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Two Lawrence restaurants made Wine Spectator’s 2014 Restaurant Wine List Awards, the magazine announced today. Five 21, inside the Oread Hotel, and Ten, inside the Eldridge Hotel, received Awards of Excellence (the lowest of Wine Spectator’s three tiers of rankings).

The same two restaurants made Wine Spectator’s 2013 list. They are among 12 Kansas restaurants on this year’s list. The awards list will be featured in the magazine’s Aug. 31 issue, which hits newsstands July 22.

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @saramarieshep. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

Merchants Pub & Plate will highlight its less-glutenous side (recall, this is a gastropub that hangs its hat on having 30 craft beers on tap) next week by offering a special gluten-free wine dinner.

“Inherently we’re a beer place, but we do offer within our menu several conveniences for people with dietary restrictions,” chef/owner TK Peterson said. “We’re taking it one step further by kind of dedicating a night to those people.”

The dinner is at 7 p.m. March 6. Cost is $70 per person. Reserve a seat by calling the restaurant at 843-4111. The planned menu includes appetizers, three dinner courses and dessert (sticky toffee pudding cake, FYI) paired with Chilean wines from Emiliana Organic Vineyards.

Merchants’ regular menu notes items that are gluten-free or modifiable to be, which Peterson said helps diners feel more comfortable ordering them without having to ask for special favors or feeling like they’re disrupting the whole table.

“They don’t want to be the people that show up and say, ‘I can't do this and I can’t do that,’” Peterson said.

Find Merchants Pub & Plate at 746 Massachusetts St., 785-843-4111, merchantsonmass.com. by Jessica Pauly/Special to the Journal-World

Other upcoming drinking/dining events:

Thursday: Tuscan wine tasting, 6 p.m. at Genovese, featuring a five-course menu paired with selections from Brancaia Winery. Cost is $59 per person. Call 842-0300 to reserve a seat.

March 6: Exploring Argentina wine dinner, 6:30 p.m. at the Eldridge. Cost is $65 per person. To reserve a seat call 749-1005 or email lindsay@oliviacollection.com. (Here’s the menu)

March 8: Kansas Craft Brewers Exposition at Abe & Jake’s Landing. Tickets are long sold out, but if you nabbed some, don’t forget to go!

March 11: Rogue beer dinner, 7 p.m. at Mariscos. Oregon-based Rogue Ales is known for some off-the-wall brews, even for craft beer. The planned menu for this dinner includes duck-fat-seared scallops paired with Morimoto Soba Ale, roasted carrot and almond soup with Hazelnut Brown Nectar, steak and ale samosas with Brutal IPA and cherry and stout upside-down cake with Double Chocolate Stout. Cost is $65 per person; to reserve a seat call 312-9057.

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @saramarieshep. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

Tacos de Lengua are one of the best-selling dishes at Port Fonda, 4141 Pennsylvania Ave., Kansas City, Mo. The main ingredient is braised beef tongue, served street taco-style with spicy salsa, onion, cilantro and fresh lime. by Sara Shepherd

Foodies, mark your calendars. There's some pretty fun-sounding dining, beer and wine events coming up. Here goes:

Sept. 27: Terrebonne fish fry

The folks from Terrebonne Po' Boys and Desserts will be manning the fryer at Abe & Jake’s Catfish Fry to benefit Friends of the Kaw. The event starts at 6 p.m. Sept. 27 at Abe & Jake’s Landing, 8 E. Sixth St. A $10 cover gets you admission and food. The event will feature river inspired artwork, Kansas Riverkings artifacts and live music from the Brody Buster Band.

Oct. 3: British mixer

Brits, Queen Lizzy’s Catering and On the Rocks liquor store are teaming up on an event at the Castle Tea Room. Mixer, Mixer is set for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 3 in the courtyard at the Castle, 1307 Massachusetts St. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online here. British-y fare like scotch eggs and sausage is on the menu, to be washed down with British-y libations like gin, imported colas and ginger beer.

