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FLAVORS OF TRAVEL
The scent of garlic wafts through the air, sharper
than basil, thicker than jasmine on a soft summer
night. But wait: There’s a mix of something else,
something sweeter, yes, an essence far more sensual.
Oh my, there it is again; romance, that incomparable
aroma wrapped intricately around travel and fantasy.
The smell stimulates every sense and flavors much more
than food. And food, well, no travel fantasy is
complete without food.
Truth is, mine usually begin with food, with the
thrill of dining out. No grocery prep. No dirty pans.
No kitchen fuss or muss. Just glorious service,
service, service enhanced by the wonder of new cities.
Better yet, the wonder of new countries shot through
and through with a living culture so strong I can
taste it. South Australia, for instance, where eat
streets like Adelaide’s Gouger Street is awash in
international cuisines. Where a compact cultural core
such as Miami’s SoBe seamlessly blends Mediterranean
and Italian or Asian and Caribbean into a food
fragrance gusting over Ocean Drive that is
unmistakably South Florida.
This is where the spice of life oozes in the form of
ginger and cardamom, or from herb and spice blends
like Dukkah, a hard to find Egyptian dipping spice.
Such is not the comfy food of grandma’s kitchen: I
have in mind foodstuffs believed to have more power
than silver bullets.
Oysters, caviar and chocolate are considered the
Trinity of Western turn-ons. But a Food & Wine
magazine poll claims champagne bested even these
stalwarts of foody fantasies. Question is: Can a
bottle of Pommery’s Cuvee Louise set a mood more
powerful than shark fin soup or tiger-paw pasta?
Aphrodisiacs found only on the shelves of Chinese
supermarkets truly pit Eastern living cultures with my
Western sense of responsible travel. Sometimes I just
can’t do what the Romans do.
Fortunately, the natural order of the universe
eventually prevails. According to Rob Bredl,
internationally known as the Barefoot Bushman of the
TV documentary series “Killer Instincts”, rhinoceros’
are making a comeback in the wild since Viagra hit the
streets. Seems that powdered horns are not what they
used to be now that manmade chemicals do the trick
better than that which is au natural.
But chemicals don’t do the trick for me. In my food
fantasies there is no room for saccharine, no fake
butter, no beefed up hormones in my milk. Nourishment
and fantasy become one when I find fine, fresh
cuisine. What’s more, it has to be backed with
incomparable ambiance. No simple task, to be sure.
Even within big cities, major league restaurants that
serve up great food in great surroundings are hard to
come by. Mobil’s Five-Star and AAAs Diamond awards
make businesses of searching out such “bests”, and in
all of Florida -- population: 15,982,378 -- there were
only three Five-Star award winners in 2003.
More often in the search for romantic dining, I find
listed hundreds of “B” teams that offer good food in
generic spaces that could be located anywhere on the
planet. But in spite of my need to eat, I don’t want
to feel like I’m in Chicago when I’m in Rio de
Janeiro. Worse is merely downing mediocre food in
truly magnificent places that speak to the city or
island or secluded getaway that I spent a lot of time
selecting.
With the right person, romantic dining sometimes
happens where perfection does not. But why take
chances when I have only a week or so to play? A
little research goes a long way here. Definitely, the
plethora of travel guides is helpful, although some,
like DK Eyewitness Guides and Footprint Handbooks,
offer weak restaurant reviews. Newspaper reviews
include fewer restaurants, but they are more current
than books if they’re available for, say, Bequia, a
little known island treasure just south of St. Vincent
in the Grenadines.
Online searches work, but some websites tend to be a
pain to navigate. More importantly, they are most
useful for restaurants in the US. A citysearch.com for
Miami, for instance, offers a number of links to
restaurants and bars, some with easy to read ratings
and comments by people who dined there. Plus, there
are lots of websites listed under a search as simple
as “Miami restaurant reviews”. Among them, I liked
best www.boulevards.com/miami/dining.html, which
details information by Miami New Times reviewers for
everything from Blue Doors at the Delano to Miami
Beach’s B.E.D. A citysearch.com for Marigot Bay turned
up www.kc.travel.net and good info on restaurants in
the French or Dutch halves of Saint Martin. But it was
last updated in 2000, which is the biggest problem
with restaurant reviews outside the US.
www.Zagat.com
has the most comprehensive selection of restaurants
worldwide. Still, these short descriptions akin to the
diner-collected-ratings the company has been
publishing in book format for 20 or so years is only
updated annually. And this is a subscription-based
site.
With no cost attached,
www.dinesite.com
offers detailed reviews for US restaurants. This
user-friendly site turned up nothing less than a
category for “romance” in St. Augustine, Florida. Le
Pavillon restaurant caught my eye, and will get my
business when I travel in that direction. I’m curious
to see if it’s comparable to one of my South Florida
favorites, Coconut Groves’ Baleen.
Then there are those truly grand moments when all the
stars and moons and planets line up unexpectedly. This
happened to me in the Saints, or Iles des Saintes as
they are properly known. These five tiny islands in
the French Antilles get my Five-star Award for
Caribbean Charisma: red tile roofs on old wooden
buildings. Shutters patina-ed in a turquoise that must
have been splashed by the sea itself. Fort Napoleon
atop a small mountain overlooking the bay. Balconies
and bikes and naked toddlers decorate the narrow,
cobblestone streets. With only six restaurants on
Terre-de-Haut, the largest of the five islands, even
the pizza joint is strategically located for romance:
on the aquamarine harbor where sailboats bob and palm
trees sway and Trade Winds perpetually lick the nape
of the neck. Here, everyday is Valentines Day.
Though we may not always be able to count on the
French when it’s time to fight, when it’s time to eat,
never doubt their gastronomic or romantic capacity for
excellence.
© B. Bowers, 2003 |