Hungry Travelers - Page 8 of 82 - Bringing the tastes of travel back home

Omnom puts the ice (cream) in Iceland

Posted on April 7, 2023March 15, 2023 by Pat and David

Omnom Chocolates are possibly the best known of Iceland's culinary exports, rivaled only by Icelandic sea salt (see this post). We think that they are cleverly named. Say it three time fast and it will sound like you're devouring a chocolate bar. The sophisticated flavors include a licorice white chocolate and ‶burnt and black barley.″ They're widely available in the U.S. and Canada. But you'll have to go to Iceland to try Omnom ice cream, made in the same boxy factory (above) as the chocolates. The location (Hólmaslóð 4; +354 519 5959; omnom.is) is a bit of a schlep from central Reykjavik, but we were happy to go to great lengths for gastronomic research. Omnom sits in a warehouse district only a few streets northwest...Read More

Hot dog, Iceland’s unofficial national fast food

Posted on March 31, 2023March 14, 2023 by Pat and David

Judging by America's local-pride food blogs, you'd think that any of a dozen cities in the U.S. invented or perfected the hot dog. But not even New Yorkers who adore Coney Island red hots can claim a greater loyalty to the humble frankfurter than Iceland. (Close as we can tell, the particular sausage originated in Frankfurt, Germany, but that's another story.) You'll find the most important culinary landmark in Iceland at Tryggvagata 1 in Reykjavik. That's the location of Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur (www.bbp.is), the kiosk whose name (we're told) translates to English as ‶best hot dogs in town.″ Opening at 10 a.m. and closing between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. (longer hours in the midnight sun of summer), it has been in the same spot...Read More

Lamb with a view at Reykjavik’s Grandi Maðöll

Posted on March 24, 2023March 15, 2023 by Pat and David

Everything old is new again in Reykjavik, not least the ‶Old Harbor″ district. Just a two-minute walk along the harbor from the oldest city restaurant, Kaffivagninn (see this post), the soaring interior of Grandi Maðöll (Grandagarður 16; +354 787 6200; grandimatholl.is) beckons diners hungry for an indoor fix of street food with a good harbor view. In case you hadn't guessed, maðöll is Icelandic for ‶food hall.″ (The ‶eth″ is pronounced like a ‶th″ in English and is often spelled that way as well.) Grandi Maðöll is one of the city's newer dining ventures. It contains eight food vendors offering mainly Icelandic foods, such as fish and chips, as well as two world cuisines popular in food courts everywhere: Italian pastas and Indian curries. In...Read More

Icelandic lobster soup warms a chill evening

Posted on March 17, 2023March 9, 2023 by Pat and David

We had read that Iceland's famous ‶lobster soup″ was a special dish widely served at the winter holidays. Given that there's only about four hours of daylight at Christmas, Icelanders definitely need something to cheer them up. But during our Reykjavik visit in late August, lobster soup was ubiquitous on the city's menus. So much for seasonality — or don't believe everything you read on the Internet. According to Iceland Fisheries, the lobster season is April into September All of our research — including asking locals — pointed us to the Seabaron, or Sægreifinn in Icelandic (Geirsgata 101, Reykjavík; +354 553 1500; facebook.com/saegreifinn.seabaron). Everyone agreed that it was famed for lobster soup. The casual grill house squats at the harbor's edge in a lurid green...Read More

Kaffivagninn serves authentic fish and chips

Posted on March 10, 2023March 15, 2023 by Pat and David

The oldest restaurant in Reykjavik, Kaffivagninn (Grandagarði 10, Reykjavík; +354 551 5932; kaffivagninn.is), began as a harborside food truck in 1935. Sound out the name and it turns out to be an Icelandic cognate for ‶coffee wagon″ in English. But it also serves delicious fish. On a sunny summer day, Kaffivagninn's location on the city's gorgeous harbor is about as picturesque a place as there is to eat some of the freshest fish in the world. And fish is a lot of what Iceland is about. The fishing industry is essential to Iceland's identity and second only to tourism in its economic impact. The only fish on the breakfast menu at Kaffivagninn is (unsurprisingly) smoked salmon. Breakfast fare is 990-1890 krona (USD $7-$13.50). The only...Read More

