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!

Getting Ready for NYC - Pearl River Mart

It's been a long time since I've posted anything of real content here. I'm forgetting how to use Blogger. Juan gave us a link to a large Chinese department store in New York City's Chinatown called Pearl River Mart. Of course it reminded me that I better get busy on my Google Map of New York City as well! The Pearl River Mart website reminds us up front that it will be the Year of the Dragon, so we should look for some dragon charms for Speck. I also need a Rabbit charm for Sebastian.

Are We Ready for the Camino Again?

Grant Spangler posted an article from the November 2011 issue of the Lonely Planet Travel magazine on the Camino and Northern Spain in the Go Camino Listserv: Fork in the Road. Is it time to get enthused and get in shape?

Restaurante Club Colombia

When we were in Bogotá in December of 2006, Patty and Juan David took us to the restaurant "Club Colombia", which I thought was only a beer. I'm not sure what the relationship is between the restaurant and the beverage but there is a history of the restaurant at Colombia.com which says that Club Colombia opened its doors November 21, 2005 in Bogotá when two culinary experts, Harry Sassón and Leo Katz (!) decided to revive the traditional recipes of grandmothers and offer to the public an ample range of typical Colombian food from Cartagena to the Amazons. They have 25 types of juices, 4 kinds of arepas and empanadas and the best dessert is a torte of almojábana with cheese and honey.

The biggest selling dishes are Posta negra de Cartagena, sobrebarriga (brisket), and Sancocho trifásico which is a stew with three kinds of meat, served with avocado and rice with coconut. I think that Fernando may have ordered the Sancocho trifásico last time. The specialties of the house are Ceviche de langostinos, caldo de costilla con papa, empanadas de pipián, arepa de huevo, tamal bogotano, cazuela de mariscos y la sobrebarriga guisada.

The thing I remember most was the champu made with fresh lulo. Absolutely delish!

I'm trying to pull together other typical restaurants just so we'll have a list! Unfortunately Google Maps does not understand Colombian addresses. You cannot look up a regular address and get a proper result. You have to search by the restaurant name and even then it gives lots of incorrect or incomplete information and there's no street view to verify.

Bogota, por fin!

OK, so finally I'm back to posting and it's high time since we have less than a week before we go to Bogota! Lots of things have changed on the web since we last went in 2006 and I should be able to orient myself much better since apparently they have google maps.

I was looking at the city of Bogota's tourism map and they showcase Andres Carne de Res and also La Puerta Falsa, a small store around the corner from the cathedral that sells typical Colombian sweets. It says it is 100 years old. Unfortunately the BogotaTurismo.gov site is technologically challenged and its "galerias" are not working. They are also supposed to have "Bogota in a minute" video clips that are nonexistent. I'll have to find some better sources - there are bound to be some out there somewhere!! Except I've been looking at the restaurants and almost none of them have followed Andres Carne de Res and created their own websites. They might have a facebook or myspace page, or a gmail address but that is about all.

Oh, and WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!! Google Maps does not have street views for Bogota! Will we have to wait a decade for that? I guess I should be happy they have maps. I'll have to get some addresses to plot. Hm. Do I remember where we lived in the 1970s? I'm going to have to play around with it a bit so I don't get lost.

The New York Times ran a 36 Hours in Bogota last year. And they mention the new location of Andres Carne de Res at Calle 82 No. 12-21. Oh, my and look at this one: Sopas de Mamá y Postres de la Abuela. How could you go wrong with a name like that??? And it even has a theme song! See there is some hope that things have progressed a little in Bogota! Papi will be so happy. They have morcilla with papas criollas, fritanga, calentado, empanadas... I didn't get this listing from the New York Times, of course it would be too plebian for them, but from Bogota's city site in English.

Sign up to stay informed and visit the libraries!

The first thing you might want to do (or might not) is sign up for newsletters that tell you what is happening in San Diego. Or you can just go to their websites.

