London notes

IN GENERAL

- Just put your phone on battery saver to begin with. Buy a prepaid sim at the vending machines at Heathrow. This is mostly important for data, because maps. London requires maps.

- Take the tube. Get an Oyster card from the machines at Heathrow. They actually have people on staff to help newcomers understand what to buy and how. (Imagine if they had people on staff at the BART machines at SFO.) Treat the tube like any major urban subway system, with the required fast walking, swift card-scanning on entry and exit, and standing to the right/walking to the left on the escalator, and you'll be fine.

- There are more than enough free museums to fill up an entire week without paying to enter anything. I went to the British Museum, the Tate Modern, the Museum of London, and Sir John Soanes' Museum. Other good candidates include the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, and a variety of smaller and more esoteric things like the Wellcome Collection.

- Don't buy coffee from the carts at the British Museum. Go around back to the Senate House shop for much cheaper coffee, plus reasonably student-priced sandwiches and etc.

- "Coffee" means "basic espresso drinks." If you want an actual drip coffee you can go to Starbucks, which remains everywhere. Otherwise, Costa or Nero are the main chains.

- London is under construction.

- Expect large flocks of schoolchildren near any tourist attraction.

- For long flights, noise-canceling headphones are more or less miraculous.

- If you hate crowds, do not go to Covent Garden or Soho after 5:30 pm. Consider what NYC's Soho is like and plan accordingly. If you want to eat dinner in a busy area, make reservations.

- It was harder than I expected to keep track of exactly how much I was spending, even with a reasonable grasp of the exchange rates and mental math skills.

- Searching out cheap food isn't necessarily easy, but it's doable. London obviously supports a huge community of commuters who need lunch every day. There are boxed sandwiches at grocery stores and Pret a Mangers on nearly every corner. Tsuru Sushi behind the Tate Modern has $5-ish prepacked small sushi boxes. St. Giles in the Field church has food trucks in the yard.

- There are public gardens everywhere and you should go to them, especially after buying one of the aforementioned sandwiches. Find a bench or a spot on the lawn and relax.

- If it's sunny and warm outside, the entire population of London will also be in the nearest public garden.

- You thought California allergies were bad, but London spring allergies are even worse. There are piles of fluffy flowerheads falling off the trees constantly and lying in drifts in the gutters. Bring your meds.

- On the other hand, I managed to sit directly on various garden lawns (flowerheads notwithstanding) for longish stretches of time without getting any bug bites. This seems nothing short of miraculous.

- English roses have a far stronger scent than the American varieties.

- Some gardens have cafes with seating. This is an excellent plan for a lazy afternoon. Bring your book and have a pint of Peroni or an americano.

- UK open container laws are far more permissive than those in the US. You can drink in the park and no one will bat an eye. This also explains the massive amount of people standing OUTSIDE pubs with their pints.

- Somehow we managed to do this whole trip without even entering a pub. On the other hand, drinking a refreshing beer in the park while people-watching (and dog-watching) was definitely worth it.

MUSEUMS

- The British Museum, while definitely worth a visit, is just as problematic as expected. They know they have a lot of imperial plunder, and they're never going to let it go. Even the text accompanying some things (especially the Elgin marbles, aka the looting of the Parthenon) is super defensive. It's especially fun when you go up to the neoclassical section and see pieces of early 19th century British art directly copying the real thing you saw downstairs. There was one piece in Greek style, with neoclassical figures in the middle, two Egyptian painted sarcophagi on the sides, and a giant rampant gold eagle on the top -- SO bizarre.

The gift shops are a trove of cultural appropriation. Do people really still think that a scarf or tote bag printed with a pattern of another culture's coffins is a good plan in this day and age? Really?

Yes, there's the argument that the Parthenon panels would have been destroyed (or at least in much worse shape) if they weren't shipped over to England when they were. Well, while that is likely true, here's a counter-observation. I've never heard anyone make a similar argument about the Saxons and Danes and Normans who used the Roman ruins in Britain to make the foundations of their buildings. And it's not as if modern London hasn't been seriously damaged in war anytime recently.

The museum also clearly relies on the vast array of artifacts they own, and spends comparably little time and effort on education and sensical presentation. It was not easy to figure out the proper order to go through rooms, and the significance of different items frequently wasn't clear. Now, it's obvious that the museum wants to make money off selling guidebooks and maps, but still. This is a problem when you're trying to learn.

So, yes. There was certainly a lot of really interesting stuff to see, but that doesn't make it any less problematic. I liked the Assyrian section very much. For instance, the king above is claiming that he, being blessed by the gods, personally has conquered the entire world and made it great, including things like personally raising all the food in existence. It certainly raises some interesting questions about the concept of kingship, ownership, and agency at the time. Plus you have to love the idea that text can just go anywhere. Why not put it right on top of a fantastic stone panel that your best masons have been carving for the past year?

- While we're talking about collections of other cultures' things, let's talk about Sir John Soanes' museum. This is the home of the architect who designed the houses of parliament and his own house as well. He was a collector and essentially made his house into a museum while he was still alive. Phones aren't allowed on inside, so no pictures here.

The basement is called "the crypt," and is designed around the stone sarcophagus of Seti I. Evidently Soanes had an argument with the British Museum over keeping this. Above the sarcophagus there are a few stories of overlooking balconies, culminating in a elaborate glass cupola that lets light all the way down to the ground. And the entire place is filled with figurines and fragments of statuary. FILLED. Rooms and rooms full of every last piece of Greek, Roman or Egyptian artifact he could get his hands on.

And that's not all! There's a room filled entirely with paintings. One side of the room is a very shallow cabinet, which opens out to reveal ANOTHER layer of paintings. Hogarth's whole Rake's Progress is here, locked securely into the cabinet until a guide opens it out and explains the entire story from painting to painting. There's also an architectural drawings room and several other rooms being restored.

The front of the house has two stories of intact 18th century drawing rooms and salons, which I actually thought were the most interesting part of the museum, and certainly a lot less problematic than the hoard of statuary. Next time we are in London I want to search out more sites that specifically preserve or focus on that kind of everyday history.

- On that note, the Museum of London. This was the best museum of the trip, hands down. It was arranged in a reasonable progression, with lots of actually useful educational information, and it certainly helped a lot that they were tackling the history of the city of London itself. No cultural appropriation involved.

So, did you know that before London was founded, the people at the time constructed rush bridges from the south bank of the Thames (such as it was; it was really a big marsh) out into the river, and that from there they would, presumably for religious or ritualistic reasons, throw not only valuable weaponry but human heads into the river? And also clay pots that we now suppose were symbolic of heads? YEP.

I got to learn all about which buildings there were in Roman Londinium, and how they were laid out, and why they prioritized which ones. The museum is presumably built where it is because you can look out a window at a strategic point and see the actual Roman wall of an administrative building which is just still there. (There's another Roman wall near the Tower, which I didn't go see.)

