Macau 2012 - Round 2!

Last time we went to Macau, it was a rather slapdash trip during which we hit some of the casinos, walked around the downtown and all too soon, were back on the speedboat to Hong Kong. This time, I think both Mandy and I would like to plan this visit out a bit more. After watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations trip to Macau, I think we'll be spending a lot more time in the old town than the casino areas (although no trip to Macau can be complete without at least a little gambling).

I'm making a google map for our trip so we'll have a gameplan for hitting the highlights, but I really wish there were an option to turn off the Chinese script when looking at the map. They have the English/Portuguese translations but with all those characters, it's impossible to see what's what! The site I kept running across when I searched for "Macau walking tour" was from Frommers, and it is not bad. But the biggest problem for me was that there was no map to go along with the tour! And finding the corresponding streets and buildings on Google Maps was nearly impossible.

Thankfully I was browsing other travel forums and found the site of the Macau Government Tourist Office (duh!) which has SEVEN walks with CORRESPONDING MAPS! It's amazing that despite the fact that in many places I've been, some of the best information is from the tourism office, yet I still forget to look at their site when looking towards my next trip. Argh, well lesson learned...maybe.

St. Pauls Ruins/Camoes Garden

Last time we saw St. Paul's Ruins and the Macau Museum and while I'd like to revisit that area, I'd also like to try something new. Here's the map of the St. Paul's and Camoes Garden walk. This walk starts at the famous Largo de Senada (Senate Square) with its classic wavy tile pattern and works through St. Paul's and over to Camoes Garden. There are some "antique" stores along the route but in general this is a pretty tourist-heavy area.

Guia Hill & Sao Lazaro

This route seems to be a bit less of the shopping side and more of the wonderful architecture to be found in Macau. It starts at the highest point in Macau, Guia Hill and should have some nice views. But one of the things I like best is that there is a cable car!

I'll have to keep looking, but I think these walks will at least give us a start. My next goal is to find some reliable eating recommendations.  Unfortunately, Yelp does not extend to Macau (yet!), but there is a Chinese website, Rice bowl, or something like that that Mandy has been using. Anthony Bourdain's website is ok, but they list only like 5 restaurants, and some are a bit high-priced (like the Michelin starred dim sum).

A New Rambler

Peter Daniel Cichello

There's a new rambler on this blog !

Born Easter Sunday, he arrived with a lot of fanfare.  Peter Daniel Cichello was born at 4:25 am and weighed in at 7 lbs 14.9 oz. and 50.5 cm. (c 20").  His birth and first minutes were tricky, but now he and mom are doing very well.  And they all may get to go home today.

Here he is with his proud parents, Paul and Camila

 

The red light monitor is to show how very special he is!

Stay tuned for his first blog!

Las Vegas!

So this year we actually managed to get a small refund on our taxes!! After two years of paying through the nose each april, we got a CPA this year and man is it worth it. So although we have been ramping our savings this year for that potential house, we've also decided to enjoy ourselves a bit with a brief trip to....LAS VEGAS!

Now mandy's never been much of a gambler (she prefers to watch me lose my money) so we're trying to see what other types of things there are to do in Vegas. We have a car so walking distance is not a prerequisite (especially since we'll be staying at Mandelay Bay where pretty much everything is driving distance).

So far some of the things we've come up with....

- Pinball Hall of Fame
- Dig This. A worksite where you get to drive heavy excavation equipment! Too bad it's crazy expensive ($249 for a few hours). Maybe I should just get a part time construction/demolition job!
- The Atomic Testing Museum also looks interesting!
- Phantom, at the Venetian is an Andrew Lloyd Weber aided revisiting of The Phantom of the Opera and has been doing well for five years (although how I never heard of it before I don't know). But shoudn't this be at Paris - Las Vegas?
- ...and of course, The Neon Boneyard looks like lots of fun too! It was on Storage Wars recently and seems like an interesting part of Las Vegas history.

And of course, we plan on eating very well while we are there too.
On our list so far...
- The Wicked Spoon (yes I know...buffets are evil. but look at those desserts!!)
- the Spring Mountain Road area has quite a variety of more ethnic restaurants including the Monta Noodle House, Kinh Do, and Asian BBQ and Noodle (the last of which Mandy is very excited about because it seems "very hong kong" to use her words)
- KoMex Fusion Express - Bulgogi burritos! After being disappointed by the Kogi truck in LA, maybe it's time for another try at the Korean/Mexican fusion thing.

San Francisco??

