Travel

Paris earlier this year w/ H for just two days was a surprisingly low-key trip, involving some good coffee, a few meals and cocktails, taking a Velib for a spin, and a lot of walking around the city and looking and taking photos while skipping most of the major cultural sights. The beef salad at casual cafe Le Rubis was good, the steak frites was just as expected, the bakeries and macaron shops were plentiful, the coffee at Telescope was some of the best I’ve ever had in Europe (unusually light roast, slightly lemony), the coffee at 10 Belles was decent and in a fun neighborhood to wander around on foot (Belleville), and dinner at Verjus was trying to be “modern” but deeply disappointing. ...

Earlier this year I joined H in london for a few days as part of a week and a half birthday trip to Europe. In addition to seeing a few friends who live there and visiting some interesting cycling, printing/stationary, and sherlock-holmes-themed stores, we enjoyed a lot of good food and drink. I posted a few photos of a St John birthday dinner and exploring local beer separately, but here are the other major highlights of the food: ...

I got taken out (lucky me) to a special birthday dinner earlier this year in London at St John (at the more cheerfully informal St John Bread and Wine space– a bustling open room without tablecloths and various daily pork, greens, and cheese plates coming out whenever they’re ready). I have a huge food crush on them now: A plate of simply-named " lamb, bread, green sauce" was one of my favorite dishes in London– the sauce was a mix of a powerful dose of tarragon, mint?, other soft green herbs, maybe capers? And the " courgettes, lentils, yogurt, zucchini" (center of the image above) was another dish we both remember months later (also with tarragon). Lower left above was fried pig skin strips with a tarragon(!) aioli, and there was another crumbled pork and fennel dish I wrote down but can’t remember. All washed down with the intense, earthy St John Claret. ...

In London earlier this summer I sampled about a dozen beers over two days (having people to share tastes with helps), at locations ranging from a unpretentious 19th century English Pub with many 3.5-4% session beers on Cask (at The Wenlock Arms-- I highly recommend it)… …to a new craft beer oriented bar ( Brewdog) carrying the likes of Mikkeller and other unusual beers, in the controversial-in-London Shoreditch… …to a range of tiny top-notch modern microbreweries located under support arches in an industrial part of South London, formerly business-oriented but now open to visitors on weekends and dubbed " The Beer Mile"… ...

A phenomenal dinner, with about 15 small, interesting courses over the course of three hours. Tiny intense burst of flavor from small flowers, herbs, and berries (nightshade, queen anne’s lace, fennel pollen, and other flowers) on top of a range of creative and perfectly-seasoned dishes each highlighting a few beautiful ingredients (including malted barley, bear jerky, beets, a few kinds of mushrooms, tomatoes, and roe). And by lucky chance they sat us right next to the kitchen. I do always enjoy that. ...

A few other notable small food stops in Chicago that I’d recommend based on this past weekend: Heritage Coffee and Bicycle Shop-- just a great atmosphere, good people, excellent espresso shots and sour cherry lemonade, some bike accessories to browse (and a full repair shop). Do-Rite Donuts -- the meyer lemon / pistachio cake donut was delicious, and perfectly cooked (moist fully-cooked cake center, slightly crispy outside). There were also many people in line for their next batch of gluten-free donuts. ...

Hot Doug’s, the encased meat emporium in Chicago, closes for good at the beginning of October, after 13 years. I’d been there once about three years ago, but only to get a basic dog before heading to Alinea, so news of its impending closing was enough to motivate a labor day weekend vacation back to Chicago… The line was several buildings long, down the street past some neighbor’s yard (maybe four times as long as shown in the photo here): ...

Traveling across Iowa and Wisconsin, I tried a fair amount of local craft beer… and a lot of meat and potatoes and ice cream (along with one fancier excellent meal at Forequarter in Madison). A few memories: The West O ( West Okoboji) lager was nicely crisp and well done. I finally had the all-the-rage New Glarus Spotted Cow and a few others from New Glarus and they were solid, good beers but didn’t blow me away. ...

In Madison for a few days, I had one deeply excellent dinner at Forequarter. The pan-roasted broccoli, the ham plate, the scallop crudo with fennel and grapefruit, and especially the carrot pasta with carrots and a rich carrot greens pesto were all very good.

I found myself in Bavaria recently. Unfortunately, I’m not really a fan of German food and the continuous stream of meat-and-white-starch (and to my disappointment, so many of the sausages and pork chops just weren’t very good), but a handful of meals or beers were memorable. Bamberg was a cute city and great place for beer. Schlenkerla is one of the few old breweries still making a rauchbier (smoked beer). Their Marzen tapped straight from a wooden keg was intoxicatingly campfire-smoky in smell, but not bitter or harsh in taste, with a modestly roasted malt and creamy body (and all this for about $3). Delicious and definitely worth a visit. ...

A long weekend in San Diego for the First Annual SD Bike & Beer tour expanded naturally into a broad beer tour of that fair city with 51 new-to-me beers (thank goodness for tasting flights and friends to share). This isn’t quite the " tasting 100 beers in belgium" adventure that was the original impetus behind this blog a few years ago… but it’s good to see I haven’t changed much. ...

A reservation made months ahead of time turned out to be on the evening of a special cider-themed collaboration with Bushwhacker Cider. How fortunate. Kitchen and dining room: The chicories with leek ash and egg (no photo) were amazing. Chestnut soup with fried Jerusalem artichokes: Pickled quail egg, salmon roe… Gin-barrel-aged cider. And Alice (their granny smith cider) on tap. Butter turnips. Excellent rutabaga. And sure, some pork. ...

Apizza Scholls: still one of my very favorite pizzas in the US (New Haven style), up there with DiFara’s in Brooklyn and Pizzaiolo in Oakland. Amazing crust texture (thin, pliant, slight crunch), balanced tomato sauce… yes.

In Portland recently, I had delicious Indian street-food-style dishes I’d never heard of, in a casual airy space with mismatched chairs and Bollywood movies on a projector. The highlights were the vegetarian kati roll (paneer, egg, pickled onion, chutney rolled in a paratha– every bite delicious) and the vada pav (potato dumpling dipped in chickpea flour and fried, with chutneys).

Quick summary: If you’re in Tokyo and you like coffee, you should really go to Be A Good Neighbor in Sendagaya near Harajuku. A cozy little kiosk with just a window counter, several different varieties of beans you can smell, moderately lightly roasted, and very friendly people. He asked what kind of flavors I like in my coffee and I said “citrus”, and he made me a great drip. I noted the Dandelion Chocolate from San Francisco and then we talked about Four Barrel, they gave me a free pin, and suggested which other coffeehouses (third-wave and traditional Japanese) to visit. ...