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arleneivana

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Everything posted by arleneivana

  1. At the risk of sounding overly fawning I just have to rave about our tour guide last week. We just returned from a trip to Italy, the highlights being our five days in the Emilia-Romagna region. For 3 days of that period we enlisted the services of Helena of Yummy Italy http://www.yummy-italy.com/ to take us on tours of producers, lunches, and a walking tour of Bologna. Helena prefers to have a conversation with her about what you're interested in and she makes a suggested itinerary based on your interests plus logistical matters (what's open, etc.). Tours are just with Helena and it's such a wonderful, intimate experience compared to larger tour groups we've done in the past. We had two wonderful sessions on the local wine, first learning about lambrusco, a style I vastly underappreciated until now, and another where she introduced us to pignoletto, our new favorite grape. Other days she took us to a acetaia for balsamic vinegar de Modena and a local dairy for parmigiano reggiano production. In all locations Helena provided wonderful context to the food, culture, and the history, plus went into detail about stringent requirements for each item to be produced under IGP/DOP certifications (including how to spot "fakes," such as it is.) With the exception of the acetaia, the two of us and Helena were the only others there besides the producers. Helena also took us on a rollicking tour of Bologna, buying us food at different stops for other products special to the region that we hadn't gotten to try yet. She also gave us a crash course in how to taste various products like the vinegar and wine (cramming things in your maw is not the ideal way to really appreciate foodstuffs, apparently). Helena is incredibly knowledgeable, cultivates a respectful relationship with her producers, is a true champion of Emilia-Romagna, and was generally just such a delight to spend time with. I wish there was a Helena for every vacation we took. I fully intend to join her in the future for a truffle hunt. (I wrote this originally for this wonderful site but intend to post it to her Tripadvisor page as well, in case you wander over there and think I'm some bot trying to up her rankings)
  2. The topic seems to have died and I hate to beat a dead horse but three observations: I've never waited hours for a table when I didn't plan for it ahead of time and have a nearby bar strategy in place. At that point it hardly feels like waiting, more like just the first step of a night out. I don't know anyone who spends that time just standing around outside. I agree that sounds like a colossal waste of time. I've had more trouble getting into high-demand restaurants that are reservation-only than I have restaurants that didn't take reservations. When I do get a reservation at these places often the times are no more convenient than if I'd just been allowed to show up and put my name in (i.e. 5pm or 9pm). Often It leads me to wonder who is getting the prime times...and what connections they have that I don't. The inconvenient reservation times becomes less of an issue at places that are no longer "hot" but then the same holds true for walk-in-only restaurants that have lost some of their shimmer. If you insist on hitting up something that is incredibly popular you will probably be inconvenienced in some way or other. That seems to make sense with most things, newly-released movies and winning baseball teams being two examples I can think of where high demand leads to annoying experiences in some form or another (not that DC knows anything about the latter.)
  3. Ages ago I posted a plea for recommendations for an intimate and special wedding reception dinner, then promptly got a job that has kept me off these boards far, far too long and I was never able to follow up. Two months ago my beau and our families enjoyed a magical dinner in Cityzen's wine library. I'd love to expound on the specifics of the dishes, but when you've just married your beau and you're plied with wonderful wine and plate after plate of sensuous food while watching an alert staff treat your vastly-deserving parents like royalty, what more is there to say besides: perfect. It was a perfect night. Thank you Cityzen. Maybe now that work is becoming more manageable I can finally return my attention to this great forum and actually post something about our honeymoon in Singapore and the Maldives?
