Rochester NY: Fried Comfort Food and Friendly Folks Galore

Categories: Travel Hog

GarbagePlatePenfieldHots.jpg
All photos by Zachary Fagenson
The Rubbish Plate: An indisposable winter survival tool.
We all dream about hopping on planes destined for the world's greatest food cities. Yet the fact is flying often comes out of necessity and destinations aren't always the most popular among food bloggers.

When I recently booked a flight for the hills of western New York and Pennsylvania -- not the most sought after destination in mid winter 0- I was determined to make the most of it. I also made it into a mission to eat all of the hometown comfort foods I'd long heard my fiancée talk about, but never myself tried.

More »

Disney's Be Our Guest Restaurant: Beastly Dining Fit For a Princess (Pictures,Video)

Categories: Travel Hog
beourguestsign.jpg
Disneyworld.com
Be Our Guest: magical castle at Magic Kingdom.
Confession: Every single time I watch Beauty and the Beast -- be it the movie, theatrical production, or the live mini-musical at Disney World, I bawl my eyes out. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that my dog, Harry, looks exactly like Beast. Or...it could just have something to do with that fact that I'm just a tiny bit of a sucker for Disney (though I loathe to admit it).

Read Also: Magic Kingdom Serves Booze For The First Time at Be Our Guest

So, it's a little exciting that the new Fantasyland area of Magic Kingdom was offering a Beauty and the Beast-themed restaurant.

More »

RHONJ Teresa Giudice's Fabulicious Cruise Sails From Fort Lauderdale

teresa-giudice.jpg
Bravo
Think of what fun the Captain's dinner will be.
If you're a fan of Bravo's Real Housewives of New Jersey, break out the sequined bikini, the hairspray, and the pasta sauce because you won't want to miss Teresa Giudice's Fabulicious cruise on Holland America's Zuiderdam.

The eight day cruise sets sail from Port Everglades on December 28, visiting Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico, and St. Thomas. Along the way, cruisers will be treated to some exciting events, cooking classes and wine tastings by the Jersey diva herself, including:



More »

Eating Through Emeril's Empire in The Big Easy

chicken waffles.jpg
Laine Doss
Chicken and waffles at Emeril's
​There are few people in the world who are so famous that they don't need a last name - Cher, Madonna, Gaga and.....Emeril!  Known as much for his catch phrases "Bam" and "Kick it up a notch" as his food, Emeril is a television celebrity and a personality, but deep down, he's really a chef (and a great one at that).

Though Emeril and New Orleans are sometimes considered one and the same, Emeril Lagasse was born in Massachusetts and attended Johnson & Wales University in Providence.  1982 was when Emeril really took over New Orleans, when he replaced Chef Paul Prudhomme as Executive Chef of Commander's Palace.

On a recent trip to New Orleans, Clean Plate Charlie was invited to take a culinary tour of Emeril's world, visiting two of three of Emeril's New Orleans restaurants, as well as Commander's Palace, where the magic started.

More »

Drinking Vacation With Ruth Berman and Mike Arra's Beer Bon Voyage

Categories: Travel Hog
IMG_0412.JPG
Nicole Danna
Ruth Berman and Mike Arra love beer. So much so that the two busy Boynton Beach-based chiropractors decided to make a second living out of it.

How? By organizing beer vacations, of course.

More »

A Gourmet Day Trip: DeLand

Categories: Travel Hog
images.jpg
One of DeLand's coffee shops
I had a terrible weekend in the south-central Florida town of Arcadia one time. I'd been drawn principally by the name -- but the place turned out to be far from paradisal: restaurants closed at 8 and were mostly dry. The villagers were like something out of a creepy M. Night Shyamalan movie: Humorless Pentecostals by day, you expected them to don goat masks and gather for blood-drenched orgies on the stroke of midnight.

I kind of expected as much from DeLand. But I was terribly wrong. In fact, DeLand turned out to be something of a gourmet's arcadia -- the real thing. Not only does this charming little city, just three hours north by car in Volusia County, have an excellent, global cuisine restaurant called Cress but it's also home to two wide-ranging wine shops -- Designing Wine, which makes homemade wine, and the
Brulee09-1.jpg
"What happens at the Grape stays at the Grape."
Elusive Grape (DeLand also hosts an annual winetasting event in August). And of course, the reason we'd gone in the first place was to visit Deep Creek Ranch, which supplies free-range, grass-fed beef and lamb to the most respected restaurants in Florida, including our own 3030 Ocean, Cafe Boulud, and the Breakers (and Michael's Genuine in Miami).

