Trip to Maui

I recently visited Maui for the first time and had a wonderful time. I can certainly see why so many people rave about it, and why people tend to go back every year (or as often as possible)! The weather (even in winter), humpback whales, amazing beaches, beautiful landscape, laid-back atmosphere, friendly people - there is so much to like.

In the next few blog posts I will recap some of ther highlights and "pimp" some of the good places we went to (both to make sure I remember them and to help other people plan their trips...)

But before I get to that, I need to spend some time talking about a flat tire. Stay tuned...

Good times in Victoria, BC

{A} and I recently went up to Victoria, BC in a seaplane to celebrate our 1-year anniversary.
Here are a few highlights from our trip:

• We had dinner and brunch at one of our favourite places in Victoria, ReBar. We first went to ReBar on our first Victoria trip several years ago, and their food is as good as always. Their fresh fruit and veggie drinks are also great (try the Sundance Kid!)
• The Royal BC Museum had an exhbition from the British Museum titled Treasures, that was amazing. Worth the trip just to see this stuff...
• We got to visit Butchart Gardens (finally!) Summer is definitely the time to go, although I hear the gardens are worth seeing in all the seasons. Some pics from the gardens are in the set on Flickr
• We had an amazing tea at the gardens. From what I've heard, the tea at the Empress hotel is more expensive and not as good. (I've not been to the Empress myself though). Good things about tea in the Butchart Gardens: you can sit on the veranda and enjoy the garden views, great tea and yummy food, and it's reasonably-priced!
• This list on Yelp.com pointed us at a few food places, which were all good. Notably...
• Decent brunch at MoLe (worth another look), a place with lots of veggie options and some yummy smoked tuna eggs benedict.
• Amazing cocktails and service at Solomon's. These folks take their drinks very seriously and have some fantastic, unique concoctions as well as making a great Sazerac. They also had great food, from tapas-style small plates to some interesting-looking main plates. A large table of chefs was there enjoying a tasting menu (it looked like they were tasting 10 courses!) - apaprently a regular gathering that I'd be happy to try duplicating next time I'm in town.
• A delicious Italian meal at Pagliacci's with live gypsy/Yiddish music. It looks like this place is a real institution and has been going for decades. A cosy, lively atmosphere and some of the tastiest Italian food I've have had for a while!

San Diego

{A} and I are in San Diego for a few days for my cousin's wedding, and having a great time so far.

The wedding was yesterday, and was beautiful. Strangely, it's colder and greyer here than it was in Seattle when we left, butt luckily the rain held off, and the fog lifted in the evening so we could enjoy some of the view of the bay at the reception.

We're staying downtown in the Gaslamp district, which is bit like Seattle's downtown - lots of shops and restaurants, and a bustling nightlife. We explored a bit on foot on Saturday and discovered Nobu's within walking distance - I'll have to see if we can make it for lunch or dinner :)

We went to a really nice little cafe this morning for breakfast - Chocolat. (Their website is worth a look just to see the fun photo panning they have). They mainly focus on gelato, but also do some yummy paninis, bruschetta and pancakes (savoury and sweet). They have some seriously good coffee too - imported from Italy, I think, although it was not brand I had heard of... Well worth a visit if you come to SD.

Our hotel is nice, but I can't recommend the food at the hotel restaurant, J Six. Terrible room-service on Friday, and lacklustre breakfast on Saturday were enough to make us skip them for the remaining meals...

We had fun today exploring the Hotel Del Coronado and the surrounding beach, and then took a short drive north. Lunch at Rubios, a local chain of Mexican restaurants, was surprisingly good. I had great mahi mahi tacos (soft corn) with great fresh salsas.

Later today we are driving to the suburbs in the East to meet my aunt and uncle for dinner and to see their 8-month old ridgeback puppy :)

Married!

Well, that was certainly an eventful few weeks! {A} and I are now married - Hooray! The wedding went smoothly, she looked beautiful and everyone had a great time.

We had a lovely mini-honeymoon in Seattle at our favourite hotel, and then left for the real honeymoon in Costa Rica a few days later. (We just got back this morning at 1:00 AM) The 13-days in Costa Rica were fantastic - more details to come, along with pictures. In brief, we saw lots of amazing wildlife, plants and beautiful scenery, spent lazy hours on the beach or in warm pools swimming, did a horse-ride at sunset, went on many rain-forest walks, and ate lots of yummy food.

