The 2014 list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants has just been announced, so if you came here to hear about comics or science fiction (or even the ukulele), forgive me.

I’ve dined at four of winners, the same four I ate at from last year’s list, only instead of coming in at 5, 9, 14, and 15, those restaurants are now at 4, 9, 16, and 18.

I’ll be adding a fifth restaurant to my personal list during my August trip to the London Worldcon, because I already have reservations at #5 below—Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. And who knows? If Fate smiles upon me, I might get in to the Fat Duck (#47) as well.

Check out the complete list below, with links to posts on my visits to Eleven Madison Park, Alinea, Steirereck, and Astrid y Gaston. (more…)

I celebrated my birthday last week, but then, based on the hundreds of celebratory messages I received via Twitter and Facebook, if you’re bothering to come here, you probably already knew that. And while passing along best wishes for the day, many wondered in what foodie way I planned to celebrate. (I guess I’ve developed a reputation.)

I didn’t have time to tell you here until now, because prepping for our annual daffodil party Saturday (about which more later) took precedence over pretty much everything, but Irene and I went out for a birthday dinner at Family Meal, a Bryan Voltaggio restaurant which we first visited in July 2012 within a few weeks of its opening. It serves quality comfort food, and we try to eat there as often as we can when we have a reason to pass through Frederick, Maryland, but this time, my birthday was reason enough for a special trip.

I’ve been working my way through the menu ever since Family Meal opened, so except for the dessert, I made sure to only order dishes I hadn’t tried before. We started with a smoked scallop with sweet potato, chard, and green tomato.

This being Family Meal, I expected a succulent scallop, but not one that jaw-droppingly humongous. An excellent starter. (more…)

Sunday night’s surprise snowfall forced me to cancel our dinner reservations at the recently opened Aggio, which caused me to undergo a bit of Bryan Voltaggio withdrawal. Luckily, I had various errands to run over in Maryland Tuesday, which gave me a perfectly good reason to drop by one of the chef’s other restaurants, Family Meal. I’ve been enjoying that spot ever since it opened back in 2012.

I started, of course, with my favorite appetizer, the chicken pot pie fritters.

When I placed my order, the server indicated that the recipe had been tweaked to include crushed Ritz crackers in the crust. Surprisingly, this improved a concept I already enjoyed. The coating held together the pot pie filling more tightly, and made for an even more interesting contrast between the shell and what was inside. (more…)

I’ve been getting a lot of use out of my Sansaire Immersion Circulator since I received it … was it really only ten days ago?

The first things I tried to sous vide were short ribs, followed by eggs. Saturday night, I moved on to skinless chicken breasts, which I vacuum sealed and dropped into a 140-degree Fahrenheit bath for 90 minutes, the time and temperature recommended by Sansaire.

Result?

Extremely juicy chicken, seen here surrounded by broccoli fried with pecans and raisins. (more…)

My final meal in Santiago was one I’d been looking forward to for months, ever since Osaka made the list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants and I reached out for a reservation immediately. And as the time of our dinner approached, I grew even more excited, due to the additional wonderful things I’d been hearing about their food. Unfortunately, though the food at Osaka was indeed for the most part excellent, we ended up not feeling welcome there.

We arrived a few minutes before our 7:30 reservation and found that the door to the restaurant, inside the W Hotel, was closed. When it slid open exactly at 7:30, no one seemed ready to greet quests. The person who’d opened the door ignored us and walked off, and no one else even looked up. I had to interrupt the bartenders who were busy polishing glassware to get anyone to acknowledge or interact with us.

The servers seemed baffled we were even there, and questioned several times whether we actually had a reservation. I assured them that we did, but they didn’t believe me, and when one of them checked the computer screen at the maitre di’s station, he could not find we had one, even though I’d received a confirmation email way back in October. It was only because I remembered the name of the employee who’d emailed me that we were eventually allowed in to what was an empty restaurant, where none of the employees appeared eager to have us.

The food which followed was delicious, and the sushi was excellent, but the totally unexpected “who are you and why are you here” vibe instead of the warm, welcoming greeting we anticipated was a negative start to the meal. I’m aware that 7:30 is an early time for dining in Chile, but if Osaka hadn’t wanted us there at that time, they should never have accepted the reservation. So … a less than stellar experience.

