• Ropa Vieja Grill  has a giant patio with live music, so you really can’t miss it on Ashford Avenue in Condado. It’s music you’d actually like to listen to, too, and not too loud. The restaurant is busy with both locals and tourists lapping up fresh fish, roasted meats, mofongo swimming in garlic oil—all very comforting and tasty.

• 1950 Condado just down the street from the Ropa is also local, straight-ahead Puerto Rican fare, meat- and fried-forward comfort food, like pork and red-bean rice, sofrito everything, fish tacos, frothy drinks.

THINGS TO DO: IN SAN JUAN 

• Lote 23 is a fun, open-air food court in the city’s Santurce neighbourhood, filled with picnic tables and ringed with little kiosks and trailers. You pitch up to the counter windows and order burgers, chicken sandwiches, mofongo, pizza, even cocktails. There are families and groups of pals, a nice vibe and good music. This is a fun casual night out.

• Jungle Bird sits just off the busy La Placita, serving up tropical Taíno-inspired cocktails, inventive Caribbean-Asian fusion, local ingredients, simple and fresh flavours. Great value, too.

• Sabrina sports a laid-back cool vibe, casual but upscale, all pink and green and lush. Chef Juan Camacho turns out salmon with quinoa salad, a rich fish stew, yellow fin tuna, a local crudo, light desserts. Yes, it’s named after Audrey Hepburn.

• La Central by Mario Pagán fires up the wood stoves within the Distrito T-Mobile complex for steaks the size of your head, ribs, chicken, branzino, swordfish, served with à la carte sides. Save room for the caramel corn brûlée.

• Raya by Mario Pagán on the main floor of the very cool O:LV 55 Hotel hums with the sound of cocktail-shaking and the oohs and aahs from patrons sitting down to Caribbean-Asian fusion. Sake and Japanese whiskey-infused cocktails are surely satisfying. The restaurant is also responsible for the food served on the Arya Rooftop lounge. Make a date for sunset.

DISCOVERPUERTORICO.COM

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I borrowed a few notes from her kimchi cookbook and have experimented with different styles and ingredients, before finding the recipe below online, which I continue to tweak to my taste. The thing is, you can ferment your kimchi for a few hours or for three days, depending on how you like it. And when you make it yourself, you also control the salt.

I soak my cabbage in salt water overnight, throw everything together (use gloves or you will have red hands for days!), cram it into jars and let it sit covered like this with little hats for 48 hours. Every morning, I poke it with a long knife to release the gas collecting at the bottom of the jars. THEN, I put the lids on and stash it in the fridge.

The benefits of kimchi are supposedly myriad, but the main one is that the healthy bacteria and probiotics promote good gut health. It is also said to lower cholesterol levels.

So easy and the kids love it!

The Best Kimchi Recipe

180 g coarse salt
1 large Napa cabbage
300 g daikon radish
1 carrot
3 spring onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves
4 cm root ginger, peeled
50 g Korean red chili flakes (gochugaru)
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce

Boil and cool salted water. Boil 1.5 L of water with the salt, lower to medium and stir to dissolve. Pour into a large bowl and leave to cool

Prep the cabbage. Rinse the cabbage and chop it lengthways into quarters. Remove the cabbage core. Cut the quarters crossways into thick slices about 4 cm wide.

Soak the cabbage in brine. Put the cabbage in a large bowl and cover with the cooled water and toss slightly. Leave to sit in a cool place (but not the fridge) overnight—or for at least three hours.

Prep the other veg. Wash and cut the other vegetables into bite-sized cubes. I sometimes cut up a leek. Sprinkle with a bit of salt, leave to sit for half an hour, then drain.

Make the seasoning. Chop the garlic and ginger and put them in a bowl with the chili flakes, sugar and fish sauce, then loosen with about 150 ml cold water. Drain and rinse the cabbage then shake and pat the leaves dry in a clean towel. Then put the cabbage back into the large bowl, pour in the seasoning and toss to coat.

TASTE TO TRY: BAJAN COU-COU
TASTE TO TRY: KIMCHI ZUCCHINI

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All through summer’s ubiquitous salads—cous cous! palm hearts!—I seem to crave mashed potatoes and gravy, lamb shank and gravy, really anything with gravy, including poutine, which I’ve taken to making at home in my own little COVID world. (Being gluten-mostly-free, I can’t in good conscience eat sourdough.)

Hungarian Goulash—wow, talk about burying the lede—is one of my favourites year-round, and I keep a stash of it in the back of the freezer in case I need a little stew hug. It sits next to the plastic tubs of Coq au vin; similar idea, different country.

This picture comes from a trip to the top of Blackcomb Mountain during a pitstop at Horstman Hut, elevation 2,300 metres. The little Alpine hut also serves things like pot pies, bangers and mash, perfect for a winter mid-ski lunch. It doesn’t look like much, but it was truly exquisite.

My all-season Hungarian goulash goes in the slow cooker, spiced with onion, clove, paprika, caraway, coriander and thyme. I use a recipe from Food & Wine with four pounds of diced beef short ribs, which I get from Meating on Queen—they’re Ecuadorian and know everything about meat. I serve it on buttered noodles with sour cream, close my eyes, and I’m back on the farm in Budapest…

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I laugh thinking of how rhubarb used to invade our gardens back home, only to now see it land in my grocery cart at what works out to about a dollar a cup. This rhubarb season seemed longer for whatever reason, particularly when I find it again on Canada Day, infused into a gin cocktail mixed up by my friend Blaine.

