Restaurant Meals
Rebelle, NYC - Chef's table, http://rebellenyc.com/
Bardot Aria Las Vegas - summer Provencal menu, https://www.michaelmina.net/restaurants/las-vegas/bardot-brasserie/
Ululani's Shave Ice, Maui //www.ululanishawaiianshaveice.com/
Tin Roof, Maui, Lunch only; https://squareup.com/store/tinroofmaui
Wineries
Daou Vineyards, https://www.daouvineyards.com/Our-Story
Domaine Drouhin Oregon (DDO)
Wine areas to keep an eye on
Paso Robles, CA
Beaujolais, Burgundy, France
Wines
Daou 2014 and 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Paso Robles
2014 Daou Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Estate Cabernet
Cru Beaujolais i.e. 2012 Château de La Chaize Brouilly Vieilles Vignes
2015 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Édition Rosé
2007 Podere Ruggeri Corsini Barolo San Pietro
2009 Château Le Thil Comte Clary
2012 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Louise
2009 Louis Jadot Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Guettes Domaine Gagey
2010 Château Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc
2009 Xavier Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Anonyme
2010 La Celestiere Châteauneuf-du-Pape Tradition
2010 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Laurène
As you can see my favorite wines are an eclectic bunch. I love DDO wines. They have had a holiday specials that include shipping. http://store.domainedrouhin.com/All_Wines?orderby=PXPC.DisplayOrder%20Asc%2C%20P.ProductName%20ASC&startrow=13 Check it out as these are good deals for their wines. The wines are not cheap but the are very good .I am not that thrilled about Roserock wines, their new vineyard in Oregon, but the Roserock wines have gotten some great reviews from the press.
Daou Vineyards, Paso Robles is my winery of the year. We visited it in August and were very impressed with the winery and its wines. The winery is gorgeous, on top of mountain overlooking the vineyards. The wines are uniformly great. The Wine Advocate reviews by Jeb Dunnock and reviews by Vinous have been extraordinary. The wines are not cheap but compared to Napa they are big bargains. The Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon is a must buy for cab lovers. It is about $20 and both 2014 and 2015 are very good.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape vintages 2009 and 2010 are very good. Also note that several of my favorites are no longer available so there some rewards for having your own cellar.
Plays
Sweet Charity; There is no one today in musical theater like Sutton Foster
Hold On To Me Darling
Privacy - Daniel Radcliffe rocks
The Color Purple - Ditto for Cynthia Erivo
Fiddler on the Roof - Ditto for Danny Burstein, amazing first act.
Sights
Hoover Dam, The tour of the inside of the dam is awesome.
Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA
Guadeloupe, French West Indies, Caribbean, the Club Med is on a gorgeous beach and Norwegian Air makes it easy and cheap to go.
Best Fish
Paia Fish Market, restaurant, 2 locations in Maui
Shore Catch fishmonger, Farmer's markets in NJ
Chocolate
Jacques Torres, multiple locations in NYC
DeBrands, multiple locations in Ft Wayne, Indiana, check out their hot fudge sundae
Maison Du Chocolat, multiple locations in NYC and around the world.
Top Food Hints
Try brown rice. It may take a little longer to cook but it has so much more flavor and some additional nutritional value.
Rainbow cookies from Ferraras, NYC, You can now order by mail. https://ferraraonlinestore.foodydirect.com/restaurants/ferrara-online-store/dishes/tricolor-rainbow-cookies
Merry Christmas to all and to all a great night.
I look forward to what treats 2017 will bring.
Enjoy.
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Monday, November 14, 2016
Theater Alert: Sweet Charity; Thanksgiving Wines
Sweet Charity
We saw Sweet Charity last weekend in NYC. It is a production of the New Group https://www.ticketcentral.com/thenewgroup/online/default.asp?sToken=1%2Cbde3be17%2C582a57b2%2C978495C0-B2AC-470E-B91A-97BA3B18BBAC%2CaZY3j4ro8rr2SGyFQRxQRsOeySo%3D&BOset::WScontent::SearchResultsInfo::current_page=4&doWork::WScontent::getPage=&BOparam::WScontent::getPage::article_id=79F13A9F-807C-4111-A6EC-33AD9C7A6C6A and tickets are still available as it has not been reviewed yet. The play stars Sutton Foster and it is terrific and she is great. Go see it if you can. It is playing at the Signature Theater on 42nd street between 9th and 10th avenues. It is a small theater with no bad seats. Remember I said to see Hamilton in February of 2015. The only difference here is that this is a revival and it probably will not be extended past the beginning of January. Sutton Foster is still doing a TV show, Younger.
Thanksgiving Wines
What do you like to drink for Thanksgiving? My answer is good wine. Almost anything will go with turkey but the sides can be more problematic. Guest at my house love the Chalone Estate Pinot Noir. A California wine that is big but with tannin to balance the fruit. We always like to start out with a cava to drink straight or to mix in a Mimosa. I also usually buy a bottle of Nouveau Beaujolais which we taste as a tradition. Not sure what I am serving this year.
Enjoy.