Now it's back to the grindstone for a while :)

Best coffee in Oregon?

Every time A and I visit central Oregon, one of the things I look forward to most is coffee.
Not just any coffe, mind you: Allan Brothers Coffee.

They have stores in Albanym Eugene, Corvallis, Ashland and Salem. There stores are called Beaneries, e.g. The Ashland St. Beanery. If you hear someone from one of these towns saying "I'm going to the Beanery", or "Let's meet at the Beanery", now you'll know what they mean.

Coming from Seattle, and being descended from a coffee-holic, I'm a bit of a coffee snob. Allan Bros are definitely up there with the best coffee I've ever had - they are maybe not quite as good as Vivace Espresso in seattle if you want a plain espresso, but there espresso is still really good: smooth, mellow, not acidic, and really flavourful. Their flavoured drinks are where they really shine, though. Their mexican mocha's are incredible, and the Borgia is my all-time favourite drink. (It has chocolate and orange - including real orange rind). Their food is also yummy (and affordable).

Another nice thing about Allan Bros. Beaneries is that their stores are laid-back and inviting. They are usually close to universities, and full of students and people hanging out, reading, surfing the web (they have free wireless). There's no pressure to scram once you're done drinking your coffee, and they have an open mic with music, poetry, etc. on the weekends.

Starbucks, and even my favourite big chain Tully's, both fail miserably at creating a true coffee-shop atmosphere. Luckily there are some independant coffee stores in Seattle that do get it (but mostly around the University District, Downtown and Capitol Hill). The Eastside sadly needs a good coffe-shop.

Cute snail

Lollusc
Originally uploaded by Mr Snootyhamper

This could have waited until I blogged about our trip to the Oregon Caves, but I liked the picture so much I thought I'd jump the gun and post it now.

We met this little guy coming down the path from the cave exit, and for once my camera's macro mode worked well! Click though to the larger picture to see nice texture on the snail's body and shell...

If you're wondering about the picture's title, that's the name I came up with for lolcat-style pictures featuring snails.

Holiday highlights: Brookings, OR

After spending a few days in Ashland, we headed off to the Oregon Caves and Redwood National Park (more on those later), and stopped for the night in Brookings, OR. This is a cute little coastal town just north of the California border on highway 101. The weather is so good here that the area has been dubbed the Banana Belt. Brookings even has an eponymous weather effect.


We stayed in a great B&B, the South Coast Inn. We stayed in the Sea View apartment, which was totally private and really comfy - it included a kitchen and small lounge leading onto a great balcony with view of the bay. We didn't use the kitchen this time, but if you want a place with the option of cooking in, I recommend this place. The hosts were really friendly too, which is good!

A lowlight of our stay was dinner at the local Italian restaurant, Bella Italia. Our hosts at the B&B recommended it, but the food was very disappointing, and the staff seemed to not care much about us. We had heard from our B&B hosts that the owners of Bella Italia had just opened a new steak/seafood restaurant in town, so I thought that perhaps they were stretched too thin, and their old place had slid... Now with some Googling, I see Bella Italia is for sale, so perhaps that explains things :)

After dinner, we headed out to a nearby beach park to watch the sun set. As you can see from the pics, the light and sky were amazing, and we also got to enjoy some weird jumpy shrimp pinging across our feet!

We definitely need to come back again!

Holiday highlights: Ashland, Oregon

I just got back from a fantastic trip through Oregon and the California Redwoods. The rough rought was: Eugene (OR) - Oregon Country Fair, Ashland (OR), Redwood National Park (CA), Brookings (OR), Newport (OR), and Portland (OR).


While it's really hard to pick a favourite, my stay in Ashland was probably the winner: we stayed for 4 nights in a great bed & breakfast, got to unwind and relax on Monday (since there we had no plays that day), saw amazine Shakespeare productions later in the week, and had fun doing wine-tasting and eating out.


