Editor’s Note: Eat Drink D-FW is hosted by Dallas Morning News Food Editor Erin Booke with food reporters Sarah Blaskovich and Claire Ballor. Each week, our food journalists dish, debate and analyze local restaurant news, food and drink trends, tips for cooking and shopping, and other obsessions. You’ll also hear from chefs, farmers and foodies like yourself as we explore the people who made D-FW one of the most vibrant, diverse and ambitious food scenes in the country.
Eat Drink D-FW from The Dallas Morning News is made possible by Central Market. All editorial decisions are made by The News.
The food words we love to hate
Everyone has food words that give them that “ick” feeling. Listen as host Erin Booke talks with food writers Sarah Blaskovich and Claire Ballor about the food words they love to hate. Can you guess which ones they are? And are the words actually annoying, or are people just annoying using them? Then writer Amanda Albee talks with Dallas chef Jessica Alonzo of Native Ferments TX — aka the “pickle Jedi” — about her most popular mustards and other vinegar-y treats. The team also dives into the Best Things they ate recently, which includes a cream cheese appetizer, a favorite dinner spot, and a kid-friendly cabbage soup.
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SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — When Rahmi Massarweh graduated from Le Cordon Bleu, one of the most prestigious culinary schools in the world, he envisioned owning a high-end restaurant serving the most sophisticated palates.
His dream came true, even though his customers were connoisseurs of a different breed.
“If you would have asked me back then, ‘So when’s your dog cafe opening?’ I would have looked at you like, ‘What are you talking about? that’s a huge insult.'”
Welcome to Dogue (which rhymes with “Vogue”), a new French-style cafe in The Mission district, exclusively dedicated to the four-legged.
“It’s about healthy, good, real food,” Massarweh said. “The presentation is a vehicle to help shine a line on that.”
This isn’t Puppy Chow. It’s a three-course prix fixe meal at a very human price of $75 per customer on a Sunday brunch (customers can order à la carte on any other day).
On this Sunday, Massarweh was adding a 24-karat gold leaf to his gourmet pastry. And that was just the beginning.
“We’re doing a chicken and Chaga mushroom soup, and then we have a chicken skin waffle and charcoal flan, and our final course is steak tartare,” Massarweh said.
It all started when Masarweh and his wife Alejandra noticed their beloved rescue, a huge Mastiff named Grizzly, wasn’t eating his dry food. So, Massarweh did a little digging and started preparing fresh meals that easily rival top restaurants along the Champs-Élysées.
It’s already attracting an enthusiastic clientele. Cory and Bacon, two adorable Corgis wearing bow ties, flew in from out of town with their humans just to get a taste.
“They are our kids, we don’t have human children,” said Bacon’s mom, Ginger Sirlin. “We take them everywhere.”
Not everyone is going to fail over doggie gourmet. Critics have expressed outrage over high-priced pet meals as thousands go hungry in the Bay Area. But Massarweh said they’re missing the point.
“It’s difficult to verbalize just how much our animals mean to us,” he said. “I would do anything for them and if there’s any way that I can buy some time and make their lives happier or extend their lives by just one day I’ll do it.”
Beef Wellington from Chef David Daniels at the Forbes 5-Star Boston Harbor Hotel.
Boston Harbor Hotel
Early pandemic lockdowns raised appreciation for the joys of travel and for eating out, two things people quickly found they really missed when they could no longer do them. This has fueled the current pent-up demand, and one easy way to satisfy both urges is with a visit to America’s longest running food and wine festival – which just happens to be held annually (except for the pandemic) at one of the nation’s very best hotels , the Forbes 5-Star Boston Harbor Hotel.
The Boston Wine Festival has been a fixture on the culinary and oenophile scene for three and a half decades, and for almost all of that time, it was the labor of love of its founder, Chef Daniel Bruce, career executive chef at the property and one of the world’s leading experts on food and wine pairings. For 30 years Bruce spent a good part of each year visiting vineyards, meeting with wine makers and tasting wines, carefully designing dishes and creating special menus entirely focused on best matching the special pours.
But two years ago he retired, and in his second year under the direction of it his successor, Chef David Daniels, the event returns this winter with an added emphasis on food and a slightly new name to reflect this, the Boston Food and Wine Festival , now in its 34thth seasons.
The Boston Harbor Hotel, designed by acclaimed firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, is Boston’s … [+] premier waterfront luxury hotel with a perfect location.
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I have had the good fortune to attend the festival a couple of times in the past and can personally vouch for its excellence. I now understand why so many regular patrons give it high priority on their annual calendars.
This festival has a very different format than newer ones such as South Beach, Aspen, New Orleans and such. Most run from a single day to a long weekend and are typically spread across multiple venues throughout an entire city, often with conflicting scheduled events you have to choose between. In sharp contrast, this one is an ongoing series of brunches, seminars and dinners, only one at a time, that runs for a staggering three months, all winter long. This makes it very easy to attend, whether you live in Boston, happen to be visiting for business or pleasure, or plan a special trip for the festival. However there are often events on back to back nights or twice in a single day, which makes it more worthwhile for planning a weekend visit.
It kicks off on January 12 with a special Staglin Family wines dinner and brings back some of the biggest special nights that have become a regular part of the festival, including the opening night gala, Far Niente and Opus One dinners and the Battle of the Cabs (two editions, one for California and one for the world), along with some high-profile new additions such as Hitchhiking Through Napa With Kevin Zraly. One of the biggest names in the wine world, Zraly was the legendary sommelier from New York’s late Windows on the World, a world-renowned wine tasting instructor and author. New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov is another special guest.
The Boston Food and Wine Festival is the longest running such event in the nation, now in its 34th … [+] year.
Boston Harbor Hotel
Those are just some of the highlights of the all-star lineup of 34 intimate winemaker-hosted dinners, seminars, thematic receptions, and celebratory brunches. Some of the world’s great winemakers consider it an honor to come to Boston and explain each of their choices, of course, in an up close and personal way that is hard to replicate anywhere else. Unlike the so-called “Grand Tastings” you find at most festivals, with dozens of winemakers of varied quality pouring minuscule samples in big tents, each event is an intimate special day or night, most of them are full service, sit down multi-course meals co-hosted by Daniels, explaining the dishes and pairings, and the winemaker, explaining the wines and how he or she created and selected them. These often include special limited editions that are never for sale.
There are also a handful of spirits events such as the Cocktail Jazz Brunch and a Chocolate & Spirits Pairing. Tasting seminars like Wines of Chile and Rose Master Class start at just $65, and multi-course wine pairing dinners start at $195.
You don’t have to be a guest of the hotel to attend the events, and many locals take advantage. But the Forbes 5-Star is one of my favorites in the entire country, as well as one of the world’s best dog friendly luxury hotels, and