Food Travel - - Page 5

by Emily

Endless Road Trip Marfa: Living It Up at Cochineal

While Marfa is a small town, its identity as an artists enclave and hip Southwest tourist destination cultivates a demand for finer dining. I’m not talking stuffy, classic dining (I don’t think anything close to that really exists in these small South Texas towns) but creative, modern, upscale restaurants? There’s a couple in the area but Cochineal is the one I’d heard the most buzz about. So I figured hey, when’s the next time we’ll be in Marfa, let’s splurge a little bit.

A thirty seat dining room, forty odd seat courtyard, open kitchen, and a vegetable garden supplying the freshest baby greens and vegetables – all came into being by 2008 and the restaurant opened on May 22.

The food served at Cochineal is much as Ruth Reichl wrote about Restaurant Etats-Unis for theNY Times in 1993. We are still home cooks, still cooking simple food, still changing the menu daily, still paying attention to the inherent qualities of the raw ingredients. We are still in love with the wines of the world and maintain a list of some 250 bottles in a wide range of prices.

We have also have the continuing joy of watching a wonderful staff of very young and very native Marfans grow into an appreciation of what food can become and into an awareness of how skilled and competent they can become.

Love it!

Cochineal isn’t a big space, but it’s really stylish and sexy. They have a great, dusty little outdoor seating area in their front courtyard, or you can sit in the sleek yet rustic indoor space (where we enjoyed our meal). The menu at Cochineal is comprised of small plates, large plates, and a couple desserts. It changes daily, and once they run out of something, they are OUT. We got a 6:00pm reservation because, as Aerosmith would say, I don’t wanna miss a thing.

What does a multi-course dinner at one of the best restaurants in West Texas look like? Feast your eyes on this.

For course one, Rob and I split the peking style quail with a crispy and sticky skin stuffed with fermented carrots, pineapple, and fried rice. We also got the house-baked bread with Marfa yeasts to share between the table. Oh, and duh, I got a cocktail! A vodka gimlet which was ultra fresh and tasty.

by Emily

Endless Road Trip Marfa: Hotel Paisano

Marfa’s Hotel Paisano is a very special place. Not only is it a gorgeous historic building with an ultra-classy patio & bar, but it’s also the location/headquarters of the 1956 film Giant, starring Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Film, architecture, and a stiff drink? Count me IN!

As I mentioned, Paisano, on the National Register of Historic Places, is a beautiful building. After its silver screen heyday it sadly started to fall into disrepair, but luckily it was purchased by new owners and restored to its original splendor, plus renovated to include modernized rooms, shops, etc. Just look at it:

by Emily

Endless Road Trip Marfa: Buns N’ Roses

That photo might not seem like the fanciest, most stylistic presentation of chips & salsa in the world, and you know what, it’s not. But what it is is fresh, thick corn tortillas fried to order for our table, dusted with the perfect amount of salt and served with fresh, garlicky salsa. That’s how they DO it at Buns N’ Roses in Marfa.

But let’s rewind a bit. The second day of our West Texas roadtrip extravaganza, we moseyed from our teepees at El Cosmico to Buns N’ Roses, about a 40 minute walk in the hot desert sun. (We could have driven I guess, but we’d all imbibed quite a few mimosas back at our lodging. Duh, vacation.) I had heard good things about their breakfast from the peeps at El Cosmico and besides that, I couldn’t turn down a restaurant with a pun for a name.

It’s an accurate pun, too, because Buns and Roses is a 2-in-1 stop: both a bakery (buns) and florist (roses). I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

Upon approach, you feel like you might be entering an abandoned/haunted greenhouse…

But inside it’s quite cute and cozy! The kitchen is run by a mother-daughter team, which I love. There were only a couple other tables in for brunch around 11:30am on a Saturday, and service was super quick with plenty of coffee refills – always appreciated. The menu is full of your standard egg dishes, plus offerings from their bakery: honey wheat bread, beer bread, and of course their famous buns. Tragically they were sold out of all their donuts and pastries by the time we rolled in so we couldn’t try any of their eponymous buns! But the breads/toast were GOOD.

