Category: Trips

The promised land

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

Last night we wedged ourselves into what might be my favourite place of the trip so far, and we’d been to some pretty fantastic places. The Pony Bar showed up near the top of BeerAdvocate‘s NYC beer bars, and last night we found out why.

As it turned out I never did sit down in the place. There was only one stool available at the bar, so Nellie sat and I stood. It started off a little crowded and ended up very crowded by the time we left, so a table never presented itself. Just as well — we found there was an advantage to the spot we had. Meanwhile, the music was tailor-made for old guys like me…Jane’s Addiction, Bob Dylan, Heartless Bastards, CCR…so good.

There was a board over the bar with twenty featured taps. Every time they changed a tap one of the bartenders would ring a bell, the crowd would cheer and then — depending on the new entry on the board — clap or boo playfully. One of those bartenders, Mirjana, became our buddy for the night and took great care of us. I don’t know how we always get adopted by great bartenders, but I’m not complaining either. Especially since at least one of the beers was comped.

We ended up drinking twelve beers between us (Chelsea High + Dry porter, Avery Out Of Bounds stout, Davidson Bros. coffee stout, Abita Turbo Dog, Long Trail Hibernator, Sly Fox O’Reilly’s stout and Magic Hat Circus Boy for me; Weyerbacher Fireside ale, Magic Hat Circus Boy, Barrier Bulkhead red, Southern Tier IPA and Firestone Walker Double Jack double IPA for her) and an amazing plate of sausage & pretzels. All that, plus a tshirt for Nellie, came out to $81 before tip. Incroyable.

Despite that, the twelve beers weighed on us and I knew we’d need a little extra grease in our bellies to be functional the next morning, so…back to Shorty’s for more sandwiches! It was an early evening by NYC standards, but mainly because now (the next morning) we’re up, showered, fed, packed and about ready to head to the airport. What a great wrap-up to a superb trip.

Now then…here’s hoping that EWR doesn’t screw us on the trip home.

J'aime l'houndstooth

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First of all: dinner last night. Holy crapmonkey. The Strip House was incredible. Drinks at the bar. Corner table with lots of space. Maybe (but probably not) Uma Thurman sitting a few tables away. And of course, the food: scallops and rib-eye for me, crab cake and bone-in filet mignon for Nellie, all paired with a Frog’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon. We managed to avoid dessert…not that we had room for it. It was a great call; too many New York steak places are stuffy holding pens for old men, but this one was a nice mix of great red meat and laid-back vibe. Thus sated we took a cab (by the way — cabs here are so cheap compared to Toronto!) back to the hotel.

Today, having slept in once again, we got up and subway’d it down to Greenwich Village for breakfast at Gottino. What an awesome spot: eggs and toast and piles of prosciutto and white wine and espresso and nice people and walls stacked full of food. Another win for the eat.shop NYC guide.

Speaking of the eat.shop NYC book, it also pointed us to Meg Cohen Design in SoHo, where we bought two scarves and had a great chat with Meg. We did a little more shopping in SoHo (including a visit to M0851…which we seem to visit in every city) and wandered around Nolita and the Bowery, struggling to find a place that was open before finally happening on Sweet Revenge, which bills itself as New York’s only cupcake, beer & wine bar in New York. Uh, universe: why was I not aware of this place until now?!? Delicious, fun and filling enough that we didn’t need a dog from Gray’s Papaya after all, so home it was.

Tonight our plan is to hit another recommended beer place: The Pony Bar.

Double shot of culture

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Our first full day in New York was our attempt to wrap up some unfinished business. In our previous trips we’d visited several museums but not the Met, or the Guggenheim, and that seemed like a miss.

Our dinner last night was quite late so we slept in, then took the subway up to the upper west side and walked through Central Park to the Guggenheim. Before checking it out we had an excellent lunch at The Wright, the restaurant below the museum. We then went through the museum, which was great…short, lots of good paintings, and obviously very interesting architecture.

After walking up and down that big spiral we were ready for dessert, so we stopped at Cafe Sabarsky, where Nellie had strudel and I had klimttorte, both mit schlag. Our strength (and sugar levels) thus restored we walked down Fifth to the Met, and spent a few hours soaking up the culture. My favourites, predictably, were the giant Rothko paintings. Our feet were complaining a bit at this point, so we walked back across the park and took the subway back to our hotel to relax for a few hours before another late dinner.

Delay us, do we not drink fast to make up for it?

