Overnight stop in Jakarta

What do you do with one night in Jakarta, capital of the largest Muslim country on earth? Why you go trick-or-treating of course!!

We stopped to spend the night with our old friends K&PV. We're leaving in the morning for Lake Toba with them and their two kids, but first there are some serious Halloween festivities to be attended to.

Their neighborhood is expat-heavy so Halloween is a pretty big-turnout event. It certainly makes for a fun weird-world counterpoint.

Pictures from Bali are up!

Here's a slide show of the photos from the first leg of our Asia trip.

Bali Update 2: We’re Weak!

So the place we booked in Ubud was fine. More than fine. It was remarkably nice - particularly given the incredibly cheap price. The bedroom was air-conditioned, a REALLY tasty breakfast arrived at the room each morning, and the location put us a nice walk from all the town's attractions.

Nothing wrong with it. A bargain in fact. But . . . well . . . the air con wasn’t all that frosty. And the pool was more for looking at than dipping in. And the TV got nothing but snow (in Bahasa Indonesia!). And there were the bugs. And . . . well, we’d just come from that dream stay at Umah di Beji.

So we looked at what doubling our price would get us. Turns out, not much. A little nicer décor. A view of the rice paddies. But still the same basic standard to the room.

Then we thought we’d just ask about availability at the Komaneka. I mean we were walking by and it’s SO hot here and we thought, what’s the harm? Well, it turns out that quadrupling our price got us quite a lot at the one available room at the Komaneka.

Aside from your own private plunge pool, overlooking the mini-rainforest? Well, there’s the 500+ thread count sheets to compliment the satellite TV. And of course killer air-con. But the grandest pleasure of all may be having the bathroom inside the air-con bubble.

The smile on Pleen’s face is more than worth it.

Dude, who am I kidding? The smiles are mutual!!

For our last night in Bali, this is gonna prepare us for the trip to Jakarta tomorrow!

Komaneka at Monkey Forest

Jalan Monkey Forest

Ubud, Gianyar 80571, Bali, Indonesia

+62 361 976090

www.komaneka.com/

Bali Update

Just some quick info for those wondering if we’ve fallen off the map. A fussy engine valve on our airplane caused us to miss our connection in Tokyo and we ended up arriving into Singapore much later than we expected. Turns out that 3 hours of sleep on a bed does wonders after 26 hours on a plane, and we were rolling onto our final flight to Bali 6 hours after we landed.

We spent our first three days in Bali with our old friends BL & ST. In typical fashion, BL outdid himself securing us a luxury venue beyond expectations.



Oh, and as you might expect, the food sucked as well.



































We are now in villa withdrawal trying with all our might NOT to compare our perfectly nice digs in Ubud with the dreamy Umah di Beji.

Bali is lovely – if hot! – and we’re happily exploring until we head to Jakarta to see another set of old friends in a couple days. More to follow!

Umah di Beji
Canggu, Bali, Indonesia
http://www.umahdibeji.com/

Lessons Learned

Our west coast road trip pretty much marked the end of my domestic travels for the year. By my count, in 2008 I’ve been through 25 states (and a Canadian province) with about 42 days on the road. Something like 6,000 road miles covered. A few basic take-aways stand out from all those miles through America.

Scale: Given that my perspective is often focused on international travel, all this wandering serves most of all to remind me of how much more there is to see of the US (to say nothing of Canada). The more I see, the more the list of what else I want to see keeps growing.

Diversity: The views from hotel windows in Lander, Wyoming and Providence, Rhode Island had about as little in common as the political views at the coffee counters in Portland, Maine and Aberdeen, South Dakota. And for all the in-your-face majesty of a Humboldt County redwood looming over you or the promising view of the Teatons in the windshield, the flat endless fields of Iowa streaking past have their own distinct appeal. Difference is certainly the central commonality from coast to coast. It can make it hard to catch your breath when the colleted images of a thousand miles play back through your mind’s eye.

Food revolution: There’s great stuff happening out there in America. From the orchards of the Fruit Loop around Hood River, Oregon, to the seafood beds off Cape Elizabeth, Maine - there’s wonderful product being pulled from the earth and sea. What’s being done with this bounty in kitchens across the country is exciting - and delicious as can be. I still can’t believe the pizza with local chanterelles in the sleepy town of Arcata, California (or how good it was as leftovers the next day for lunch in a park in Crescent City). And nothing tops the fresh cheese curds CA and I bought from the small fromagerie on the road between Quebec City & Montreal. Pleen and I are still in shock that a joint in southeast Portland, Oregon is serving up no-kidding Thai street food. There’s a pride of workmanship that’s evident in the good food being done outside the traditional bastions of high end cuisine. There’s a particular message that outstanding eats shouldn’t be confined to the Five Boroughs or available only to those at the $100+ per-plate end of the spectrum. And this message, I swear, comes through at the table. You taste it and you feel it. It feels as if we’ve rediscovered something.

