Content about Travel
December 7, 2010
A mad dash for LA's best food in one afternoon.
We had four hours to eat in L.A., a period of time which all of us agreed wasn't long enough. While most people would have simply given up and spent the time driving around Hollywood or lounging on the beach, we plowed ahead, sure we could catch a plane and sample some of the best food in the city along way. So our afternoon in L.A. was spent cruising the endless sprawl of concrete and zig zagging through the streets in search of the...
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December 3, 2010
Pizza, Hot Dogs, and Sliders: Detroit's best in one afternoon
Just a sampling.
Whether it’s research for Serious Eats, city guides for Grub Street Chicago, or "work" for this site, if you happen to call me on a Saturday you’ll probably find me in the midst of some misguided eating tour. I call it research, and yet I realize that it starts to drive one slightly mad. It’s to the point now where I can’t imagine being close to any major metropolitan area without at least...
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September 16, 2010
Plus a recipe for Oaxacan-Style Peanuts with Chile and Garlic
Forget the chips.
You know the drill. You walk into a Mexican restaurant anywhere in the country. You sit down. Within moments -often before drink orders are taken- a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa are rushed out to the table. You immediately dig in. Time disappears. Before you order, before you even think about ordering, salsa stains the tablecloth and all the chips are mysteriously gone. That’s just how it goes. Right?
So...
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September 1, 2010
2 weeks in Oaxaca
The Al Pastor was way better...
We travel to be surprised, right? While picking my favorite five dishes took some deliberation, coming up with five different foods or dishes that surprised me on a trip to Mexico should have taken me all of five minutes. But for some reason I wasn't expecting this. I have a vertiable library of Mexican cuisine in my condo courtesy of Rick Bayless, Diana Kennedy, and Susana Trilling, and have researched...
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August 25, 2010
These are the five things I can't stop thinking about
I went to Mexico to eat, and I handpicked the region of Oaxaca specifically because I figured I could eat there best. It’s a place where chiles, chocolate, and tomatoes have been growing for thousands of years, and where the holy trinity of corn, beans, and squash make up the local diet. Forget Italy, France, or Spain. Oaxaca is where my favorite food in the world comes from.
I spent two weeks walking its old colonial streets while...
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August 11, 2010
Chicago's famed restaurant revamps their cafe
Spiaggia isn’t the sort of restaurant you waltz into on a whim--you have to wear a jacket to eat there, its gorgeous dining room has floor-to-ceiling windows, they have a cheese cave, and, oh, it’s really, really expensive. But the secret is that Spiaggia also has a cafe. It’s casual, intimate, and the food is superb. The attention to detail that is expected of a high-end restaurant like Spiaggia filters down to its more...
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July 30, 2010
I’ll only have 36 hours in the capital to eat as much as I possibly can
jamidwyer/Flickr
Next Friday my wife and I will hop on the Blue Line, head north to O’Hare, and then take a plane halfway across North America to Mexico City for one of the most intense eating experiences of my life. As you may have noticed over the four years or so that I’ve been writing, I adore Mexican cuisine all out of proportion. It’s my favorite cuisine--from complex and elegant moles to simple fish tacos and...
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March 10, 2010
Which Italian deli in Chicago makes the best subs?
We assembled at 11 a.m., seven hungry men, at J. P. Graziano's. This unadorned storefront in the restaurant supply district of Chicago's West Loop seemed like an odd place to begin a journey to find the best Italian sub in Chicago. The shop's exterior had no tell-tale signals that it made sandwiches--just a sign stating their business as wholesale importers. The interior contained no vine covered trellises or...
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September 22, 2009
We take a walk around the legendary market.
Nick and I arrived at the Maxwell Street Market to a line of colorful tents stretching out into the distance along Desplaines Street longer than we could see: men playing blues on the sidewalk, piles of tchotkes and used power tools, used DVDs, discount bras and panties, and endless stands full of tube socks. In fact, it wasn't immediately clear what we were doing there. If it weren't for the smell of cooking meat, we would have...
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My first trip through North Carolina.
After the fifth barbecue stop in North Carolina my brother-in-law and I were delirious. We stumbled out of the door of the last joint, nearly tripping over ourselves like a couple of drunk freshman. I called my wife but when I attempted to speak the right words wouldn’t come out. Sure my belly was full of pork, but it was something about the addition of coleslaw, hush puppies, and glass upon glass of sweet tea to the...