And then there was the rest of the history of the city, all laid out in order. By the time I got to the late 17th century stuff, I had to cut short my visit and go meet John while simultaneously avoiding rush hour as much as possible, so I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked. Future visits: yes.

- Finally, on a totally different note, the Tate Modern. This was a great choice, even though I found all the historical museums more interesting overall. The collections are certainly impressive. For instance, there was a whole roomful of Rothkos, presented in low light so you could stare at them and get the optical-illusion effect of the center squares growing outward.

It was really difficult to take any pictures that remotely approached being decent, but here are a couple.

THEATRE

- I don't know why I'm presenting this as an entire section, because we only saw one thing, and that was King John at the Globe Theatre. This was on because this summer is the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. (The British Library actually had the document itself on display, but I didn't end up getting there.) Of course, the subject of the play is not actually the signing of the Magna Carta, but still.

Needless to say, for two dorks with graduate degrees in writing, this was a non-negotiable.

The Globe still sells groundling tickets for standing room on the main floor for cheap publicly accessible theatre. We considered this, but my ankle was still sprained (on a side note, let me just mention how exciting it was to stomp around London in a boot all week), so we decided it was a better idea to actually get seats. So we bought two tickets to the highest tier and tromped up the stairs to watch the performance from there.

This was our view of the stage:

Overall, an excellent vantage point for the entire performance.

The play itself was well acted, but it isn't performed very often, because it is just not one of the best Shakespeare plays out there. In some ways it combined the slapsticky humor of some of the comedies with the actual historical events that you'd get in most history plays. That's not a combination you get a lot nowadays, but it shed some light on what the typical plays might have been like at the time. You have a performance with a narrative that pleases your rich and powerful benefactors and sends a clear message to the crowd, but also entertains that crowd and makes them remember your story or characters in a particular way. In this case, you get King John as a temporizing figure who really, really wanted the crown, to the point that he basically immediately jumped into war with the French, but you also get a clear picture of the succession being passed down to his heir etc at the end. Super interesting.

That said, OH MAN could some scenes have used some editing.

RESTAURANTS

- I know you guys were waiting for this part. The thing is, I definitely didn't feel the need to eat a big fancy lunch by myself every day while John was off working. Instead, I ate a good selection of sandwiches in Russell Square and various other parks, and that was great. That said, we did go out to dinner quite a bit.

- First, we went to Veeraswamy, the oldest Indian restaurant in London. I don't know that I've ever taken an elevator to enter a restaurant before, but I certainly have now. The food here was good -- especially John's drink, which was a delightful and intensely colored green apple juice -- but it was disproportionately expensive for what we got. I guess that's what happens when you're in a historic restaurant in a very expensive city.

Indian food in London is a bit sweeter than you might expect. This was surprising (even though we were warned about it), mostly because a lot of American food is also already pretty sweet. John prefers the Indian food we get in our very Indian-heavy part of California; I like the London Indian food just about as well, which is saying a lot, because I LOVE Indian food of all kinds.

- Tas. This Middle Eastern restaurant has several locations around London, and they are worth going to. We actually went to two of them, because one was next to the Globe, and the other was very near our hotel. The other reason is that it was just easier to make sure we could get good, serious, protein-oriented vegetarian food if we ate Middle Eastern. Lentil soup and hummus and grape leaves and lots of delicious puffy bread! And it was fairly reasonably priced as well.

- The Salt and Pepper Cafe. This little nook was around the corner from the British Museum. I had some very nice, very fast, and relatively inexpensive breakfasts here. You have to love a spinach omelet served with salad for breakfast. If you want a bowl of oatmeal with fruit and plenty of cream, this is where to go get it. Also: all the coffee!

- Pierre Victoire. This French bistro is smack in the middle of Soho, right around the corner from Soho Square. We ate outside, which is not a normal thing John and I ever do, and watched people walk past with their dogs on an expedition to an evening nose around the square.

I had the massive slab of fish with clams in the picture, and it was just about exactly as fantastic as it appears. The food was really, really good, the people were friendly and good at their jobs, and I would go here again with zero hesitation.

IN CONCLUSION

- I like London quite a bit, and would absolutely go back. In the future, I think it would be great to get out into the more normal neighborhoods -- we were certainly in a very expensive part of a very expensive town -- and experience everything more like an actual Londoner would.

- Finally, I found £1.60 over the course of the trip. Finding money is always super satisfying.

Portland restaurants!

Man, I am falling super far behind. So let's talk about some of the best restaurants we've eaten at over the past month, and then we'll wrap up all the Portland with one more post. Good? Ok.

BEST TOTAL EXPERIENCE (and pizza besides): Lovely's 50/50, 4039 N Mississippi Ave.

This was a total surprise, as we had not planned to eat here even a little. Here's what happened: we went to Emily Blackapple's art show, which was excellent, and is running until sometime in November at the Land Gallery. You should go if you're in Portland. Sea creatures! I'm just saying.

Afterward we meandered up & down Mississippi deciding where we wanted to eat. Lovely's was not even on the initial list, but reading their menu of wood-fired pizzas was more than enough to get us in the door anyway. At that point we saw the house-made ice cream cooler, which included both basil and salted caramel flavors, and settled down to wait the ten minutes for a table quite happily.

We knew we'd made the right decision when our appetizer of marinated olives came out...and they were warm. I don't think I've ever eaten so many olives in a row ever in my life.

And then: PIZZA. John got lacinato kale with calabrian chilies, provolone picante, lemon & ricotta. I got housemade fennel sausage with red chard, kale & rosemary. And holy shit, you guys, they were so good. I haven't had pizza that good since we were last in Brooklyn and spent an evening at Franny's. OH. Why is there no pizza like this anywhere near where we actually live? Also, in case you were wondering, kale is a fantastic pizza topping. You should absolutely try it.

We finished the night with a scoop of miso toffee ice cream--very much in the salted caramel family. This was the only slightly off note in the night. It didn't actually taste of miso--just salt. It was certainly good, but it just wasn't miso. Maybe that's actually a good thing, but it was a small disappointment nonetheless.

But you know what? I don't even care. Everything else was so amazing that I have no complaints, and will certainly be back at some point.

BEST FOOD CART: Tabor, SW 5th & Oak pod

We had lunch with Michelle of The Hoot Eats at Tabor, home of the evidently famous schnitzelwich. How can you not eat something called a schnitzelwich? I got classic pork, because I knew there was no way I would be able to eat another one during the trip, considering how many other food choices are everywhere. Why not go with the most heritagenous version?

It was pretty amazing: a huge breaded fried pork cutlet on a ciabatta roll with crunchy lettuce and a roasted red pepper/eggplant? sauce. The texture of the pork was excellent: tender and delightful and not at all stringy or difficult. And I could barely even eat half of it. Next time I would definitely get a half schnitzelwich, which they also sell. SO GOOD.