After I returned home and contacted the restaurant, they apologized and explained that because our reservation had been taken in 2013, it failed for some reason to be transferred over in their system when the new year began, which is why no one expected us. While I can understand mistakes like that can happen, it sadly resulted in us feeling like intruders rather than customers.

Let’s hope you don’t have to go through anything like that, and can be free to focus solely on the food. (more…)

They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but Irene and I managed to get one at Hetu’u restaurant on Easter Island.

As I mentioned in a few of my previous posts about our trip, we got to spend one more night on Easter Island than originally planned. As we were checking out of Chez Maria Goretti for our flight home that afternoon, we were told there wouldn’t be a flight that afternoon. We assumed it had something to do with the weather, which had been quite stormy the previous night, causing a cancellation of the Tapati festival, but once we arrived at the airport we learned that a passenger had experienced a heart attack on the lone inbound flight from Santiago, causing it to turn back.

As a result, LAN Airlines put us up at the Hotel Tupa at their expense, plus offered to pay for our lunch and dinner. Good on LAN. (Though we didn’t take them up on the dinner, as we spent the night at the festival.) What this all meant is that instead of being on a flight Friday afternoon, we were instead at Hetu’u restaurant, enjoying that free lunch.

Because our meal was paid for courtesy of a coupon handed us by the hotel, we didn’t get to choose from Hetu’u’s varied menu, some of which can be seen on the sandwich board out by the street, but were served a set menu, which ended up being a surprisingly good lunch anyway. (more…)

We initially avoided the Easter Island restaurant La Taverne du Pecheur because it seemed too … well … obvious.

It was in such a perfect spot—right by Caleta Hanga Roa, where the dive shops sent out their boats for scuba and snorkeling—that we figured they’d get a ton of walk-in traffic without a need to serve good food, and so would only have location on their side.

Besides, we preferred to find restaurants a little off the beaten track. (As if Easter Island wasn’t off the beaten track enough!) But then the Belgian family we befriended at Chez Maria Goretti told us we must go … so we went.

We sat on a second story patio outside beneath an umbrella (that may even be our table right above the restaurant’s sign), but soon the heavens opened, and the umbrella wasn’t enough to protect us. We moved to a table under an awning, but remained on the patio, so we could keep our view, which included moai who did not at all care that they were out in a storm. (more…)

So the next thing I decided to tackle with my Sansaire after those short ribs was an egg, which I was going to let bathe in 65-degree Centigrade water for 45 minutes.

Which sounded weird even to admit.

Why take so much time to prepare something that for my entire life up until now only took minutes? (Which I guess is a question only an obvious sous vide newbie would ask.) Because as promised by Sansaire, the result would be unlike any egg I’ve ever eaten.

Here’s my egg right after being scooped out of the warm water and cracked over wheat toast.

The white was delicate, and the yolk was creamy … buttery even.

This egg was no longer breakfast. It was … dessert.

I can assure you I’ll be having another one tomorrow.

Tataku Vave wasn’t the only Easter Island restaurant recommended by my Santiago food guide Karla Lodis. She also said we should head to Tia Berta, where we’d find awesome tuna empanadas. And since Karla had taken us to Rancho Doña Maria, we knew she knew a thing or two about empanadas. So we went for lunch Tuesday … and then returned Wednesday.

Which ought to tell you what we thought of those empanadas.

We went the first day in the company of our Easter Island guide Cristin Arvalo Pakarati, who once again, unprompted, validated Karla’s choice in restaurants. (more…)

Before we left Santiago, our food guide Karla Lodis recommended three restaurants I should try while on Easter Island. At the top of the list? Tataku Vave, which she said served the best ceviches and fresh fish.

Then, once on Easter Island, I asked our local guide Cristin Arvalo Pakarati which restaurant he thought served the best fish. His answer, without any prompting from me? Tataku Vave.

And so, Monday night, after our first day’s touring, Tataku Vave it was!

We timed our meal to end at the right time for us to amble over to that night’s installment of the Tapati festival, set to begin at 9:45, which meant that as we ate out on the patio we were once more treated to a terrific sunset. (more…)