Category Archives: Travel

by Steven Doyle | July 23, 2011 · 2:04 pm

Tales of the Cocktail: Gettin’ Tipsy with It

by Steven Lindsey photos by Rod Orta

Friday was the first day our team of professional drinkers hit the wall. As in stumbled into it walking down the hall from one of the many tasting rooms. With literally hundreds of cocktails to try, even a sip or two of each is enough to view the world at a consistent 45-degree angle. Nothing a short nap and a long visit to one of the many Hydration Stations won’t fix. Following are some pics from the last couple of days of Tales. And we’ve heard, they save the best for last. Cheers!

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Tales of the Cocktail: First Impressions

by Steven Lindsey photos by Rod Orta

For anyone who loves to drink, Tales of the Cocktail is like an amusement park. We think we’ll call it Boozeneyland. Every minute of every day, there’s something new to discover and we can’t wait to tell you all about everything in detail (which will be in the coming days as there’s not much time to write between sips.) Continue reading →

Tales of the Cocktail: Once Upon A Time

by Steven Lindsey photos by Rod Orta

Tales from the Cocktail begins today in New Orleans and Crave DFW is there for every last sip. For the next few days, and probably a few after it’s all over, we’ll be reporting on the newest trends in cocktails, the latest and greatest brands to hit the market, and pretty much anything booze-related we can get our lips around. Continue reading →

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Filed under Cocktails, New Orleans, Road Trip, Rod Orta, Steven Lindsey, Tales of the Cocktail, Travel

by Steven Doyle | July 20, 2011 · 8:30 am

Floating the River After 30

Your guide to a post-college river party in New Braunfels

by Danielle Leahy

Ahh, the college river/road trip. I remember it fondly: great friends, laughing for days, the sun on your back and the river beneath you, drinking too much and sleeping to little. Crowded, smelly cars and waking up on cheap motel floors stuffed 6 to a room made for 2… Err… HOLD UP. Actually, there was a lot of room for improvement in those early adult, cash strapped, college days. Maybe there are some lessons to be learned and improvements to be made to our annual Summer Road Trip now that the majority of us have rounded the corner on 30?

Yea, I thought so too. Continue reading →

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Filed under beer, Danielle Leahy, New Bruanfels, Party!, Travel

by Steven Doyle | July 13, 2011 · 1:40 pm

Kosta Browne Wine Retreat

by Steven Doyle

A shared vision of Dan Kosta and Michael Browne who were working at John Ash & Co, restaurant in 1997 was realized that summer after they pooled their tips to purchase 1,000 pounds of Pinot Noir grapes, a used hand-cranked stemmer and crusher and an old barrel that fleshed out to birth the Kosta Browne Winery.

Recently Kosta Browne hosted a retreat at the winery with Charlie Palmer and his staff of great chefs preparing the opening meal. The guests were treated to golf, spa treatments and even a cooking demo by John Ash.

Other celebrity chefs were on hand including Emeril Lagasse who provided one of the meals that was fabulous, as did Kent and brother Kevin Rathbun who topped of the evening with their signature barbecue. Continue reading →

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Filed under Crave, Events, fun with food, Steven Doyle, Travel, Wine

by Steven Doyle | July 11, 2011 · 12:00 pm

Pamplona’s San Fermin, An Unlikely Undiscovered Gem

by Adam Sachs

“At noon of Sunday, the 6th of July, the fiesta exploded. There is no other way to describe it…It kept up day and night for seven days. The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences.”

-Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Little seems to have changed since Ernest Hemingway’s observations of San Fermín in early 1900s Pamplona, one of Spain’s oldest cities that boasts colorful winding stone streets and strings of bars that serve cheap local wine and delicious pintxos (tapas) displayed on the bar top. San Fermín gets much attention from its annual rituals of precarious bull runs, and the festivities evoke comparisons to Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day. Continue reading →

Road Food: Wild About Wild Blue

by Cindy Freeling

As I headed down for a weekend jaunt to the lower Rio Grande Valley I expected to encounter nice family time, fun in the sun on South Padre Island, fresh gulf shrimp and maybe some good Tex Mex. I experienced all of the above sans the Tex Mex but also found myself discovering some food I had never eaten on a trip to South Texas- barbeque.

While I have never really thought of barbeque as being a mainstay of Rio Grande Valley cuisine, one website I found listed a whopping 40 barbeque restaurants in the lower valley. My dinner happened to be by chance however at a family birthday party where most of the food was catered by a restaurant in Los Fresnos called Wild Blue. They brought brisket, chicken, sausage, green beans and a coconut banana pudding. Continue reading →

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Filed under BBQ, beer, chefs, Crave, Travel

by Steven Doyle | June 27, 2011 · 10:34 am

Pizza D’oh!

by Steven Lindsey Photos by Rod Orta

Is Dallas big enough for another authentic Neapolitan pizza restaurant? Absolutely. But in the old Chocolate Angel space at Preston and Forest that once was home to Il Cane Rosso, one of the most justifiably buzzed-about pizzerias to hit the metroplex? That’s right where San Antonio transplant Dough will soon open. Talk about déjà vu.

Tasked with the delicious assignment of doing a little pizza recon 300 miles away, I headed to the Alamo city to check out Dough mere days before owners Doug and Lisa Horn plan to open their second location. (By the way, it was reading an article in Rachael Ray’s magazine that forced me to realize the genius of the name Dough. Doug H? DougH?) Yeah, took me a minute, too. But in my defense, I was too focused on the amazing spread on my table. Continue reading →

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Filed under Crave, Food Porn Alert, fun with food, North Dallas, pizza, Restaurant Opening, Steven Lindsey, Travel