dining (131)

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The relaxed Caribbean beach town of Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica not only has some of the prettiest beaches in Costa Rica, along with upscale Costa Rica boutique hotels, is also the gastronomic capital of the Costa Rica southern Caribbean coast.

 

Puerto Viejo’s dining scene reflects its widely varied international population – Caribbean, Italian, Argentinean, Mexican, Asian, Spanish, Middle Eastern, North American, and of course, Costa Rican.

 

9008926863?profile=original“Considering the size of Puerto Viejo – a small beach tow

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Venice Insider Tips - Eating and Drinking

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Sitting down to eat or drink at an Italian café costs more than standing at the counter and nowhere will charge you more for the honour than Venice, particularly if you're outside, in somewhere like St Mark's Square and there's an orchestra playing. The mark-up on your bill can be over 500%! Here are a few tips that will help you keep within your food and drink budget.vce3.jpg

Eating out in Venice is very expensive, but choose to perch at the counter and opt for the dish of the day or a selection of bar

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“Honey, I still don’t see any action in the restaurant!”  

We were sitting on the balcony of our hotel high above the Adriatic with a view directly into a large, empty, open-air restaurant built in a cave which was also high above the crashing surf. For experienced independent travelers we were getting a little concerned. Did we just make a big leap of faith on a good friend’s recommendation to go to this isolated location for an exceptional dining experience?

The Journey of Faith and a Twinge

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Once a humble Howard Johnson's overlooking I-95, JHouse is now Greenwich, Connecticut’s newest hotel and live-music hotspot. Resulting from extreme adaptive reuse, the property’s exterior footprint is the only discernible clue revealing its HoJo origins. The rest is a tricked out ultramodern architectural gem. A grand glassed entrance with a valet at the ready leads into a bright reception area. At first it feels as though you’re entering a museum and in some ways it is once you look up at the i

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Where do you go in Washington DC for a special celebration to make memories with family and friends over food and wine?

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My choice for my birthday this year was Fiola Mare restaurant, the newest brainchild of award-winning chef and owner Fabio Trabocchi (below), whose passion for cooking and for seafood came from his years growing up in Le Marche region of Italy.
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Opened in February 2014, Fiola Mare strives to evoke the kind of seaside dining experience found along the coast of Italy and the Med
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jupiterhotelexterior1-1024x786.jpg?width=515To countless monikers like " Rip City" , "Stumptown," and "Beervana,"  I have added Bridge City to Portland, Oregon's list. The Willamette River runs right through the center of the city, with a total of 9 bridges (not counting rail) connecting downtown to Eastside neighborhood districts like Buckman, Sunnyside, and Ladd's Addition. Some bridges are only doable by car, but others like the Burnside Bridge are pedestrian/ bike-friendly leading directly to streets flanked with former warehouses, fa

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South American cuisine
–especially Peruvian and Brazilian–has been gaining quite a bit of worldwide attention in recent years. But even lesser-known cuisines of Latin America have been upping their games in a major way, as visitors will discover, for example, in capitalSantiago de Chile. Here, a mix of influences–rich indigenous cultures, the bounty of game meats and the Pacific Ocean, Spanish colonisation and immigration from elsewhere in Europe such as Germany and Italy–produces a singular cui

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While the Great Depression gripped most of the world in 1931, Milton S. Hershey built an opulent hotel atop Pat's Hill overlooking his chocolate factory in Hershey Pennsylvania. The Hershey Hotel is truly a testament to the fact that greatness marches to the beat of a different drum. But eccentricity borne by wealth alone doesn't explain why Mr. Hershey went ahead with such an extravagant project during hard times. Faced with the decision of either employing his town's construction workers or pr

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Walking tours are wonderful especially if they have a specific topic and cover only a small area.  Thus it is with “Burgh Bits and Bites” tour of Pittsburgh’s Strip District.  At one time the Strip District, located along the Allegheny River, was home to many mills and factories that later became an area of wholesalers of fresh produce and meat with restaurants to serve shift workers at any hour of the day. Things change and today most of the produce industry, manufacturing plants and mills ha

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If you have managed to spend the weekend in London and planning to experience the city in these 2 days then gear yourself up, because there is too much to see in a very short span. There is no shortage of tourist staples in this regal city. Being one of the most populous cities, it has lots of attractions for travellers of any age. If you love history and the royal culture, Palace of Westminster, Tower of London and Buckingham Palace are some of the heritage sites you just cannot miss. On the ot