• KPBS San Diego Week (TV)
• San Diego City Beat
• San Diego Reader
• San Diego Restaurant Week in September
• San Diego Union Tribune
• This Week @ UCSD

And you always have to stop by the libraries to see what is up. Then you will see that the Geisel Library's (as in Dr. Seuss) 40th Anniversary is May 1st. Now, because you work for UCSD does that mean you get a UCSD library card?

And then there is the San Diego Public Library but their website gives me a headache, and their sirsi catalog does too. Sometimes I wonder if I am really a librarian...

Grunion Runs

Wow! The grunion are still running on the beaches of California! Here's something for you to do, Juan and Mandy. The Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institute sponsors Grunion Runs. Will you be in San Diego Thursday, May 19, from 11 p.m. - 1 a.m.? When we go visit you some spring, that is something I definitely would like to do. And in the winter months, they offer tidepooling, and in the summer months snorkeling. There! All your weekends are taken care of!

San Diego

Juan says that my next destination has to be San Diego. Let's see. What do I know/remember about San Diego? At Santa Cruz, there was a student, Jeffrey Greenberg, who spent two years at Santa Cruz then transferred to Berkeley. Later I remember seeing a news program done by an ex-Stevenson College student about Greenberg -- he became a dentist and moved to San Diego. He was saying how as a Northern Californian he had always made fun of Southern California, but then he moved to San Diego and was absolutely smitten. Well, that goes to show you that Northern Californians are full of hot air and don't know what they are talking about.

I've only been to San Diego twice. Once as a child (maybe 9 or 10?) when we went to visit the Pipers and I vividly remember going to Tijuana and getting a serape. The second time was with Fernando when we were at Berkeley. We didn't make it to Tijuana that time because Fernando needed a visa to cross the border (although Gonzalo and his friends crossed the border without one...). We did see the chimpanzees at the zoo.

I would go to San Diego to check out the California Rare Fruit Growers. Except now I see they are at The Fullerton Arboretum - CSUF and not in Vista anymore. Whoops. Now what am I going there for? Ah, maybe to see the undersea canyon that goes up to La Jolla. And to walk along the seashore. And maybe to see the Torrey Pines that my grandfather's cat was named after. Did they really pick him up along the road there?

2011-03-12

Today, our last day (sob, sob) we walked up to the second stage of the Eiffel Tower and survived! Then we walked (as if we hadn't walked enough) around that neighborhood admiring the architecture and the market on Rue Cler. We are now attempting to pack and tonight we will use up (we hope) all the leftovers in our refrigerator. It's been wonderful.  Having the apartment has been fantastic and we were able to do  and see so much.  It's enough to make us wish we could do this every year, or, perhaps, say for a month or two.
Wish you were all here

bring your bottle and they'll fill it or get one of their bottles on deposit

Why didn't we come to the Baron Rouge sooner. We got deposit bottles at .50 and filled two with inexpensive but very good (we think) wine from their barrels. This is near the Marche d'Aligre and the Viaduct des Artes (fine crafts people). Then after lunch we went to the GRAND MAGASINES (actually just the Gallery Lafayette) and we certainly now understand why people come to Paris to shop and to check out the styles. And Fernando got the Mephistos he's been after. Then (as if that wan't enough) we walked over to the Latin Quarter and walked the streets teeming with students celebrating Friday evening, and saw Rue Mouffetard and Rue Monge before heading home to look for a restaurant that was still open. And we found one!

Like our new hats, Vincent?

Like our new hats, Vincent?

Thursday, March 9, 2011   Paris, France
Today, after a quick trip to the Bastille Market (can't have a day without a market in Paris?) we took the bus to the Musee D'Ordsay, then had a lovely lunch, before going to the Orangeries for most great art.  Then walked up the Champs d"Elysees to be au courant before Metro-ing home.  Penny's pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/pennykaplan/20110310?feat=directlink

Cathy's at https://picasaweb.google.com/chaparroc/ThursdayInParis#.