For many food fanatics the chance to experience fresh seafood in Galicia ranks up there with prowling the barbecue restaurants of Texas hill country or eastern North Carolina, doing the tapas crawl of San Sebastian or Barcelona, comparing steakhouses in New York, and hitting the sashimi and sushi stalls at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market In short, it’s on any self-respecting hard core gourmand’s short list of must-dos, and I finally made it there a couple of weeks ago. READ MORE »
The choice of restaurants in and around Bordeaux is vast, as the city caters both to its strong university-age contingent and to the extraordinarily affluent. There are many dining choices—not surprising given France’s colonial past—and classic French food establishments rub shoulders with restaurants featuring Chinese, Vietnamese, African, Arab and many other cuisines. Alas, there aren’t any truly great restaurants in town: the best dining venues are located outside of the city. I’ll discuss those in a future article on Winophilia. READ MORE »
Bordeaux is not just about world-famous wines: the region’s gastronomy is underrated compared to other French wine-producing areas like Burgundy and Alsace. The local food scene benefits from the city’s proximity to the sea and to the large Gironde river estuary, not to mention the wooded areas of the nearby Landes, the least populated departement in France. Owing to its location, Bordeaux offers a bounty of surf (fresh and salt water) and turf. READ MORE »
As famous as David Kinch’s two-Michelin-starred Manresa may be among hard-core American food freaks and chefs, it seems to be still more revered by European and Asian gourmands, at least based on my anecdotal evidence. Located in Los Gatos, just south and west of San Jose and in the heart of Silicon Valley, it is a true destination restaurant because there’s little else in the area to attract the attention of—much less a visit from—most dining buffs. In fact, it seems that even for Bay Area wine and food hobbyists, Manresa is more myth than reality: I’ve been amazed over the years by how many of my acquaintances in northern California know Manresa without ever having actually had a meal there. So too with me until last month, when I had the first of what I hope will be many dinners there (pesky issues like money notwithstanding). READ MORE »