Obviously the main draw in Ashland is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We saw three shows: Tracy's Tiger, The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet. The last two were in the open-air Elizabethan Theatre - a really stunning venue! (Watching the plays here reminded me of the open-air Shakespeare productions I saw when I was growing up in Cape Town - see these links if you're interested)

Be aware that it can rain in Ashland - even in summer. We were lucky and were far enough back to be under cover, but you'll want a rain shell, something warm, and maybe even a poncho or somethign for your legs in case of a thundersorm. Wednesday's performance of Romeo and Juliet was almost cancelled due to rain, but luckily was only delayed - we got to see the performers come out in rain-wear (mostly period-appropriate cloaks, except for the youngsters who were wearing modern school uniforms initially, and sported modern parkas).



In terms of accomodation, I can heartily recommend the B&B we stayed in: Ashland's Tudor House. The host, Raliegh, was very friendly and cooks incredible gourmet breakfasts. Our room was spacious and comfortable - the best bed of all the places we stayed! A communal lounge with a PC to use for email was a nice touch. The B&B is also within easy walking distance of central Ashland and the festival, but is set back from the main road, so it's nice and quiet.


Ashland had some nice surprises in terms of food - for such a small town (population of 20,000), there are tons of restaurants, and most are good. (100,000 visitors per year helps!)

Our favourites were Pasta Piatti (delicious salads, pasta and crusty, thin-base pizza) and Pangea (very veg*n-friendly, informal lunch and dinner spot featuring inventive wraps, soups and sandwiches).


The local Thai restaurant, Thai Pepper, was decent in terms of food, but great in terms of setting - it has an outside patio right on the creek, which is beautiful on a warm evening. Greenleaf also has creek-side seating (although we sat inside when we visitged). The food here is more like standard diner fare, but with a healthy twist and several veg*n options.


For "fine dining" we tried Monet, and enjoyed very good French food, although the style of food and restaurant decor felt a little dated - especially the very pink, grandparent-friendly interior. The food was traditional French fare (snails in garlic butter, roast duck, ris de veau, grilled fish) - the ris de veau reminded me a lot of my gran's cooking.

Raliegh's breakfasts at the Ashland's Tudor House B&B warrant their own accolades here: we had delicious eggs Benedict (with smoked salmon) one day with a really good light Hollandaise sauce, freshly-made walnut pancakes with maple syrup another, a baked pudding (calfoutis?) with fresh peaches on top another, and potato latkes with apple sauce and sour cream. As you can see, the food is not the normal toast-and-jam, or eggs-and-bacon type stuff...

In terms of wine, Ashland was also a great place to visit. The area is in Oregon's Rogue Valley wine region, and while it's not as high-profile as the regions to the north, there are several wineries to explore. We stuck to the ones closer to town, visiting Eden Vale and Weisinger's.

Both were really pretty and staffed with friendly, knowledgeable people, but if I had to pick a favourite, it would be Weisinger's: relaxed, unpretentious service, a nice lively vibe in their tasting room, a working beehive behind glass (with honey for sale), and good wines. I really liked the Weisinger's red blends (the Mescolare has some nebbiolo, and the Petite Pompadour is a Bordeaux-style blend with lots of cab franc). I wasn't a huge fan of their single-varietal reds, though... Their whites are not bad either - the Petite Blanc is a nice light white wine for summer picnics.

Eden Vale had a delicious white desert wine (a late harvest Viognier), but most of their reds were overpowered and alcoholic. (Probably great candidates for ageing, but I want some wine I can drink now!) My favourite red was the 2003 Syrah (it's won some awards), so I picked up a bottle to try again in the next year.

And finally, I have to mention the Rogue Creamery - makers of some of the best blue cheese in the world. They're a bot of a drive from Ashland (back up the I-5 towards Medford), and the cheesery is a bit underwhelming (no tours of the "cheese caves" where they age the blue cheeses, due to contamination worries. The creamery was also not making cheese due to technical problems). This is more of a tasting room and shop: We were able to taste several of their blue cheeses (including some I've not had before, like the Crater Lake Blue), and several cheeses from other producers in Oregon and California. They have a nice selection of imported food (lots of stuff from Ritrovo in Seattle!) and it's worth a visit if you like food, but I would have liked a more hands-on, "authentic" creamery visit.

Feeling hot, hot, hot!