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GraniteStateCandyShoppe.jpg?width=422Historic preservation and a huge selection of locally run eateries are two features that immediately stand out when walking Concord New Hampshire's Main Street. A State Capitol city of 42,000, the statehouse building is an integral part of Concord's pedestrian fabric prominently sharing the street front with highly ornate architecture, much of it constructed of brick or massive blocks of the State's signature gray granite. As much as Concord is steeped in history (2015 marks its 250th anniversar

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What do you get when you build the world’s highest-altitude glass-walled rotating restaurant overlooking a 360-degree panorama of the Swiss Alps? What if deep below this restaurant carved into glacial ice, you can explore lit passageways connecting large grottos filled with ornate ice carvings, an ice altar for celebrating weddings, and another room completely outfitted as a playground with slides and ladders for the children? My first words to describe these wonders high above Sass Fee atop th

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We had been wanting to try Sugarfreak since it opened a few months ago, but Jon's gluten allergy, and my intolerance to sugar kept us away. When I first glanced at the menu one day as I walked by it on 30th Ave, all I saw were po-boy and muffaletta sandwiches (hence, the gluten), and that name...well it scared me a little. Still, I was intrigued by what looked like shower curtains covering the front window, and the New Orleans theme. Once my friend and co-contributor to this blog, Teresa Barile,

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Yee Sang is one of those fun recipes that always turns out right.  It is popular during Chinese New Year with people in Malaysia and Singapore because the names mean “abundance” and “liveliness,” both of which are auspicious for the coming year.

 

Collect the following ingredients but, truthfully, one can pick the items that they best like. If you don’t have one of the ingredients, double up on what you have or substitute.

7 oz fresh salmon, tuna or any white fish of your choice

3 oz  shredded carro

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Decisions, decisions. When in doubt, restaurant hop, or as I like to call it “food-hop”! After all, who says you can’t have it all, or that life is too short? If you can’t decide between or among several great recommended places to eat when you are traveling, then don’t decide. Group them by neighborhood and go to them all! That’s how we spent our 2nd day living life in the footsteps of Woody Allen – we just ate a course at one restaurant and then moved on to another for the next course. And let

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Great restaurants at the Hyatt in Saipan

http://www.examiner.com/culinary-travel-in-national/the-dining-is-amazing-at-the-luxurious-hyatt-saipan

Located on the expansive Micro Beach, the Saipan Hyatt Regency in the Northern Marianas is nestled on 14 acres of beautifully landscaped tropical gardens offering the best place on the island to kick back and relax. And, it is just a short walk to the American Memorial National Park, shopping, and the weekly night market.

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The dining options are many and delectable. There is a restaurant for eve

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9296558466?profile=originalOne important lesson I learned during my visit to St. Simons Island was how difficult it is to promote the use of locally sourced ingredients even in a region awash in native seafood, fruits, and vegetables. The more people seek out and demand better quality food, the easier and more cost-effective it will be for local purveyors to compete with mass produced mediocrity. The King and Prince, an historic resort on Georgia's coast is pulling out all the stops reaching out to local growers and culti

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Shirley Mae's Diner

shirley+maes.jpgShirley Mae's...doesn't that name just conjure up images of fried chicken, ribs, collard greens and macaroni and cheese? It did for me and Jon, especially when we saw the words Soul Food under the name as we drove past the restaurant on 21st Street in Astoria. I stopped by during the week and picked up a menu, then called in our order last Saturday night. When we went in to pick it up, the friendly, dred-locked guy named Anthony, the only one on duty besides the cook, told us
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9008662860?profile=originalBolzano is the capital of the province of Alto Adige (South Tyrol or Sudtirol) in Italy. Originally a Roman settlement, after the fall of the Roman Empire, immigrants arrived from Barvaria to the north, and it has been settled by German populations since then. Before World War 1, Bolzano was part of the Austro-Hungarian county of Tyrol, and became part of Italy at the end of this war. This cultural heritage is still prevalent throughout the region, from its bilingual street signs and town names,

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Where can you get a varied, perfectly seasoned, five course rustic Italian meal with great wines and original cocktails in San Diego?  Pizzeria Mozza fits that bill.     9008833690?profile=original      

Pizzeria Mozza, sits on the western end of San Diego’s Headquarter’s, a rebirth of the historic San Diego Police Department Headquarters, built in 1939.  After 28 years in limbo, it is now on the national registry of historic places, with buildings and an open air plaza at the entrance to Seaport Village.  The Headquarters

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