Contradictions: Pleen always says that it’s the contradictions in people that really attract her. I feel the same way about places. The land of Olive Garden is the land of the Corn Exchange. The 200 mile run of the California coast devoid of any chain lodgings or restaurants starting in Gualala, ends in a neon-coated wash of Holiday Inns and McDonald’s at Fort Bragg. Cutting edge wind turbines are erected and managed by high plains good ol boys. Contradictions are like spice, they serve to highlight interesting flavors.

Favorites: There’s too much great stuff out there to pick useful favorites from such a wide set of experiences. Some things that pop to the top of my memories, however, are the following.

• City: Quebec City (because it was so unexpected. CA and I felt we were making a discovery around every corner)
• Meal: Apizza Scholls in Portland, OR (Dream pizza with my dream girl. Perfect.)
• View: From the Citadel in Quebec City (Flawlessly beautiful and a military history geek’s dream for guys like CA and me.)
• Event: The hike that JB took me on in the Teatons (Because it was humbling and exhilarating at the same time)
• Route: The haunted forest that Pleen and I drove through to pass from to the California coast (Because it seemed like a mystical little portal that wisked us from one reality to another. The contrasts were stark and immediate and the route itself was otherworldly).
• Attraction: The lunch time glass blowing seminars/workshop at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA (Because it was a chance for normal people to see hard corps artisans at work right in front of them)

Company: In the end, nothing is as essential as great company. In fact, these road trips have been as much an excuse to hang out with my favorite people as anything else. My key lesson learned here is that I am incredibly fortunate to have such people in my life. Good company makes any experience better - and the bad ones livable.

Pictures from the West Coast are up!

Click on the link to access our pictures from our West Coast trip:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pleen888/WestCoastRoadtripSept2008#slideshow

Venezia Recommendations

My old buddy JH recently contacted me asking for recommendations for an upcoming trip to Italy. I told him that I knew nothing about Italy, but passed his questions on to someone who did. I think the response from AL sounds so good that I’m putting it up - along with some location info for some of his recommendations - in case others find it useful.

“J,

It's been too long since we're been in Rome -- there are some wonderful restaurants, but they're gone from my memory. I don't know how long you're staying in Rome, but our advice would be to knock off the must-see sites, such as the Coliseum, as quickly as you can -- they are truly awe-inspiring, but you should try to leave time to enjoy Rome as a big city.

We were in Florence in April of 2007, when we stayed at the Bristol & Helvetia. It was a perfectly fine luxury hotel, but I think there were more interesting places to stay. We had a fabulous meal at Cibreo, but I can't remember the other restaurants. I think we had looked in Frommer's and Fodor's and consulted with the concierge. The restaurants we went to were highly recommended and were delicious.

You are lucky I don't have time to give you a detailed run down on Venice. We love the food and the hotels. There is some mediocre food, but all these restaurants are terrific (and expensive!)

• Hotel Cipriani: Travel Leisure says this is one of 10 best hotel restaurants in the world. A beautiful and peaceful site!
• Gritti Palace: In addition to being one of the very best restaurants in Venice, there is no view in the world comparable to that of sitting on the Restaurant deck overlooking the Grand Canal.
• La Cusine at the Europa-Regina Hotel: a very fine restaurant, also with a great deck on the Grand Canal, and good views from inside the restaurant as well. The fish is superb. The menu seems a little more local than some of the others.
• Harry's Bar: the food is very good (usually!), and the scene is the liveliest in Venice. Be sure to specify that you want to sit on the first floor.
• Antico Martini: A restaurant for well over 100 years (maybe 200 !) - the food is wonderful and the service delightful.
• Graspa De Ua: A little hard to find, by the Rialto Bridge. The most Venetian of all these restaurants, it was recently bought and refurbished by Lucio Zanon, a very likeable and ingratiating young man whom we know from Harry's Bar in Venice and Harry Cipriani's in New York. Wonderful fish!
• Harry's Dolce: a wonderful lunch spot. Great club sandwich and pasta and risotto.
• Locanda Cipriani on Torcello: a wonderful garden restaurant on the island of Torcello, site of ancient church ruins. This is a twenty minute (water) taxi ride from San Marco, but easily reachable by the wonderful Vaperetto (water buses). A good day-trip is to visit the glass ovens in Murano and the lace-making in Burano, with lunch in between at Torcello. All three are on the same Vaperetto line, and breaking up the travel-time helps. When you arrive at Torcello, check the departure times for the Vaperetto.
• Fiaschetteria.Toscana: a lovely, small garden restaurant near the Rialto. It's been in the same family for years, and the food and service are terrific.
• do Forni: an old favorite -- high quality food and service. We haven't been there for several years.
• The Terrace at the Danielli Hotel - wonderful service and incredible view. The food is elegant, if not quite as good as the Gritti.