Phew! Seattle is just about to head into a 2/3-day heat-wave, with temperatures in the 90's to low 100's. And to make matters worse, I'm heading down to central Oregon on Wednesday evening, to attend the Oregon Country Fair. Temperatures there should be 5-10 degrees higher than in Seattle!

I'm looking forward to the fair, though - loads of yummy food, interesting shows and free-spirited people. Then it's off to Ashland for a few days of plays and exploring (2 Shakespeares, 1 modern play), the Oregon Caves, and Redwood forests in northern California, and back up the Oregon coast via Newport, with a night in Portland to wrap things up. I can't wait!

While in Portland, I hope to check out this new cacao shop, specializing in european-style drinkning chocolate. I've heard good things - too bad the weather is warm, but I think I'll still be brave and try some hot chocolate.

Vancouver highlights

Despite the car woes, we had a really good time in Vancouver last weekend. Here are a few of the highlights:

• The Pacific Pallisades hotel is highly recommended - it's right on Robson St, so you can walk to most of downtown. Bright, spacious rooms decorated in a modern mediteranean style. Wonderful friendly service, and there's a nice restaurant downstairs for breakfast.
• Liberty Wine Merchants have a few stores around the city - one on Robson Street near our hotel, and one on Granville Island. The store manager at the Robson St. store was really friendly, and their selection is great. I was very happy to see their large selection of South African wines (compared to most Washington State stores), and they had a lot of wines from SA that I'd not seen before. They also had some really good Italian wines (a few Brunello di Montalcino's that were tempting but a bit out of my price range...) And they had a Barolo Chinato that looked good. Of course they also have a great selection of wines from British Columbia - we bought a Cab/Merlot from the Okanagon Valley as a gift for some friends.
• There are some great coffee shops. A new chain, Blenz, seems to have popped up since I last visited Vancouver a few years ago. They are quite prevalent - I think I counted three on Robson St - and their drinks are very good. Their dark chocolate mocha is great (maybe even better than the Dilletante dark mocha that Tully's used to have). They also have some really good tea lattes: in addition to the normal chai tea latte, they have a matcha latte, and a few black tea lattes (London Fog, which is Earl Grey and vanilla, and Royal Tea, which has rose petals). Yummy!
  Another coffee place to go to is Caffe Artigiano - I had visited them a few years ago, and they have the best coffee I've tasted in Vancouver.
• Definitely take a walk down Robson to Denman St, and head left. Denman St is full of interesting shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. and takes you down to the English Bay park. This is a great spot to watch the sun set on a sunny day. The Denman Street Free House is a nice pub/restaurant with tables that give you a view of the bay. The barman was really friendly, and their mussels are not bad. (The waitresses have a bit of a 'tude though...)
• Speaking of Denman Street, that's where you'll find an amazing dessert restaurant: True Confections. They've won all sorts of awards, and it's easy to see why - their cake selection is huge, they are all lovingly-made and very tasty. This place is informal and full of energy - more like Seattle's B&O than the now-defunct Coco La Ti Da.
• Yummy Belgian chocolates are to be had at Daniel's on Robson Street.
• The huge Chapter's bookstore is worth a visit. While books in Canada are more expensive in the US, they get some books earlier than the US does. For example, I saw the new Iain Banks novel, Steep Approach to Garbadale. They also have a fun list of famous Canadians decorating the wall as you ride up the escalator to the upper level. :)
• We finally got to see Granville Island Public Market on Saturday, and it was fantastic. If you're staying downtown, I'd recommend taking the water taxi from the Aquatic Centre. The market is about 4 times the size of Pike Place Market in Seattle, and the produce seemed even better (too bad we can't shop here every week!). They also have a nice food court and outside seating (for the few days the sun is shining). The market is surrounded by buildings with interesting stores (clothing, homewares, soap, native art and touristy gifts, ...) The hat store would have made H a very happy lass! There was also an incredible street performer from England (Barry, I think... Barry, if you read this: You rock!)

Vancouver, eh?

I was in Vancouver BC last week for a conference and padded out my stay so that A and I could spend the weekend there together. We had a great time over the weekend, with the only wrinkle being some "fun" during the drive back down to Seattle.