Oct. 5: Port Fonda hits the road

Port Fonda — one of Kansas City’s most buzzed-about restaurants right now — is bringing its edgy Mexican fare westward for a pregame tailgate at the Oread. The Port Fonda Tailgate is before the KU-Texas Tech football game Oct. 5. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door. Expect street-style Mexican food and drinks, Free State beer and DJ Ashton. Time TBD — check Port Fonda’s Facebook page for updates.

Oct. 17: Free State beer dinner

Pachamama's is planning a Free State beer dinner Oct. 17. Looks like the time hasn’t been set yet, but if you’re interested I suggest blocking off the evening and calling Pachamama's (841-0990) for reservations sooner rather than later — seats at Free State beer dinners go fast these days, and good food and good beer is sure to be had there. Cost is $75 per person.

Oct. 19: Feast of the Fields

Pachamama's chef Ken Baker is taking his culinary show on the road to prepare the farm-to-table meal for the next Feast of the Fields at River Creek Farms outside Manhattan. The dinner is set for 5 p.m. Oct. 19 inside the farm’s 1876 limestone barn. On Friday, there were still tickets left, which can be purchased online here for $100 per person.

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @saramarieshep. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

The Float Trip at Pachamama's, 800 New Hampshire St. by Sara Shepherd

A few notes from Lawrence's eating and drinking front — a little heavy on the drinking side this time.

This week

Kansas City’s Ink magazine has a Lawrence watering hole on the cover of its latest edition, and more Lawrence inside. Ink released its first Lawrence Bar Guide this week, with a cover photo shot at Frank’s North Star Tavern, a story about our potpourri of a bar scene and spotlights some of our more notable adult libations.

Mentions include daytime cocktails from The Roost, the Basil Rickey at 715, Pachamama’s glorious Float Trip and Frank’s Grape Drank. (To quote the article, that last one is “made with a healthy pour of vodka and a top-secret ingredient that may or may not be grape Kool-Aid. OK, it’s grape Kool-Aid. From a plastic jug in the fridge.”) Cheers to Lawrence!

Next week

Cava, albarino, mencia, rioja and tempranillo are among the wines to be featured at La Parrilla’s Spanish Wine and Food Tasting event next week. Spanish native Josu Galdos of Wine Imports will speak about the featured wines, paired with food courses inspired by chef Alejandro Lule’s trip to Madrid this summer. The dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Wine Cellar at La Parrilla, 724 Massachusetts St. Cost is $48 per person. Seating is limited, and reservations should be made by calling 841-1100.

Sept. 3

Mariscos is planning a craft beer dinner with quaffs from Left Hand Brewing Co. of Longmont, Colo. The four-course menu includes hearty food and beers with fun names. My favorites: the ginger-kissed Good Juju (paired with crab and goat cheese pizza) and an IPA called 400 Pound Monkey (with buffalo and bacon meatloaf). The event is set for 7 p.m. Sept. 3 at Mariscos, 4821 W. Sixth St. Cost is $49 per person, and reservations should be made by calling 312-9057.

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @saramarieshep. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

Elvis Presley performing in 1972. (AP file photo) by Sara Shepherd

There are two wine dinners next week in Lawrence. They’re both happening the same night, though, so you’ll have to choose — organic or Sicilian? Plus, Elvis (Burger) lives.

Thursday

Organic Wines of the World is the title of the Oread’s next quarterly wine dinner, planned Thursday at the hotel’s Terrace on Fifth.

The reception — featuring an appetizer of poached fig with goat cheese and prosciutto paired with Italian wine — begins at 6:30 p.m. Dinner begins at 7 p.m. and features bass, chicken, duck and steak courses with wines from North and South Americas and France. The planned dessert is coffee crepes suzette with coffee from Lawrence’s J&S Coffee Co.

Cost is $65 per person. Reservations are required and can be made by contacting Kristyn Maloney at 830-3945 or Kristyn@oliviacollection.com.

Also Thursday

Sicilian food and wine will highlight Genovese’s August wine dinner, set for 6 p.m. Thursday at the restaurant. Cost is $48 per person, and reservations should be made by calling 842-0300.