  4. I hesitate to post anything like this because I'm quite convinced my mother tracks all my social networking activities for any hint on this matter but here goes: we're getting married. Yay! It will be very small (8 total including us) and our biggest concern is high quality food in an intimate setting. We thought about having it at an inn like Ashby Inn or Inn at Little Washington because we like the idea of everyone staying the night so we can all relax after over some drinks. Are there any other inns in about a 2ish hour drive that pay attention to the quality of their food? Another thought was the Mandarin Oriental or Park Hyatt in DC to take advantage of hotel rooms and wonderful dining experiences all under the same roof. I've also considered private rooms at Corduroy and Fiola but wouldn't know what to do after dinner if we did that...drinks at Poste and stay at Hotel Monaco? Thanks for any help, tips. suggestions, concerns, comments, prayers you have because I feel rather lost when considering all of these options. We're also hosting our friends at an open bar sometime after and if anyone has had a good experience renting a private room for 50-100 people in a DC bar I'd love to hear about it. Our only preferences are that my beau cares VERY DEEPLY about high quality beer and I care that they have something else besides beer (a good cocktail makes my heart flutter almost as much as my beau does.) Thanks everyone!
  5. I love any opportunity to suggest a great person and great business to the general public. We adopted our elderly chihuahua from A Forever Home, a rescue organization based in Chantilly, VA (which deserves its own thread), and being first-time dog owners we knew we needed some general obedience training in order to understand how our new pup worked. Toni Woods-Wilson offers both puppy and adult obedience classes in a group setting, as well as private training for those who need it. The classes were fantastic, Toni is patient and understands dog language and motivation to a degree that I found magical. In seconds she would have stubborn dogs obeying her every word. She's easy to approach for tough questions, plus she's just a lot of fun to spend an hour with each week. Within weeks our dog could sit, stay, walk on a lead and do a few other tricks. Plus at the end of the class you get a hilarious picture of your dog wearing a graduation cap (worth the money alone). She teaches classes at the Wagtime doggy daycare in Shaw as well as the Anytime K-9 space in SE. I cannot recommend her services enough. Arlene Fletcher
  6. I haven't been since I made my 2011 recommendations but you're following almost the same path that we took; we flew from Barcelona to Bilbao and then drove to San Sebastian. I won't give any specific food recs since my info is dated but I highly recommend the side trips from San Sebastian to Bilbao (about an hour away?) and to Hondarribia (40 minutes ish?) which was written up in the NY Times a few years ago. We had excellent pintxos in both places and they're wonderfully charming little towns. Like ktmoomau we also did the hop on hop off when we landed in Barcelona because who can think on practically no sleep? Sometimes I don't think those buses are worth it but i liked it for Barcelona since it can get you to most of the major tourist spots on a 2 day pass. It was also totally worth it to get La Sagrada Familia super early to be first in line since we're talking saving time on both a short ticket line and a short elevator line. We saw the lines on the hop on bus and realized that there was no way we were doing that. Plus the place wasn't packed with tourists and you could really stop and enjoy it. We were so worn out by the time we made it to Madrid I can't even remember what we did but I do know we took advantage of the free hours at the Prado and that I ended up loving the Reina Sofia more than I thought I would.
  7. We went last Saturday around 6:30pm and got the last three seats at the bar. The food menu is short and spanish - think olives, anchovies, tomato bread and hams - and everything we had was high quality and excellent. I don't recall seeing any "hot" dishes or pintxos, based on the press the owners have been doing I assume we shouldn't expect anything like that. There was a $10 sherry flight featuring three sherries or you could order all the sherries by glass ($6-25/glass) or bottle ($30+). The menu was organized by style and explained each style succinctly. Each sherry came with a small food pairing, for example, the fino with olives, the oloroso with walnuts, the pedro ximenez with a square of dark chocolate, etc. There were also a couple draft beers, a green apple gin & tonic on tap, maybe four or five sherry cocktails, and some wines. Derek and Chantal and two others were serving and we were lucky to have Chantal explain to us what we were drinking and the differences in process for each style. That being said I could barely hear her, partly because she talks so quietly and partly because it could get fairly loud inside. The space is really really lovely, with the feature being the long bar supplemented by a couple tables in the front and a back room that I didn't see but seemed to fit the many people who wandered in after us. Would be a lovely place for a pre- or post-dinner drink, or a light meal if you were so inclined. I can't wait to go back and wish it were open during the day so I could have a sherry with my afternoon reading. Edited to add: It's a few steps north of the 7th street entrance of the Shaw metro station, for those using that option.
