Food

For authentic Mexican fare at an affordable price, it’s hard to top the restaurants in Las Cruces. I loved the ambience and history of dining at La Posta de Mesilla while sipping a house margarita and soaking it all in. Tacos al pastor was the signature dish at nearby Andele, perfectly charred meat topped with homemade salsa from their salsa bar. The huevos rancheros were so good at the homey La Nueva Casita I went there twice. Other highlights include the overstuffed lava burger, washed down with a refreshing pecan ale at the Pecan Grill and Brewery; fish tacos at the spanking new Dragonfly on Main Street (perfectly located for the Saturday Farmers Market); a tasty Greek salad with grilled chicken at Tiffany’s; and the frozen custard hot fudge sundae, topped with local salted pecans, at Caliche’s. I stayed at the Hotel Encanto, an easy drive to all the restaurants and sights in Las Cruces. After a long day of sightseeing and writing, it was great to unwind at their long pool shaded by tall palms and overflowing with monarch butterflies. A little bit of paradise in the desert. 

We head over to nearby Waltham all the time for the authentic Mexican fare at Amuleto, the best pastrami in town at Moody’s Provisions, and to dine at the award-winning Italian restaurant, La Campania. So it came as no surprise that Waltham made the cut in RewardExpert’s ranking of 2017’s Best American Foodie Towns. RewardExpert analyzed 100 cities and towns with populations less than 100,000 and evaluated them on nine key metrics. I also like their other picks such as Portland, Maine, Traverse City, Michigan, and Healdsburg, California. Have a look. 

I won’t soon forget dining on halibut so tender and sweet at Alma’s Parkland Village Inn that, of course, it was just caught that day by the father of the girl working the front desk. It was remarkable to look out over the Bay of Fundy at low tide and see that the entirety of the water from our 2-hour paddle that afternoon was gone, replaced by the ocean floor that reached over a kilometer long. New Brunswick is blessed with some of the finest restaurants in the country thanks to the bevy of seafood caught nearby. St. Andrews Rossmount Inn was once again at the top of its game, serving oysters on the half shell, poached lobster, and halibut ceviche, all more sublime than the last. We ended the trip at another one of my favorite restaurant in the Maritimes, East Coast Bistro in Saint John. Chef Kim was hosting one of her signature cocktail and themed dinners, this time focused on the cuisine of Japan. I was the lucky recipient of just-caught yellowfin tuna, encrusted with black sesame seeds on a bed of soba noodles, and paired with tender asparagus and snap peas. It could easily rival any dish in my hometown of Boston. Other highlights included the wonderful smoked salmon jerky at Oven Head Salmon Smokers and the fish and chips nearby at Ossie’s Lunch in Bethel, the mussels at Saint John Ale House, the Rye IPA on tap and pickled eggs (apparently good for hangovers) at Holy Whale Brewery in Alma, and the tasty strawberry rhubarb cobbler at Calactus in Moncton. It’s the adventure that keeps me coming back to New Brunswick, but once here, it’s hard not to rave about the freshly caught seafood and the talented chefs creating memorable meals. 

If you’re headed to Boston for the 4th of July to see the fireworks and listen to Hamilton alum Leslie Odom sing with the Boston Pops, you might want to stick around town. On July 8th and 9th from noon to 10 pm, the inaugural Boston Pizza Festival will be held at City Hall Plaza. 30 handcrafted pizza ovens will spread across the Plaza as Boston’s best pizza makers, including Regina, Antico Forno, Mast, and Oath, will give you a taste of their wares. Also expect live music, beer, wine, and pizza demos. The Mayor of Naples, Luigi De Magistris, will be here along with Boston’s Mayor Marty Walsh to kick off the festivities. Tickets are priced at $15 and kids under 5 are free. Limited-availability VIP tickets ($50) include 1-hour early admission (11am), access to the VIP lounge with private bar, free sample for the first hour, and a VIP gift bag. Tickets can be purchased here. 