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Visiting the Spanish coast.
Barcelona was a wonderful city to be in, but leaving it was just as fun. Installed in a tiny stick-shift Citroen, we headed north from the city for Costa Brava, opting for the cheaper no-toll road that snakes along the coast and could take twice as long. Driving in Europe was harrowing the first time I did it, but I've since learned to embrace the speeding, reckless flow--I figure it's safe to go with it than stand in its way....
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June 16, 2009
How to save money in the stylish Spanish city.
While Nick has been saving the world with quick no-soak-beans and investigating the roots of Wisconsin bratwurst (part of my family is from Wisconsin and I hope to weigh in with strong opinions on the subject sooner than later), I've been on the run, away from a kitchen, squeezing every trip out of Europe I can afford. Which isn't much at the moment. But a lack of cash didn't deter us from enjoying some of the best...
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May 27, 2009
Nick's tour of the South's barbecue capital.
Memphis has insanely good ribs, some so mouthwatering and juicy that they make most of the barbecue I've ever eaten fall of their bones in shame. The rub is better, the smoke more lingering, and the sauce more lip-smacklingly suited to the cause. What cause? Sublime barbecue. I wanted to see how good it could be. Which isn't to say that everything went perfectly or that every bite left me in awe. ...
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May 24, 2009
Blake eats the best of France.
After we spent our Saturday morning at the sprawling market in Apt, sampling cheese and charcuterie, the only task ahead of us was to find a tiny hillside town called Buoux by lunchtime. Exploring a mountainous countryside of hamlets and hairpin turns was all that awaited us. By the time we'd arrived a few hours later, the sun was falling lazily on a descent toward dusk; the air was fragrant with grass; and a sumptuous meal...
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May 21, 2009
Blake finds hidden gems in France.
Our goal for eating in France, as our budget was limited, was to find simple and unpretentious food. And though we hit the ground running with a list of online recommendations culled from a number of sources--an article in Travel + Leisure, searches on Chowhound and eGullet, guidebooks galore--some of our best and most memorable meals came from eclectic little spots that nobody had written about. One was hidden on a side street...
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May 12, 2009
Photos from France.
As I was wandering through Lourmarin, a ridiculously charming Provencal town where a bustling Friday-morning market was in full swing--the fresh breeze carrying the smell of cured sausage and fresh baguettes to my nostrils--I began having fantasies. Mostly it involved never being heard from again, disappearing into those lavender-scented hills, without so much as a trace. (A convenient lottery win and the inheritance of a rustic...
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Blake visits a famed watermill in Estonia.
I knew next to nothing about watermills before heading down to see one in southern Estonia, so I had an open mind. The website promised a tour, a glass of milk and fresh warm bread. So when the offer of a ride down came up, I had little reason to turn it down.
When we arrived, we found an idle lake reflecting the brilliant blue sky, clouds tossing across the sky, and a brick building with what seemed to be about 15 front doors...
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March 25, 2009
Blake discovers South African dried beef.
By Blake Royer Here in Estonia there is a word,...
Here in Estonia there is a word, kevadväsimus, that translates as "spring fatigue." It's the expression that refers to a grim mood that seizes us all when the sun has come out and the days are growing longer yet all other signs still point to winter. We know the weather will improve, but it's that sliver of hope that makes it now harder to endure. For...
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February 11, 2009
Discovering Chicago's distinctive beef sandwich.
The mystery is that while the sandwich's meat is incredibly tender, it isn't made from some expensive cut of beef. From the research that I've done, most Italian beef recipes call for round or the sirloin tip, which are both tough and lean cuts. The use of a cheap, neglected cut really interested me.
At first glance, the sandwich looks a lot like a cheese-less Philly cheesesteak....
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January 28, 2009
When I arrived in Buenos Aires, "Ojo de Bife" ("eye of beef") was at the top of most steak menus, giving the blessed ribeye its appropriate place in the steak pantheon. It reminded me of a Jeffrey Steingarten passage from his essay in Men's Vogue about a search across Spain for great steak--which has led me to order ribeye almost exclusively since reading it:
...the most delicious beefsteak is a thick (about two and a...
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January 27, 2009
Before heading to Buenos Aires, I'd heard mostly about the steak. Friends who'd gone had talked fondly of beautiful architecture and vibrant street life. But their eyes really lit up when they started raving about the beef. Supposedly, it was some of the best in the world, deep and rich and pronouncd in beefiness. The quality of Argentinian beef is especially significant because the majority of it is grass fed.