  8. Anyone know of a local source for Pagoda brand Shaoxing rice wine? Attempting Fuschia Dunlop's xiao long bao over the next couple of days.
  9. I just saw them at Seasonal Pantry on Wednesday and only noticed because it was something I'd never seen before. Unfortunately the hours for the market are erratic these days.
  10. I'm speaking out of turn since I haven't been here and don't know what preciesly what they're referring to but there are sakes sold as singles in reusable jars with cute designs, sorta like those jam jars that were popular when I was younger. Maybe they're these http://www.sakediscoveries.com/blog/cup-sake-research-with-sake-samurai-at-ippudo/ ?
  11. My question is: what's wrong with being social media? You say it like it's a bad thing. Social media is defined by content produced by individuals on an easy(ish) to use platform that was designed to facilitate social interaction. Isn't that what we're doing here? Isn't that why this is in a forum format, in order to facilitate discussion among many users? As far as the the fact that this website does not "come into [my] living room" you're describing what some people would consider a feature, not a bug. For example, RSS has improved my life greatly because it means that content is sent to me instead of me having to go out and harvest it from individual websites. Maybe you don't see value in this, which is a fair opinion, but it's still a personal preference.
  12. Sundevich in Shaw tweeted they would be open at noon as usual today.
  13. Louisville, Frankfurt, Lawrenceburg, Bardstown Just did a solid portion of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, hitting up Four Roses, Heaven Hill, and Maker's Mark as well as Buffalo Trace which is technically not a part of the "official" trail. Our first stop was Buffalo Trace outside of Frankfurt, where most of my favorite bourbons are produced; it's worth calling ahead to book the Hard Hat tour which is 1-1.5 hours and takes you really in depth to all the buildings plus our tour guide was a third-generation employee who was really enthusiastic and knowledgeable. All tours are free and included tastings, we were poured some white dog, Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare as well as some creme liquor abomination that most everyone else seemed to enjoy. The woman there said that Pappy Van Winkle and the Antique Collection are usually released around mid-October for those who like their bourbons to cost a lot of money. Four Roses in Lawrenceburg was a bit of a sh*tshow, so much so that my companions took doubles on the tastings because no one was keeping track. To be fair they are in the process of building a new, larger visitor's center which will hopefully make it much more enjoyable. The tour was just okay, especially following the excellent example of Buffalo Trace, but it didn't help that their barrel storage facilities and distilling operations are 45 minutes apart so you could really only see one or the other depending on which location you went to. We were given tastings of the yellow label, small batch and single barrel; tasting and tour were gratis. By the time we made it to Heaven Hill in Bardstown we were toured out. Plus Heaven Hill tours cost money and the cheapest, fastest one was basically someone walking you through the visitor's center, an option that local friends said was especially lame. The gift shop had the best bourbon selection of others we visited but otherwise I can't say much more about this place. They won't even let you in the gift shop without checking in with some women at the front desk, even if you aren't taking a tour. Oh and you can't do any tastings without doing a tour, even though we offered to pay for the tasting. Bah humbug. If you've read Charles Cowdery's excellent, if a bit outdated, treatise on bourbon (and I recommend you do if you plan on doing the trail) you're familiar with Maker's Mark mythology-wrapped marketing scheme, an approach that carries over into their very slick tour. I wasn't expecting much but it was quite well done, even the tastings of Maker's and Maker's 46 were well-organized and beautifully presented. The best part was they were the only distillery producing while we were in town so everything was going full throttle. We even go to taste some of the distiller's beer that was percolating in the open-air fermenting tubs. Unfortunately it was Sunday and they weren't dipping the bottles in wax but if you're willing to pay a hefty premium on bourbon from the gift shop you can