There are some terrific expensive hotels, but also some lovely hotels at more moderate prices. We used to stay at the Gritti, which has wonderful suites (but some of the rooms are not impressive), but for the last few years we have stayed at the Europa-Regina. It's not quite as elegant as the Gritti, but they have a few rooms and a few suites with walk out balconies, so you can sit and watch the activity on the Grand Canal. We know of no other hotels with such an amenity.

We don't like the Danielli as much. The Cipriani is on a small island in the lagoon -- about a five minute boat ride from the main island of Venice. We have had some wonderful stays there, but recent articles suggest it has become a little dreary. Last time in Venice, however, the Cipriani had the best fried scampi in Venice.

If you are tempted by the Lido, the Hotel Excelsior is terrific.

All of these are Starwood Hotels except the Cipriani. It's easy to find them on the web. Many of the restaurants have web sites as well.

The guidebooks will tell you the must-see sites, and they are all knock-outs. But everyone also advices to make time just to wander around the city, window shopping, popping into churches, having a coffee in a little square.

AL”

AL’s list certainly goes in my “someday” pile!!

Hotel Bristol & Helvetia
Via dei Pescioni, 2
50123 Firenze (FI), Italy
+39.055.26651
www.royaldemeure.com/?lang=eng&PHPSESSID=f1da6548b59970641404803479736ac5

Cibreo Srl
Via Andrea Del Verrocchio, 5/R
50122 Firenze (FI), Italy
+39.055.2345853
www.cibreo.com

Hotel Cipriani & Palazzo Vendramin
Giudecca, 10
30133 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.520.7744
www.hotelcipriani.com

Hotel Gritti Palace
Campo Santa Maria del Giglio
30124 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.794.611
www.starwoodhotels.com

Locanda La Cusina
The Westin Europa & Regina Hotel
San Marco 2159
30124 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.2400001
www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/dining/index.html?propertyID=75

Bar Harry's Bar
S. Marco, 1323
30124 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.5285777
www.cipriani.com

Ristorante Antico Martini
Sestiere San Marco, 2007
30124 Venezia (Veneto), Italy
+39.041.5224121
www.anticomartini.com

Hotel Graspo de Ua
San Marco 5094
30124 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.5205644
www.graspodeua.com/en/index.htm
info@graspodeua.com

Harry's Dolce
Giudecca 773
Fondamenta San Biagio
+39.041.5224844

Locanda Cipriani
Piazza S. Fosca, 29
30012 Torcello Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.730150
www.locandacipriani.com/

Ristorante Fiaschetteria Toscana SAS
Cannaregio, 5719
30131 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.5285281
www.fiaschetteriatoscana.it

Ristorante Do Forni
S. Marco, 457
30124 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.5230663
www.doforni.it

La Terrazza
Hotel Danieli
Castello 4196
30122 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.522.6480
www.luxurycollection.com/danieli

The Westin Excelsior Resort, Venice Lido
Lungomare Marconi, 41
Venice Lido
30126 Venezia (VE), Italy
+39.041.526.0201
www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=77

Quick Note on Angeethi

We had a quite a meal tonight at Angeethi out in Herndon. To a certain extent, it was pretty standard – albeit good – Indian. But the veggie dishes were quite strong. And of particular note were dishes incorporating the – apparently homemade – paneer.

This Indian cheese is often a mild element of structure more than flavor. But at Angeethi the panneer’s flavor and texture are center stage. Whoever they've got chained to the paneer station in the kitchen really knows his stuff.

The Paneer Pakora - paneer stuffed with a spice mixture and then fried in chickpea batter – offered luxurious fresh taste within a decadent fried exterior. But the star of the evening was the Paneer Tikka – spiced and dressed planks of paneer barbecued in the tandoor. This was a tandoori chicken for vegetarians; complete with the red color on the smoky flavored exterior, grill marks, and succulent inner flesh. Well worth the drive on its own.

We’re defiantly looking forward to another visit to Angeethi to check out more of the menu.

Angeethi
645 Elden Street
Herndon, VA 20170
703-796-1527
www.angeethiva.com

Elevation Burger

More exploration of the burger scene in NoVA required a trip to Elevation Burger. People say nice things and Ray's Hell Burger isn't open for lunch. So . . . my buddy DG and I ventured over yesterday to check things out.





Bottom Line Up Front:

Reminiscent of In-N-Out Burger, the Elevation Burger product was pretty good. If Ray’s Hell Burger isn’t an option, I’d still probably choose a Clyde's burger over Elevation. Their fries are a real limiting factor.

Details:

We arrived in the midst of a modest lunch rush. Still, the service was friendly and quick. The space is bright, airy, and attractive (i.e. this ain’t Five Guys). Prices seemed reasonable.

I ordered a basic cheeseburger presented “Original” style - pickles, lettuce, tomato, & Elevation sauce. Fries and a chocolate shake composed the classic accompaniments (Do ya hear that Ray’s? FRIES!).

