Restaurants

From Nancy D. Brown of What a Trip

Sasi Thai King Crab Spring Rolls photo by Nancy D. Brown

As I left the CasaMagna Resort, I stepped into a thatched roof hut for dinner. The Sasi Thai restaurant, an open air dining experience, was one of several specialty restaurants at two Cancun Marriott hotels.

While my dining companion was surprised that the Sasi Thai didn’t offer Thai iced tea on the menu, her consellation drink, a mango mojito, was a welcome alternative. I was feeling the island spirit with my raspberry mojito served with fresh mint.

We began our evening with king crab and vegetable spring rolls, accompanied with an array of dipping sauces. The spring rolls were light and crunchy with each unique sauce highlighting different taste sensations. The beef, chicken and portobello mushroom satay, however, left me feeling uninspired.
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"Gorge"ous View in Ronda Spain

Sigh. This is an amazing restaurant and one of my new favorites. Don Miguel is both restaurant and hotel, in one of the famous white washed hill towns of this region of Spain. The village of Ronda is located high above the resort town of Marbella on the Costa del Sol.  Driving at a relaxed pace, it took us less than an hour to get there.

As Rick Steves’ pointed out, Ronda is famous for being the birthplace of modern bullfighting, but for me it was the stunning views from both a bridge and Don Miguel Restaurant that caught my attention.

Here is a view from our table that was good at distracting us during our delicious meal. We looked out over the famous gorge and a bridge that crossed into the old town quarter. Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles spent many summers in Ronda as part-time residents of Ronda’s old town quarter, and I can see why. This is a walkable town, which comes in handy after eating the suckling pig at Don Miguel Restaurant. Read More »

Soccer City aka FNB Stadium is on Nasrec Road in Johannesburg, on Soweto’s outskirts. This is where the 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off and comes back to for the finals, and it is designed to resemble a calabash – an African cooking-pot, with a ring of lights at the bottom resembling a fire under the pot.

Soccer City, Johannesburg

That’s an apt description if you’re a part of the capacity 95,000 crowd inside, but if you don’t have tickets, you can still compensate with good food, drinks and large screens at the many sports-themed bars and restaurants in the vicinity and in the township.

The calabash at these restaurants is always bubbling over with sports-talk and all kinds of cuisine – African-themed food, meat platters, fast food, snacks, and soul food better than you ever saw in Harlem.

To start with, the stadium itself has a 300 seater-restaurant, and there’s also a McCafé from McDonalds about to open in the International Media Centre next to the stadium.

One of the most famous sports pubs in Soweto is Masakeng (649 Kinini Street, Mofolo; 011 982 8034). Masakeng offers a massive flat-screen television and a variety of traditional African dishes. Noteworthy offerings include the chicken stew and rice, the sticky, sweet pork spare ribs, fish and chips and a meat platter, all to washed down with cold beers.

Another one is The Rock (Vundla Drive, Rockville; 011 986 8182) - a sports bar by day and a happening nightclub after dark. Also offers live jazz and traditional township cuisine.

The Rustic Theatre on Main in Kyalami (Plot 7, Main Road Lonehill; 011 244 9909) has a reputation for being one of the best sports bars in all of Gauteng, with large screens, and the beer flows well with everything on the menu from snack platters to great steaks. Plenty of live entertainment after games.

City of Johannesburg - http://www.joburg.org.za/
Official hospitality website for the 2010 FIFA World Cup -  http://hospitality.fifa.com/

Photo by shanediaz120

Ensalada de Remojón @ La Mimbre in Granada

I love driving in foreign countries, well actually my husband does the driving but I do love the freedom and seeing the sights.  On a recent visit to Spain, we drove from Murcia to Marbella in the Andalusia region.  On the way, we stopped to see the most visited landmark in Spain, The Alhambra.  La Mimbre is one of the few restaurants located on the grounds of the famous Alhambra in Granada, Spain.

We stumbled upon it while we were looking for a place to eat lunch before our reservations to get onto the grounds of the famous Alhambra and Generalife gardens.  When you buy tickets for The Alhambra they are issued with a specific 30 minute window that you must make, or they will not allow you to enter.  Therefore restaurants close by have a captive audience and we knew we were taking a chance by eating at one.

Our meal began with this amazing salad, a plate filled with fresh fruit and vegetables and fish. Ensalada de Remojón is one of the special items on the menu and we loved it. Read More »

Johnny Rockets special

I purchased all of my Christmas gifts online this year — you wouldn’t catch me dead trying to find a parking space at a mall so I can go in and pick through a table of sweatshirts other shoppers have mauled.

But I will go over there for dinner and my favorite December pastime: guessing which children will cry on Santa’s lap. Luckily, since Greenwood Park Mall expanded a few years ago, I can do both in the same hour from a booth at Johnny Rockets. In the olden days, I was relegated to carrying a pizza slice or pretzel and Coke through the mall until I found a nice spot over by J.C. Penney’s to watch the show.

Last night was my big night.

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Eating at a tapas restaurant in Spain can be a lively, fun chance to try a variety of foods at a small price. But sometimes you just don’t want to have to stand at the bar, shout for the bartender, and eat while balancing a plate in one hand and a drink in the other. At those times, head to an outpost of Taller de Tapas a chain of sit-down style, foreigner-friendly (the menus are bilingual, as are most of the staff) tapas restaurants there serve traditional favorites inspired by Catalan cooking and from around the country at an affordable price. There are four locations scattered around Barcelona, so no matter where you are in the city, you can enjoy their tasty small plates.