totally do it yourself. We declined. For those considering a visit soon, note that the Willet distillery is on the verge of opening to the public - a woman at Heaven Hill, which is just a half mile away from the Willet operation, advised that the official road sign for the distillery just went up this week. It looks like it'll be a fun addition. Having said all that, I'm now of the opinion that there's no reason to visit all these distilleries unless you're interested in the mechanics of distillation. All of them were pretty much just marketing operations and, unlike, say, going directly to a winery, the gift shops didn't have any bourbon you couldn't get at any good liquor store, PLUS we discovered the bourbons at these shops were always a few dollars more than the liquor stores. So unless you like branded sweatshirts and barware you could probably do fine just perusing the liquor shops or sitting down and working your way through the bourbon menus of Louisville bars and restaurants to get your bourbon fix. I'm amazed that some entrepreneurial soul hasn't opened the definitive bourbon shop in Louisville. Our searching was cursory so maybe we missed it? However the two stores we did visit were wonderful: Liquor World outside of Bardstown, had most every bourbon you can imagine and the owners try hard to get the rare stuff. The gentleman who helped us asked us about Bourbon bar in Adams Morgan once he heard we were from DC, apparently someone from Bourbon is a frequent customer of his. Here we found some Buffalo Trace Experimental and he had a couple other goodies on hand. We also visited Keg Liquors in Indiana, just across the river from Louisville, so that my mate could get hisThree Floyds fix (you can only get 3F bombers in Kentucky). They had some items from the BT Antique collection, as well as the Willet pot still and family estate bourbons. As for food we didn't do as much eating as we should've for people consuming so much bourbon. One dinner in Louisville was at Smoketown USA, a bbq place in the Smoketown neighborhood. It was fine is really all I can say; the proprietors were lovely, there was a gentleman performing tunes at the front and it was affordable. Lots of character, very soulful, family-oriented joint. Beer wasn't half bad either. Holy Grale is one of the few bars to participate in Zwanzee Day so naturally we had to make a stop for my beer-loving mate. There's nothing but beer but the selection is sophisticated and well-edited (read: shorter list than Churchkey but high quality). The food was the sort of gastropub fare popping up all over the place these days: scotch eggs and sliders and what have you. The pate and rilletes were unremarkable if you're familiar with Churchkey's wonderful charcuterie board but the pork belly sliders were an incredible, if a bit heavily salted. I stand by any place that uses pretzel buns exclusively for their bunned food. I regret not ordering more, it was intriguing enough to continue making our way through the menu. We needed lunch while in Bardstown so we ate at the Old Talbott Tavern, the sort of place that anyone would be familiar with as it sits on the main drag of the older part of downtown, looks like an old country inn, attracts tourists like flies and has a boring menu of safe favorites. We opted for the "bourbon bar" which looked like a depressing dive and had only a couple of customers, clearly just some locals enjoying some day drinking. We loved it. You could order *any* 5 shots of bourbon for $25, they had a decent selection and a knowledgeable bartender to administer them and between four of us it ended up being a great deal shared. I got the BLT which delighted me with fried green tomatoes in place of the traditional, their potato chips were made in-house and it was cheap and fast. No complaints here. Finally we tried two different bars to take ourselves on a sitting-in-place bourbon trail: Jockey Silks in the Galt House and the bar at Proof on Main. The Galt House has the air of a hotel on the old Las Vegas strip. Everything about it was horribly depressing but I'm not above recommending the bar since it was basically empty and they had a lot of bourbon. Having said that we quickly abandoned it for the ultra slick bar at Proof on Main, which had bourbon flights and some pretty tasty french fries.
  14. I don't think I can live another day without a juicer. I need to juice all the things. Anyone have any recommendations? A friend offered to sell me her Breville but I've also heard good things about the Omega brand.