The drive back was already destined to be "fun" after my car was broken into on Thursday mornin (while parked in the hotel parking lot!) I was not a happy camper when I found out about the break-in and had to rush down to the hotel lobby at 6am on Thursday morning. Luckily, I had nothing of any real value in my car - the thief only stole small transmitter I use to listen to my Zen Micro (MP3 player) in the car. Aparently, Vancouver has a huge drug problem and petty theft (especially car break-ins) is a big problem.

My car looked pretty sad - the thief had tried to pry open the passenger door using some tool, and fr@cked up the door frame nicely. He* had also tried to do something to the door near the lock, which ended up seperating the metal in the door panel. Finally, he decided to break the passenger window, and grab his loot...

The hotel did a quick patching job with a sheet of plastic and duct tape, but for the long ride down I knew I needed something tougher, so I ended up buying a roll of clear duct tape and taping the heck out of the window. It actually looked quite nice - a bit like a pale curtain. (Of course, looking into my side mirror was now not possible, but hey - that's what passengers in the back seats are for!)

I'm happy to say we all made it back from Vancouver safely, and didn't have any problems crossing the border, even with the sad state of my car...

In closing, my advice to you, if you're visiting Vancouver and are thinking of driving up:

1. Take the train or bus up instead and rent a car in Vancouver. (Make sure you have insurance coverage for the rental too)
2. If you really want to drive up in your own car, make sure the hotel you stay in has decent security in their parking lot! :)

Next up, a quick list of the discoveries and fun places we went to in Vancouver.

---
* Hotel security saw the thief fleeing the scene, and said he was male...

French Word-a-Day

Yum Lass found a nice blog titled French Word-a-Day.
It's a bit like a travel blog from your French teacher...

While the postings are not quite daily (more like 2-3 times a week), the entries are really nice, covering an interesting French word with examples of usage, audio recordings to help with pronunciation, and anectdotes about French life (in English). You can read how the blog started here.

San Francisco wine: Vino Venue

A short walk from my hotel was an interesting-looking wine bar called Vino Venue. What makes them unusual is that they are self-service: they feature automated wine-dispensing machines, made by a New Zealand company, Enomatic. (The US agent on the West coast has a page with installations to date, sadly none in Seattle...)

I had read about Vino Venue (or places like them) recently in magazines and the New York Times, so I was very pleased to find them one evening pureley by chance. It turns out they're not new at all (I think they opened at the end of 2004), but they are definitely enjoying continued popularity and attention in the press. (For some older press coverage, see this Wired, or this SFGate story. Whole Foods is also installing Enomatics in their stores.)

I went in around 5:30pm on a weekday, while they were still quiet, and started chatting to the guy behind the register. The system they use is quite elegant - you put money onto a "smartcard" (like a credit-card , but with a tiny computer chip) - with $10 being the minimum. Then you browse through their selection of wines (100+) and find one you like, insert your card, and press a button to get a 1oz (30ml) pour of wine. Each wine costs a different amount, with the cheapest being around $1.20. The most expensive is around $40 a pour. That works out at around $30 if you drank a bottle's worth of their cheapest wine, or $1000 for their most expensive. Obviously this is not a cheap way to get poeg eyed* on wine.

If you're there to drink wine and socialise, you'd be better off ordering a glass or bottle at the bar counter on one side of the shop. You can also buy bottles of wine for what looked like decent prices (Startign in the low teens $ for cheap wines) They also offer a small plate of goodies (a bit like a ploughman's platter), but food is definitely a second thought. (I would have loved a bread & cheese plate, withou the meat... More on that later).

For me this place is a great way to try a few wines without much risk, and I spent a good 30 mins trying wines and generally doing an impression of a wine snob, in solitude. After 6pm things got a little crazy, though, with the local lawyer and financial-types flooding in, including a large private party that practially took over half the space. The feel imediately changed into more of a pick-up bar, with groups of friends huddling together (and blocking access to the wine dispensers), and available singles nervously casting about for the catch of the day. I missed the solitude a little, and it was clear that if you're comign here to focus on tasting wine, you want to come a little earlier...

Their wine selection is good, but with a heavy focus on Californian wine (understandable since this is SF). I was a little surprised to see hardly any wines from Washington (there were quite a few Oregon Pinot Noirs though). One stations featured a few Italian and Spanish wines, and Australia and New Zealand were fairly well represented. No South African wine to speak of (so my dream of tasting a Eben Sadie Columella were dashed).