Plus we got to eat outside on a bench and people-watch and hear all about Michelle's trip to Thailand and Cambodia. You can't argue with that!

Obviously there have been PLENTY of other very good food cart experiences, considering Portland, but still.

BEST RANDOM PLACE ON HAWTHORNE: Zach's Shack, 4611 SE Hawthorne

Here they have an assortment of hot dogs, including veggie dogs, that are all fancy and have many delightful toppings. John got two tofu dogs piled with jalapenos and sport peppers; I got one actual beef dog with cream cheese,tomato, and chopped onion. DELIGHTFUL. There is also beer and a full bar and ping pong! ZOMG.

It's very divey and comforting and relaxed, and of course you get to stuff your face with the dogs of your choice. I don't know about you, but I have a slight obsession with hot dogs--I mean, what person who's worked within a couple blocks of any NYC park doesn't?--so this was the best possible plan.

BEST BAKERY: Tabor Bread, 5051 SE Hawthorne

I got a loaf of their special wood-fired blueberry hazelnut spelt bread for Bethany's birthday, fresh out of the very smoky wood-fired oven at 8 am, and dang. There's definitely some actual bread happening here. The loaf was super tangy and a bit damp, almost like a sourdough. Do they use a poolish? Something like that. It wasn't a cake like banana bread; it was BREAD. We discovered that a quick toast and a whack of butter are an exceptional plan. I am also very interested to try it out in french toast form. This will probably not happen, since we've eaten most of the loaf, but hey.

I seriously regret being unable to eat more than a couple slices of bread at a time, is what I'm saying. Otherwise I would have bought several more loaves.

There is also a carafe of almond milk just out on the coffee bar. I'm just saying.

BEST DINER: The Cameo Cafe, 8111 NE Sandy Blvd.

John and I are definitely diner enthusiasts, which means it is especially unfortunate that we live in Silicon Valley, where the diners certainly aren't. What I would not give for a good diner within walking distance of downtown MTV! UGH.

Anyway, this means that when we're out of town we are always, always on the lookout for diners, and this time we found a doozy. The Cameo Cafe's menu is part very breakfast-oriented diner standard, with pancakes bigger than a plate and a massive slab of hash browns in process always covering half the grill top, and part Korean food, with things like pindaetuck (veg-stuffed pancake with rice) and kimchi ramen stir-fry. And it's all in this little oddly shaped building on one of Portland's many weird triangular blocks, filled with a long, angled bar, a bunch of little tables with wire-frame chairs, and a whole bunch of decorative paraphernalia everywhere.

Everyone is nice and the coffee flows freely & often, and if you order the french toast special you get a full three tablespoons of butter with it. There is also a coconut waffle filled with shreds of coconut, and homemade raspberry sauce to squirt across the top.

Every item at the Cameo Cafe is too big for me to eat, but that won't stop me from trying.

HONORABLE MENTION: Produce Row, 204 SE Oak

I ate my first banh mi ever here just last week. We're going again tomorrow night. Hooray!

Portland: the reckoning

Many people got all excited about sports this past weekend. John and I did not. In fact, we actively ran away from SF, caught a plane up to Portland, and thus nicely avoided nearly any mention of football. Okay, that wasn't the actual reason we went to Portland--it was more a combination of work and just wanting a nice weekend away--but it was a convenient side effect. Hooray!

Since Portland is essentially a mecca of amazing food, we had not only a delightful time but an equally delightful assortment of food and drinks.

On the very first night, right after checking into our hotel, we decided we couldn't wait to run up the street and have the most local of beers at Tugboat Brewery. This is the bar (and brewery) I most wish were up the street from our house. Who wouldn't want to hang out in a bar with this many bookshelves?

The beer is strikingly delicious as well. Our favorite of their beers on tap was the Red Cloud, but there was also a truly amazing stout (the name of which I can't remember), Chernobyl, that was so strong it was only available by the half pint. WELL. Can't argue with that, especially if you like dark beers, which we do.

Taking pictures in the bar in the dark always works exceptionally well, doesn't it? That's why I have no pictures at all from our fabulous Saturday night dinner at Grüner with Michelle of The Hoot Eats. It was dark! But then the food was also completely delicious, and the company more than delightful, so I think that makes up for the darkness admirably.

Believe it or not, this was my first foodblogger meetup ever! It certainly won't be the last. It's always so nice to discover people are even more awesome than you suspect--especially if you, like me, lack social skills and are therefore a bit nervous about meeting new people. Obviously I don't actually need to be!

I hadn't had German food in ages, which is just sad, but Grüner certainly fixed that. So now I have a strong impulse to try to recreate their jägerschnitzel and mustard-seedy spätzle at home. There was also very tasty red cabbage, but I'm pretty sure I actually know now to make that already. Actually, maybe I will make some of that tonight...muahaha, etc. Because it's evil cabbage? Sure.

You might think that a German restaurant would not be the best place to take a vegetarian. Well, you would be wrong, because John was pretty happy with his dinner: kale salad with kohlrabi, asiago, and intense lemon dressing, and a plate of bright pink beet and ricotta dumplings with poppyseeds. We also threw several longing glances toward other diners' plates of amazing-looking beet-pickled deviled eggs. OM NOM NOM.

Afterward, we went next door and had fancy cocktails (always a plus) at Kask. We are generally not the type of people to go out to bars on a weekend night--we're way more likely to hit up Tuesday or Wednesday happy hour at our local beer garden, and get home by seven--so I wasn't quite expecting the massive amount of people there, but the drinks were obviously worth it. There was such a huge variety of cocktails that I literally can't remember what I had--although Michelle's negroni flip was pretty amazing, and John's pink gin (when's the last time you were in a bar that had a pink gin on its menu?) was classic and perfect.

A most delightful evening. And afterward?

Food carts.

Hey, it was several hours after dinner by that point! And we couldn't leave the city without eating something from a food cart--we'd probably get fined. So we went to the corner of SW 5th and Stark, found an Egyptian cart that is evidently so new there is no mention of it anywhere on the internet--something Pharaoh. Small Pharaoh?--and got two gigantic sandwiches, one falafel and one lamb kebab. This was the perfect meal to tipsily eat in our hotel room late at night while watching videos on the internet. Yes.

Okay. What else did we eat? Let me sum up.

- Homey & comforting black beans and rice with sweet yellow carrots at Danny & Bethany's house.
- Chilaquiles and coffee at The Original Dinerant--terrible name, but good and very filling chilaquiles. What did John have? I don't remember. Coffee, anyway.
- Plenty of hotel lobby coffee, which was actually Stumptown. Drinking coffee while walking around Portland is one of the best things.
- Thai Peacock: summer rolls, pad kee mao, and evil noodle with peanut sauce and tofu. It was a super-peanut spectacular of a meal. I was so happy to have some Thai before we went back home, where there are several Thai places in walking distance, but they're all bad. Also, prettiest summer roll presentation ever!