The four featured wines come from Sicily’s Fuedo Arancio Winery and include grillo and Nero d’Avola. Chef Armando’s planned menu features native Sicilian foods such as tuna, bottarga (salted, pressed and dried fish roe), caponata and lamb.

Based on the winery’s website, which touts its commitment to green growing and winemaking principles, the place looks breathtakingly beautiful. If you can’t tele-transport (which sadly you can’t, last I checked), maybe drinking wine from the place is second-best!

All month

The Elvis Burger is back in the building at Burger Stand, an occasional special that seems far-out enough it's worth mentioning. This burger has everything Elvis would have wanted: creamy peanut butter, banana puree and — if you order it Vegas style — bacon.

Chris Hoffman, general manager at Burger Stand, says the special is in conjunction with the month Elvis died — "or went into hiding ... whatever you believe!"

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @saramarieshep. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

Journal-World file photo by Kevin Anderson by Sara Shepherd

Wine Spectator included two Lawrence locations — both hotel restaurants — in its 2013 Restaurant Wine List Awards, announced this week.

The winning wine lists — which the magazine says “offer an interesting and diverse selection of 100 or more wines that are well-presented and thematically match the restaurant cuisine” — are at Ten, inside the Eldridge Hotel at 701 Massachusetts St., and Five 21 restaurant, inside the Oread Hotel at 1200 Oread Ave. According to Wine Spectator’s listing, Ten has 200 wine selections, with California wine being a particular strength. Five 21 also has 200 selections, with a list strong in French and California wine.

Wine Spectator’s list includes more than 3,700 restaurants from across the globe, plus a few cruise ships. Outside the Kansas City metropolitan area, which has 21 restaurants listed, the other Kansas restaurants on this year’s list are 4 Olives Wine Bar in Manhattan, Chester’s Chophouse and Wine Bar in Wichita and Mike’s Wine Dive in Wichita.

Wine Enthusiast also announced restaurant honors this week, but in a much more exclusive list. The nearest restaurant named in that magazine's America’s 100 Best Wine Restaurants 2013 is Niche in St. Louis.

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @KCSSara. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

Inevitably July will start acting like July any day now, and it’s going to get hot. A few adult-beverage and food-tasting events in the coming weeks promise to be refreshing diversions. Here’s what’s on tap.

Salute! Grand Tasting

Salute!, Lawrence’s annual wine and food tasting festival to benefit Cottonwood Inc., is next week. The Grand Tasting and Auction is set for 6:30 to 10 p.m. July 13 at the Oread, 1200 Oread Ave. Tickets are $75 per person and include a souvenir wine glass, butler tray and tote bag. Purchase tickets and find more details online at salutewinefest.com.

The event will feature more than 250 wines and food from local restaurants and caterers. Salute! 2012 netted more than $114,000 for Cottonwood, a nonprofit organization that helps people with disabilities.

Salute! Winemaker Dinner

The much-less-expensive Salute! Mass St. Mosey — a $40-per-person wine walk in downtown Lawrence — is sold out (again). But if you can afford it, a more climate-controlled option with fancier fare is the $150-per-person Salute! Winemaker Dinner.

French wine from multiple growing regions highlights this year’s dinner July 12 at the Oread. A reception with hors d'oeuvres and wine begins at 6:30 p.m., and the four-course dinner at 7 p.m. Reservations are required. Purchase tickets and see the full wine list and dinner menu at salutewinefest.com.

Tallgrass Brewery Beer Dinner

Manhattan-brewed beer will boldly breach sports-rivalry lines for Genovese’s annual beer dinner. The five-course Tallgrass Brewery Beer Dinner is scheduled for 6 p.m. July 18 at the restaurant, 941 Massachusetts St. Cost is $49 per person, and reservations can be made by calling 842-0300.

Planned courses include duck confit crostini with 8-Bit Hop-Rocketed American Pale Ale, barbecued pork pizza with Velvet Rooster Belgian-Style Tripel and, for dessert, chocolate Kahlua panna cotta with Buffalo Sweat Oatmeal Cream Stout.