In the U...
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January 25, 2009
You might assume that Nick has hijacked The Paupered Chef, chopped my body into little pieces and hid me in the attic (between sessions of ravioli-making and chili shenanigans). But this is not the case; I am alive and well. I left Estonia for close to a month to bask in holiday cheer back home in the States. But now I've returned to the cold and dark climate of Northern Europe, where the sun still slips below the horizon...
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November 3, 2008
It came in tin foil, a particularly unfancy receptacle for what was inside. Our waiter, who had just dropped off plates of sea bass carpaccio and a veal meatloaf stuffed into chicken neck (including the head), put the foil on a plate and began unceremoniously unfolding its crinkled, crimped top. It opened in a steamy, meaty rush, and none of us could do much but stare. As Hamid, our host in Florence who Elin met in grad school...
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October 29, 2008
Blake visits the Eternal City for one night only.
Our white wine was, for this unexperienced wine drinker, an absolute knockout at 17 euros: just barely more dry than sweet, fruity, and crisp as anything. We asked for their help in choosing the Ribolla Gialla after their bible-sized wine list (below) scared us silly (it is a famous list, apparently full of great wines at bargain prices).
We began with a simple buffalo mozzarella salad.
And for the pasta course Elin opted for a...
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October 27, 2008
I've dreamed about going to Italy for a couple years now. But with New York rent to pay, only a handful of vacation days to draw from, and 7 hours of plane time all conspiring against me, I've never been able to go. By a great margin Italian food is my favorite food to cook. As my love of Italian food has grown, so has this vaguely imaginary place called Italy--into a glorious land of grandmothers, pasta, and culinary ecstasy....
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June 24, 2008
The weekend before last Elin and her mom and I set off to see four states in four days. Our goal was to do it just before the tourists and summer heat took over. In the highly organized itinerary, which would be promptly deviated from, we had plans for upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The loose organizing principle to the whole affair was to stay in Bed and Breakfasts, and eat well.
We began our trip in the...
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June 4, 2008
Montreal is famous for a dish called poutine, which we sampled heavily the weekend we visited, in which crispy frites are salted, tossed with pillowy, tender cheese curds, then smothered in rich brown gravy. A dish, suffice it to say, to be eaten with a fork. At Au Pied de Cochon, Montreal's cult restaurant where gluttony and excess have become signature sins, they include all of those things--but then they top the shimmering pile with...
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June 2, 2008
When Elin went to Montreal a couple years ago, she sent me an email with only a photograph attached, a picture with her mouth open, eyes closed, and a forkful of French fries covered in gravy. The subject of the email said simply, "Poutine," and I knew that one day we would travel to Montreal where I could try this dish myself and experience the delight that was apparent on her face.
As if frites dripping in gravy weren't enough...
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May 16, 2008
It's a tale of the old and the new. Of the high and the low. It's Wild Turkey and Maker's Mark, two bourbons I love, but couldn't be more different from each other. The Turkey is a high rye bourbon made to grip your taste buds and warm your insides, while smooth and seductive Maker's Mark is the gentleman's choice, somewhat conservative and much more expensive. Feeling guilty that I hadn't visited these two landmarks the...
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February 27, 2008
I took a little break from food this past weekend, turning my back on all the pieces of meat curing in my stairwell (I’ll get to those later in the week), and set off for the rolling hills of Kentucky to sip the best bourbon I could. I’d been blabbering on and on to my brother-in-law about the stuff for well over six months now and it was about time to actually see where it all came from. What started as a simple trip...
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December 12, 2007
"No, no, no!" our waiter was saying, dashing across the room to our white-tableclothed table, where we were sitting in front of a grilled Turbot. I was politely transferring a portion of the fish's glistening meat to my plate with two forks.
"It's very important to us," he began to explain, almost out of breath, while taking my fork and knife, "to eat with our hands." He picked up the fish's head and began to...
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December 11, 2007
We were in a tiny silver Citroen, maps strewn all over the dashboard, Elin in the passenger seat, me driving us in circles (literally, around the roundabout over and over) trying to get us to the correct highway and out of Madrid. Elin was reading Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Small Island during our trip--and while overall she couldn’t help but write him off as a mostly unfunny curmudgeon, one of the best lines goes like this:...
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All content copyright Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer.