A request for medium rare was met with a polite and pained explanation of “We cook all our burgers to X temperature in order to ensure. . .blah, blah, blah.” Given that this basically boils down to “Our lawyers make us do this,” I can’t complain about the guys behind the counter. However, it’s a continuing bummer to be denied a pink hamburger; ESPECIALLY in the day and age where everyone (including Elevation) is crowing about their grass-fed, organic, hyper-tasty beef. It seems a waste to use beef that tastes like beef if you’ve got to cook it ‘til it’s gray.

In any case, the resulting burger was tasty enough. Significant amounts of black pepper seem to be involved in their preparation and that happens to be a flavor I like. It might strike others as a bit much. The bun was light, but held together well. The delivery in a simple waxed paper wrapper and the fresh toppings reminded me of In-N-Out. The entire thing had a bit more grease happening than the west coast chain, however (the bun itself was shinny with it). In fact, you could think of this product as Five Guys meets In-N-Out.

The chocolate shake was good, although a bit more complex than it needed to be. I bet money that either the chocolate syrup or the ice cream they use has something fancy in its name - “Dutch” chocolate or “European-style" vanilla for example. I don’t see why people feel the need to overly complicate something that works as is. Still, not something that was tough on the taste buds.

The really questionable item, in my opinion, was the fries. Their menu makes a big thing out of the fact that their fries are done in olive oil. Their use of the term “heart healthy” leaves me to assume they think there’s some health benefit in using olive oil as the frying medium. That’s a nice concept, but there’s a problem of physics. Olive oil’s relatively low smoke point makes it poorly suited as a deep frying medium. If you try to fry potatoes in hot (but not burning) olive oil, you get what they have at Elevation Burger. The result of cute marketing and poor science: brownish, characterless, sodden, oddly flavored fries. A poor trade for some perceived “heart healthy” gain.

Summary:

Elevation Burger is fine. I won't drive across town for one and I won't eat their fries again until they put some peanut oil in that fry-o-lator. If Ray’s Hell Burger would just decide to open for lunch (and add fries to the menu!!), we could stop messing about and just head there whenever the burger mood strikes. Until then, we’ll be compelled to choose among the also-rans.

Elevation Burger
442 S Washington Street
Falls Church, VA 22046
703-237-4343
www.elevationburger.com/

Ray's Hell Burger
1713 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22209
703-841-0001

In-N-Out Burger
www.in-n-out.com/default.asp

Clyde's
1700 N. Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311
703-820-8300
www.clydes.com/main/index.cfm

Announcing winners from this past weekend's Chococake-o-rama Taste Test

Okay, here's the QUICK scoop (for details & historical data, scroll down to Jawper's post directly below):

Cake X = Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake Mix
Cake Y = Pillsbury Devil's Food Cake Mix
Cake Z = Homemade Devil's Food Cake, compliments of Cooks Illustrated

Tasters preferred the cake mixes to the homemade by an obvious margin. Duncan Hines and Pillsbury basically tied for the winning spot.

In total, there were 25 testers, including 2 kids under the age of 10. Despite this small sample size, we observed two trends:

1. men overwhelmingly preferred the box cake mixes to the homemade version
   
2. the older the respondent, the more likely you were to enjoy the homemade version
   

An interesting note: a preliminary test of Betty Crocker’s Devil’s Food Cake Mix eliminated it from the main event, as it didn’t seem rich and chocolate-y enough.

For the Sake of Science: Chococake-o-rama results

Significant contention exists as to the relative quality of store-bought-mix cakes vice home-made-from-scratch cakes. As a long-time practitioner of the “scratch is better” school, Pleen recently began to wonder about the real preferences of cake eaters. Thus we embarked upon a scientific battery of testing to establish once and for all if cake eaters can tell the difference between mix and scratch.

In the first event, the July 2007 Yellow Cake Survey Spectacular and Extravaganza, the superiority of modern yellow cake mix to home-made-from-scratch yellow cake was indisputably demonstrated. Since that heady day, Pleen has saved dozens of hours of labor by using only mix in applications calling for yellow cake.

Some of the top sheet results for historical comparison:

General Findings

Gender Breakdown

Age Group Breakdown

However, important answers only lead to more important questions. The continued evolution of knowledge demands much of us all. We cannot turn our backs on the enduring question: what about CHOCOLATE!?

Thus we and our volunteer testers once again sacrificed for the sake of science. On Saturday 4 October, we hosted the Chococake-o-rama Taste Test. We encouraged testers to drop by the testing site, taste the cakes on offer, fill in a ballot designed by highly trained researchers, and witness the release of the top sheet survey results.

Tasters!

The Hypothesis:

• Given advances in food science, there is now little difference between cakes made from box cake mix and cakes made from scratch


• For a devil’s food cake, most people will be indifferent to the difference in flavor between box cake mix and scratch
  

The Methodology:

• 3 different devil’s food cakes were baked today(2 different box mixes & 1 from-scratch)
• Same oven & pans
• Same batch of butter & eggs
• Same batch of frosting
• Recipes baked exactly as directed
  

Evolution of our test methodology has continued. We have high statistical confidence in the validity of our results. The process at both events has been overseen by Ms. JB, Vice President, Business and Consumer Insights at a major market research company. Dr. AS, retired Professor of Marketing at The George Washington University’s School of Business & Public Management acts as senior mentor.

