I haven’t been to Washington D.C. in several years but I inevitably end up returning and when I do, here’s some suggestions from a recent NYTimes article about the Columbia Heights neighborhood in NW DC.
– Room 11, 3234 11th STr. NW. “tiny bodega turned wine bar.”
– Bloombars, 3222 11th St. non-profit “art bar” showing late-late night indie movies from 2:30 to 6:30 a.m. (don’t think I’ll be doing that.)
Filed under Washington D.C.
For the second year in a row, we haven’t taken our annual trip to Tucson to see my dad – just got pulled in different directions. But my brother and his wife are there and report that they’ve found a good new cheap Mexican restaurant – BK’s – downtown – which specializes on Sonora Hot Dogs and Carne Asada (neither of which sound great right now as I’m still recovering from dining in Panama). They also were looking for a hike we did together four years ago and report that the trail head is – as we thought – just north of AJ’s fancy food market on Campbell and East Skyline Drive.
We’re hoping to go to Hawaii a year from now – when my husband has a conference in Oahu. So time to start gathering some string on Oahu and beyond starting with this mention in the NYT’s recent list of 41 places to go in 2011. (Hope that still holds true for 2012.).
Disney is opening a resort in Oahu called Aulani – part of the Kolina Resort and Marina – that will emphasize Hawaiian culture rather than Mickey Mouse and Co. This culture apparently includes hula lessons and lei making. Not sure this will be my thing….
But…there’s also a new boutique hotel opening – the Waikiki Edition, a Marriott concocted by Ian Schrager. IT’s not on the each but five minutes a way and includes a restaurant by Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoro; yoga; and a surf-and-bikini bootcamp (whatever the heck that is.)
Perhaps my best bet is the new visitors center and museum at Pearl harbor – with interactive exhibits about the famous attack told from both the American and Japanese perspective.
And then maybe I need to hightail it to Maui and rural Kauai…
Filed under Hawaii
My husband D is supposed to fly home from Atlanta on Wednesday after a business meeting there. Here’s hoping – He reports it’s “pretty awful” there right now due to a huge winter storm that is moving across the south and up the east coast. the airport there, the world’s busiest we’re told, was pretty much shut down today. And tomorrow doesn’t look much better. Meanwhile, here in Iowa, we’re having our very own little snowstorm which is supposed to dump up to 9 inches – last I heard – by the time it ends sometimes tomorrow. Ahhh winter.
D did report that he had a terrific meal in Atlanta at the Woodfire Grill, whose executive chef is Kevin Gillespie (of Top Chef fame.)…so now we’ve each eaten at a Top Chef contestant’s restaurant (mine was Stephanie Izard’s The Girl and the Goat in Chicago.)
The horrific shootings in Tucson yesterday hit close to home for several reasons including that the Safeway where they occurred is very close to where my father lives in Oro Valley/northwest Tucson. I don’t think I’ve been to that Safeway but I’ve driven by it dozens of times and been to stores and restaurants nearby.
There are so many businesses on that suburban strip that it’s hard to place the exact location of the Safeway, in my mind. One of the many news reports I’ve watched showed a sign for “Beyond Bread” – which confused me since last I knew, Beyond Bread (a favorite restaurant) is on Campbell – not Oracle where the Safeway is located. A minor point, obviously, given the overall tragedy. But maybe my determined effort, in the wake of the shootings, to get my physical bearings is also, deep-down, an attempt to get my psychological bearings, to figure out how close we are, as we go about our everyday lives, to danger.
A recent NYTimes story recommends when in Boulder to visit:
– Amante Coffee, with not just roasted coffee beans from northern Italy but “calzone-like breggos” (Breggos are apparently a Colorado invention, a baked or fried turnover of pizza dough stuffed with this and that).
– Bacco Trattoria and Mozzarella Bar – including a quartet of house-made and imported cheese including the cheese-of-the-moment: burrata (made with mozzarella and cream so it’s soft like butta. (Burrata means buttered in Italian.) Delicious but likely to upset my sensitive Jewish stomach.
– I Love to Grow, a garden center with a “hippie-vibe.”
– Absolute Vinyl Records & Stereo – real LPs featuring somewhat obscure music (Pre-World War II jazz anyone?)
