Palatable Airport Food, Part III: Vino Volo @ DTW

Back in 2007, I put up a post on Pappadeux, the best thing going at IAH Terminal E. In 2010, it was tasty little ATL gem, Cafe Intermezzo. Over the last few weeks I've found Vino Volo, bringing the Grubbus palatable-food total in our nations air travel system to three.

Vino Volo is a small chain of wine bars in a dozen airports across the country, and a pretty radical departure for airport food. It's probably good to note here that the unexpected joy of this place comes partly from it's surroundings: against standard airport food, this place is a blowout success. Put it downtown Austin, and it's a little more run of the mill.

The Wines are the name of the game here, and they've got a remarkably good selection. It's not many places you can find Silver Oak Cabernet or an '05 Brunello di Montalcino by the glass. The wine menu is split into about a dozen sections of 2-3 wines each: California Cabs, Sparkling Whites, Tour of Spain. Each wine is available by the glass, the bottle, or as part of a flight with its compatriots. I tried an Elusiv Pinot from Monterey this time, and it was beautiful - strawberries and a little peppery on the finish.

soapbox One nit to pick here: each wine comes with a customized coaster featuring tasting notes and placing it along a spectrum from light to brooding. Brooding. Brooding is not a taste. It is a thing that teenagers do when they don't get the car. And unless this wine tastes like what teenagers do, and I sure hope it doesn't - please, please don't say that it does. There are plenty of good words that describe taste. Use those. /soapbox

Enough with the wines - on to the food. The food is a blast. Not genius food, but really tasty. I had the cured meat plate, and while it was no Olympic Provisions, it was really pretty delicious, down to the lovely tart  pickles and coarse ground spicy mustard. The olive plate is a great starter, beautifully arranged and pungent. The cheese plate was tempting (people the next table over were raving), and they've got a couple of really nice looking sandwiches on good bread. The food is also in remarkably constrained proportions, a nice contrast to the pounds of meat that make up the burgers down the way at Fuddruckers.

All this lovely sipping and tasting, in a tasteful, quiet, well lit space comes at a price, however. Tasty, yes, but not a cheap lunch. A glass of wine and a sandwich can set you back $30, easy. More if you drink the really choice stuff.

For me, it's my delayed-flight treat, a little extra kick when the hours drag on - a place as far away from the airport as you can get on DTW's A-Concourse.

More photos up on Grubbus's Facebook Home

Mysteriously Tasty Treats in ATL

There are few culinary wastelands that can match the domain beyond the security checkpoint in sheer food hopelessness. Maybe it's the captive audience, but airports seem completely set on finding the lowest common denominator in the American diet and seeing if they can inch that bar just a little bit lower.

There are a few bright spots: Austin's commitment to local food in the airport yields decent and improving results; Pappadeux in the E terminal at IAH is consistently good; Columbus, OH and Portland, OR both have fully functioning espresso places (Joe's and EspressoPeople, respectively). And, this week, I've got a new one: Cafe Intermezzo at ATL.

Granted, these places don't tend to age all that well, and Intermezzo is a new-comer, but from what I've seen so far, this place has real promise.

Intermezzo is located in the bookstore at the center of Terminal B, the flagship terminal in Atlanta's behemoth Hartsfield International airport. It's on the less traveled side, across the hallway from the major food court.

You walk in greeted by a massive pastry case. And these are legit pastries, super lush, super rich. The espresso machine is a force to be reckoned with, though as with most of the spit-shined bronze monster machines, this one's mostly show. The tables are scattered throughout - several in front in sort of a sidewalk cafe format, and several back in the bookstore, with a view of the planes outside.

I've eaten there a couple of times. This last time, I ordered a pot of coffee and a spinach artichoke crepe. I've been on kind of a crepe kick lately, and while this wasn't the best I've had it was really simple, and really tasty. Essentially, this was a two-ingredient deal: baby spinach leaves and artichoke hearts. No bechamel. No cream. No goop at all. The spinach was just wilted - perfectly done, I expect simply from the heat of the crepe. The artichokes (full disclosure - I am an artichoke fiend) could have been a bit higher quality and a bit better trimmed, but they were tender and a nice compliment to the spinach. The coffee was lovely as well, nice full body, light roast, delivered in a little pot with a ceramic mug. It's a small thing, but ceramic mugs in an airport deserve some kudos.

This place is not the speediest of options, but thankfully in this case at least, ATL is not the speediest of airports. I highly recommend it next time you've got a flight delayed out until the far edges of the evening as an escape from the ATL terminal B zoo.

Pappadeaux in IAH. Not gross airport food.

It's 9:53, about two hours after I landed, and another hour to go before my next flight takes off. I've bought a couple of amethyst fragments for my girls, a Scharfen Berger tiny little chocolate bar, and a cup of *$ espresso. But the one perk of an unnaturally long layover in Houston is Pappadeaux.

Houston used to be a really severely crappy airport. Not old Detroit crappy or current Memphis crappy, but it was the standard fare low ceilings and maze like walks to get from one gate to another. Then, about the time I started flying regularly, maybe 97 or 98, they opened up Terminal E, and stuck an actual decent restaurant down by E7.

I've been there maybe a dozen times over the years, and they've done an admirable job keeping the place together through what must be thousands of people a day. The menu is relatively simple - choose a fish, choose a style, choose a sauce; or go with one of a handful of New Orleans themed entrees. Nothing I've had there is earth shattering, but at the same time, everything seems remarkably fresh, and well prepared. Tonight I had a salad and a couple of crab cakes. I have no idea if this is relevant for everyone else but my first impression of this stuff is knife work. Whoever prepped the tomatoes and little cubes of cucumber in the salad did so with a real actual knife, and did so with care and precision. And not that long ago. The crab cakes too, were surprising - served on a bed of spinach and crawfish with a "light" butter sauce, that was delicious and light relative only to hollandaise. There was even some neveau froo froo garnish on top and fresh parsely sprinkled around the perimeter.

Before I gush too much, let me say that this is a long way from inspired cuisine, it's just inspired for being in an Airport. There's still some glaring failures - the plastic utencils clash mightily with the brass and dark wood feel of the place. The service is great but infrequent. The food arrives very slowly, and the layout of the place provides no space for waiting for the inevitable 15 minutes it takes to get a table. Still - if you've got time to kill, and a bit of per diem left, it's a great way to kill 45 minutes in Houston and forget for a minute that you're stuck in an airport.