- Juice at Prasad with my friend YT. I had a concoction called the Honey Green, with coconut milk and matcha powder and honey and strawberry and cucumber: EPIC. John had more coffee, this time in americano form, because coffee. Coffee was kind of the theme of the weekend, really.
- A tableful of post-tiring-hike pizza with Danny and Bethany and their tiny dudes and many multiplication flashcards. This was the first time I've ever had the classic ham & pineapple pizza, and it was good. The crispy edges of each piece of ham were well worth it.
- Sunday night last chance drinks at Bailey's Taproom, as recommended by Michelle. John had a Upright Engelberg Pilsner--nice & grassy--and I had a Walking Man Black Cherry Stout, which was harsh on first sip but excellent as my palate adjusted. It was like having a cherry coke beer, which I realize sounds awful, but which was in fact not. Very interesting in any case.
- Monday morning fancy latte and work discussion at Barista.

And now, after a Monday afternoon plane delay that meant we COULD have in fact eaten one more lunch in actual Portland instead of the airport, we are back at home starting to catch up on all our work (not to mention the 400 blog posts in my reader) in a fairly exhausted yet happy fashion.

Hooray! Portland!

PORTLAND

We had a most excellent time.

Traditionally, I am alternately stressed out and bored out of my mind on vacations. This was entirely different. I don't think I've actually relaxed on vacation in years. It was spectacular.

I took almost zero pictures. Go team!

Food highlights:
- Eating an entire double carton of raspberries while watching fireworks over the Willamette.
- Evil Prince curry with tofu at E-San Thai.
- Coffee: Stumptown, Public Domain, Barista. Like you do.
- Rye (beer, not liquor) at Tugboat Brewing Co, where we would totally have pints and play anagrabble every week if we actually lived in Portland. There are Zero bars like this anywhere near our house and that is a travesty.
- BBQ brussels bowl at the Bye & Bye.
- Salt & Straw ice cream; I wanted John's salt ice cream with caramel (although my coffee-bourbon was very good too).
- Massive Lebanese feast at Karam, including perfect cauliflower fritters with tahini and eggplant stew with lamb kibbeh.

Non-food highlights:
- Long conversations with friends; yay!
- Wandering around by myself in the early mornings.
- Alberta Park: full of old-growth cedar trees and PUPPIES. Actually, all the parks were pretty great.
- High-stakes mini-golf tournament!!
- Soaking our feet at Ashiyu foot spa after walking around all morning. Bonus: it was hot enough out that nobody else was there.
- Portland is so much friendlier than SV. The amount of random people I talked to went up really dramatically.
- Near-complete shutdown of all my CA-based allergies. This seems weird since I have heard many tales of Portland instead inducing allergies, but no! I am evidently only allergic to CA plants!
- Actual public trans that works.
- Cool air, less direct sun, and northern trees. I miss them so.
- Oh yeah! POWELLS.

In conclusion, yay Portland!

A day in California wine country: Dry Creek and Napa Valley

So last Monday I went on a day trip to wine country with a carful of knitters. Cookie, Veronica, Anne and I met up at early o'clock, had the first of many cups of coffee for the day (note to self: don't drink that much coffee anymore), and took off up 280. The amount of traffic on the drive was astonishing--because there wasn't any. How could this possibly be the case at 9 on Monday morning in the Bay Area? AND YET.

We got into Healdsburg early and spent a few minutes tooling around some of the little stores around the town square. After a stop at the cheese shop--during which everyone focused far more on chocolate than cheese--we met up with Anne's friend Rosemary and trooped off to eat at Zin. We were lucky enough to have lunch with Susan, the catering director, and to hear about the local ingredients Zin sources from Eastside Farm. Some particularly great examples were our complimentary appetizers--which coincidentally were the only food pictures I managed to take all day.

First we had deviled eggs with home-cured bacon. The eggs were so fresh they didn't want to peel--an excellent sign. The bacon, however, was the star of this plate. I ended up eating a reasonable chunk of bedding lettuce with bacon bits because it was far too good to leave.

Our other appetizers were two cones of tempura green beans with a mango dipping sauce. These were amazing--I kept eating them throughout the entire meal, long after everyone else had turned to their entrées. Since I had ordered a plate of (excellent) mac and cheese, I really enjoyed the contrast with the vegetables.

We haven't made tempura at home in quite some time, but this experience might change my mind. Maybe some tempura asparagus with the new season crop?

After a quick stop at the Downtown Bakery, we went up the road to explore Dry Creek Valley and wander our way back down to Napa Valley.

I had never actually gone wine tasting in California before, odd as that seems, even though I've lived here for a good eight years of my adult life. The only wine tasting I've ever done was in Michigan, and while that was wonderful--I especially like the Round Barn Winery, if you happen to be wine and brandy tasting in southeastern Michigan anytime soon--it's a whole different story in the heart of wine country, where you can visit a new place practically every quarter of a mile if you are so inclined.

Also, everything looks like this:

We visited the Quivira, Ridge, and Miner wineries, from which I escaped with two pinots, a zinfandel, a mourvèdre, a vigonier, and a sauvignon blanc. All six are now in our wine rack waiting patiently for Occasions.

After a final stop at the Stag's Leap tasting room--which they very nicely let us into five minutes before close--we finally arrived in Yountville for dinner. Since we were early for our reservation, we stopped by Bouchon Bakery and drooled over the macarons.

I had never had a macaron before, so I got a selection: raspberry, caramel, hazelnut, and pistachio. The contrasting colors made for a really pretty box.

Of course, when I tried my first macaron later that night, I discovered that they are not my favorite pastry ever--they mostly just tasted like crisp, faintly flavored sugar. Maybe I'd better stick to savory next time. (I wonder if you could even make savory macarons. I'm thinking not, since the sugar must have a key role in their structure. Oh well--we've established that I am not a pastry person.)

For dinner, we went to Redd.

I was still in need of vegetables, so I ordered the special salad with roasted asparagus, wild mushrooms, arugula, frisée, roasted marble potatoes, and sauce gribiche. New season asparagus! Hooray!

For my entrée, I ordered the bass, which I will hereby crib from the menu: "Wild striped bass, salsify barigoule, herb butter, salsify chips." This turned out to be a simple, beautifully cooked piece of fish in a pool of brothy butter with a pile of not just salsify but a variety of other spring vegetables. After a day of tasting wine, all the seasonal vegetables were perhaps the best idea ever.

Finally, filled with every good thing and laden with fancy packages of edibles, we trundled home.

In conclusion, yay! Food and wine with friends! A good time was had by all.

Vacation! Or: Oregon is wet.

