Ah, Paris in the summer would make any Briton sell their soul, with its endless days of clear blue skies and hot afternoons that lead into perfect evenings. Truly the city of love, walking in Paris is achingly beautiful and spending an evening on the banks of the Seine with a picnic of foie gras, champagne, ham and bread with raspberries to go with mille feuille as you watch the sun set is nothing short of poetic. Having been infuriatingly depressed with the gastronomic offerings on a previous visit, the expectations of grandeur were firmly kept in check – a caution I found to be exercised by many epicureans of late.
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August 22, 2012
Epicure at The Bristol, Paris
July 12, 2012
Off the Grid, San Francisco
You’ve got to hand it to San Francisco, they sure do food with style, whether it’s 2 star Michelin, a restaurant that seasons their garlic with food or serious health conscious fare. However, what San Francisco does better than anyone else are food trucks. Now, living in England, the thought of a food truck serving you something that you might be interested in seems like a farce – our experiences being limited to the pitiful excuse for food served out of these trucks at festivals and fairs. Off the Grid is San Fran’s food truck revolution bundled under one happy umbrella. The organisation has food truck markets every week, all over the city and even tells you how many trucks are going to be present at each market. Once a month, at Fort Mason, Off the Grid brings together no less than 30 trucks serving up anything from cupcakes to creme brulee to pho, beer, jerk chicken and tacos. Throw in a live band and some of the best food you’d pay handsomely for in a restaurant, and you’ve got yourself a perfect summer evening. My efforts must have taken me across at least half the food trucks and I have to admit, I was ecstatically shocked and surprised – everything I tasted was fresh, vibrant and just, downright, delicious!
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July 9, 2012
Vij’s, Vancouver
Whilst there was no shortage of great food on my travels through the Americas, the one bit of eating that is dire across South and North America is Indian. There seems to be a disastrous lack of quality Indian restaurants for the discerning diner. By quality, I naturally mean restaurants of a calibre we have in London, after all, greasy Indian eateries are a dime a dozen the world over with varying degrees of shock and horror, and very few making it to the list of ‘decently edible’. However, before I ventured into the western hemisphere, a couple of friendly travellers that I met in Sri Lanka insisted that whilst in Vancouver, I make a trip to a restaurant called Vij’s, Canada’s seemingly most celebrated Indian restaurant. Of course, the nature of it’s celebrity status was only revealed when I actually landed on Canadian soil and the name Vij’s rang out like a insistent echo; everybody knew of it, almost everyone had been there or wanted to go there and the man himself, Vij, was a bit of a celebrity with his cookbook, his supermarket products, his endless charm and what not.
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July 4, 2012
Pok Pok, Portland
I did laugh out loud and possibly may have even done a chicken walk to the sound of Portland’s hottest restaurant, Pok Pok. Having discovered a very decisive and accurate listing of some of America’s best restaurants, Pok Pok had been on my radar and as it so happened that I had a friend who I was visiting in Portland, the opportunity was there for the taking. To bolster this decision, a couple of friendly diners with whom I struck up a foodie rapport at Red Farm in New York further mentioned Pok Pok’s claim to culinary fame as one of America’s finest Asian restaurants. Having won the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef, Northwest 2011, Andy Ricker’s brand of Northern Thai cuisine has no problems filling the rafters, with people constantly queueing to sample the fare. Luckily, being a table of two not opposed to sitting at the bar, we were let in almost immediately to start our feasting….