The Ballot

The Results!

General Findings

Gender Breakdown

Age Group Breakdown

We can only conclude that mix cakes offer a real advantage over from-scratch approach - at least in the two genres tested so far. The preferences of our tasters have been authoritative in each test.

Stay tuned for more events from the Squeek's Tasting Center!

Before I shuffle off this mortal coil . . .

. . . someone has to take me to Lockhart, TX to eat at Smitty’s

Here’s what Tyler Cohen had to say a few years back.

“The ingredients are simple: salt and pepper rub and meat to die for. Slow cooking in open pits. Schmitty's lets its pit spill over onto the restaurant floor; be careful not to step or fall into the fire when you walk in the door. Did I mention that town fire and safety regulations are lax and they have a friendly insurance agent with a taste for barbecue?
…
All other barbecue will now taste worse. At what discount rate, or at what implied rate of memory deterioration, am I better off for having been there? Or do seek something other than happiness through food?”

Doesn’t that make you want to get on a plane!?!?

Smitty's Market
208 South Commerce
Lockhart, TX,
512-398-9344

www.smittysmarket.com/

West Coast Road Trip Part 1: San Francisco highlights

In four days on the ground in the San Francisco area, we barely scratched the surface. Through Pleasanton and Livermore, Berkley and Oakland, from Embarcadero to the Tenderloin, we did some silly things, saw some dear friends, and ate some good stuff. All the while being blown away by the beauty and diversity of the Bay area.

A blow-by-blow would prove less than interesting, but some highlights (“a few of our favorite things”) include:

BART:
For all its limitations, it’s fast, cheap, and easy. From the time we got off the plane at SFO, we were at our buddy’s office in the financial district in under an hour - for less than $6 a head. Try THAT from Washington Dulles! Staying with him out in the ‘burbs, BART got us where we needed to go easily and cheaply.

This just serves to remind me, there are two types of major cities in the world: those where you can ride a train from the airport to the city center, and those where you can’t. It’s hard to make the list of great travel destinations if you’re not among the former. Anybody who’s reveled in moving from O’Hare to the Magnificent Mile, Heathrow to Piccadilly, or Changi to Orchard Road without suffering a bus interchange or traffic jam knows what I’m talking about. Conversely, anybody who’s sat unmoving sucking exhaust fumes while their Baht or Dollars or Yen roll away on a taxi meter understands.

Ferry Building:
Contrived? Yes. But the Ferry terminal building serves to capture much of the essence of San Francisco in a fine foods sense. Pleen took to referring to is as “my favorite building”

Our lunch on the day we arrived at Mistral is a case in point. This is, by any reasonable measure, fast food. It just doesn’t suck.

The lamb stew was rich with cumin, cinnamon, ginger, coriander, .green anise and cheyenne pepper ladled over couscous. The white beans Provencale & roasted butternut squash made for a beautiful plate of comfort food. Rounded out with an Anchor Steam for ~ $10, this is my idea of a value meal!

Walking around after that first lunch we reveled in the accessibility of lots of the bay area’s best eats: from Peet’s Coffee to the wonderful gingerbread cupcakes from Miette

When we returned the next day to pick up a few extra cupcakes for our kind hosts, we couldn’t pass up a sourdough cheese wheel from Acme Bakery before we headed out. Acme without having to head all the way to Berkley?!? A treat!!

Ferry Building merchant list & map: www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/merchant_map.php

Mistral Rotisserie Provencale
1 Ferry Bldg
San Francisco, CA 94102
415-399-9751
www.mistralrotisserie.com/

Miette Patisserie
Ferry Building Marketplace, Shop 10
San Francisco, CA 94111
415-837-0300
www.miettecakes.com/

Acme Bread Company
Ferry Building Marketplace, Shop #15
San Francisco, CA
415-288-2978


Tours:

Pleen and I aren’t really fans of organized tours. OK, let’s be honest. Pleen and I are the kind of people who make fun of organized tours and the people who take them. It’s not fair or logical, but there it is.

Well, perhaps we’re opening our perspectives in our old age, because we did two tours and loved them both. One was a Segway tour of San Francisco that was an utter blast and yielded the most goober-ish shot of the entire trip

The other was a Scharffen Berger factory tour (for Pleen, “pilgrimage” is a more accurate descriptor) that was fascinating and inspiring . . . and generated a close second.

Electric Tour Company

757 Beach Street

San Francisco, CA 94109-1218

415-474-3130
www.sfelectrictour.com/index.html

Scharffen Berger
914 Heinz Avenue,
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-981-4066
tours@scharffenberger.com
www.scharffenberger.com/factory.asp

Great Stuff and a Great Mix:
Everywhere you turn in the bay area great ingredients abound. The earth and the sea give up more great edible stuff than you can imagine. From this surfeit, cooks and confectioners of all backgrounds go to town and create wonderful food.

