aaronsinger

This reminds me of when I went to visit my cousin who was spending the year in Zagreb a couple years ago. We traveled to a suburb to go a restaurant where we gorged on a variety of delicious meats. It was sunken in to the ground and had the look of a cave. Cousin remarked that the Balkans have an obsession with sunken/cave restaurants (I recall going to another one in central Zagreb). Your comment about the Japanese restaurant was interesting. I remember actually having a decent Japanese meal in Zagreb. Unfortunately, that trip was a brief one and I didn't have the time to travel elsewhere in the region.

I will second the Southern Tier Pumking. Out at trivia a couple weeks ago (I go every sunday night), I had that and another pumpkin. I don't recall where the other one was from (it was a brewery I normally like, and a big craft, but I forget which one). Pumking seemed to have a real squash-y taste that I liked, where the other one was blander.

I thought I remember stopping at a well-known BBQ place in Newnan, where the BBQ wasn't amazing but the Brunswick stew was excellent. That was a number of years ago, however, and I don't recall the name.

I love the malt-hops and colour-flavour* scales they have. With the scale listed for that beer, sounds like my kind of brew. And as the description says, I have not seen many Chocolate Porters; stouts yes, but not porters. I wonder why that is. Speaking of porters, I had a good one the other night from Revolution Brewery here in Chicago. It had the lightness of a porter (compared to a stout) that I like, but still had plenty of flavo(u)r. *Tee hee... Canadians.

The latter I went to a lot when I lived in DC just a block or so away, great place and very knowledgeable, indeed. They were the ones who first turned me on to and recommended rhum agricole (Barbancourt as I mentioned in another thread recently, I thought of it and bought it again).

As long as we're discussing baseball, some drink in celebration of their baseball teams, I'm* drinking out of nervousness; fingernail bitings are not a good cocktail garnish. *Maybe some day this week one of the two teams in the fight will decide they actually want to win the AL Central. Go White Sox! I'll be there friday night.

Goose Island Black Mission. Not a big fan of the brewery usually, but this was a delicious, medium-bodied ale brewed with figs. Very yummy and unusual.

To Jeff Russell, owner of one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants, Cross-Rhodes, here in Evanston, Illinois. RIP, Jeff, and I look forward to many future visits with your daughter now the boss of the place.

Fruit is an obvious natural sweetener, to me; it's added to many of those lambics both for added flavor and to counterattack the sour flavor of those spontaneously fermented beers. However, to me there is a big difference between adding fruit or fruit juice for added flavor and sweetness and adding an artificial sweetener that is 200 times sweeter than sugar, as Lindeman's does in adding 'Ace K' (Acesulfame potassium). One aspect of that problem, and from what I understand is the reason it was discovered that Lindeman's lambics contained Ace K (and supposedly no other Belgians do), is that Belgian and/or European laws state that you have to list all of your ingredients on the label, whereas the American beer scene has no such laws. As for the big-market American beers, there is no way of knowing what they put in their beers to water them down, lower the cost, etc. There is also no way of knowing what craft breweries put in their beers, either. That's not to say that banning additional ingredients is the way to go; I find Belgian beers generally more interesting than German beers, and part of that is because of the German reinheitsgebot laws (though those aren't as strict as they once were).

Based on what happened to be in the fridge (sadly had to throw out spoiled goat cheese), tonight I had a watermelon-tomato-mint-blue cheese-balsamic salad. It was yummy.

Probably not apropos to this thread (I would be shocked to have found it at a 7-11), but my favorite beer that I have ever had, at least up to the present and not including potential future libations, was from New Belgium (together with Allagash, it was as sour beer called Vrienden). As for 7-11, Dallas is only the national HQs, right? Isn't it Japanese?

On another fantastically fun food forum I frequent (not either of the links below) there was a thread discussing sour beers. Lindeman's came up, maker of many lambics. Someone mentioned that they add sweetener to their beers to enhance sweetness, as normally lambics are tart, a flavor in beer Americans are not exactly used to (although they seem all the rage in the craft beer world right now). This thread discusses more. So does this article from an Arizona publication.

Yeah, Tortas Frontera is decent. Probably the best you're going to get at O'Hare. They have locations in Terminal 1 and Terminal 3.ORD

Fort Collins New Belgium is one of the countries' largest craft breweries. Not quite local to Fruita/Grand Junction, as they're in Ft. Collins, 300 miles away on the northern end of the Front Range. I had never heard of Fruita before this thread, though I do recall reading an article in the NYT recently about old Victorian homes and architecture in nearby Grand Junction, as well as biking in the city and its environs.

