Great tastes rule Hawaii Food & Wine Festival

Posted on by Pat
As the sun set over the water and the air began to cool, Mayor Kirk Caldwell toasted the fifth anniversary of the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival. “We started with spam and sausage and took it to a unique Pacific Hawaiian cuisine,” he told the crowd assembled on the outdoor decks of the Modern hotel in Honolulu (above). “We're chop suey,” the mayor said with a laugh. “We make great looking people and great food. We are proud of who we are as a people and we are proud of our food.” Started as a modest three-day event on Oahu, the festival (scheduled for October 14-30, 2016) now features events on the islands of Maui, Hawaii, and Oahu, with the bulk of activities in Honolulu....Read More

Sherry takes back the bar

Posted on by Pat and David
When we were in Madrid in October, we were happy to see that the Tío Pepe neon symbol darkened by the corporate forces at Apple had switched sides of Puerta del Sol and was lighting up the plaza again from atop El Corte Inglés department store. (See above.) The bright lights seem symbolic of the broader rehabilitation of the image of sherry. For a long time, drinking sherry implied that you were were old, prissy, British or all three. But now that cream sherries (a hideous adulteration of sherry by blending with sweet wine) are all but a thing of the past, cocktail-savvy drinkers are embracing real sherry in all its complex, nuanced forms. And though we're a little late to the party, we want...Read More

It’s smart to get Luckee in Toronto

Posted on by David
Susur Lee was always my favorite contestant on season two of Top Chef Masters, but it took a while until I got to eat his food instead of watching him make it on TV. This year I finally made it to his jewel box contemporary Chinese restaurant, Luckee, at the Soho Metropolitan Hotel (328 Wellington St. W; 416-935-0400, luckeerestaurant.com). This polished restaurant serves some of the best meals in an already food-obsessed city. Much more than a gastronomic shrine directed by a celebrity chef, it's flat-out good fun. I'm not the only one who thinks so. On my last visit Will Smith was in town shooting yet another movie where Toronto stands in as a generic North American city. He and his entourage took over...Read More

Sevilla has a great new hall of tapas

Posted on by Pat and David
When Sevilla's Mercado Gourmet Lonja del Barranco (C/Arjona; 954 220 495; mercadolonjadelbarranco.com) opened a year ago, it was an instant hit and yet another example of the trend throughout Spain of converting neighborhood markets into tapas halls. If the structure below looks familiar, it's because it's a classic Gustav Eiffel market design. Construction began in 1861 and was completed in 1883, and for generations the handsome iron building on the riverbank at the end of the Isabel II bridge to Triana served as Sevilla's principal fish market. The World Heritage Site structure had been closed since the 1980s—until journalist Carlos Herrera and bullfighter Fran Rivera saw an opportunity to give Sevilla a glassed-in tapas court like Madrid's Mercado San Miguel. Two years and a reported...Read More

Real meat and potatoes in Córdoba

Posted on by Pat and David
Because La Mezquita—the 10th century mosque partially inhabited by a 16th century cathedral—is the biggest attraction in Córdoba, many travelers think they should be eating a North African diet long on eggplant and fried fish. But Córdoba is also in the heart of one of Spain's chief beef-raising regions, and the venerable Restaurante El Churrasco (Calle Romero 16, Córdoba; tel: 957-290-819; elchurrasco.es) serves some utterly delicious steaks grilled over oak charcoal. We made an overnight stop in the ancient city so we could visit the mosque in the pre-tourist silent hour before the morning Mass (trust us—it's much more spiritual without the tour groups), and we enjoyed a typically extended Spanish Sunday afternoon feast at El Churrasco. Before we got down to business with the...Read More

Casa Patas for flamenco and food

Posted on by Pat and David
We almost always advise travelers in Spain who want to catch a flamenco show to skip the meals that are offered as part of an espectaculo. In most flamenco clubs, or tablaos, the meals are overpriced and gastronomically underwhelming. It's better to eat elsewhere and agree to ordering a drink with the show as part of your admission. An exception is Casa Patas in Madrid, which functions more like a bar-restaurante with a show in the back than it does like a traditional tablao. It's a bar with strong Andalucían overtones, lots of Andalucían hams, and lots of sherry on the menu. But the kitchen does a pretty good job with a lot of classics of the Spanish table. On our most recent visit (last...Read More

San Antón: Madrid’s best market makeover

Posted on by Pat and David
Madrid has been renovating and updating its historic fresh food markets in recent years, starting with the transformation of Mercado San Miguel next to Plaza Mayor into a jewel box full of tapas bars and high-end deli food. But we're even more impressed with Mercado San Antón in Chueca. The market is a symbol of how that neighborhood—once the part of town where you went to buy sex or drugs—has become one of the hippest and most gentrified parts of the central old city. FYI, about the nastiest stuff you'll find on Chueca streets these days are some shoes with 15-centimeter spike heels in the shops on calle Augusto Figueroa. The Mercado San Antón isn't exactly a temple of food like La Boqueria in Barcelona...Read More

Off to Spain. Again.

Posted on by Pat and David
Readers who've been following us for a while know that we have a special love for Spain and its varied cuisines. In fact, if you just plug “spain” into the search box to the right, you'll find multiple pages of posts about Spain and Spanish food stretching back to November 2009, when we wrote about the fabulous blue cheese of the Picos de Europa, Cabrales, and gave you a recipe for Cabrales with sauteed apples, walnuts, and honey. Peruse those pages and you'll find recipes for authentic paella, patatas riojanas, and a number of other Spanish classics. There are also some Spanish-inspired originals, like saffron shortbreads and orange and almond tart. We're heading back to Spain this week for some extended research, with stays in...Read More

Lonely Planet captures taste of place

Posted on by Pat and David
We've always believed that one of the best ways to get to know people is to eat at their table. Lonely Planet, the erstwhile backpacker guidebook series that has been heading steadily upmarket since it changed ownership in 2013, must agree. Last month Lonely Planet (under NC2 Media) launched the first of a projected large line of books about different cuisines. Called “From the Source,” they pair a writer and a photographer to chronicle the flavors of a country through heavily illustrated recipes for regional dishes. The first two volumes tackle the cuisines of Thailand and Italy, which is a pretty tall order. The recipes are given in both metric and U.S. measure, and they are intricately detailed. In the Thai book, this means delineating...Read More

First Vineyard marks origin of American winemaking

Posted on by Pat and David
The first libations that come to mind in north-central Kentucky are likely to be bourbon, and, if you're a craft brew fan, beer. But the first commercial winery licensed in the Midwest and adjacent South was actually in Jessamine County, Kentucky in 1799. (Franciscans, of course, were making wine in the missions along the Rio Grande and in California a century and a half earlier.) The current owner of the land, Tom Beall, has rescued that tidbit of history by resuming production at First Vineyard (5800 Sugar Creek Pike, Nicholasville, Kentucky; 859-885-9359; www.firstvineyard.net). John James Dufour hailed from a wine-making family in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In the 1790s, he purchased a piece on land on the Great Bend in the Kentucky River that...Read More