There's so much that’s good that the old ghetto-ization of food has broken down. It’s not about a geography of Chinatowns or Italian neighborhoods. Nor do the cuisine classifications of Continental or pan-Asian apply. The old borders just can’t contain all that’s happening.

Malaysian nibbles prepared by a white guy in a hip urban neighborhood? Check. Beef tri-tip dressed in cilantro sauce from a Brazilian guy in a parking lot shack? Yup. Cantonese family cuisine from a suburban mall abutting vineyards? Of course. Whether you want a $5 sandwich, a $10 plate of noodles, a $28 fillet of swordfish, or a $50 whole snapper, it applies across price points. It all makes sense. It’s all great. None of it is out of place because the strictures of place seem infinitely expanded.

Betelnut
2030 Union St
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-929-885
www.betelnutrestaurant.com

Brazil Cafe
1983 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-845-1056

Koi Garden
4288 Dublin Blvd
Dublin, CA 94568
925-833-9090

One night in Portland is all it took

We have several posts dealing with our west coast trip in various stages of edit, but sometimes subjects arise that justify jumping the queue. Sometimes a revelation appears fully formed without the necessity for cogitation. Sometimes . . . sometimes you drive into Portland, Oregon and – on your first night in town - find yourself sitting at the bar at Apizza Scholls. And thus sometimes, you come face to face with what perfect looks like.

Bottom line up front:

This is one of the best two pizzas Pleen & I have ever had (the other being the totally different pie from Trattoria Dell’arte in New York). This is worth a plane flight to Portland . . . from Guam! We’re thinking about buying a condo on the corner of their block.

Details:

We heard about this joint in planning our trip to Portland, but, to be honest, they made the list for dinner tonight because of their proximity to the hotel and their lack of a dress code. After 900-some miles, we just wanted a bite and a good night’s sleep. We were in for significantly more than that.

What we got was the product of Brain Spangler’s maniacal dedication to the pizzaiolo’s craft: his hand-mixed and slow-fermented dough; his ingredients; his personal shaping and baking of each pie that leaves the kitchen. The results of all of this labor and attention was a fabulous classic Neapolitan pie. FAB-U-LOUS.

Now let’s not be coy. As good as the tangy tomato sauce, house made sausage, and Mama Lil’s goathorn peppers all are, this pizza is about the crust. You could serve that crust to me plain with a bottle of olive oil and I’d eat two. Spectacularly simple, anyone who’s searched for a great thin crust pizza (or tried to make their own!), knows how difficult it is to obtain that thin-but-robust, snappy-but-chewy, charred-but-sweet base layer.

The quite good wine list, great beer list, lovely salads, and OUTSTANDING service are almost not worth mentioning. You’re not going to really care. You’re going to focus on that snap of the first bite. That flood of flavors. That swimming of the senses as your taste buds try to come to grips with what they’re experiencing.

And then it’ll be all about when you can get back. Spangler puts his vacation plans on the restaurant’s website since no pizzas come out when he’s not around to cook them. Plan your visit carefully

Enough’s enough. There’s one more piece sitting on the counter across from my laptop. Gotta run.


Apizza Scholls
4741 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97215
503-233-1286
www.apizzascholls.com/

Trattoria Dell’arte
900 7th Ave.
New York, NY 10106
212-245-9800
www.trattoriadellarte.com/

Question: How are you packing?

I’ve been experimenting a bit with packing methods as an element of streamlining my travel without looking (in my buddy CA’s immortal phrase) “like a bag of donuts” when I arrive at my destination.

Bundle packing

Many experienced travelers have become fans of “bundle packing”. It offers the twin benefits of avoiding wrinkles while reducing luggage volume. Two useful explanations of bundle packing:

• Doug Dyment has a good overview at “One Bag” (www.onebag.com/pack.html) and a particularly useful diagram/instruction sheet (www.onebag.com/popups/bundle.html)


• Kevin Connolly’s “Practical Hacks” has a great write up with lots of images (www.practicalhacks.com/2008/04/05/a-minimalist-approach-to-packing-for-a-short-business-trip/)
  

Basically, you wrap all your clothing around a single central core item and place the resulting bundle in your bag. Without folds, the clothing stays unwrinkled. The bundle is also compact and malleable so it reduces the size of your bag.

Bottom line up front:
Bundle packing works great when you are traveling to a single destination or staying for lengthy periods at each of multiple destinations. If you are changing location each day, however, bundling is less than useful.

Details:
The strengths of bundle packing (avoiding wrinkles and reducing total volume) rely on having all your clothing in a single mass. If you are living out of your bag, however, that single mass of clothing quickly becomes cumbersome. You are left with two poor choices for actually using your clothing over multiple stops.

