To visit the rural roots of South Carolina's barbecue, head for this legendary restaurant, a family cotton farm turned barbecue lodge in the countryside of Orangeburg County. Featured on roadfood.com and “Anthony Bourdain's No Reservation,”’ Sweatman's long front porch is lined with flower pots and rocking chairs, while multiple dining rooms boast polished wood floors and fireplaces. The all-you-can-eat buffet offers whole hog barbecue, hash, slaw, cracklins and meaty, tender pork ribs. Diners choose "light" and "dark" pork: the tender inner portions, the greasy, chewy outside meat pulled from the edges of the hog; or a mixture of everything on the table. Sweatman's "dark" meat carries the smoky taste of the oak, hickory and pecan wood that fuels it's 12- to 14-hour cooking process. The meat is basted and sauced with "Carolina Gold," a mustard sauce with enough twang without overtaking the flavors of pork, fat, and smoke. For more, the buffet includes a water cooler full of the house-made sauce. The smokehouse is just as famous for its signature side: a sweet-and-savory rendition of barbecue hash. For a taste of pure hog heaven, diners pour the pork, potato, tomato, onions and liver stew over steaming rice.
Pro tip: Because it takes four days for the restaurant to prepare its whole-hog barbecue, meals are served just two days a week: Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to about 8 p.m.
Diners averse to hotel restaurants should put their prejudices to one side for the night - Quitéria is one of the finest restaurants in Rio.
Chef Christian Garcia, who grew up in Argentina, Spain and Italy, constructs exquisite dishes which are as gorgeous to look at as they are to eat. There are five- and seven-course tasting menus, as well as an excellent à la carte menu with a strong use of Brazilian ingredients such as pirarucu, jiló and pupunha.
The highlighted dish is a dreamily tender hunk of prime rib, surrounded by an ossobuco and port jus so rich and concentrated that you may be tempted to ask for a spoon!
Quitéria achieves that rare thing in Rio - consistently excellent fine dining at a price that won't break the bank. A lot is made of the restaurant's elegant design, but the superb food and excellent value for money should be the real talking points.
We love the range of Espressos using single-estate, organic, locally grown coffee served at Third Wave Coffee Roasters. We especially recommend trying the coffee from MS Estate (it is located in the Chikkamangalur Hills and the bean has a fruity note to it) and the one from Alla Sons Monsoon Malabar (located by the Arabian Sea and the coffee has subtle spicy undertone). In fact, Chikkamangalur in Karnataka is the birthplace of coffee in India and is one of the oldest coffee growing regions in the world. So the next best option for anyone outside, visiting Chikkamangalur is trying the range of local coffee brews here.
Sharon Tea Stall whips up about a 100 different variety of tea all of which are worth trying. If we had to pick just one tea that you would want a friend visiting the city to try, it would have to be their Hibiscus Tea. Made from natural hibiscus powder, the tea is tart and to get rid of the bitter aftertaste, Sharon tea stall's use of lime juice is clever and makes for a very freshening drink.
Trust us; this is one of those things with the potential to blow your mind.
MTR (the one in Lalbagh); is popular for its invention - the Rava Idly, a savory steamed semolina cake. Idlis are the most common, staple breakfast in the southern part of India. Apart from the moist and delish Rava Idlis here, we also suggest trying the South Indian meals at MTR which is one of the best in Bangalore.
Alma Verde opened in 2015 in the stylish la Cacho neighborhood. It quickly became THE place to “do brunch” for the city’s hipsters, health-conscious, and business elite. The decor, which features wood and reclaimed materials, is minimal yet eclectic — no two chairs or plates are alike. The patio is the best place to see-and-be-seen while enjoying some truly outstanding dishes. These include hash browns and quinoa fried in coconut oil and an over-the-top French toast stack with layers of cream cheese mixed with honey, nuts and fruit. The restaurant also offers a line of all natural juices and a subscription service for those wishing to cleanse and lose weight.
Restaurant Andares De La Baja Cocina is a 2016 addition to the burgeoning, hip la Cacho neighborhood. Here, chef Luis Enrique Moreno Gil pays homage to a plethora of fresh Baja California ingredients and feeds the city’s continuing hunger for “Baja Med” cuisine — Mediterranean dishes made with local seafood, meat, and produce. An oyster bar fashioned from a shipping container in the middle of the spacious patio offers the bivalve raw as well as prepared and cooked as Rockefeller, Provençal, or a la diabla – the house specialty. Dishes include “Baja style” fish and chips – a whole red snapper fried and served with hearty, house-made potato wedges, as well as a generously portioned short rib in red sauce and a variety of crusty, very good, oven-baked pizzas.
Fernando Acosta is an evangelist of snout-to-tail cuisine. The Rib Shop, which began life and still operates as a food truck, is his mecca of all things porcine and delicious. Acosta has been known to give whole animal butchering demonstrations to other chefs and foodies, emphasizing the optimal use of each cut and piece. While his perfectly seasoned and cooked ribs are front and center here, he makes great use of those other pieces as well, particularly the skin. The chicharrón en salsa verde features morsels of fried pork rind atop a generous dollop of rich, creamy salsa verde made from tomatillo and jalapeño. The chicharrón is covered in pickled red onions and served with corn tortilla chips.
Tacos Fitos is located just outside of Mercado Hidalgo in central Tijuana. This popular cart’s talented taqueros (taco makers) are known for quickly tossing a dash of salsa and beef stock with a spoon over a span of a foot or more into an awaiting corn tortilla held in the other hand. The finished taco is then rapidly folded in paper and handed to a hungry customer. Some claim these guys are the fastest taqueros in Mexico. Tacos Fitos focuses on three types of tacos — birria de res (seasoned beef stew), tripas (small intestine), and campechano style, which combines the two fillings. The tortilla is dipped in beef stock and placed on the griddle to fry until the tortilla becomes golden and crispy, or al dorada.
Tacos de guisados are tortillas filled with a variety of stewed meats and vegetables. The team behind the wheel of the popular food truck Tacos Aaron has been preparing tacos de guisados – or tacos varios as they are known in Tijuana – for over 20 years. I’m usually not a fan of chicharrón served wet — that is, fried then reconstituted by stewing. I love the crunchy stuff, but wet, it always seems sad, limpid and somehow wrong. The difference in Taco Aaron’s taco de chicharrón is the amount of meaty, succulent pork that still adheres to and is served with the skin. The morsels of chicharrón are covered in a thick, piquant, tomatillo-based salsa verde and served with pickled red onions.