Maria von Trapp, the woman who inspired The Sound of Music, is no longer with us, but Trapp Family Lodge continues to flourish thanks to one of the finest cross-country networks in the northeast, comfy lodging perched on a hillside in Stowe, Vermont, the launch of their new beer hall and microbrewery, and a restaurant that serves a tasty wiener schnitzel. Mid to late March, during the heart of the maple sugaring season, is my favorite time of year to visit Trapps. When it comes to sugaring, the family does it the old fashion way, picking up the sap in buckets with a horse-drawn sleigh and delivering it to the sugarhouse to boil off the water and create Vermont’s “liquid gold.” The 1200 taps produce 300 gallons of syrup annually and the season lasts from mid-March until mid-April. Join in on the fun each Saturday, when you can cross-country ski, snowshoe, or grab that horse-drawn sleigh to the sugarhouse for a traditional Sugar-on-Snow party. The hot syrup is tossed on the white snow to create a chewy maple taffy, served with donuts and dill pickles. If you’re in the area tomorrow, March 11, Trapp Family Lodge will be offering a Maple Sugar Snowshoe Tour from 10:30 to 12 pm. Enjoy a 1.5-mile snowshoe through the woods, then learn about the process of making maple syrup at their sugarhouse.

It wasn’t so long ago that the signature dinner in Cape Town was a traditional braai, a barbecue featuring copious amounts of meat like boerewors sausages. If that didn’t satiate your carnivorous cravings, you could always stop at the local butcher for a bag of biltong, the popular South African snack of air-dried beef jerky. Then the Apartheid regime ended and the city started to embrace its diversity of cultures, especially when it came to expanding the palate at your nightly meal. The fusion of Dutch, French, Malaysian, Indian, and African cooking has melded to create an exciting new cuisine. 

The latest batch of talented chefs take full advantage of Cape Town’s melting pot and its envied locale, straddling the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as the largest city on the southernmost point of the continent. Everywhere you look is water and thankfully the fresh bounty of the sea now appears on the menu alongside the many types of meat, all washed down with South Africa’s world-class pinotage and sauvignon blanc vintages. You don’t have to step far from your hotel room to find a restaurant that scintillates the taste buds. Fine dining is sprouting up in all parts of the city like the blooming of king proteas, the national flower, at the city’s Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. So pick a neighborhood, any neighborhood. 

My entire story on the Cape Town dining scene can be found in the February/March 2017 issue of Virtuoso Traveler. 

We didn’t skimp on Mexican fare during out time in Arizona. Our first guacamole was made with tender chunks of ribeye at the Mexican-Asian influenced SumoMaya in Scottsdale. The rock shrimp tempura roll and ahi tuna tostada were also big hits at our table. Elote Café in Sedona was our favorite meal of the trip. We arrived when the restaurant opened at 5 pm and already there was a line out the door. A sublime carne asada, topped with a square of blue cheese and served with black beans and rice, was washed down with a perfectly concocted margarita on the rocks. Adding to our bliss was a riveting sunset that enlightened the red rock canyons outside the window. Swanky Café Poca Cosa in Tucson served the finest chicken mole of the trip. We ended the trip at supposedly the oldest Mexican restaurant in America, El Charro Café, which originally opened in Tucson in 1922. We sampled their signature dish, the carne seca. Dried in the Sonoran Desert sun, angus beef is shredded and grilled with green chile, tomatoes, and onions. I’ll be thinking about that hot spicy flavor all winter long in Boston. 

Spending three days with my daughter in August before she left for her first semester of college is a gift I don’t take for granted. A lobster bake on a deserted Maine island after a day of sailing aboard a historic Maine windjammer is just the icing on the cake. Captain Barry of the Schooner Mary Day anchored near a quiet beach with no other boats in sight and proceeded to row us over to shore. The crew built a fire, and then placed two massive pots brimming over with lobsters, corn on the cob, potatoes, onions, and a healthy top layer of seaweed. When ready, Captain Barry threw off the layer of seaweed and grabbed his tongs to place all the lobsters and fixins in a circular design. We each grabbed our lobster and found a spot on the beach to dine.