  15. A long weekend in Chicago left me two reasons to go back ASAP: Longman & Eagle and The Aviary. L&E doesn't take reservations so I planned a weekday brunch to avoid potential crowds. The restaurant was empty at 11am on a Friday, a tremendous oversight on the part of tourists breaking their fasts at hotel buffets. My friend tore through his duck egg over duck confit hash, drizzled with truffle vinaigrette to cut through the richness of the duck. My pig's head pastrami "sandwich" was sublime: perfectly cooked & seasoned tete a cochon atop a well-dressed apple slaw and the blackest of rye bread, accompanied with sauerkraut and a thousand island sauce. The spicy bloody mary comes with a beer back and their take on a mimosa combines prosecco with campari - a mimoni? negrosa? The enthusiastic waitress begged us to come back to try the dinner. She advised those who stay in the accompanying inn above the restaurant are the only ones who can score reservations, something I will keep in mind for my inevitable return. Otherwise it's practically on top of the Logan Square station entrance so no need to worry about wandering the neighborhood looking for it; this would make a great stop for those taking the blue line back to O'Hare. Much as I love a good cocktail I almost didn't bother with The Aviary. I was afraid I would find it gimmicky and coupled with the fact that I couldn't gauge how necessary it was to get a reservation I was sure this was going to be a bigger pain than it was worth. Wrong. My friends who insisted I would love it are absolutely right: It's thoughtful, superbly executed and great fun. We arrived shortly after 6pm on a Friday and we were in within 10 minutes. We didn't stay longer than an hour but it was enough time to try several of the a la carte beverages on the menu. I ordered the $28 truffle (simply described as "campari, sweet vermouth and bitters") out of sheer curiosity; how could a negroni could cost almost $30? Oh I guess it's this massive slice of shaved truffle in the bottom of the glass. I'm still not sure if I buy that pairing - the truffle was powerful and I like tasting the parts of my negroni, but it was interesting nonetheless. The Oolong and the In The Rocks, however, were very well balanced. In The Rocks was an old-fashioned cocooned in a perfect sphere of ice. A rubber band with a weight attached released the liquid which I drank a little too fast. So good and even if it is a gimmick who cares?? It was so delightful! I also noted that they had a vertical tasting of Pappy Van Winkle's entire line for $150. Definitely worth a visit for pre- or post-dinner drink if not the whole tasting menu.
  16. You can definitely *embed* the map on DCDining.com, not sure about DR.com. The map is built and exists in Google Maps but added to a site after the fact (sorta like a youtube video). This video shows the process; it's ridiculously simple. The only cons I can think of for this is that it does require someone to use their Google account to be the creator of the map and then that person would have that map tied to their account for eternity. But you could also just create a DR Google account... I believe there *is* a way to build a Google map directly on a website using Google API, which has two benefits: it wouldn't require the use of a Google account and it allows for really sophisticated customiziation as in the case of the Eater example above. It can look really sleek and nice. But it also has the con of requiring some hand coding, therefore making it harder to update. It should probably be saved for when DR.com incorporates and can hire a full time staff (although I'd be happy to play around with the concept to see how feasible it is since I love that kind of stuff).
  17. If someone is willing to do the data entry, Google Maps are easy to use and customize. You'd be able to color-code entries, as well as add notes and link directly to DR threads. For example here is one I made for a trip to Chicago I took last year. Note that in most cases I could pull in data that Google already had about the business (address, etc.), plus I added personal notes and links where necessary. Plus you can crowd source this work by adding multiple collaborators for the map or even go wild and make it totally open for public editing.
  18. The boy and I stopped by the restaurant last Saturday while wandering around for a place to supper and when we saw that they were serving people we bounded across the street to get a table. I thought the C.E.B.L.T ($13? 16?) and crawfish etouffe ($22) were outstanding, and we give equal props to the jalapeno cornbread and biscuits served before the meal. The C.E.B.L.T is surprisingly light for something stuffed with fried catfish, fried egg, and bacon, and the etouffe was smokey, belly-warming and studded with generous chunks of crawfish. I was pleased with the portion sizes and the service, and I'm feeling properly contrite for not paying closer attention to the oyster bar and alcohol offerings because I imagine those items were selected with as much thought as was given to the food. Unless the quality and service goes vastly downhill, it will be a 2 hour wait kinda place within weeks (days? right now?).