Filed under Colorado
Friends who recently visited the Sioux Falls, S.D. area for a cross-country meet (run Conor run!) report eating at two good places there:
In Sioux Falls, they visited Senor Wiener (http://www.senorwiener.com/), a local hot dog joint (in a strip mall. One of the “highlights” is the merchandise, including T-shirts with the kind of suggestive slogans that teenage males would love (“Grab life by the wiener.”). The web site, with “Senor Wiener” digitally inserted into various historic scenes, a la Forrest Gump, is fun. The hot dogs aren’t bad, either.
In Tea, S.D. (Tea, S.D.?) they went to the Tea Steakhouse (http://teasteakhouse.webs.com/), touted by the “Road Food” couple Jane and Michael Stern. It also gets raves as “best steakhouse” from various websites and ratings folks. Conor’s review: “Cheap, tasty and you got your food right away.” I couldn’t find an address on their website but I did confirm that Tea, S.D. exists – it’s southwest of Sioux Falls – and my guess is its small enough you can’t miss the steakhouse!
Filed under DINING, South Dakota
Baltimore is one of those cities I collect travel info on since I may actually return there sometime (for work.) So here’s some suggestions from the NYTimes on the art scene in Station North, an arts district near Penn Station, the city’s railway hub (which itself sounds like it’s worth seeing):
Metro Gallery, 1700 North Charles st.
Joe Squared, 133 West North Avenue, serving great pizza (one with bacon and clams, yum), plus has exhibitions and live music.
The Charles Cinema, 1711 North Charles street – longtime artsy film house.
Tapas Teatro, 1711 North Charles – Iberian-influenced tapas including asparagus w/Serrano ham (my brother just returned from Spain and raved about the ham there – and Gaudi buildings!) and crab/spinach in sherry cream sauce (which would probably kill me but sounds delicious.) Plus rare wines like Txakoli from the Basque region.
I’ve apparently dissuaded at least one reader from visiting Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, after he read my blog post yesterday that it was listed in the book “101 Places Not to Visit.” But there are plenty of other options for great hiking and beautiful desert landscapes in Tucson and Southern Arizona. Here are a few:
Saguaro National Park – This huge park west of Tucson looks like the set of an old western – and in fact an old movie lot there has been turned into a tourist attraction (which I’ve avoided.) You expect to see cowboys and Indians (okay, Native Americans) racing down the mountains when you drive through. Lots of good hiking trails and the wonderful Desert Museum.
Chiricahua National Monument – this is about two hours, as I recall, east of Tucson and it’s full of bizarre rock formations that you can hike right through, up and around. Well worth a visit. This from the monument’s websites: “The Apaches called this place ‘The Land of Standing-Up Rocks’, a fitting name for an extraordinary rock wonderland. Early pioneers in the late 1800s sensed the unique beauty and singularity of the rock formations in the area. They were instrumental in persuading Congress to protect this ‘Wonderland of Rocks’…
There are approximately twelve thousand acres of wild, rugged terrain within which the rock formations and a great ecological diversity are protected.”
Pichacho Peak State Park – never been but heard it’s nice, especially during wildflower blooming months
Catalina State Park – this is a sentimental favorite right near my father’s house, some nice easy trails and a trail I’ve always wanted to take to Mount Lemmon. Speaking of which, that’s another place to visit, weather permitting.
Shakespeare is here, there, everywhere and we’ve seen some of it – unfortunately not in Stratford, Ontario for about ten years. I used to go there a lot as a kid growing up in suburban Detroit and judging from a recent NYTimes review of “Stratford’s” latest season it’s as good as ever with Christopher Plummer, at age 80 no less, among the performers. In March we saw a very modern Hamlet at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland
And on Thursday, we saw a lively production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (a rather silly play methinks) performed by the Repertory Theater of Iowa on the lovely grounds of Salisbury House, an old English stone and brick mansion in, of all places, Des Moines that provides a perfect backdrop for a Shakespearean play. A local tycoon built Salisbury House in the 1920s, inspired by a visit to the King’s House in Salisbury, England, which dates back to the 13th century according to Wikipedia. (And judging from the pix of Kings House, the Des Moines replica is pretty darned close.) Catch the “Merry Wives” while (and if) you can – performances through this Sunday…
Filed under Canada, Des Moines, England and U.K., Oregon, theater
TakeBetsywithyou
TakeBetsywithyou 