So for our birthdays this year John and I rented a car and escaped from blindingly sunny California to green, wet, and cool Oregon. It's always kind of surreal to have our chilly midwestern heritage birthdays supplanted by what passes for early fall in NorCal--that is to say, more summer. It never feels like my birthday here. So escaping to a place where jackets might feasibly be required seemed like an excellent plan.

We started off the road trip with lunch in Davis, home of roughly one million bicyclists. We went to Delta of Venus, a very hippie-student-relaxing coffeehouse in an old run-down Victorian, and had pesto, cheese, and red onion sandwiches with big cups of fortifying coffee. Everything appeared almost instantly and was delicious. Afterward we wandered through downtown to buy honey at the Davis Food Co-op, which was large and clearly excellent. I totally want to spend more time in Davis in the future.

We spent our first night out in Weed, where I ate possibly both the biggest and meatiest sandwich of my life at the Hi-Lo Cafe. This thing was terrifying: roast beef, bacon, and onion (or onion rings? I think it may have had onion rings) on a giant bun with a pile of fries and a big cup of jus for dipping of all kinds. There may have been pickles as well. It was truly massive and deeply satisfying, if also grounds for my arteries to immediately close up shop and declare a a strike.

For about half the trip, we rented a little cabin in the middle of nowhere outside Bend. Evidently Bend is the closest jumpoff for skiing at Mt. Bachelor, which means there are a million rentals available. It also means that early October is off-season, so we could pretty much take our pick of places.

So for a good chunk of a week this was my view.

NICE. I kind of want a woodstove now (not that we need it even a little bit in our current house). That black iron thing on top of the stove is a humidifier, incidentally. You pour in water and it steams off as the fire burns. And it is totally necessary, since woodstove heat is extremely dessicating.

You will also notice the excellent craft beer I was drinking. Yay, beer! I don't think I can make a list of all the different Oregon beers we tried--we just went to the store and picked out individual bottles of everything that looked interesting. However, I can say that every single one of them was great. When we came back home, we went to see which ones we could find locally, and I'm happy to say that the Ninkasi in the picture made the cut. Beer!

On my birthday we went for cocktails at a downtown Bend bar called Velvet (watch out: sound).

Let me just say that had we been staying within walking distance, we would've spent quite a bit more time here. I got the Figlet, which is made of fresh figs (or maybe semi-dried, at least in October), pear puree, and vodka, and nicely made up for missing a week of farmer's market figs at home. John got the Stimulus, which is Bulleit, ginger beer, and lemonade, and which was also very good.

The birthday dinner we went out for afterward was kind of appalling, but let's just draw a veil over that unfortunate incident.

Ahem. Anyway, though we ate and drank at a few other places in Bend (Common Table: excellent vegetarian food; Thump Coffee: excellent coffee; Deschutes Brewery: excellent beer), we spent most of the week cooking in the cabin itself.

The kitchen was stocked with Le Creuset pans.

Wait, what?? But there they were. This was a prime reason to cook me a salted and peppered filet of fish one day. Just look at that sear! It's better than anything I could do at home. I didn't believe Le Creuset pans could actually be worth it, but I may now be changing my mind. Maybe I'll at least get a starter cast iron dude, if nothing else.

On the way out of Bend we ate breakfast at the excellent, friendly, and amusingly named The Breakfast Club. What did I eat? I can't remember. Probably an omelet with lots of vegetables. I know there were definitely some hash browns and coffee, though. It's interesting to see how the hash brown style changed as we went north--all the far northern California and south central Oregon diners used a wide grate on the potato, which I haven't seen before. Yay regional food!

Next we headed through the deep green mist of Mt. Hood National Forest to Portland, land of copious books and great food. This is the point in the trip at which I totally stopped taking pictures, but that's ok! We ate yet another diner meal at a tiny place called John's Coffee Shop, where 90% of the main room was filled with a counter and stools, the people working were Super nice, the menu was classic diner, and the prices were astoundingly cheap, especially coming from SV. Would Eat Again. Then we spent exorbitant amounts of time in Powells and drank lots of coffee before running off to NE Portland for dinner and beer with friends at The Bye and Bye.

Ok, so you know how most bar food consists of, like, food-service chicken wings, overpriced burgers and fries, or faux-British bangers and mash? Yeah, that was not the case here at all. I had the barbecue brussels bowl: brown rice, brussels sprouts, tofu, and a shockingly good barbecue sauce. I now really, really need to replicate this in my own kitchen. I have the brussels sprouts ready and waiting; now all I really need to do is make up a batch of our standard barbecue sauce and give it a try.

By this point we were getting pretty exhausted, so we made the call to head back south, eating merrily at as many diners as possible along the way. We stopped in Corvallis at The Broken Yolk. I got a "skillet," which I expected to be a scramble, but which turned out not to be a scramble at all! Instead, it had scrambled eggs on one side of the plate and a big bowl of red pepper, spinach, feta, potatoes, artichoke hearts, and kalamata olives on the other. Don't get me wrong; it was still great. A big bowl of vegetables was certainly welcome, even if it was a surprise.

On the last day of the trip, we had breakfast at the Black Bear Diner in Yreka, where even the "a little less breakfast" section of the menu provided a ham and cheese omelet so big I couldn't finish it, plus a buttermilk biscuit as big as my two fists. (Note to self: this is now the last time you've had ham! I have no idea how long it had been before this, however. I almost never eat ham.) Then we drove hell for leather through the entirety of northern California, through the worst rain I have ever seen in-state, and finally home to our own bed.

So, to sum up:
- Oregon is awesome.
- We were both glad to have our birthdays somewhere cool and nice and green.
- Oregon craft beer is a great idea.
- I enjoy coffee.
- I think our diner quota is now fulfilled until at least the end of the year.

Hooray vacation!

Seattle food!

This weekend = whirlwind tour of Seattle, during which I took pictures of approximately nothing but the library.

Friday night we went to St. Dame's, a veg and vegan restaurant conveniently located off the light rail line I'd caught from the airport. John and I both had excellent takeoffs on the French 75, featuring fresh kiwi and crunchy seeds, before switching to stout and IPA. For appetizers, we ate beet and goat cheese bruschetta and winter squash quesadillas; for main courses John and his dad had vegan meatloaf and mac and cheese, while I had non-vegan butternut gnocchi with mushrooms, hazelnuts, and blue cheese. We'd been warned that "they really like kale," which was definitely true, as a huge pile of excellent tamari kale came with each. I actually think the kale was the best part. In conclusion, I clearly need to cook and eat more kale at home.

We stayed at the Ace Hotel in Belltown: nice. The ambiance seemed designed to attract urban youth, or "hipsters" as they are currently titled, but the guests we came across looked to be a little older. Seattle appears to enforce a "shut up after 10pm" rule, so even though we were staying right next to/over an obviously popular bar and restaurant combination, we had the opportunity for relatively uninterrupted sleep. In the morning, the common room featured Stumptown coffee of the Hair Bender variety and make-it-yourself waffles. Yay! Waffles have definitely been a theme lately. We didn't eat any right then, though, since we were planning on having full breakfast.