Deliciousness knows no bounds when it comes to rhubarb gin. Collective Arts Distilling launched its flagship Artisanal Dry Gin and seasonal Rhubarb and Hibiscus Gin in 2019 in the LCBO, and also in Chicago, New York and Connecticut later that year. Both gins have won silver awards at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Blaine treats his to just a splash or two of Fever Tree Tonic, lots of ice, a few fresh blueberries and—here’s the kicker—a sprig of garden-grown rosemary to stir it all up. He calls it a Forest Gin.

Needless to say, my Forest Gin didn’t last long. It feels both refreshing and special, like you have to hold out a pinkie and baby it a bit to let the ice melt. And it tastes like the garden but, say, a really fancy English one with croquet hoops.

TRY: THE CAIPIRINHA

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THINGS TO DO: IN KYOTO

Sampuru food models are now handmade from polyvinyl, the replicas being incredibly life-life—and perfect for tourists who can’t read the menus. Actual food is used, pressed into silicon to make the moulds. Though they have a “cheap” connotation, these dummies are expensive, like $85 for a rice ball. We’re looking at about $650 for big platter of sushi for four people. Guess they’re not changing the menu that often…

Keep an eye out: You can find sampuru in many restaurant supply stores and markets. Makes a great souvenir!

JAPAN.TRAVEL

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BEACH SIDE-TRIP: JERICOACOARA

The caipirinha is Brazil’s national cocktail, sort of like a mojito, a refreshing mixture of sugar, lime and booze. It tastes like a beach vacation. Bizarrely, it is thought to have been invented in Portugal in 1918 for patients with the Spanish Flu. Other stories peg it to the mid 1800s Brazil, when rich landowners in São Paulo enjoyed it as a fancy society party drink.

How to Make a Caipirinha

1. Cut one lime into eight pieces and muddle in a cocktail shaker with three teaspoons of icing sugar.
2. Add .5 oz. of simple syrup, 2 oz. cachaca and ice.
3. Shake and strain into glasses filled with even more ice.
4. Garnish with mint. (I sometimes even muddle the mint.)

SERVES 1

And umbrellas, of course. Keep the spent limes in the shaker and just add more to it for the next round. You can buy cachaca at the LCBO no problem.

When the cachaca ran out, we substituted vodka, and the drink became a caipiroska. Next time, I’m going to use Beirão, the official liquor of Portugal, and create the caipirão. This makes the cocktail more herb-y and we will probably skip the sugar or at least use less. Surf’s up!

VISITBRASIL.COM

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It’s particularly good when you’re drinking high-end tequila or creating a tasting flight in the backyard for your friends.

Though its origins are unknown, sangrita was discovered by me in a nice restaurant in San Blas, Mexico, of course, on tour through the highlights of Riviera Nayarit.

You can do it, too. Recipes are as varied as those for pasta sauce. Here is mine below. (I freeze this in ice-cube trays.) You can also find recipes that include Clamato, grapefruit, cucumber, even grenadine (though, yuck). I think the onion is crucial, so don’t skip that.

How to Make Sangrita

½ cup tomato juice
½ cup orange juice
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 tbsp. minced onion (super fine)
2 dashes Tabasco
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
1 pinch salt
1 pinch pepper

THINGS TO DO: IN SAN BLAS

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It could be my imagination, but fried chicken always seems to taste better in the U.S., bless ’em. The fact that the portions are huge really helps and if there’s a sweetness to the sauce, even better.

So imagine my Delight (sorry, Winnipeggers and the family of Otto Koch), when I came across this hand-written recipe for Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken, supposedly written out by his wife Claudia. It seems they came across it among her things after she died. THE OTHER TWO INGREDIENTS cropped out are: 2/3 tsp salt and  3 tsp white pepper. It says to mix with 2 cups of flour, but I’d suggest only 1 cup.

Chicken Delight (“don’t cook tonight…”) and KFC launched pretty much around the same time, early ’50s, and were rivals until KFC pulled ahead and Chicken Delight had legal issues with its franchisees. Chicken Delight Canada bought its remaining American operations and the Colonel carried on to make history.

I’ve tried the rub, of course, a couple of times. Is it for reals? Maybe I’m just not frying it right, but it’s still pretty damn good. Try it. What else have you got to do? This isn’t a travel story, but who cares.

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Start at the newly redone Zoe’s Lounge on the main floor of the Fairmont Château Laurier. The smart crowd here is choosing from the classics or from a collection of Old Fashioneds, also classic. Beautiful room.

READ THE REVIEW: CHÂTEAU LAURIER

We order a dozen oysters and a couple of craft cocktails at The Rabbit Hole on Sparks Street shaken up by a set of twin bartenders. It’s like they saw us coming. We then drink in the charm of its modernized 123-year-old digs. The intimate dining room downstairs is a good spot for a tête-à-tête—the pizza menu’s dozen red or white pies will hit the spot.

The nearby Riviera is the talk of the town for many delicious reasons. Start your experience with Acadian caviar or scallop crudo from the raw bar, then carry on to a creamy burrata or seafood chowder. Five pastas and five mains, including rabbit pappardelle and bacon-wrapped pheasant, round out the night.

On to the 16^th floor of the Andaz ByWard Market to Copper Spirits & Sights for a nightcap and a fuzzy (read: drunken), twinkly nighttime view of the whole city. You had me at fire pits. Bottoms up!

READ THE REVIEW: OTTAWA ANDAZ
OTTAWATOURISM.CA

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The free app is like a little gathering place for recipe sharing. You post your own recipes for others to try, like, rate and share. You have access to all the posted recipes and can search for specific dishes or simply for inspiration. The recipe builder is easy to use, there’s grocery-list capability and there’s a spot for uploading your own chef profile.

When we’ve all got nothing better to do than cook, we may as well make it fun with a little Burnt Butter. Makes the getting fat part easier anyway. (That’s p-h-a-t, baby.)

TASTE TO TRY: HAVE THE SCHNITZEL

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