porcupine

Updated map is here.  jondagle is now an editor, so we should see more frequent updates. Please continue to post new finds, changes, etc. in this thread. Thanks.

14 hours ago, jondagle said:

 

@porcupine Are you still updating the map? I'd be happy to help out.   

 

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is more complicated. Basically, I don't have time to keep on top of everything. There are so many places now that I don't feel compelled to visit every new one. Did you see that I changed the stars to pin colors? Also I've reverted the map to my original: Really Good Coffee, rather than Independent Houses. I'd be happy to have help, especially if there's a way to clone the map. Message me and we can discuss further.

Finally, a good cup of coffee in Bethesda. Also they sell Vigilante beans, of which they get a shipment every Thursday evening.

Smoky ratatouille with ricotta and saffron couscous.

Tonight, tomato sandwiches on homemade sourdough, assuming the bread turns out okay; if it doesn't, tomato salad. Probably roasted corn on the cob, too.

I love August.

Interesting.

“A retailer shall not:
(a) Discriminate against cash as a form of payment for services purchased on the licensed premises;
(b) Post signs on the licensed premises that cash payment is not accepted;
(c) Charge different prices to customers depending on their payment method."

article in PoPville

The Guardian

DC Councilmember David Grosso

18 hours ago, dracisk said:

I was reading the comments on a post at The Points Guy, and people were complaining about jacked up prices on the Chase portal. You haven't found that? People were also complaining about horrible customer service from Chase on their travel bookings.

re: customer service; twice I've had to call Chase in order to create a complicated itinerary that couldn't be done on-line. Both times the rep was super friendly but obviously unskilled. One of those phone calls lasted an entire hour, even though I started armed with all the info: time, date, airline, flight number, seat number... One thing the AmExPt has going for it, their customer service is fantastic.

"TROPICAL AMBROSIA

tapioca – mango – meringue – passion fruit"

---------

The current iteration of this involves tapioca pearls, passionfruit pastry cream, coconut, pieces of mango and maybe pineapple? with a touch of blue basil oil, all topped with a meringue cap; it sounded like a case of Way Too Much Happening In This Dish but was the most brilliant dessert I've had in a restaurant in ages, and it wasn't precious. The rest of the meal was excellent, too, but I'd go again just for this. Admittedly I am a fool for passionfruit (and mango, and coconut), so this was right up my alley, but then again I know a well-executed dessert when I taste one.

8 hours ago, Mark Dedrick said:

I'm headed to Bar Harbor with my parents and my cousin in late August. Any recommendations? 

Also check this thread, though there isn't anything recent.

On 7/7/2018 at 6:26 PM, Ferris Bueller said:

Apparently the 2nd venture for the Lahlou Restaurant Group, their 1st being Lupo Verde Cucina & Bar.

 

 

More than two.

On 6/30/2018 at 7:21 AM, Pat said:

Bingo. The dish in the foreground is red coconut beef curry and turmeric rice. It was fabulous. Huge portion.

I ordered the same two dishes when I went.

On 6/29/2018 at 1:58 PM, Pat said:

This should be pretty easy, even with my bad lighting/photography.

Dorjee Momo

Two things I forgot to mention: first, unlike Scandinavian countries where credit cards seem to be used for every purchase, many places in the Azores, including some expensive restaurants, do not accept credit cards. This is especially true on the smaller islands. Have plenty of cash on hand (ATMs are easy to find). Although, prices are very low. You can have a very good dinner (not including alcohol) for 50 euros per couple. I stopped at a road side cafe for an espresso and a pastel de nata: 1.95 euros. 

Also, there are plenty of roadside turnouts for admiring the view. Watch for signs reading "Miradouro", and check them out.

A few random notes about traveling in the Azores. Probably really random.

As with the Faroes, what I enjoyed most about the trip is that it felt distinctly unique, like itself, not like some simulation of what it used to be that's been put on for tourists. There were very few American stores around (one fast food joint and a Comfort Inn are all that I saw). There were a few European things (Zara), but pretty much everything was homegrown.