Skyr cheese launched a thousand longboats

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Pat and David

On our first day in Reykjavik, we wondered if we'd stumbled into some modern version of Gulliver's Brobdingnag. Everyone was … so tall. And fit. And wearing technical gear. They looked like they were about to dash up Iceland's volcanos, dive for lobsters in its fjords, or — at the very least — set sail in a high-prowed boat to discover a new continent or pillage an old one. It was a very Viking moment. The secret behind all this outsized vigor (or so we were told) was skyr. This Nordic cousin of Greek yogurt is so well-drained and thick that it's legally classified as a cheese. What distinguishes it from various other cultured milk products is that heated skimmed milk is inoculated with traditional...Read More

Freshé gives tinned fish a bright new start

Posted on February 17, 2023February 13, 2023 by David

As diligent readers of HungryTravelers might know, I grew up on the Maine coast. But before I was old enough to crew on fishing boats, I also worked in the blueberry barrens during harvest season. We harvested low-bush blueberries (aka, ‶wild″ Maine blueberries) with multi-tined scoops that stripped the berries off the low shrubs but left the twigs and leaves behind. It was stoop work in the hot sun, as the harvest season usually stretched from mid-July to mid-August. Moreover, the fields tended to be remote. We were dropped off early in the morning and picked up late in the afternoon. That made lunch tricky. None of us had coolers, and lunch meat sandwiches that have baked for hours in the sun were less than...Read More

A whirlwind tour of great Sicilian wines

Posted on February 10, 2023February 10, 2023 by David

The continuing reorganization of Sicily's wine regions, as reflected in the map above (courtesy of De Long), has brought considerable focus to what used to be a free-for-all. More than 60 varietals grow on the island, and more than two dozen are autochthonous — varieties that either originated in Sicily or have been grown here since the Phoenicians introduced advanced viticulture 3,000 years ago. I had a chance to taste some modern twists on that grand tradition when Roberto Magnisi, production director of the Duca di Salaparuta group of wineries (duca.it/en), recently came to Boston. He brought outstanding wines from two of his company's properties for a tasting luncheon at Contessa (contessaristorante.com). His group coalesced in 2001 when the Sicilian regional government sold Duca di...Read More

Why not red chile with pancakes?

Posted on February 3, 2023January 21, 2023 by Pat

As a New Englander, I thought I knew everything that anyone would need to know about pancakes. They are pretty simple, really. Just pour on plenty of Vermont maple syrup, add a little pat of butter for good measure. And dig in. But Cafe Pascual's (121 Don Gaspar Avenue, Santa Fe, 505-983-9340, pasquals.com) in Santa Fe taught me a thing or two. For more than four decades, Cafe Pascual's has been serving three meals a day in a historic adobe building just a block off the main plaza. The colorful wall murals and old Mexican tiles make it a particularly cheery place to start the day. (Late risers can order off the breakfast menu until 3 p.m.) Like Rancho de Chimayó, it's a James Beard...Read More

Enjoying the culinary versatility of green chile

Posted on January 27, 2023May 15, 2023 by Pat

At home, we make a pretty traditional version of green chile cooked with onion, garlic, a little ground beef, and freshly crushed cumin and coriander seed. (We also add puréed tomatillos, but that's another story.) It's a staple of our diet, served over rice and topped with a bit of sour cream to soothe the heat. Or we spoon the sauce over eggs and tortillas as a verdant variation of huevos rancheros. My last visit to Santa Fe proved that green chiles are much more versatile. They can star equally in both casual and fine dining. The green chile cheeseburger, for example, has become an icon of New Mexican cuisine. The state tourism office modestly admits that it didn't invent the hamburger sandwich. (That honor...Read More