in a shopping strip at the edge of this Lake Ontario resort village. “Best restaurant in the world” is hyperbole, of course. But the comparison to Les Frères Troisgros is more than fair. Backhouse serves brilliant food far from the metropolitan restaurant scene. Asador Etxebarri in the small village of...Read More