Jen's parents are going to spend a month in California and Will and I were giving them some suggestions for San Francisco, at which point I thought I better save some of these recommendations for ourselves, in case we go there for our anniversary:

When we went to San Francisco as kids with my parents, we always had to eat one night at Grotto #9 at Fisherman's Wharf where we filled up on sourdough bread and butter but I don't know if it is the same as 50 years ago! We also always went to Schroeder's German Restaurant, but it was always very formal and reserved and their website makes it seem a bit rambunctious now with Polka bands. Apparently they still have the murals on the walls, which are not to be missed. They had the most wonderful brown breads and potato salad, which apparently they still have: All dinners are served with choice of German potato salad or cole slaw as appetizer, German bread and butter.

I also remember the wonderful dark rye bread at the Cinderella Bakery that Mother, Daddy, Penny and I visited in the 1990s. I found the Shanghai influence there unusual and I don't see any Shanghai noodles on their menu now -- their cafe menu looks nice and Russian, with pelmeni and piroshki and borscht. And any talk about San Francisco bakeries leads me back to the Fantasia Bakery that baked the desserts at Schroeder's and that was run by the father of one of my UC Santa Cruz housemates. I ran across this little blog posting about him in Culinary Muse.

The Tadich Grill is also interesting and it's been there a long time, although I don't remember going there as a kid, just hearing Mother and Daddy talk about it. I went once as an adult and enjoyed the little private curtained rooms. Fish and french fries are always good.

I've always wanted to go to the Cliff House to eat. You can see where it is on this map of 38 Essential San Francisco Restaurants. And their Wednesday night prix fixe menu at the Bistro is only $25/person (can that be right?) with cioppino and creme brulee!

The San Francisco Chronicle has a list of top 100 restaurants in the Bay area, but they are upscale and trendy, I'm afraid. They do list the prime rib place that Will was referring to: The House of Prime Rib. I've never been. Daddy took us to Tommy's Joynt instead -- but only for lunch for corned beef or pastrami sandwiches. I think he also went for the beer -- unfortunately I was too young to enjoy that aspect.

We'll have to go to a Chinese and a Japanese restaurant, and it's better if we find a little undiscovered hole in the wall and not a hoity toity place that has been gushed over in the media and that serves trendy cocktails.

Pittsburgh

I thought I better pull together some places to go in Pittsburgh before Penny and Leena come in May. Then I could use it for other visitors as well! I jotted down some ideas in my iPhone notes and I will just add them here and fill them in later.

Food
We Chaparros always start with that
1. Udipi Cafe (Indian Vegetarian). They have their menus online so maybe we can puzzle out what we want before we go there. And Will, Jen and the kids could go here too.
2. Strip District - Wholey's, PA Macaroni Company, Lotus Foods.
3. Chefs' Picks for Pittsburgh Restaurants. A March 2012 article on favorite restaurants.
4. Primanti's? Which one? A clean one or a dirty one?
5. Someplace with Will and Jen and the kids. Hofbrau House? Church brew works?

Uppity Food
Should this be our opportunity to try a "cutting edge" Pittsburgh restaurant?
1. Salt of the Earth. The duck looks interesting, the Haluski looks crazy and how can you ever have undercooked Lamb Shank? We could combine this with a tour of the Allegheny Cemetery and a walk through Lawrenceville. Maybe drive past Children's Hospital...
2. Root 174. I don't know if I'm up for the Bone marrow crème brulee or the smoked salmon sausage but maybe the menu will change. Root 174 seems to have a lot of pork tongue and what is so special about a hanger steak?
3. Legume Bistro. Wouldn't I feel guilty eating wild baby antelope?

Attractions/Neighborhoods
1. South Side (walk along East Carson Street or the river trail?) and Mt. Washington and the Inclines
2. Hill District? August Wilson: Pittsburgh places in his life and plays
3. Oakland: Nationality Rooms, Carnegie Museums and Phipps Conservatory, Lunch at Ali Baba's
4. Northside: Ride The North Shore Connector from Downtown to the Northside, visit the Mattress Factory
5. Downtown: Free Walking Tour of the Cultural District Downtown - noon to 1 pm by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. Or go on the Post-Gazette self-guided walking tour from 2006.
6. Outside Pittsburgh: Homer Laughlin Fiestaware factory...

Events
1. Venture Outdoors Festival at Point State Park
2. Sheep & Fiber Festival, May 19-20, Waynesburg
3. Pittsburgh Folk Festival, May 18, 19, 20, Monroeville.

Sevilla

So I'm checking out the possibility of going to Sevilla for our 40th wedding anniversary. Naturally we'd like to stay in an apartment in the city center -- like we did in Paris. Here are some possibilities:

La Casa del Pozo Santo tourist apartments, which are located in historic buildings in the city center.

Venere Vacation Rentals in Seville lists quite a few apartments

Apartamentos La Casa del Pozo Santo - at booking.com (we booked through them for Glasgow).

ApartaHotel Resitur.

Pigging Out in New York City

These are coming fast and furious from Penny and I'm posting these here so they don't get lost in my gmail.