On Saturday we met John's dad at Pike Place Market. All the vendors were still hauling out their massive flats of fish and crab, so we bought some dried tart cherries and headed downtown for breakfast at Planet Java Diner, where we ate many omelets and hash browns and several cups of coffee apiece. Diners! California, where are your diners? They're definitely not in Silicon Valley. So sad.

After a tour of the Klondike state park visitor center, the exciting yet vertiginous library, and various International District markets, we had lunch at Phnom Penh Noodle House. We ordered way, way too much food. It was great food, however! This was my favorite meal of the trip. We ate piles and piles of rice noodles and broccoli and fried tofu and fishcakes. The best dish was John's dad's chicken sour soup, which was this massive red curry-mushroom-pineapple-coconut-kaffir lime creation. It was huge, even though he ordered the smaller portion. One noodle soup plus a single appetizer would be a totally filling lunch for two. I would eat that so hard.

For dinner, we went out to Mount Baker for various wood-fired business at Mioposto. The front of the restaurant was completely awash in small children when we walked in. Babies! That didn't stop us from ordering an array of exciting beer, though. For actual dinner, John had a margherita pizza, while his dad and I both got calzones. Since I got the veg calzone, with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, and red pepper, my entire plate was pretty well filed with vegetables. We also got to choose off the regular salad menu for our side salads, which was fortuitous, because beet salad = great. We seem to have eaten a pretty large proportion of beets on this trip, actually. This probably means I should do something with the bunch of golden beets currently sequestered in the back of my vegetable drawer.

On Sunday morning, our trip was over. We got up, ate waffles, drank coffee, and went to the airport. Super Bowl Sunday is a great day to fly in the US, FYI. If you want to stretch out over some empty seats, that's the way to do it. Yes.

Conclusions?
- Seattle seems good, although such a short trip is not enough to form a real opinion. The food was definitely good. Would eat again.
- Apparently, it takes less than 48 hours out of state to completely throw off my tolerance of CA heat.
- I would really appreciate it if the new federal high-speed rail plan began by constructing a line all the way up the west coast, please. Seattle by electric train! Yes!

Food in NYC

I did not take my camera to NY, and can thus provide no pictures. Tragedy! However, we had a great time.

The first thing we did after checking in to the Hotel Roger Williams at 1:30a in the middle of Murray Hill was to walk two blocks up the street to the Moonstruck Diner. (Incidentally, man, do I ever miss Menupages now that we're back in the full Silicon Valley suburban stretch.) The hotel staff told us exactly where both the diner and deli were when we were checking in; how great is that? SO great. The diner in question was a little expensive, but what do you want for nearly midtown? We were just excited to find a diner. Plus, it was so relaxing to walk around NYC at 1:30a. Being back in a pedestrian-centric, busy, energetic environment = win.

On Saturday we went to Soho and spent the entire day hanging out with our friend Matthew. On the way there, we dinked around NYU. I ate a hot dog with mustard in Washington Square Park, and we got hit up by a dude selling his book of poetry, who was very sorry to interrupt this romantic moment we were having. You know, eating a hot dog on the park bench in Manhattan. NEW YORK! Then we went up the street to Caffe Dante and had a double espresso (John) and a single with cognac (me). The menu had a full page of different espresso permutations. It was pretty epic; I really regret not spending more time here while actually living in NYC, even though it was a fair subway ride away.

We had a vague idea that we should eat at Balthazar, since we had just gotten the cookbook and were very excited about it. However, once we actually fought our way through the ridiculous Soho crowds, they told us they were totally booked for the day. However, not to worry, since Matthew knew another excellent place: Freeman's. I am actually really interested in discovering the history of this area/street, since the name "Freeman" is suggestive, but haven't been able to find much with the traditional (HA) Google thus far. Well. In the meantime, the restaurant is clearly very popular, with a huge wait, but excellent food. I had mac and cheese and ate the entire thing, although it was super rich; Matthew and John were impressed.

Then we went to Astoria and had various delicious beer at the Bohemian Hall i.e. the beer garden. Hooray!

The wedding was on Sunday. It was also my birthday. We caught a train to Montauk from Penn (fortuitous hotel location!) and had an excellent time with a significant chunk of my family. Happy wedding birthday!

On Monday we caught a train back to the city, checked into our new hotel, and immediately went to Brooklyn. We had late lunch at Cafe Lafayette: veggie burger for John, Lafayette burger (lamb and goat cheese and caramelized red onions) for me. We also had their excellent coffee, which was particularly good in view of the constant drizzle and gloom. It was so nice after the weeks and weeks of California weather. After a significant stop at Greenlight (and on reading their site, I realize we JUST missed seeing our friend Darcie read! AUGH) we walked out to Park Slope and drank Gorilla Coffee while waiting for dinner. It was excellent coffee and gloomy, rainy, cool fall weather, and the Gorilla people were playing the soundtrack to Blazing Saddles, and everything was quite excellent.

Then we met Bethany for dinner at the mother of all trendy Brooklyn restaurants: Franny's. Yes, Franny's is pretty great, especially if you get the untopped, essentially flatbread pizza. Man, all the charred bits and the olive oil were great. We had ridiculous cocktails (gin and tonic with homeade tonic; some sort of quince concoction) and a charcuterie plate and lots of olives and the aforementioned flatbread and then a pizza with tomato and even more olives. It was pretty excellent.

In the morning we ate at the Skylight Diner so as to get our diner fix before going back to SV. Oh, man, diners.

Oh hey, New York restaurants

So we went on vacation! Sort of! We stayed in NYC and did all the exploration we hadn't gotten around to in the year and a half we've lived here. Shockingly enough, NYC has lots of awesome to go around.

For instance, Carroll Gardens has some pretty exciting resources. For instance, we went to Mazzola Bakery and bought a loaf of their apparently famous lard bread, which turned out not only to be made with lard but also stuffed with bits of peppery sausage throughout. Let's just say that the neighborhood pigeons know where to hang out for quality crumbs. We really need to get that sourdough culture started so we can make massive sandwichy rolled breads stuffed with all kinds of exciting things.

This same neighborhood also hosted the best restaurant experience of the vacation by far: Frankie's Spuntino. OH. Ok. We went early, so as to avoid any sort of crowd situation, and found the restaurant already a quarter full at exactly five on a weekday. That's pretty telling already; the food is exponentially more so. This was the perfect instance of simple, well-done Italian food. The menu was really seasonal--our antipasto plate included a chef's choice of roasted cauliflower and carrots, for instance--and well-balanced, with a menu approximately 3/5 vegetarian. They don't market themselves as anything but a quality Italian place, however, which is clearly the correct strategy.