This isn't a place to go if you like resorts or structured activities or pampering. That might change as they ramp up the tourism infrastructure, though. 

There are 9 islands. The largest, São Miguel, is easy to get to from the US, with Delta offering nonstop service from JFK and SATA/Air Açores offering nonstop service from Boston and Providence. We flew Delta. A woman we met said she had flown SATA on her last visit, and although it's less expensive, the equipment is old and uncomfortable for an overnight flight.

Ponta Delgada is sprawling, but with a compact core that's delightful to walk around in. The streets are incredibly narrow. Cars park on the sidewalk right up against the buildings. I can't imagine a typical DC driver making it through one of these obstacle courses (have you seen how people drive these days? they can't even go two wide on Albemarle St. anymore. sheesh.). However, if you want to get out of town, you should rent a car. Fortunately most of the rental cars are tiny. Also most of them are manual transmission. We saw a few Americans slightly panicked at not being able to get an automatic transmission car. Plan ahead.

More about car rentals: we rented from AutAtlantis and Isle Verde on various islands. Both companies provided good service and good cars, clean and reliable.

Back to Ponta Delgada: the food scene there is decent, but I think we might have largely missed the best of it. There's so little info online, most of it from Trip Advisor, which I don't trust. We had good dinners at Tasquinha Vieira and Quinta dos Sabores. The former is still fairly new, tiny, with only a few staff, and doesn't take reservations. Service was a bit random but the food was delicious. Quinta dos Sabores is a farm-to-table place that grows a lot of its own food; the whole experience was lovely. Reservations are essential. Most restaurants start dinner service at seven o'clock.

For some reason I thought that a place like the Azores would have lots of great produce - they grow pineapples and passion fruit! - but maybe it's the culture, dinners feature beef and fish and shellfish. Not much veg. On our last night we ate at a vegetarian restaurant, Rotas da Ilha Verde, and I almost cried with joy. 

Largely we were underwhelmed by the food, except the cheese. The Azoreans make some extraordinary cheeses. Stop by the larger of the two O rei dos queijos shops and pick up something to snack on while you explore the island. And to bring home (but check APHIS regs first).

There are a lot of fun things to do on São Miguel (check out the good tourism website). The island is beautiful. Mostly we hiked and hung out and drove around and just enjoyed being there. The night before the national holiday (Portugal Day, June 10) there was the most extraordinary fireworks display above the harbor.

It's not much of a place for beaches. We went to one small beach on the east end of the island. The road there is so steep that our Smart ForFour almost didn't make it back up. Fortunately Mr. P has excellent car control skills and I found myself flashing back to my instructor days to coach him, for which he thanked me. Seriously: on some slopes he was flat out in first gear and the car could barely climb the grade. Be warned. But the beach was lovely, and we had it to ourselves most of the time.

We stayed one night at Hotel Azor before leaving for another island; when we came back we spent a few nights at Casa das Palmeiras. I would recommend both, the former if you prefer a hotel, the latter if you want to feel a bit like you're living there, as it's in the middle of the old downtown area.

I keep seeing this advice for places like the Azores and the Faroes, and it's true: be flexible. Islands in the middle of the ocean mean weather, and weather means flights get canceled. If your flight from the US is scheduled to land at 0600 and your puddle-jumper jet is scheduled to depart at 0730, don't bet on making the connection. On the other hand, Ponta Delgada airport is delightfully small, and customs lines move fast.

We also spent a few days on Ilha das Flores. Absolutely, stunningly gorgeous place. Sadly the wildflowers were only just starting to bloom. If I ever go back I'll go in late June or early July just for the flowers (airfare prices doubled after the middle of June). Extremely mountainous, everywhere you go is either up or down. The hiking is amazing. Most trails are rated difficult. We did one rated moderate and it was one of the trickiest hikes I've ever tried, mostly because the footing was so awful. It's not for the casual walk-in-the-park type hiker.