We saw Sweet Charity last weekend in NYC. It is a production of the New Group https://www.ticketcentral.com/thenewgroup/online/default.asp?sToken=1%2Cbde3be17%2C582a57b2%2C978495C0-B2AC-470E-B91A-97BA3B18BBAC%2CaZY3j4ro8rr2SGyFQRxQRsOeySo%3D&BOset::WScontent::SearchResultsInfo::current_page=4&doWork::WScontent::getPage=&BOparam::WScontent::getPage::article_id=79F13A9F-807C-4111-A6EC-33AD9C7A6C6A and tickets are still available as it has not been reviewed yet. The play stars Sutton Foster and it is terrific and she is great. Go see it if you can. It is playing at the Signature Theater on 42nd street between 9th and 10th avenues. It is a small theater with no bad seats. Remember I said to see Hamilton in February of 2015. The only difference here is that this is a revival and it probably will not be extended past the beginning of January. Sutton Foster is still doing a TV show, Younger.
Thanksgiving Wines
What do you like to drink for Thanksgiving? My answer is good wine. Almost anything will go with turkey but the sides can be more problematic. Guest at my house love the Chalone Estate Pinot Noir. A California wine that is big but with tannin to balance the fruit. We always like to start out with a cava to drink straight or to mix in a Mimosa. I also usually buy a bottle of Nouveau Beaujolais which we taste as a tradition. Not sure what I am serving this year.
Enjoy.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
San Francisco
San Francisco
We ended our trip in San Francisco. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis. The location was good and I used some points so the price was right. The points I used were British Airway Avios points. They are the worst points ever created and BA is the worst travel organization I have dealt with. A free flight to London using points cost about $800 on BA.
The NYT had a large article about a restaurant in SF called In Situ. It is in the SF MOMA. The place sounded interesting so we made reservations a month in advance. It was hard to get a reservation but we got it.http://insitu.sfmoma.org/ The conceit of the restaurant is that the menu is composed of dishes from other famous restaurants. However the dishes are served without any input from you; served as written in the recipe. The waiters just take orders. There is no passion in the restaurant and the setting is very septic; the lobby of a modern museum.
We had 4 dishes. Earth and Sea $14, potatoes, cucumber, coastal plants. From Coi in San Fran. It was good but not special.
Liberty Duck Breast. Thomas Keller , The French Laundry. $24. The duck was good but nothing special. I make duck much better as do many restaurants.
The Forest. $28. Quinoa risotto, mushrooms, parsley moss from Mirazur in France. This was very good and fascinating. The mushrooms are locally foraged.
Interpretation of Vanity. $16 Moist chocolate cake , cold almond cream, bubbles and cocoa from Mugaritz in Spain. This was awful and comic. The bubbles are tasteless and the dessert is the size of a thimble. The dessert was part of a tasting menu at the original restaurant and they have recreated it in ingredients and size. A ridiculous ripoff. Teuschers truffles at $100 per pound are cheaper and much much better.
The wine list was overpriced. The cheapest still wine was $52. The wines were precious and not familiar. I expect a wine list pricing to be in line with the menu prices and this wine list was out of bounds. This takes the fun out of a meal. We had 2 small carafes of wine. Nothing special and we were in the shadows of Napa. The wine list had 6 California wines.
All in all we did not enjoy our meal. There are no side dishes such as bread and just nothing to enjoy about it. It was robotic. Food and art need passion.
We had fun in SF being tourists.
Coit Tower. We arrived late so we could tour the lobby but could not go up the tower.
Chinatown
We went to the farmers market at the Ferry Plaza on the harbor. http://www.cuesa.org/markets It was loaded with vendors and the food was good. Some reasonable and some not so reasonable. Some vendors have full time stores in the main building.
The main building.
The line for this vendor's sandwiches was over 100 people long.
E went to the ocean side of SF and visited the Cliff House. http://cliffhouse1.reachlocal.net/home/index.htmlIt is an historic restaurant within a National Park. We did not eat but the views were great and it gave us shelter from the cold weather.
We took a boat ride in SF Bay. It was a beautiful day and the ride was great. We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and then went around Alcatraz.
Alcatraz.
We ended our trip in San Francisco. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis. The location was good and I used some points so the price was right. The points I used were British Airway Avios points. They are the worst points ever created and BA is the worst travel organization I have dealt with. A free flight to London using points cost about $800 on BA.
The NYT had a large article about a restaurant in SF called In Situ. It is in the SF MOMA. The place sounded interesting so we made reservations a month in advance. It was hard to get a reservation but we got it.http://insitu.sfmoma.org/ The conceit of the restaurant is that the menu is composed of dishes from other famous restaurants. However the dishes are served without any input from you; served as written in the recipe. The waiters just take orders. There is no passion in the restaurant and the setting is very septic; the lobby of a modern museum.
We had 4 dishes. Earth and Sea $14, potatoes, cucumber, coastal plants. From Coi in San Fran. It was good but not special.
All in all we did not enjoy our meal. There are no side dishes such as bread and just nothing to enjoy about it. It was robotic. Food and art need passion.
We had fun in SF being tourists.
We t
We enjoyed San Francisco, It is a good walking city but it also has accessible mass transit. In many cities it is very useful to use buses and streetcars. I forgot to mention that we did take an original SF Cablecar. It is pricey, $7 per ride, and we had to wait for about 30 minutes but it was fun and it is a must do in SF. https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/transit/how-ride/how-to-historic-streetcars
I am still harvesting kale, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers and eggplant from my garden.
November and Thanksgiving are coming up. Lots of theater in November as well.I am really looking forward to Sweet Charity with Sutton Foster, off Broadway.
enjoy.
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