Notable food: the aforementioned antipasto veg and excellent tiny purple olives, John's gigantic escarole salad with the thinnest possible slivers of red onion and bits of crunchy nuts, my completely simple but perfectly executed gnocchi with marinara and a pile of fresh, awesome ricotta in the center of the plate. John also had a very exciting plate of sweet potato ravioli in parmesan broth. While food of this fancier category is often prone to screwups like overseasoning, it was just as perfectly executed as the gnocchi. Well, it was just as perfectly executed as the entire dinner. It's probably good that we don't live any nearer, because we would end up eating there once a week.

Next up: Greenpoint, where apparently you can find a selection of excellent pierogi and all else Polish. Of course, we ended up at Papacito's eating real tacos instead. Fish tacos with pickled cabbage and lime for the win! It's also super vegan-friendly; John was very into the shredded seitan tacos. All you California people crying for your tacos: here they are. Ok, they have everything except carnitas, which I admit is a problem. They do have two Other pork choices, however, and the prices are authentically cheap. (*LATE NOTE! Anjito pork actually = carnitas! Now I have to try those too.) Then afterward you can go down the street to Peter Pan Donut & Pastry, grab four sugar twists and an eclair from the window case, and try valiantly not to scarf down the entire bag while waiting for the subway. An excellent workaround: take them down the street to McCarren Park and eat them there. I have not actually wanted a doughnut in years, and yet the super quality and the obvious old-school coffeeshop vibe, much like Amy Joy in Cleveland, has compelled me in on three visits in the past three weeks.

Of course, we had to go to Manhattan and eat swank-for-real at least once. So, after spending a couple hours staring at all the exciting aboriginal art at the Met one day, we walked up the street to Candle 79. If you're vegan, this is pretty much fine dining Mecca. Of course, it carries the fine dining price, but that's no surprise. So. This was definitely a more elaborate and presentation-conscious place than I generally prefer. Flatly, I'm often fairly uncomfortable eating in restaurants, particularly upscale ones; the midscale ones just make me angry, since I can cook twice as well for a quarter of the price. However! For a special occasion restaurant, this kept me pretty happy. John had a massive amount of seitan, all of which was a better texture than any version I've ever eaten. My salad--half an avocado with a massive amount of quinoa, finely chopped crispy veg, and pepitas--was flatly impressive, and big enough for a full meal. The star, though, was the pasta of the day: wheat tagliatelle with morels, ramps, fava beans, and fiddleheads. The entire spring season was encapsulated in the bowl: insane! Also, awesome!

We didn't go to restaurants for the entire time, though. In fact, we spent a good amount of time eating straight up homemade salads and sandwiches. Of course, we also had many untraditional champagne cocktails that went a little like this: fill coupe halfway with dry champagne, top with tart cherry stomp from the farmer's market, and drink copiously. It was a quality vacation.

It's venison roulade

Not to mention an awesome set of plates!

So yeah. We went to Michigan for holidays, and spent several days alternately playing with tiny children, trying desperately to do work at coffeeshops (the one at which I wanted to work is closed! no!), having wine with relatives, and eating copious delicious food. We managed to get to Travelers Club, El Az, Frank's, and Jerusalem Garden, although once again China Gate thwarted our endeavors to eat sesame tofu and dryfried green beans by being closed for the entirety of the holiday season.

But on the last night of the base 10 number system decade, I really want to talk about christmas eve dinner: venison roulade.

Look at that beet-red meat! This is what happens when you have a brother-in-law who hunts. The chest freezer in their basement is full of hand-butchered local game: mostly deer and fish. On christmas eve we had a venison tenderloin, and not for the fifty bucks it would have cost in NYC, but free. You heard me.

This was optimal dinner.

Ok. John wanted to try the roulade he made me for birthday with a whole tenderloin; we were just lucky the tenderloin in question turned out to be so awesome.


According to Kevin, hunter of the deer, venison cooks faster than other meat since it's much leaner. It also smells very gamy while cooking, being game and all. So we changed things very slightly to accommodate said leanness, only searing the meat on all sides in the pan and not finishing in the oven. We used kale for the greens and gruyere for the cheese and white wine to deglaze, and it was perfect: seared on the outside, rare on the inside.

I had only just had venison for the first time the day before, in leftover stew, and while it was awesome there, it was exponentially more awesome in the roulade.

It was even better with the massive amounts of wine-deglazed grape tomatoes.

Meanwhile, for last dinner of the decade I'm having black bean and kale soup out of the freezer with penne, parsley, and hot sauce.

Birthday week 1: MEATS

Yes! We are aged! It is birthday week and we have therefore spent every night from the 3rd to the 6th making and eating exciting things for dinner.

For my birthday Saturday we first had lunch at Catherine's Caffe, which is a Czech restaurant/cafe with very good coffee and a nice little back garden full of picnic tables. John ate fruit salad and a big exciting hummus and avocado wrap; I ate a huge bowl of carrot ginger soup, a huge plate of chicken schnitzel with lemon twist, and a similarly huge whack of hot, mustardy, caper-filled potato salad. It was massive and awesome, and I still have half of the salad and chicken waiting for me in the refrigerator. In conclusion, there may be a massive, awesome potato pancake later.

Or I may just eat the leftovers after making the schnitzel all crispy in the glorious toaster oven. Yeah!

After lunch we went to the Greene Grape Provisions for dinner meat, to the farmer's market for bread, mustard greens, apple cider, and fresh garlic, and to Gnarly Vines for wine and golden rum. It's definitely birthday week; we would never, ever be buying rum otherwise. It poured rain on us for the entire expedition, and we got very soaked and happy and went home and drank cold apple cider with rum. Yes birthday!

For birthday dinner John was all excited about making me Jacques Pépin's pork tenderloin, and I was pretty excited about drinking red wine, watching him cook it, and eventually eating it.

Obviously, we did not make an entire loin of pork just for me. One chop of loin was totally sufficient, and got totally cooked and perfect just through the initial pan browning. Other than that, since we had remarkably little luck finding either gruyere or spinach (I don't even know what cheddar is doing in that recipe; I'm pretty sure it was gruyere in the episode), we switched the cheese to gouda and the greens to baby mustard greens.

John also threw some of said red wine in to deglaze the tomatoes at the end. We had a pint of awesome end-of-season gold cherry tomatoes from the CSA box and everything.

Outcome: success! We cut the individual roulade into six pieces, and I ate them all, two at a time, until everything was gone.

Then there was more rum and apple cider and being extremely happy and birthdaylike until far too early in the morning.

Recover

First, I totally made the rhubarb fail into rhubarb win by letting the sorbet thaw, then mixing it with cranberry juice, some water, and several good squeezes of lemon. Later I made another with grapefruit juice instead of cranberry, and that worked out even better. Rhubarb tonic! It was pretty awesome.

