Category

Travel

  • Random L.A. Bites at In-N-Out Burger, Bob’s Doughnuts, Commissary, Golden State & Canter’s

    Random L.A. Bites at In-N-Out Burger, Bob’s Doughnuts, Commissary, Golden State & Canter’s

    Last week was such a hectic week searching for an apartment in L.A., I wasn’t able to do my usual business of researching restaurants, plotting dinners and constructing photo essays for you, my hungry readers. (Exception: Loteria & Gjelina.) We did, however, enjoy many random bites that I photographed, dutifully, in the hopes of writing…

  • Loteria & Gjelina

    Loteria & Gjelina

    Folks, it’s been a busy week here in Los Angeles. I came last Sunday on a mission; the mission was: FIND AN APARTMENT. Or, more specifically: FIND AN APARTMENT THAT’S CLEAN AND NICE AND IN A GOOD LOCATION AND THAT HAS A DECENT KITCHEN. Funny enough, that mission really turned out to be a mission…

  • New York’s Best Lunch Deal is at Jean-Georges (But We Ate at Nougatine)

    New York’s Best Lunch Deal is at Jean-Georges (But We Ate at Nougatine)

    At the very tippy top of the New York restaurant pyramid sits Jean-Georges. It’s up there with Daniel, Per Se, Del Posto, Eleven Madison Park and Le Bernardin; the only restaurants that currently have four stars from The New York Times. What separates Jean-Georges from the bunch, though, is that you can eat lunch there…

  • The Burger Joint

    The Burger Joint

    I’ll never forget the first time that I took Craig to The Burger Joint. “What is this place?” he asked, annoyed, as I led him into the Parker Meridien Hotel. “This is fancy, I don’t want anything fancy. I just want something fast.” He was reacting to the marble interior of the Parker Meridien lobby…

  • Imperial Woodpecker Sno-Balls

    Imperial Woodpecker Sno-Balls

    You may recall that on our recent trip to New Orleans, we enjoyed something called a Sno-Ball. We ate this Sno-Ball at a place called Hansen’s Sno-Bliz and though I was wary at first–“isn’t it just ice and syrup?”–I was quickly won over by the texture of that ice and the intense flavor of that…

  • Great New Orleans Meals at Mandina’s, The Green Goddess, The Camellia Grill & Cochon

    Great New Orleans Meals at Mandina’s, The Green Goddess, The Camellia Grill & Cochon

    We ate many meals in New Orleans, but the following four meals were the most memorable for me. In all four cases, these weren’t meals you could enjoy anywhere else in the country. The food, the people, and, most importantly, the environments added up to create four totally unique experiences; experiences that I recommend you…

  • A Crawfish Boil (Plus: How To Eat A Crawfish)

    A Crawfish Boil (Plus: How To Eat A Crawfish)

    There are two types of people in this world: those who like to work for their food and those who don’t. People who like to work for their food are often fond of shellfish (cracking lobster claws, picking meat out of crab legs, peeling the shells off shrimp) and these people are often the ones…

  • The Sazerac

    The Sazerac

    When in New Orleans, you should drink a Sazerac. I didn’t know this until I went with Pim to dinner at a place called Mandina’s (more on that tomorrow) and she ordered one. Pim’s Sazerac was so good–it’s made with Rye whiskey, absinthe or Herbsaint (an anise-flavor liqueur, like Pernod), and bitters–I made a mental…

  • Hansen’s Sno-Bliz & Napoleon House (New Orleans)

    Hansen’s Sno-Bliz & Napoleon House (New Orleans)

    One of the best parts of traveling to a new city is discovering a food item that you didn’t know existed before. Like when I traveled to Barcelona and discovered pa amb tomàquet. Same thing in New Orleans, only it wasn’t bread smeared with tomato that I discovered; in New Orleans, I discovered the snowball.

  • Our Louisiana Seafood Adventure

    Our Louisiana Seafood Adventure

    When the BP oil spill happened, newscasters and journalists alike spoke of the devastating effect this would have on the Louisiana seafood industry. For most of us, that industry was just an abstraction. We imagined men and women in boats or on docks, but we didn’t have any specific images in our heads (except the…