In terms of wines I remember liking, here are the winners:

• '05 Glamour Puss Pinot Noir, New Zealand. $13 per bottle.
  Ripe and soft Pinot Noir with velvety tannins. Very drinkable and a great value, compares very well with NZ Pinot's in the $20-30 range, although it lacks complexity.


• '05 Cicchitti Malbec / Cab Sauv, Mendoza, Argentina. $?? (I think it was around $20)
  This was an amazing full-bodied wine with loads of structure. Malbec adds a spicy, chocolatey flavour, and the Cabernet and body.


• '04 Tobin James Notorious Cab Sauv, CA, $20 per bottle.
  Wow, and incredibly full-bodied Cabernet with an intense, super-long finish. Initial impact of glycerin and ripe red berry fruit, then tobacco and chocolate. Smooth, perfumed finish that lasts for around 20 seconds and seems to involve a cascade of flavours.

---
* Blotto, sloshed, hammered...

San Francsco food: Sanraku Japanese Restaurant @ the Metreon

Sanraku is located in the Sony-owned Metreon complex*, a short complex from the W hotel. I actually walked by on Monday night and thought it looked a bit dodgy (typical cheap sushi place), but the following night, someone suggested we go there for sushi ("Not the best in SF, but good and quite reasonably priced").

Well, if there's better sushi in SF, then those guys have it very, very lucky. Sanraku was easily as good as the best sushi I've had in Seattle (at Izumi or Kisaku).

I ordered the omakase (chef's selection), which was incredible (and a steal at $38). It included several "appetizers": miso soup, salad with funky seaweed, monkfish liver sandwiching roasted eggplant, tempura prawn head. The sushi platter included fresh wasabi (yum!) and a great sushi assortment: tuna, unagi (eel), amaebi (sweet shrimp), gizzard shard, uni (sea urchin), toro (fatty tuna), giant clam, and 4 pieces of 2 kinds of sushi rolls.

Service was superb (handling a large table of tipsy people ain't easy).

Don't be put off by the apearance or location!

Verdict: Amazing!

* They also have another location in SF.

San Francisco food: XYZ Restaurant

I've just returned from a fun trip to San Francisco (I attended Security Opus)

This was my second trip to SF, which I heartily recommend as a fun place to visit, if you haven't ever been. I got the chance to eat at a few interesting places during this trip, which is the focus for this blog entry. I'll also briefly mention some fun places I walked by or heard about, but wasn't able to visit this time around. (Think of these as to-do entries)

First up :

XYZ Restaurant in the W Hotel, where I had dinner late on Sunday nigh, after arriving from the airport. This place (like the entire W) tries desperately to be fashionable and trendy, and ends up being overpriced and not that good.

I started out with an interesting-sounding roasted beet and goat cheese (Humbolt fog) salad, but the salad featured rocket and a powerful vinaigrette, so the beets and goat cheese were totally overpowered.

I chose lobster ravioli for my main course, and this was truly bad - I was ready to send it back, but the waiter never came around to check how it was, and I was so hungry I decided to just eat the best of it and get to bed. The ravioli were very undercooked and chewy, and had almost no filling. The sauce was thin and watery, without an off-putting flavour (boiled lobster shells, but not good). All this was accompanied by thumping dance music from the adjoining bar, and prompt but impersonal service. Including a glass of average rose, the total was $58.00, which is pretty steep given the poor quality.

Overall, not a place I'd recommend. Breakfast there the next morning was OK, but did little to make me change my mind about this place.

Verdict: Style without substance

Back from NY

A and I got back from New York just after midnight (our flight was delayed) and I am looking forward to blogging about our trip. Sadly we didn't get to do some of the things we hoped to (such as visit the Met), so we have an excellent excuse to go back. We had a lot of fun walking around Manhattan, exploring the various neighborhoods, and trying to figure out the Metro system.

In other news, I am tickled pink to see that CookSister linked to me! Woohoo! Now I feel pressured to write more often (and write more creatively, as she has done so often).

I've also moved to the new Blogger Beta, which (finally!) includes tag support - hopefuuly from now on you can search for food, wine, beer or other topics that interest you. (I used Technorati tags for a while, but got tired of manually entering them).