I should probably see if there's some more at the farmer's market, so in future I can experiment with rhubarb/orange or rhubarb/lemon concentrates. (I'm not using the precious first real strawberries on this; sorry. Maybe if we were still in CA.) Then I can add not plain but sparkling water, to make it rhubarb soda! Yes!

In other news, I'm sick. This has somehow made it Ultimate Takeout Week. If you are wondering, Thai tom yum shrimp soup is excellent for clearing one's head, even if said soup comes with a couple surprising entirely intact shrimp, complete with legs and eyes. That was kind of a shock. On the other hand, intact shrimp certainly make a better broth. So, ok. I separated the meat, chucked the heads, and inhaled the entire container.

Then there was lots of leftover cashew tofu for lunch, and palak paneer for dinner.

Mostly I was just drinking lots of tea, though. I used to sometimes make myself a hot toddy when I had a cold, so as to expectorate, soothe my throat, ingest a lot of vitamin c, and knock myself out all at once. But obviously a drink full of whiskey is not the best idea. Instead: green tea with honey and lemon.

I had at least three of these before I got in bed for the night.

Home again, home again, jiggety oof

Oh man. John and I got up at THREE this morning to make planes on time. That's three central, which equals one California. I am pretty broken. I don't know if I even have the energy to talk about what we ate yesterday.

Eleven City Diner

John wanted diner food after getting restaurant burnout. Clearly we could have gotten on the train and found a more authentic greasy spoon experience, but we had plans later and in short ended up walking through the entire loop to eat here instead.

There was a pickle and green tomato plate on the menu: how awesome is that? I almost ordered it even though I was otherwise having french toast. The french toast plate was massive, covered in fruit and toasty coconut. It was really rich and yet I ate the whole thing. John had eggs and hash browns, like you do. We also had some really excellent coffee. Apparently in Chicago the good coffee is either Intelligentsia or Lavazza; this coffee was Lavazza. It tasted like grain. I meant to buy a pound to bring back to the office, but only remembered at 4:30 in the airport. Perhaps The Internet can help me.

Essentially, this was good brunch but too expensive to justify often.


Old Jerusalem

Later on we went with my friend Nicky and her person Trevor to the Old Town/Wells St. art festivals, where we mashed our way through crowds of drunk 20 year olds clutching plastic cups. Everything smelled sickly sweet and fermented with spilled cheap beer. It was kind of like I imagine the smell of the middle ages, but with less excreta. When fatigue set in, we decided to go to Old Jerusalem. This turned out to be a good plan: a plan full of falafel and pita and and yet more (unremarkable) iced tea.

I'm not quite sure what to say about the food here, since I was paying a lot more attention to hanging out with people I've barely seen in ten years. It was fine. The vegetarian plate was big, full of tabbouleh and a cucumber salad and falafel and clearly house-made hummus and baba. I also find that in Chicago you get pita sandwiches formed differently than most of the rest of the country: instead of rolling everything up in lavash, or cutting a pita in half and stuffing each half, they cut a strip off one margin of a pita and stuff it from there. It works pretty well as long as you have stable pita.

Afterward we had to plead stupidly early flight and go collapse. Boo!


Today I am home. I took a nap. I washed my face. My eyes are burning.

I walked in the door, unpacked, and had a glass of our iced tea. The best thing about this tea is how little you need to use: one cup needs only five or six pearls. Plus you can then reuse them to brew five or six cups. If this weren't the case, I don't know how I'd have ever justified buying them in the first place. Mm, jasmine.

Chicago food frenzy!!

We haven't had much access to kitchens, so here's the restaurant rundown:

My Thai

We went here for dinner our first night, after getting up at 4:30 CA time to catch the plane and etc. With the time change, this ended up sort of being lunch. So. I got panang chicken and John got tofu with pan-fried noodles. We also both got massive glasses of iced tea which turned out to be powdered. Besides that, I was pretty happy. The panang was more heavily spiced and peanut-intense than my normal panang at Siam Royal. It was also thicker. This wasn't a bad thing, though; everything was perfectly tasty, as well as reasonably cheap.

Brian's Juice Bar and Deli

This beats both California and NYC for a cheap falafel sandwich: $3.75. They do premake and microwave the falafels, though, so they're soft and not crispy in your sandwich. Oh well. It still tasted good. I also got a raspberry smoothie, which cost more than the sandwich. Normally smoothies are not my thing, but for some reason I've been all "hey, juice! Maybe I should get a juice. Is there a juice bar around here?" lately. Maybe that's why the smoothie tasted so great. It was also full of crunchy raspberry seeds.

Lou Malnati's

Obligatory Chicago pizza. We even got an obligatory deep dish instead of a thin crust, which I prefer. One medium pizza with spinach cost $14.45. That's more than enough for two of us, due to aforementioned deepdishedness of said pizza. Compare that to your terrible, scraggy, gross, really expensive pizza, California! The pizza itself was fairly sweet, thanks to the tons of actual tomatoes across the top. My only complaint is that the crust was too buttery. We also had gargantuan 32-oz iced teas.

Chicago Diner

I went up the train line to check out neighborhoods, but I specifically got off at Addison to come here for lunch. So ok, Halsted? I could live here just fine. For one thing, I found a massive thrift warehouse with a complete book section in back. Silicon Valley really makes me miss decent thrift shopping. ANYWAY. So the diner itself is a Chicago vegetarian institution, full of hipsters and apparently featuring a nice patio that I didn't see. The waiter dude actually looked me in the eye and was actively friendly! That was nice. I had a grilled cheese with avocado and a cup of pea soup. Here it's not only possible but expected that you might order such a sandwich with non-dairy cheeze, and they make sure to mention the option. I had dairy, but still. Nice! The sandwich was huge and slippery, full of sprouts and tomato and raw onion trying to escape from every angle. The soup was also really good, with a not-quite-smooth texture and a flavor suggesting not only split but also fresh peas involved. I also had iced tea: it was standard good brewed iced tea. Afterward I went up the street and tried on shoes.

India House
Perhaps we are totally spoiled by places like Shalimar, but I was only moderately impressed by India House. The naan was a little too fake-buttery, like a flat, homemade version of cardboard-tube crescent rolls. The baigan bhartha was nice and smooth and peanuty; the palak paneer was a little harsh. It wasn't too spicy, but the taste of the greens was a little aggressive and bitter. Maybe they were using some greens stronger than spinach? It could have been listed as saag paneer, I suppose. The iced tea, though, was by far the best all week. It was clearly some kind of fruit tea with floral tones. John guessed peach. It could easily have been peach. I don't really care though, because it was good.

Clearly it's been iced tea week, a.k.a. summer. On that note, tea ratings!

On a scale of 1=bad to 5=good:
My Thai: 1
Chicago Diner: 3
Lou Malnati's: 3.5 (the .5 is for gigantic quantity)
India House: 5

Fortunately, when I go home on Sunday it'll be to a squat little pitcher of iced jasmine tea. Thanks, foresight!