Real Reviews

Great Places to Eat •  Great Places to Stay •  Book, Film & Web Reviews

Let's face it, at realfoodtraveler we are not only foodies, we're cultural omnivores.

Here we review great places to eat and stay, as well as food-and travel-related movies, books, and more.

If you have a suggestion for a review, please email us.

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750 Best Appetizers: From Dips & Salads to Spreads & Shooters

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750 Best Appetizers: From Dips & Salads to Spreads & Shooters is an exhaustive and delicious exploration of appetizers/small plates.

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The Arabian Nights Cookbook: Deliciously Romantic

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Habeeb Salloum, who specializes in Arab food and culture, has captured the Arabian food revolution in his new cookbook, The Arabian Nights Cookbook: From Lamb Kebabs to Baba Ghanouj, Delicious Homestyle Arabian Cooking.

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Bake Something Great: 400 Bars, Squares, & Cookies

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Bake Something Great by Jill Snider is packed with 400 innovative and interesting recipes for bars, squares, and cookies.

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Back to Basics at RedCan Gourmet, Tofino, British Columbia

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Sometimes you just need to get back to the basics – honest food, local ingredients, and a community of good friends. One of the restaurants we visited on Vancouver Island that illustrates this is RedCan Gourmet.

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Ristorante al Castello, Italy: A Creative Taste of Northern Italy

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Set in an immense 13th century castle, Grinzane Cavour, Ristorante al Castello is a culinary gem about five miles south of Alba, in the Piedmont wine country of northern Italy.

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Real Good Eats: Portland, Maine

Artemisia is the place in Portland for brunch.

Portland, Maine has more than 300 restaurants. Check out some of the city’s best “hidden” eateries.

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Inside the Jewish Bakery: Delicious Traditions

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With their book, Inside the Jewish Bakery: Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking, longtime Jewish bakers and authors Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg are trying to restore a nearly lost tradition of Jewish baking.

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500 400-Calorie Recipes: Making Skinny Taste Good

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500 400-Calorie Recipes is appealing – eat your favorite foods, but make them less calorie dense.

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Mahle House, Vancouver Island: A Tradition of Deliciousness

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Since 1983, customers have been flocking to Mahle House in the little country suburb of Cedar on Canada’s Vancouver Island.

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Frugavore: How to Grow Organic, Buy Local, Waste Nothing, and Eat Well

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Nutritionist Arabella Forge is on a mission: to help people eat better and more healthfully and not break the bank. Her book is a well-written, how-to manual about how you can become a frugavore too.

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Rose Petal Jam: Recipes and Stories from a Summer in Poland

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In an era of cheaply-made, print-them-quick books, Tabula Book’s beautiful, lushly-produced book, Rose Petal Jam: Recipes and Stories from a Summer in Poland, is a breath of fresh air and proof that the publishing industry hasn’t forgotten how to create artful books.

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Omni Parker House, Boston, MA: History and Luxury

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The Omni Parker House Hotel, one of Boston’s iconic landmarks offering gracious hospitality for more than 150 years, is just about as centrally located as you can get.

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