Village Voice Food Writer Robert Sietsema wrote about his visit to the unassuming, newish Coney Island Taste in today’s issue of the Village Voice. The Peruvian Bodega, as he calls it, is all the way out on Coney Island Avenue and has pictures on the windows of burgers and omelets to… Read More →

I don’t often write about Peru’s mega celebrity chef Gaston Acurio. It’s not that I don’t like him, I’m a huge fan. Without him, Peru’s new culinary boom would be nothing. Period. Rather I don’t write about him often because he gets enough attention that I try to direct some spotlight on some of the country’s other chefs like Rafael Osterling and Pedro Miguel Schiaffino. I love Gaston though. I love his show in Peru and keep meaning to buy the complete set of DVDs of the series. I love that his restaurants are wonderfully relevant to an international audience and that he always tries to bring attention to the diversity among Peruvian chefs and restaurants by going to and promoting the simplest places

Late last year, around the time the Honduran president was being overthrown in a military coup, my 1st Edition Frommer’s Honduras travel guide was released. Tourism in the country, which was previously exploding, dropped to almost nothing, even in the Bay Islands that are nearly a country of their own. Even the former tourism minister said not to go there then. Not the best timing for a book release. Still, I encourage people to go there and recently even had an article in NewYork Magazine on traveling on the North Coast of the country now, because the prices are the lowest they’ll be in years.

It’s boiling hot right now in New York. I think I just saw steam come off the East River. Saveur.com has just released this Tiki bar born recipe for Cuba Kola with 151-proof Demerara Rum that seems oh so appropriate. Enjoy! Recipe: Cuba Kola – Saveur.com.

I’ve been intrigued with Mompox, Colombia (sometimes called Mompos) since I first heard about it. The colonial town 125 miles south of Cartagena de Indias on the coast on an island surrounded by marshes in the middle of the Magdalenas and was once a port used to store gold, silver,… Read More →

Every May 5, you hear of a holiday called Cinco de Mayo, and, even though you don’t really know what it celebrates, you know that Corona and salty margaritas are half price at the bar around the corner.

The Peruvian documentary ‘De Ollas y Sueños’ will premiere at the Havana Film Festival this coming Saturday and then be presented the next day in Long Island City to the Peruvian community in Queens. The film, directed by Ernesto Cabellos (who we interviewed here) asks the question: “Can a whole nation be represented in its kitchen?” and spends 75 minutes traveling along the coast of Peru, the Andes, the Amazon, and visiting Peruvian communities in Madrid, London, New York and Paris.

Sam Sifton, the talented new NYTimes restaurant reviewer has a piece in todays Travel section about Los Roques (Silent Days Stalking Bonefish in Venezuela – NYTimes.com), a string of tiny cays off the Venezuelan coast. I’ve been trying to get a magazine to send me to Los Roques to learn… Read More →

Living in Peru has a translation of an article from Lima, Peru’s El Comercio newspaper about Johnny Schuler, the founding member and president of the National Tasters Guild of Peru and a member of the Peruvian Academy of Pisco, who is part of a big pisco project in Ica that is being targeted at… Read More →

El Comercio Peru reports (El restaurante Central volverá a abrir sus puertas este lunes | El Comercio Perú) that the restaurant Central in Lima, Peru will reopen its doors March 1st with brilliant chef Virgillo Martinez remaining at the helm. The restaurant (which I reviewed here) was one of the… Read More →