  19. Just returned from four days in Austin, where the weather ranged from suffocatingly hot to just hot. Food Trucks: Odd Duck is only open for dinners and only Tues-Sat so we took some locals here for dinner when we arrived Sat evening. No wait to order at 7pm and food took about 15-20 minutes. We got one of everything but the table agreed that the pork belly sliders and quail were the standouts. On the East Side are the bars The Grackle and The Liberty (more on those later) but both house trucks run by the East Side Kings. We munched on their tongue buns and curry buns. The tongue buns were fantastic, overstuffed with braised tongue and dressed in peanut sauce, cilantro and jalapeno. Curry buns were like massive fried curry puffs. Perfect bar food. Tacos: We hit up Papolote for some snacks one day and Torchy's Tacos for dinner another night. We got a mix of traditional and non-traditional tacos at both. For the "non-traditional" the boy fell in love with the Alambre at Papalote, stuffed with grilled steak, bacon, poblano peppers and provolone cheese, sort of a tex-mex riff on a steak sandwich. I gravitated to the Trailer Park at Torchy's, which has fried chicken and should be ordered "Trashy", i.e. with a side of ranch-flavored queso. My boyfriend was horrified by it, rightfully so. Torchy's featured a "Washingtonian" taco on special for the month, pulled pork with sour cream, cheese and pickles which was about as strange as it sounds. We didn't feel very Washingtonian eating it but it was delicious nonetheless. Breakfast Tacos & Migas: We preferred the breakfast tacos at Kerbey lane, especially if you get cheese, bacon, eggs, and potatoes, but the migas at Magnolia were exceptional. The eggs were cut in with fresh tomatoes and peppers and cooked in a spicy butter; the tortilla strips tasted of corn and weren't lost in the eggs. I also preferred the salsa at Magnolia, which had a more pronounced fresh tomato and garlic flavor than the one at Kerbey Lane. If you're visiting Kerbey Lane we were told a wait of, "I don't know, 30 minutes?" that erred closer on the side of an HOUR and 30 minutes but it was the Monday of a holiday weekend at 11am and we should've known better. BBQ: Sunday "brunch" at Salt Lick on a Sunday afternoon was about an hour wait. The owners smartly set up the Salt Lick Cellar in a grove next to the restaurant and started offering wine tastings and buckets of chilled Firehouse No. 4 beer to help you suffer the wait. Even in 102 degrees the shade from the trees was wonderful and children weren't allowed near the Cellar; we munched on pistachios and sipped our beer in peace and the hour flew by. We tried a four meat platter, doubling up on the brisket in lieu of the smoked turkey (Waiter on the smoked turkey: "The smoked turkey is.....for people who don't eat read meat."), a plate of burnt ends, as well as the habanero chicken and the rack of pork ribs, both on special. The sides I could take or leave but the burnt ends (of brisket), regular sliced brisket and habanero chicken were moist, smoky and well seasoned. We adored the spicier version of the sauce, which is sweeter than other bbq sauces I've had, almost having a peach-like flavor to it. We hadn't even planned on going to Franklin BBQ given the horror stories everyone told us about the wait. But we'd checked out of the hotel at 12:45 and had 2 hours to kill until we had to be at the airport , it was only a few blocks away on a random Tuesday sooo....surprise surprise the wait was max 30 minutes and, while they were out of pulled pork, there was plenty of provisions left for a Tipsy Texan and a couple of ribs. For me this BBQ far outshone Salt Lick...the uber moist rib meat slid right of the bone, encased in perfectly smoked skin crackling with pepper and spices. As has been said elsewhere, the Tipsy Texan tastes of everything that is good: smoke from the sausages, moist meatiness from the chopped beef, cool refeshing coleslaw and some sour notes from the pickles. There were three sauces to satisfy every palate: one dark and heavy on the molasses, a spicier version with undercurrents of chipotle, and a vinegar-based sauce that was thinner than the other two (we largely ignored that one). Tex-Mex: We could barely waddle out of Salt Lick but we needed a Tex Mex dinner so a friend took us to Chuy's that night