Speaking of awful, for the most part the food there was... adequate. Only on the last day did we find a really nice restaurant, thanks largely to having offered a lift to and spending some time with a woman from Montreal, who recommended Casa do Rei in Lajes das Flores. If I ever go back, I'll just eat there every night.

We stayed at Aldeia da Cuada on the west side of Flores. It's a neat place, an old, abandoned village that's been acquired and restored by a family who run it as a bed-and-breakfast. It's unique. Not perfectly comfortable (we had issues with the hot water), and definitely not a place for anyone mobility-challenged, but really beautiful and secluded.

Took a day trip to Ilha do Corvo. We were going to spend the night there and I rather regret that we didn't, as the day trip didn't allow for as much hiking time as I wanted. Still, the boat ride there was thrilling, the village lovely, the scenery gorgeous (again) and, the hiking just grand.

Also, the people. We got a ride to the top of the island in an ancient economy car. The driver barely spoke English. He stopped twice along the way to pick up hikers, one Austrian who spoke a little English and almost no Portuguese, and one American who spoke Italian but no Portuguese. Yours truly was appointed translator by the Austrian and the driver, who thought my Portuguese was better than his English. Not sure that I agree, but it was a fun ride up, the car huffing and puffing the whole way.

Funny, I'm not a people person, but my fondest memories are of the various encounters we had with people there, and my bumbling attempts to speak some approximation of their language. Which, by the way, has WAY different pronunciation than Brasilian Portuguese. But you'll be understood.

Almost everyone we encountered in the service industries (hotels, restaurants, car rental places, airports) spoke decent to good English. Outside of that, hit or miss. Mr. P and I spent a few months with an on-line program and were glad of it, if for no other reason than everyone seemed genuinely appreciative of our attempts. Unlike in Montreal, where the locals can't say "no, no, it's okay, I speak English!" fast enough, everyone I spoke with smiled and encouraged me to keep trying whenever I stumbled and fell back to  "desculpa, só falo um muito pouco de português..."

SATA is your only realistic option to go between islands (there's ferry service, which is fine for the islands which are close to each other, but some of them are many hours apart). They make it easy, though. So easy that we changed plans once again and spent a night on Faial. I didn't care for the touristy "resort" we stayed at in Horta, but last minute plans means not much to choose from. We had some decent food, nothing exceptional, better than most places on Flores but not as good as the best on São Miguel. Had a nice hike around the rim of the caldeira, but for the fog. Mountainous islands tend to create their own weather, so when you're hiking at altitude, fog and rain are not uncommon. We experienced this also on Flores and São Miguel (at Lagoa do Fogo). Bring rain gear.

Sorry for the brian-dump style report. Please post specific questions if you're thinking of going. Do I recommend it? Yes... for a certain type of traveler. 

What you're saying makes sense, but the answer is not simple. Read about the different forms of synaesthesia.

Shakshouka. I glanced at the recipe in Plenty but didn't follow it; used cumin, fennel seed, a little onion and garlic, homemade tomato sauce from last summer, smoked eggplant, roasted red bell pepper, black olives, and urfa pepper. Plated it with crumbled feta and a generous amount of fresh tarragon. I think the eggplant and urfa pepper really made it special.

On 6/8/2018 at 5:26 PM, DonRocks said:

This is the only thing that doesn't mesh with my personal experience (but my personal experience is more in continental Europe; less in esoteric destinations).

The "ugly American" epithet, while not universal, is often embarrassingly true.

To be fair, I was working from a very small sample size, and really that post says more about my state of mind than anything else.

Back now but too frazzled from travel to write. Don't let me forget to, though.

On 3/16/2018 at 10:31 PM, DonRocks said:

You hate humanity even more than I do, don't you. 

