My favorite stay in Maui was on the West side (see my article on West Maui). Wailea, with its posh resorts and mega-malls reminded me of the OC or Beverly Hills of Hawaii – not what I wanted to head to Hawaii for. But I relished in the sugar cane fields, country towns and mountain glories of Haleakal?. Wailea Though… Read more →
OKC is far from hipster, which, granted, has its pluses. Years behind national food and drink trends, they’ve only recently opened their first third wave coffee haven (Elemental Coffee, a true coffee oasis with sleek cafe and roasting facility), a proper cocktail bar (the bar at Ludivine – see below), a couple hipster food outposts and further from Oklahoma City,… Read more →
Volcanoes. Black rock expanses. Coffee berries growing on mountain foothills. Some of the best stargazing in the world. Rolling, green farmland. Waterfalls. Sandy beaches. Singing classic Hawaiian tunes to ukelele under the stars. These are but a few things I beheld and experienced on Hawaii, the Big Island. Flying around the entire island via helicopter (I’d recommend Paradise Helicopters’ circle… Read more →
An October week in what has historically been a Central California ranching (some say “cow”) town, Paso Robles is now best known for wine, maintaining its small town, cowboy spirit with a thriving wine scene that has everyone from natives to the creators of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance opening wineries (I visited the gamut). Ever… Read more →
Imagine if the Wild West collided with a European village. There might be winding, narrow streets through neighboring towns, plotting through pine trees. Old West saloons, wood sidewalks and columns, classic homes in walkable small towns. Not far from Lake Tahoe, at the foothills of the Sierra Mountains, there are two such tiny towns. The Gold Country towns of Grass Valley,… Read more →
Last issue we journeyed through six newer cocktail destinations in Chicago – with a little food. This time, its food highlights from my recent Chi-town travels – sometimes with cocktails. Listing stand-out places or dishes, first I recap coffee, tamales and deep dish explorations. Though Intelligentsia Coffee was launched here in 1995 by San Francisco transplants Doug Zell and Emily… Read more →
For years it seemed no one could talk Chicago cocktail bars without the subject centering almost solely around Violet Hour. Though I preferred cocktails and service at the Drawing Room, there wasn’t the selection of artisan cocktail bars three years ago that there is now. The following six places are all new since my last visit to Chicago, all with solid… Read more →
Exploring New Orleans restaurants extensively in recent years, as far as I’m concerned, the city offers some of the best cuisine in the world. When it comes to cocktails, as with food, Nola is blessedly averse to trends and unusually respectful of history, so even through dark ages of cocktails (1960’s-90’s), New Orleans’ cocktail classics like the Sazerac, Ramos gin… Read more →
Returning to my beloved New Orleans, a city I’ve explored extensively via a path laden with jazz, Dixieland, Zydeco, Ramos Gin Fizzes, Sazeracs, Cajun and Creole food, there were ever more finds, both new and classic. The sweltering humid heat of July during Tales of the Cocktail is not ideal weather to fill up on po boys and boudin, but… Read more →
Over 50 places in one week… I may not have covered all Portland this May, but I certainly made a dent. So much so that my Portland reviews are broken up in a four part series. Soaking wet half the week, from my home base, Kimpton’s RiverPlace, in a roomy suite with a fantastic view of the Willamette River, I biked out… Read more →