because I wanted enchiladas something awful. They were celebrating Green Hatch Chile month (BEST MONTH EVER?) but I got their signature dish, the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Enchiladas, on the recommendation of our local friends. I can't remember much else about the meal but I would bathe in the green chile lime sauce that covered the enchiladas. It was slightly creamy and tasted fresh with lime juice and cilantro, and had that wonderful underlying heat from the green chiles. You could put it on anything and it would taste delicious. Trying that made me feel like I was graduating from high school Tex Mex to college Tex Mex. Bars/Beer/Drinking: Our first night was spent at Ginger Man, a large "casual upscale" saloon that specialized in beer in the warehouse district downtown. We stuck mostly to the local beers, a highlight was the 512 double IPA, a balanced west coast style IPA with citrusy hops. Before our meal at Torchy's we stopped at Whip In, which defined Keep Austin Weird for me (its slogan is Namaste, Ya'll). It's a large convenience store that has a bar, a small stage for live performances, and serves Indian Tex-Mex fusion food to go with its 60 taps, approx 40 of which are local beers. I'm sad we didn't have stomach space to try the food but the fellow next to us received a massive Indian chicken fried steak platter that looked wonderful. We got a growler of Jester King's Drinking in the Sunbelt which my boyfriend described as "wannabe Gumballhead" (that's a compliment from him) to take to Torchy's and mourned our lost chance to try the south asian frito pie. Other stops included The Grackle and The Liberty on the East Side, two relaxed dives with large outdoor spaces, decent beer and great food truck options, and the trio of bars on Rainey St east of downtown, Lustre Pearl, Clive Bar and Bar 96, which feel like casual parties in beautiful old houses. Two of the Rainey st. bars also had food trucks in the back yard. Food trucks at bars in 2012! All in all a great trip, would go again, A+++
  20. We stayed at the Market Hotel which I recommend for the price, comfort & location. It's on top of a metro stop, the Mercat Sant Antoni, and about a 15 minute walk to the Rambla. It's also a 7 min walk to Quimet & Quimet.
  21. Inopia is now Lolita which was near our hotel as well. It was very good, I recommend a soybean, avocado and egg dish drizzled with truffle oil. It wasn't clear to me if the Adria connection was still there but it was clear that the place was still popular among the locals and gets very crowded.
  22. Was in Barcelona for 5 days back in October. We hit up the usual tapas hot spots: Tapas 24, Paco Meralgo, Cerveceria Catalunya, Lolita, Cal Pep, Bar Pintxo in the Boqueria. Cal Pep and Paco Meralgo were my personal highlights but all sent out some very good food. We got in with no wait almost everywhere when we showed up around 8:30; we were second in line at lunch for Cal Pep at 11:45 and while the counter *is* frenetic, as described above, it was fun and the locals seated next to us were friendly and told us what to get. Note that Paco Meralgo is open Sunday nights which made it a no-brainer then when very few places are open. I would buy a plane ticket tomorrow to go back to Quimet y Quimet, a standing room only bar that makes gorgeous montaditos to order. I recall a creamy cheese and caviar one, topped with a jewel of a shrimp (which I see now is linked in the blog above. YAY! Oh how I loved that place). Just fabulous and they have a good beer selection too, which excited my beer geek mate very much. Have a spectacular journey!
  23. Recommending one's own blog is so crass but I regularly make the Momofuku cookbook kimchi and wrote about it once. I'm sharing mostly so you can see the photos and descriptions of the specialized ingredients: http://www.arleneton.com/blog/?p=302. I got them at H-Mart and the korean chile powder and jarred shrimp were right next to each other in a refrigerated section.
  24. "Dear New York Times: We get it. Your restaurants are better than ours." I don't think this column had the intended effect: http://eater.com/archives/2010/12/14/is-the-nyt-biased-against-dc.php Wouldn't it have been better to continue silently chortling at the NYT's ridiculous trend pieces?
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