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

So, let’s see…since we got to New York less than twelve hours ago we:

  • spent an hour getting the hell out of Newark airport, and another half an hour getting into Manhattan and to our hotel
  • got our asses very quickly to Shorty’s, a bar around the corner from the hotel where I had my first Philly cheesesteak sandwich (delish!) and we tasted several great beers
  • checked into our hotel, which has surprisingly spacious (for New York) rooms and great views
  • went to see Al Pacino in Merchant of Venice, playing at the Broadhurst Theatre. Which was fantastic. And it was a little weird to be in the same room as Mssr Pacino, even if it was with a thousand other people.
  • had dinner at Riposo 46, a wine bar on 9th. Nellie loved the prosciutto-wrapped truffle-oil-drenched asparagus, and I loved the sausage margherita flatbread, and we both loved our wine selections.

Seriously, we could go home right now and call it a good trip.

"Roman is having an OK day and bought a Coke Zero at the gas station. Raise the roof."

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Relaxing holidays lend themselves to movie-watching, and we did a bit of that last night. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was rather crap, but Easy A was really good. Funny, well-written, smart and a showcase for the fantastic Emma Stone. Also, Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as her parents were hilarious. Highly recommended; don’t let the high school setting fool you.

Happy Christmas Eve everybody!

Status report: kickass

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This vacation is progressing exactly as I had hoped: quietly, and with a minimum of excitement. I am well-fed and well-rested. I have neither slept in an airport nor fended off surging coastal waves, so I count myself lucky. I’ve already gotten some cool presents. And I have lots more — family reunions, more presents, world junior hockey, our anniversary — to look forward to yet. Holidays FTW.

The wind-down

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Yesterday Nellie and I flew to Nova Scotia for the holidays. Well, sort of — we actually landed in Moncton and drove to my parents farm in NS. Drove in a rented Dodge Charger, no less. Anyway.

On the plus side it’s everything we were looking for: peace, quiet, family, dog, chocolate goodies, cribbage, nice weather, sleeping in and not thinking about work.

The only downside seems to be that — as is customary when I go into relaxing vacation mode — I’ve gotten sick. Twelve hours after leaving the office I had a full-on cold. Still, even that’s not so bad…it gives me an excuse to lie about, drink hot chocolate, eat oranges and watch TV.

Exeunt Dickinsons

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Sadly, our vacation has (more or less) come to an end. We had a great send-off last night, dinner down the road at Saffron. Great food, wonderful decor and excellent service. We packed, crashed and slept the sleep of happy travelers.

In the morning we drove down to San Francisco, an unremarkable trip except that we saw a fog bank creep in over Sausalito like the fingers of a giant hand. We drove right into it, which made our second drive across the Golden Gate bridge somewhat less scenic than the first. Without too much difficulty we reached SFO, had a nasty burger and some Anchor Steam, and prepared to board our flight.

When all is said and done this will likely go down as one of our best trips, but right now all we want to do is get home, relax a little and sleep in our own bed.

Bye California!!!

Recovery

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Vowing to get the trip back on track, we arose early (despite a night of brutal pain in my knee and thumb) and had some very tasty breakfast. Nellie decided to take another stab at being the designated driver and began to shuttle me around to some Sonoma wineries. We tried Loxton Winery, which was highly enjoyable. I was determined to take home a Pinot Noir, and theirs was quite good, so we bought one of their last bottles. When our server heard it would be one of the four we’d bring back to Canada with us out of the dozens we’d tried, she had the winemaker sign the bottle. We drove past the cheeky little road signs on their driveway with our fourth of four and felt good about the start to our day.

Our next stop was down the road at Kaz Vineyard & Winery, which our little Back Lanes book described as being very laid back. It came exactly as advertised. Their tasting room was already decked out for Hallowe’en, and they had plenty of different wines. I don’t just mean a variety, I mean they had blends and varietals we’d not tried anywhere on this trip. We eventually settled on a 100% Lenoir, partly because we thought it might be the only one of those we ever see, and partly because we thought it would go well with lunch. It did, as it turns out — we picked up some pasta from Cafe Citti on the way back to the hotel, found ourselves a picnic table and ate lunch on a perfect California day. Oh, one other awesome point about Citti: they sell several Russian River beers. They had a few in bottles, but not Pliny The Elder (the #2-ranked beer in the world). Nonetheless, the guy behind the counter just pulled me a little sample while we waited for our order. Awesome! Between the food, the beer and the service I can pretty much guarantee we’ll be back to Citti on our next trip.

Thus ended the busy part of our trip. We spent the entire afternoon swimming, drinking wine under a tree, reading by the pool, rescuing a drowning honeybee and generally relaxing on a perfect afternoon. We even saw a family of deer grazing across a dry riverbed. It’s not often I could describe a hotel as being idyllic, but…this might just be.

It’ll be hard to leave tomorrow, but at least we’re leaving Napa and Sonoma on a high note. It was looking bleak for a while there.