1. You can extract the entire bundle from your bag each day, unwrap it, take out the clothing you need, and repack the bundle. Repeatedly unpacking and repacking the entire bundle just to extract a single day’s clothing is a pain in the butt.
   
2. You can slip the individual clothing items out of the larger bundle as needed each day. Pulling individual items out of the larger bundle without unpacking it ensures upsetting the integrity that is the key to wrinkle avoidance. By day two of a trip you’re going to have a mass of jumbled clothes.

Neither one of these approaches works in practice. The bundle is a tool for moving a mass of clothing from one point to another efficiently. It’s poorly suited to organizing, extracting, and reinserting subsets of the mass.

Enter the Cubes
I’ve been doing a lot of trips recently that involve living out of a bag while making multiple short stops. For these trips, I’ve found Eagle Creek’s packing cubes (www.eaglecreek.com/accessories/packing_cubes/) to be a real help. They allow me to compress my stuff and maintain organization, all while keeping wrinkles at bay.

As an example, here’s the clothing I took on our recent 3 week west coast road trip,

along with what I wore on the flight.

I wanted to fit the clothing in my Outdoor Products’ Essential Carry-on along with some gear (camera, maps, GPS, etc.). Since we’d be moving around a lot in a car, I wanted to avoid the weight of a wheeled bag.

Tops and bottoms each went in their respective packing cubes. Two smaller cubes held socks/underwear and odds&ends.

Everything fit in the Essential Carry-on with room to spare
Clothing plus the gear brought the bag to 22 pounds according to my nifty new luggage scale (thanks GL!!). Add to this main bag a 12 pound daypack with laptop, liquids, and some personal items and I was carry-on friendly for the flights out to California.

While Pleen and I were on the road, we stayed in two houses and ten hotels. I found that it was always easy to extract one piece of clothing from the bag without unpacking everything. Clothes stayed wrinkle-free and organized throughout the trip.

Good Gear: Outdoor Products’ Essential Carryon

I’ve become more and more interested in carry-on-only travel in the past couple years for all the obvious reasons. The “one-bag” approach has garnered increasing attention recently, and there are more bags than ever on the market designed for this sort of travel. These are bags designed to: fit the airlines’ size restrictions for carry-on luggage; provide a logical and useful packing arrangement; be ergonomic to haul and lighter than roll-aboard cases; and be robust enough to stand up to the abuse of modern travel.

While I continue to maintain that my Eagle Industries A-III pack is the greatest single bag ever produced by human hands (see “Good Gear: Ode to the A-III” below), it is not necessarily ideal for all one-bag carry-on-only packing scenarios. The lack of a main compartment that opens totally flat is an impediment to efficient packing and, moreover, to living out of the bag over multiple stops. Also, the very features that contribute to the robustness that I love (i.e., the abrasion resistant Cordura nylon, the bomb-proof stitching using bonded nylon thread, etc.) translate into weight. The bag weighs almost 37 ounces empty (2.3 pounds). While that’s pretty light compared to 8-10 pound rolling bags, I wanted to experiment with a bag designed around carry-on travel.

Among the best regarded and impressive are the offerings from Tom Bihn (Aeronaut) and Red Oxx (Sky Train & Air Boss). They feature great designs, construction of Cordura or ballistic nylon, YKK zippers, and they all fit in that looming overhead bin.

These bags are not cheap however. And while I’m sure the quality of construction and design are worth it, their $220+ price tags make experimentation prohibitive. Also, they’re not exactly super-light compared to my old A-III; coming in at between 43 and 64 ounces.

Thus, I was greatly pleased to stumbled across the Essential Carryon from Outdoor Products.

The Essential Carryon is a one-bag friendly design that comes in under carry-on size limits, has hidden back-pack straps for longer distance hauling, weighs 1/3 less than my A-III pack (28 ounces/1.75 pounds), and costs . . . wait for it . . . $29.99!!! At that price, experimenting with it is a no-brainer.

I’ve already used it on a couple multi-week road trips, a weekend get-away flight, and it’ll be my primary bag for our upcoming west coast trip. So far, I’m very impressed. It works well and is quite comfortable to carry. In basic black, it doesn’t get a second look from gate agents who seem to mistake it for a laptop bag. Admittedly, the construction is nothing like what I have experienced with my Eagle Industries bags or what I understand about Red Oxx products. However, if it blows out after a year of travel, I can replace it every year for almost a decade and still be under the cost of a Red Oxx Sky Train.

Sweet!

Bags:

• Tom Bihn Aeronaut:
  www.tombihn.com/page/001/PROD/200/TB0906


• Red Oxx Sky Train:
  www.redoxx.com/product_categories/1/products/86-sky-train


• Red Oxx Air Boss:
  www.redoxx.com/product_categories/1/products/54-air-boss


• Outdoor Products’ page on the Essential Carryon: www.outdoorproducts.com/proddetail.aspx?sku=2003U&view=B
  

Notes:

• Campmor has the Essential Carryon for cheap!: www.campmor.com/outdoor/gear/Product___60793


• Doug Dyment’s site (www.onebag.com/) is a great source for the “doctrine” of lighter travel even if his specific suggestions don’t apply to your situation. Having said that, there’s a treasure trove of specific ideas, recommendations, & resources.