I'll take other people's word for it that the pizza is good. I won't ever bother giving them my business; there are plenty of good pizza places around here. Also, yes, every type of food establishment in Chicago has to have a restroom, as far as I can tell: http://webapps.cityo...Inspections.jsp I love Mitsuwa; it's a chain with maybe 10 stores scattered around the country. While I like the food court, I've never had the food from the the chinese stand. I usually get either some form of noodle soup or the other hot options (I like tonkatsu and the Japanese curry). Also, they seem to have decent meat which I've gotten a couple times. There is a similar Korean-type market a few miles away on Milwaukee in I think Niles (it might be Wheeling or Morton Grove, I don't exactly recall). However, while that store has a similar set-up, they don't have everything else (food court, liquor store, periodicals, etc.) up and running as Mitsuwa does. I view Frontera and Big Star a little differently. The latter seems more of a lunch and late-night spot, while Frontera & Topolobampo are more formal dinner restaurants. I'm a fan of both places. Big Star is a One Off Hospitality place, which is Paul Kahan's restaurant group; that also consists of Avec, Blackbird, Publican, Publican Quality Meats (a butcher and sandwich shop; I've had the excellent sandwiches a couple times), and The Violet Hour (a very popular speakeasy-cocktail place across the street from Big Star). While I like Big Star, anytime I have tried to go on a weekend is basically a no-go, as they're seemingly always busy (perhaps moreso now in the summer), whether for lunch or late at night. As for fast casual restaurants and Rick Bayless, there is the popular Xoco next door to Frontera/Topo, as well his growing number of Frontera Fresco spots (there is one on the 7th floor of Marshall Field's, I mean, Macy's on State St, as well as two in O'Hare [terminals 1 and 3] and one in Macy's Old Orchard in Skokie). Xoco is a little better and a little more expensive than Frontera Fresco. I have not been there (that would have been good post-Art Institute eats a couple days ago, but I didn't think about it), but have heard good things. As for Cuban sandwiches in the city, I love La Unica way up north near Rogers Park (on Devon, just east of Clark). It's a small, mostly take-out place in the back of a Mexican grocery store, but they have a wide assortment of good Caribbean food.

When driving up the coast, I've never not stopped there. I've just hung around outside the little shop for awhile; have never eaten there.

Great Lake is notorious for horrendously bad customer service. They're able to pick and choose their customers since they've become so big, and if you're not cool enough for them, then screw you. My sister and mom walked in once, just after they opened and they were not busy, and they refused to even acknowledge their existence, even as they sat other people. I will not do business with such a snobbish, condescending place. I'm sure the pizza is good, but there are plenty of other good pizza places in Chicago. And no bathrooms? They oughta be shut down by the health department for blatantly violating the law.

I've never eaten there as it seems overpriced, but the view from Nepenthe in Big Sur, CA is hard to match.

Can't say I had ever heard of Ting, before looking it up after reading your post. Both sound good. I don't have curacao, though I do have triple sec. No bitters, but did buy some limes today (both regular and key, as they were cheap). Also picked up some mint and agave syrup, so will try a mojito with it, and whatever other concoctions I come up with based on the rather limited bar at home. There's also some creme de cassis syrup I could add to something. As I live at the home where my grandparents first moved into in 1960, I did recently find a few unopened bottles of alcohol from the late 70s/early 80s. No idea if they're still drinkable. There's some Seagram's Canadian, some Port, which I may try in some form of that Rum Manhattan (don't have any vermouth, though), I drink I had never heard of before; as a lover of bourbon and Manhattans, I bet I would like it.

I just bought a bottle of Rhum Barbancourt (the 3 star/4 year). Any cocktail suggestions? Would a light and stormy be any good?

Firestone Walker in Paso Robles comes to mind.

Illinois.

Just an FYI, Bleeding Heart Bakery recently went out of business.

Root Down is good. It's also one of the closest eateries to my sister's abode. In LoDo, Falling Rock Tap House is maybe the best of the numerous beer bars near the ballpark. A great and lengthy beer list. As for Frasca, I wonder if they still have a prix-fixe dinner on mondays that isn't too expensive, as they did when I went my sisters a few years ago (I want to say it was $35 at the time). It was excellent, and the service was outstanding. Even unnecessarily so; we ordered one wine bottle, they poured 4 glasses, one each to the 4 of us, then came back and said they were sorry and had accidentally poured the rest of our bottle (didn't think there was anything left) to someone else, and would give us the wine pairing with the meal on them. One of the best meals I have ever had. I would love to go back.

Three Floyd's Robert the Bruce at a (Jewish-Scottish; first and likely the final time I will see a groom in a kilt under a chuppah) wedding this evening in honor of a probably apocryphal story regarding the groom's surname.