Humanity, not so much. Americans? yes. Five beautiful days of peace and quiet got broken by one loud-mouthed group of Americans. The German tourists speak quietly. The French, too. The Irish. The Portuguese. But the Americans? obnoxious.

More about os Açores when I get back.

Thanks, washingtony.   I've seen the lights in Iceland. Norway is on my list for a bunch of reasons, not just lights. I will keep in mind about tripod rental. I hate lugging all my photo gear around.

On 5/17/2018 at 4:49 PM, washingtony said:

the first time I saw the northern lights was in Tromsø, Norway.  It was quite the unique culinary experience in that it was uniquely impossible to have a meal that cost less than $25 a person--and this feat was only accomplished at a fast-food joint.  As for the lights though, our guide drove us all over the countryside hunting for the best spot.  When he found it, he built a small fire, made a couch out of snow, and passed around local beer and homemade sandwiches.  Soon after the lights came out and everything was just about perfect.  (We saw the lights two out of four nights that trip.  In Iceland we've been a bit less successful.)

Washingtony, would you mind writing more about this trip? Norway (Tromsø in particular) is near the top of my go-to list and I'd love to read about your experiences.

I don't think the ladies at A&J know our names, but they know us well enough that if we order something a little different, they will come back to check. "Is this right? You always get X, not Y." And if we don't show for a few weeks we'll get a good-natured chiding when we return.

20 hours ago, silentbob said:

Upcoming meaning soon or sometime next year?  An AMEX Centurion Lounge is opening in T4 at JFK in early 2019, and if you have a Platinum card (or are willing to shell out for a day pass) I suspect the food/drink there will be as good if not better than any of the airport's restaurants or food kiosks.  Otherwise, this article sums up JFK well though I can't speak to any of them personally.

Soon. In a few weeks.  Thanks for the link.

Upcoming trip, have 3-hour layovers at JFK, dinnertime outbound and lunchtime on the return. Any suggestions? To the best of my knowledge we will arrive at terminal 2 and depart from terminal 4 on the way out, and reverse that on the way back.

They've been at Dupont for the past two weeks. The very large vendor that's on the east side of 20th St -north of the parking lot, I think. But the ramps have been prominently displayed out front, you can't miss them.

I've been on a passion fruit kick ever since I discovered frozen passion fruit purée at By Brazil in Wheaton. Since it's so acidic, passion fruit can be subbed one:one for citrus juice in a lot of applications.

My first experiment was passion fruit pie, based on key lime pie. Then I made curd, which is not only great on its own, it's a good base for other things. Combine with stiffly whipped cream and stiffly beaten egg whites for a delicate passion fruit mousse. I expect with a few tweaks the mousse will make a good semifreddo (possibly my next experiment).

Yesterday I made this vanilla cake from serious eats, with the accompanying Swiss buttercream. Since I had egg yolks left over, I made a passionfruit curd. Then I decided to use the curd as a filling in the cake but changed my mind when I realized that I didn't know how my friends felt about passion fruit, so I served it alongside. I also set aside some of the buttercream and combined it with an equal volume of curd as a test. The buttercream was stiff enough that it held the curd, et voila! passion fruit buttercream that won't slide off the cake.

That cake recipe has rather a lot of milk in it, so for a future experiment I'm going to sub coconut milk and make passion fruit buttercream to ice it, with passion fruit curd filling.

I love playing around with desserts.

ps Hofn is a very close drive to the Icelandic Sheep and Wool Center. Bring an extra suitcase and buy some sweaters. Bring back one for me. (joking. mostly.)

One other recommendation if time allows Hraunfossar near Reykholt -this is a different Reykholt from the one near where you're staying. (I would attach a screenshot but apparently Invision does math differently from me and thinks that 944KB + 365KB > 2 MB...)  It wasn't utterly packed with tourists, and the sideways waterfall is really something different. 

...edited to add: and now Invision won't show either attachment, but won't let me add anything because I've exceeded the allowed 2MB. With nothing. 😖