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Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace, home to the Sultans for 4 centuries, was where Ottoman cuisine was refined and perfected. Did you know that some of the chefs at Topkapi spent their entire lifes working on one single dish?

Konyali Restaurant inside Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Turkey

Istanbul has been named as one of Europe’s 2010 Capitals of Culture, with cultural and heritage landmarks being revived all over the city. The Topkapi kitchens are part of this revival, and will reopen in late 2010.

But you can already find the heavenly scents and mouth-watering recipes of the Ottomans in restaurants like Konyali and Karakol. 

If you’re wondering what’s so special about reviving a bunch of kitchens, consider a recipe found in the Topkapi records for a simple Turkish dish with fried onions mixed in with eggs and eaten with bread.  

In Topkapi, they fried and stirred the chopped onions with lots of butter for a full hour, then added cinnamon and then the eggs. The taste and flavor, it seems, transforms into something magnificent if you can convince someone to stand around stirring onions for an hour.

Imagine doing that for the rest of your life, trying to find ways to make it better. That’s Ottoman cuisine, and these are the kind of dishes you’ll find at restaurants inside the Topkapi like Karakol and Konyali, and others in Istanbul like Feriye Lokantasi, Tugra, Asitane and Pasazade.

Photo by fantaz

From Nancy D. Brown of What a Trip

Gustino Restaurant Pizza Oven

My fist time in Cancun, Mexico and the JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa is dressed up in its holiday best this December. I had checked into my ocean view room and was looking forward to something a little more substantial than Spanish peanuts and Tecate cerveza. I had been recommended to Gustino restaurant for some good Italian food.

As I walked past the wine cellar and wood fired pizza oven, I was reminded that this was not going to be a typical Mexican restaurant experience. The high ceilings, glowing white candles dancing in the center of the room and smooth live alto sax in the background helped set the tone for a fine dining experience at Gustino.

Gustino Fried Mozzarella JW Marriott Cancun

I was seated at an ocean view table. While the sun had already set, I appreciated that the waitstaff gave me, a single diner, a nice table. I started off with an antipasti of sauteed shrimp with garlic, white wine, capers and roasted celery crostini at $145 pesos. Next came  pan fried mozzarella with warm spinach and pine nuts scattered about with an anchovy sauce for $135 pesos. The fried mozzarella presentation reminded me of a cherry bomb from a Fourth of July fireworks display. Like a firecraker, the warm cheese exploded with flavor in my mouth.

In the interest of my readers, I just had to try the prosciutto, arugula and caramelized onion pizza at $155 pesos, althought the home made pasta dumplings with crab filling and a spicy tomato pesto sounded intriguing for $250 pesos.

Gustino Rack of Lamb

While I normally would not order lamb at a restaurant perched on the sea, the rack of lamb on a caramelized balsamic glaze with baked green asparagus was very good. My one complaint, the meat was not warm from the oven, but the quality of the four chops made up for the lack of heat.

Coffee lovers will enjoy the Gustino signature drink of cappuccino with Bailey’s and Frangelico. Follow that with the chocolate mousse Napoleon, wild berries and chocolate tuile cookie at $90 pesos and you’re good to go out into the Cancun night life. Or, if you’re like me, you’re good to brush your teeth and go to bed.

I should mention that I’m staying at the J.W. Marriott Cancun Resort and Spa as a guest of Marriott properites. You can follow my tweets about this trip on my twitter feed or you can search for the #blogparadise hash tag on Twitter.

JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa

Blvd. Kukulcan, Km 145 Lote 40-A, Zona Hotelera

Cancun, Quintana Roo, 77500, Mexico

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  And you know what, even if you fall a bit more into the “Bah, Humbug” category of holiday enthusiast, you can’t help but love all of the great foods available come December.  Roast turkey.  Gingerbread houses.  Latkes.  Dampfnudeln.  And you can’t forget all the cakes and cookies!

The holidays and eating well are intrinsically tied for me.  I make sure to always leave off my belt, go back for seconds and just enjoy.  But even with that mindset, I was not prepared for all of the incredible foods I’d find at Germany’s Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt (Christmas Market).

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Earlier this year, I waxed poetic about Zum Domstein in Trier, Germany.  Sitting in the outdoor cafe area of this historic restaurant, I enjoyed yummy, yummy potato latkes and some people watching that couldn’t be beat.  It was a perfect summer’s day – the wine and the view of the nearby Cathedral making it about close to perfect as you can imagine.

But though I talked to the staff and learned a lot about this great institution – including its great wine list.  I hadn’t yet wandered down to the bowels of the building to enjoy a meal in the basement weinstube. And I missed out.

It was a mistake that was rectified this past weekend.  A trip to the Trier Christmas Market left my companions and I with joyous hearts but frozen toes.  Despite the cornucopia of Christmas fair food available, we wanted a good, hot meal.  And, yes, a seat out of the cold.  So we stumbled downstairs, out of the frigid air, to the Zum Domstein’s basement Weinstube.

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