The Saturday we showed up, the town was putting on a Pirates' pub crawl, principally for the purpose of doing beer tastings. The streets were awash in buxom damsels and their peg-legged swain, each wearing a tiny beer mug on a chain strung around their necks. The pirates were loping from bar to bar sampling brews. I was still spooked in case the town might shut down at nightfall, so I went straight to the Elusive Grape and picked up a bottle of Lost Canyon Russian River Pinot Noir, just to be safe.More »

The Simple Life, Served a la Mode, in Sarasota

Categories: Travel Hog
yoders apple pue
Lisa Rab
Just up the road from the Mennonite Tourist Church, on a street where women in white bonnets and blue dresses pedal their bikes to the store, is a time capsule of a restaurant.

Inside, the abundantly cheerful waitresses wear flowered aprons with frilly white trim. Checkered cloths adorn simple, wooden tables. A diamond-shaped quilt hangs on the wall, along with a poster that reads, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." The smell of fresh bread is everywhere.



More »

Bizarro Palm Beach Restaurant is the Crab Capital of Singapore

palmbeachchillicrab.jpg
ieatishootipost.sg
If Palm Beach is known for anything its as an enclave for the rich and powerful, a place where the Rush Limbaughs of the world can duck into their mansions like shells on a crab's back. But halfway across the world, Palm Beach is known as the birthplace of one of Singapore's most unique dishes, chilli crab.

I've never eaten a chilli crab, but based on the reports from Singapore-based blog ieatishootipost.sg, it's a dish I'm dying to try. It's made from hard-back mud crabs that are stewed in a spicy tomato sauce that sometimes has sambal, egg, and crab roe as well. It looks exceptionally delicious, if a little difficult to eat. (It's also given me the idea to ask a Singaporan how to eat Bamboo Fire Cafe's curry crab and stay clean.)

The Singapore Palm Beach is actually a restaurant that started as a shack on the Kallang River in 1956 by Cher Yam Tian and her husband Lim Choon Ngee. The couple named the place "Palm Beach Seafood" for the for the coconut palms that lined the beach nearby.

More »

Eating 'Round the Globe at Epcot's Food & Wine Festival

epcotchef.jpg
All Whole Foods locations in Florida are doing a promotion until October 18 giving customers a shot at free tickets to the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, so I considered it my duty to go on an investigatory road trip. 

If you've already been, you know the drill: Each "land" has its own restaurant, all of which are open year-round, and in between are booths set up for the festival, representing major cities nearby. They offer two entrée-type samplings (priced at $2 to $7), desserts, and various beer and wine pairings. 

My best friend and I arrived fashionably late and simply ravenous. Here's how we conquered six continents in less than six hours:

More »

Adventures in the Conch Republic: Key West Dining

keywestsunrise.jpg


Last week, I took some much needed vacation time and made the three-and-a-half-hour drive down to Key West for a bit of R and R, Conch-style. And what a great trip. I hadn't been to the Keys in nearly 10 years, which is far too long an time for any self-respecting South Floridian with liver intact. But driving down that two-lane strip of US-1, past roadside shacks promising the "world's best Key lime pie" and hand-drawn signs promising whole lobsters for less than $5 a pound, it felt like the Keys hadn't changed at all in my absence. Aside from the construction entering Largo (and what a maddening experience it is to get stuck behind someone going 25 on that stretch), the drive is idyllic and untouched. You pass in and out of these small islands, and the scenery changes constantly, from the Shell Worlds and mega-hotels of Largo to the sleepy docks of Marathon and the long, isolating expanse of the Seven Mile Bridge. Through it all, that sense of Old Florida remains the sole constant -- the leathered, booze soaked vibe that seems to get hauled onto the docks alongside mountains of bountiful sea life. For someone used to heading north through the boring flatlands near the Turnpike, it was a welcome change.

Arriving in Key West, we were determined to hit up all the old stops we missed so: The Southernmost Point, a short step from our eponymous hotel down the road, which overlooked Duval's South Beach. The Hemingway House, where it's impossible not to be in awe of a man, a writer, who understood life as equal parts high adventure and simple pleasure. And the restaurants, a collection of eateries inspired by the wonders of fresh seafood, joie de vivre, and a healthy dose of oddball quirk.

More »

From the Vault

 

Browse Voice Nation
  • Voice Places Broward / Palm Beach

    Voice Places

    Find everything you're looking for in your city

  • Happy Hour App

    Happy Hour App

    Find the best happy hour deals in your city

  • Daily Deals

    Daily Deals

    Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%

  • Best Of

    Best Of...

    Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city