• James Isbell’s blog (www.1bag1world.com/blog/) and associated forums, also have a good deal of stuff on similar subjects. There’s a bit more graphical content on packing methods and gear.

Road Trip: West Coast Wandering

Pleen and I are heading out to the west coast for a couple weeks of wandering and touching base with some old friends. We fly into San Francisco on 11 SEP, and out of Seattle on 29 SEP.

Friends in San Francisco & Seattle are putting us up. Pretty bare bones itinerary in between. We’ve got hotel reservations on 15 SEP in Vallejo (south of Napa) and 21-24 SEP in Portland. We’ve got a rental car from 15-27 SEP. Reservations at Ad Hoc in Yountville on 15 SEP. Other than that . . . we’re hoping to follow our noses (and . . . let’s be honest . . . our stomachs).

More from along the way.

Good Gear: Patagonia Rain Shadow

As the remnants of Hana rolled through the DC area yesterday, Pleen and I decided to meet up with our buddy JC for a tour of the National Gallery and lunch. Despite the monsoon rains pummeling the District, we strolled for several hours among various locations. If you’re looking for the logic in these choices, there ain’t any.

My cotton cargo shorts were a soaked mess. My Gore-Tex lined sneakers were dry for about 2 minutes before my smartwool socks sucked the water right it (wicking layers work both ways!). From the waist down, I was sloshing. But my torso, clad in a cotton t-shirt, was dry as a bone under my 13 ounce Patagonia Rain Shadow jacket.

At just 13 ounces, the Rain Shadow has become a go-to travel layer for me. It’s done weekend get-aways to Chicago, road trips through the northeast, Canada, and the American west, and several weeks on safari in Kenya. Balled up in the bottom of a daypack or carry-on, it’s unnoticeable.

When the wind starts to blow or the sky opens up, however, the waterproof breathable nylon ripstop shell is a godsend. It’s breathable enough that it keeps the rain off in warm weather without dousing me in sweat, but married to a fleece it’s a great wind and wet barrier in cooler weather as well. Sure, there are high-end layers that are a third the weight, but they are typically water-resistant. I.e. they’ll keep some sprinkles off you, but they’re gonna wet through in a hurry. Not so with the Rain Shadow.

For me, this thing has been worth twice the price!!

Speaking of . . . while I may like the performance of “technical” outdoor gear, I don’t exactly live a life that involves climbing mountains. Thus, I find it hard to justify spending full price for this sort of performance apparel. The Rain Shadow was something I picked up on super-clearance from a vendor who was getting out of the Patagonia M.A.R.S. line. Mine was about half what the Patagonia web site asks. When Patagonia does their season clearance sales, their stuff can often be had at a similar discount. In fact, the “Web Specials” section of the Patagonia web site even has it on pretty good sale as I write this.

Patagonia Rain Shadow jacket: http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/product/product_focus.jsp?OPTION=PRODUCT_FOCUS_DISPLAY_HANDLER&catcode=MAIN_FA_US.CLOTHING_GEAR.MENS.JACKETS&style_color=84470-886&ws=

Good Gear: Ode to the A-III

My Eagle Industries A-III pack and I have logged a lot of miles together. When last I checked (and because I’m a huge geek, I actually did check), it’s been to at least 15 countries. It’s traveled by car & van, helicopter & HMMWV, jetliner & puddle-jumper, speedboat & subway - to say nothing of my own two stinky feet. It’s been beat up, abused, over loaded, slept on & stepped on, dragged & dunked, and it’s never skipped a beat.

It looks basically just like the day I bought it five years ago for $99 - that is to say totally unremarkable and plain black. The Cordura nylon has softened a bit with wear, and the brass hardware has lost its black coating. I keep wondering when I’ll have to test Eagle’s lifetime warrantee.

Add to its ruggedness that it blends in perfectly in the sea of black bags in any airport, precisely meets the dimensions for carry-on luggage, and has extremely comfortable straps. If I can’t fit it in the A-III’s ~ 2,600 cubic inches, I usually don’t need it. The AIII pack has proven to be a perfect companion from tent camps to five star hotels.

Eagle Industries’ AIII pack:
http://www.eagleindustries.com/product.php?productid=43&cat=60&page=1

But they’re cheapest here:
http://www.actiongear.com/cgi-bin/tame.exe/agcatalog/level4s.tam?xax=20963&M5COPY.ctx=27015&M5.ctx=3301&M2_DESC.ctx=Field%20Packs&level3.ctx=results.tam&query.ctx=eagle%20pack&backto=%2Fagcatalog%2Fresults.tam