Fun fact — a few years ago Tallgrass abandoned bottles and went all-can, all the time. The “Tallgrass Canifesto” on the company’s website decrees: "Cans seal better than bottles and totally block sunlight, which keeps our beer tasting fresher, longer. Cans are more fun. You can take cans to the pool, concerts, lakes, stadiums, hot tubs, golf courses, and anywhere else you can’t take glass. Last, but not least, the aluminum can is WAY better for the environment than bottles. Cans are 12x lighter than glass, which means it takes less energy to ship the same amount of beer. But the biggest advantage is how easy it is to recycle cans. A recycled aluminum can will be made into another can and back on the shelf in about 60 days."

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @KCSSara. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo by Sara Shepherd

Think “agrotourism,” and pick-your-own apples and winery tours probably come to mind, at least in the Midwest. But another take on it is becoming increasingly popular (and hard to get tickets to): fine dining on the farm.

Gieringers Orchard has scheduled its second Feast in the Fields event for 6 p.m. July 13 at the orchard, which has an Edgerton address but lies on the Douglas County-Johnson County line. Orchard owner Melanie Gieringer said today that tickets are still available for the event, which takes place outdoors between rows of peach trees.

In Weston, Mo., Green Dirt Farm has already sold out all but one of its wildly popular farm-to-table dinners through October. Each features acclaimed Kansas City area chefs, including Pachamama’s chef/owner Ken Baker on Oct. 5 (Yes, that one’s sold out, too. Sorry.).

River Creek Farms near Manhattan also has played host to dinners in its barn and cornfield — where one of Baker’s dinners earlier this month filled up as well.

Pachamama's chef Ken Baker. by Nick Krug

The Gieringers Orchard dinner will feature Kansas wine and an all-local, four-course menu, also prepared by Baker. Tickets are $100 each (includes gratuity) and can be purchased online at gieringersorchard.com or by calling 913-893-9626.

Gieringer said it’s hard to put her finger on exactly what’s so special about the experience, which attracted about 50 people last year.

“It’s not every day you get to actually have all local food and it’s actually eaten out in our orchard,” she said. “It’s so neat.”

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @KCSSara. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

La Parrilla has planned a South American-style christening for the wine cellar in its new, bigger digs at 724 Massachusetts St., the space that formerly housed Tapas.

The cellar, which has been in the building since 2000, belongs to Steve Wilson of City Wine Market, who will lead La Parrilla's first tasting event there. The evening will feature four Argentinian wines paired with South American influenced, small-plate style dishes from chef Alejandro Lule (a Peruvian shrimp and octopus ceviche with a glass of torrontés gets the menu started).

The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. June 19 at La Parrilla. Cost is $48 per person. Seating is limited, and reservations should be made by calling 841-1100.

La Parrilla owner Subarna Bhattachan, in the event announcement, describes the cellar as an intimate space featuring exposed hardwood beams and decorated with Persian rugs. He said he plans to collaborate with Wilson on more cellar tasting events in the future, highlighting primarily Spanish, Portuguese and South American wines to complement the restaurant’s Latin American cuisine.

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know about something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @KCSSara. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.

West coast wineries — one in Oregon, one in California — will provide the wine part of two upcoming wine dinners in downtown Lawrence.

On June 5, the Eldridge is playing host to a dinner featuring wines from Jax Vineyard in Calistoga, Calif., at the foot of Mt. St. Helena. The planned five-course menu includes roasted duck breast with ginger-glazed carrot and slow-braised beef cheek with Iwig buttermilk mash.

The Jax Vineyard Wine Dinner starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Eldridge. Cost is $60 per person, and reservations are required. Contact Lindsay Robinson at 785-749-1005 or lindsay@oliviacollection.com.

Genovese’s June wine dinner will prove that seafood and red wine can go together, especially when you’re talking about pinot noir. Each course will be paired with wine from Oregon’s Willamette Valley Vineyards — two whites and two pinot noirs. Planned dishes include a parmesan breadcrumb crusted diver scallop and pancetta-wrapped seared ahi tuna.

The Willamette Valley dinner is set for 6 p.m. June 6 at Genovese, 941 Massachusetts St. Cost is $45 per person. Call the restaurant at 842-0300 for reservations.