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by Emily

Endless Road Trip Marfa: Padre’s Bar & Grill

If you haven’t heard of Marfa, Texas, I can’t blame you. I didn’t know much about it until I moved to Austin a couple years back, but then I learned quickly enough: Marfa is a little town in the West Texas desert which has turned into an art enclave in the past few decades. It has some glimmers of weirdness because it was the setting of an old James Dean movie way back in the day, and it’s also home to the Marfa Lights, a mysterious phenomenon in the sky… basically, if you are looking for a scenic, artsy, and perhaps slightly creepy wild west desert roadtrip, West Texas (and specifically Marfa) is the place for YOU!

And the place for ME. I loved our trip so much. It’s funny because Marfa really is a teensy town, but I felt like there was way too much to do in the short amount of time we spent in the town (2 days out of the 4 we were in West TX). And by “do” I mean “eat” obviously, because Marfa actually has a great (albeit small, I mean come on, it’s like a 4-street town) food scene! So many cute food trucks and hole-in-the-wall spots only open for breakfast or lunch. There are like three “fancy”-ish restaurants and three bars as well. At least five days’ worth of solid eating and drinking, is what I’m saying.

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by ES Guest

Eating in Ayia Napa: A Cyprus Culinary Adventure

Forget the Greek islands — Cyprus is among the most beautiful (and affordable) spots in Europe, and the beachside town of Ayia Napa has quickly emerged as a hotspot for parties, and as one of the most fun-filled and vibrant places in the Mediterranean. Clearly, we’re mostly interested in what there is to eat there.

Good news: there is no shortage of fantastic restaurants in this part of Cyprus, and here’s a few things to be sure to try, when you can tear yourself away from the waterfront.
1. Chorizo Pilaf

If you are looking for a snack that is going to fill you right up, chorizo pilaf is the one. This is similar to the paella dishes that you find in Spain, with a wide mix of ingredients all cooked in a pan until the rice is dark and crispy. But this typically Mediterranean take on the dish comes with a deep, zesty flavor due to the combination of paprika, garlic, and lemon.

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by Emily

Endless Eating at Austin Food & Wine Fest

Austin Food & Wine Festival was three weekends ago, so this recap is definitely a little later than I would like, but to be honest, it took about three weeks to recover! I attend a lot of food events these days, and AFWF is the mother lode of all food events here in Austin. I ate and drank more in those three days than I did in the rest of 2014, I swear. There wasn’t a moment I wasn’t stuffing some sort of caloric goodness into my mouth. So much wine, specialty cuisine, celebrity chefs, fanciful tacos, sugary sweet macarons… I could go on, but you get the idea.

I’d rather show than tell, though. Here are some highlights from my three days of gorging:

Georgia Pellegrini‘s “Dough a Deer” taco from the Rock Your Taco competition. Green plantain tortilla with parsnip puree, venison tossed in a Cuban oregano vinaigrette, pickled jicama and carrot, tomatillo salsa, smoked Adobo sauce and pickled mustard seed. SO creative and delicious.

The “Not Enough” (salted caramel ice cream, pecans, and bittersweet chocolate) ice cream sundae cup from Jeni’s. Have you had Jeni’s ice cream? It’s seriously some of the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted. It’s a little pricey, but worth hunting out. You can find it in upscale groceries and specialty markets.

Croque Madame from Chef Lawrence Kocurek of TRACE, made with duck bacon and quail egg. Disclaimer: I work for TRACE, too! But my completely unbiased opinion is that this was one of the best bites I had in the entire Grand Tasting inside the fest.

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by BS

Looking for Love in Gut-Bomb City

(Illustration by Anna Haifisch for Narratively)

Have you ever waited in line for the bathroom behind six drag queens, two unicorns, a seahorse princess and an evil monkey on stilts after downing a bowl of spicy hot gumbo? Have you ever tried to remove a fake fur coat, leotard and tights in a tiny dirty bar stall even when you’re not on mushrooms? Have you ever fantasized about installing a flatscreen TV in your bathroom?

Gwendolyn Knapp has done all of those things. As the editor of Eater New Orleans and a longtime sufferer of IBS, Gwendolyn finds herself in the unique position of living in the fattiest, saltiest, most deep-fried and delicious city in the world…while dealing with a chronic condition that has her constantly battling the outcome of said deliciousness.

Her hilarious essay about living and dating with IBS in NOLA is up on Narratively today:

Looking for Love in Gut-Bomb City.

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