Momos, Tibetans' Forbidden Special Treat, Jackson Heights in Queens is a good place to find these beef dumplings. The Jackson Heights blog has a list of Queens Foodie Links

Snacking in Koreatown

Dining at Citi Field; Right off the 7 train is a food court that's a gourmet paradise

TimeOut NYC: Jackson Heights $1 eating walk

Quick Trip to San Diego

Juan just sent me a link to a guide to 6 dim sum restaurants in San Diego from the San Diego Union Tribune. One of the restaurants, Lucky Star has ballroom dancing on Thursday nights and Maine Lobster Sunday through Wednesday. Their Dim Sum menu is online but your have to look at it sideways... Maybe the Emerald Chinese Seafood Restaurant is the one to go to since its home page is in Chinese -- fortunately their Dim Sum menu is in English! China Max looks good too. Have you been to the Dumpling House?

We haven't had dim sum since Hong Kong - although Judy did order some dim sum for book group from a Squirrel Hill restaurant. I especially liked the deep fat fried sesame balls.

And while I'm running through San Diego restaurants, have you ever been to the Loving Hut? It's a global VEGAN chain! But it actually looks pretty interesting and has a jackfruit salad. Oh my gosh! They say they have one in Pittsburgh too! It's over on Campbell's Run Road near Ikea. We'll have to check it out the next time we're over there.

And another oh my gosh! San Diego has a Japanese Izakaya. And like many places around the country, it is having a Restaurant Week this week. Maybe Juan and Mandy can check out a few restaurants for us!

Frommer's 24 Great Walks in New York

I've been reading the walks on Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho and Tribeca but I decided it definitely needed more illustrations so I could really see where I was walking. So I pulled out the laptop and went to the street view in Google Maps, which worked so well for Hong Kong and Paris. The two definitely should be combined commercially: create an online Frommer's Walk linked to the street view of Google Maps. How hard is that? Of course it might be so good that people wouldn't go to New York at all -- but I doubt that. You still can't go inside the buildings (yet).

In any case, the walk in Soho/Tribeca was especially good because of the cast iron architecture. Sometimes it is hard to precisely locate the building Frommer is talking about because it is hard to see the street numbers on the structures but usually one can figure out what building it is. More about cast iron architecture in New York City is available from the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America and a map of the Soho district (and others) is available at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission website. Typically I don't consider myself particularly interested in architecture but it is hard not to be captivated by these cast iron buildings.

Lamb Noodle Soup

I read the serious eats article on the Lamb Noodle Soup at the Golden Shopping Mall in Flushing and said to myself: now here is a place that Juan and Mandy would love! Hand-pulled noodles, cilantro leaves, lily bulbs, Chinese wolfberries, black tree fungus -- not to mention the fat-fringed lamb. And the show of them pulling the noodles! One could go just for that. But I think we would need Juan and Mandy. You can watch the Anthony Bourdain episode about it on YouTube.

Bourdain also liked the lamb burgers at Xi'an Famous Foods which now has a location in Chinatown, which was reviewed by the Village Voice Blog, which describes the food as: "The cuisine of Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi, is distinguished by a plethora of cumin-scented lamb dishes and all manner of wheat noodles." Fernando loves lamb so he should appreciate it, even the lamb face salad. At the Xi'an Famous Foods website you can see the many lamb and "hand-ripped" noodle dishes they have on their menu. But if you watch the Andrew Zimmern video on their website, you'll see they are not pulled as in the Lamb Noodle Soup Shop in Flushing. Not quite as impressive. Maybe we don't have to wait for Juan and Mandy to go there. Penny, have you and Leena been there? And it turns out that Xi'an Famous Foods is run by a father/son team and the son, Jason Wang, is a graduate of Wash U!

Let's see what else they have in Serious Eats New York. They have a post on Favorite Sandwiches under $6, which sounds just like the amount we want to spend for lunch. Although after reviewing their 23 choices it appears that meat is still the star. Hm. They probably haven't heard of the chile relleno burrito at El Zarape in San Diego. I suppose that counts as a sandwich.

And Penny will be happy to know that they are opening a Steak 'n Shake in New York tomorrow, January 12th. Hurry, Penny, the first 150 customers win free burgers for a year!! what a deal...

Good Gravy A New Post

I'm catching up on Anthony Bourdain and he's in the outer boroughs of New York, currently at the Golden Shopping Mall in Flushing. I guess I haven't used Blogger since they went to the new interface, and, of course, it sucks. Until I'm used to it, of course. Bourdain also goes to the Ganesh Temple Canteen in Flushing, which reminds me of Udipi in Monroeville by the temple. And he goes to Dim Sum in Brooklyn. And a tortilla factory in Brooklyn. Too bad Fair Lawn is on the other side of Manhattan!