LorenzoGA's Profile
2 most memorable fine dining restaurants in Bangkok?
I am in the same position as the OP: Visited BKK as a backpacker some years ago and am soon passing through for just one night, but this time with a budget that doesn't limited me to farang Phat Thai on Khao San Road or noodles in Chinatown. I'd like to check out one of the new breed of Thai restaurants I've heard so much about. Leaning toward Bo.lan. Looking forward to more replies in this thread.
dining on Super Bowl Sunday?
Thanks, everyone. The food and drink factor is key--or I wouldn't be posting here. Just any ol' sports bar won't do. I've heard of Cooter Brown's, so it must be more than just a sports bar. And Ye Old College Inn sounds worthy as well. Oysters are perfect football watching food (I just made that up, but it works for me). We don't plan to be glued to a TV screen--the thinking was just that it would be nice to feel involved while the game is on. Though I'm a beer enthusiast, I've never stopped in to Crescent City Brewhouse, figuring it was as @pizzajunkie and @FoodChic put it.
How about Avenue as another option? Good beer list, it seems.
dining on Super Bowl Sunday?
My wife and I will be on a weekend getaway in New Orleans and would like to plant ourselves somewhere during the evening of the Super Bowl where the game would be on TV AND we can enjoy great NOLA food and drink. Suggestions? We're staying in the Garden District this time.
EL CELLER DE CAN ROCA or ALKIMIA
MAKE RESERVATIONS. We--an American couple--found ourselves in Girona the other day and got on the Internet to determine where is a good restaurant. We don't even have a phone with us to make a reservation, so we decided to give it a go and show up at Celler de Can Roca at 1 pm when they open. No table availability at any time of the day. We didn't know we'd be in Spain, let alone Girona, until a few days ago. Likely no chance of us ever eating here unless we start the habit of planning our travels months in advance--a near impossibility. The bottom line is that that's exactly what one needs to do in order to eat here.
Curacao good restuarants?
We ate twice at The Boathouse, and both times we enjoyed ourselves more than we did at Gouverneur de Rouville (see my review above).
Munich downhill alert - - and a new fav
"Touristy" can be an interesting perception. The people sitting next to you speaking German could very well be "tourists." I was sitting in the Weisses Brauhaus trying to decipher the menu (I had both English and German menus to compare the translation), and was totally confounded by some of the dishes. So, I turned to the German couple who happened to be sitting next to me, asked if they spoke English and if they could help explain some of the Bavarian specialties. The guy said, "I have no idea what some of this stuff is--we're from Stuttgart!"
Haggis (at a Scottish festival)?
Much haggis comes canned, and you're as likely to be served a fried-up slice of it in Scotland as in Orlando. The dramatic versions that come in a sheep's stomach for ceremoniously slitting open are not as common as the canned versions. Either way, the stuff is basically ground-up meat, oats and fat, and tastes just fine, sort of like a fine-grained corned beef hash. Certainly no weirder than, say, a Philadelphia Scrapple or a North Carolina Livermush. Some versions have the full range of offal, including sheep heart, liver and lungs (lungs are not permitted in the US by USDA regulations), and others include offal to lesser degrees. But it's all finely ground and not at all offensive looking or tasting. I've seen versions in the US that are purely lamb and oats, and some that are lamb, liver, oats and beef fat, etc. Any of it can be considered authentic, since as I already mentioned, even what you get in Scotland can vary from brand to brand and may even come right out of a can. Don't fear the haggis.
Curacao good restuarants?
Review of Gouverneur de Rouville, which is said to be the top restaurant in Curacao:
Seeking a special dinner for the last night of our honeymoon, we booked a table at the Gouverneur de Rouville, which we had been told was very good but expensive. First, the prices were little higher than any of the other nice restaurants we had visited. Second, it was not very good at all.
The location is prime, but that's where it ends. For an island with 9% unemployment, they are woefully understaffed. The bartender worked behind the bar as well as serving the people seated on the small cocktail patio outside. Once seated for dinner at one of the tables overlooking the harbor channel--one of the best restaurant views ever--we could tell that this restaurant was going to disappoint. We tried to order a glass of cava, which the menu said could be purchased by the glass, but we were told that it was an "old menu" and that they no longer served it by the glass. Oh well. Hey, why not draw a black line through that item until you can print new menus? From our coupld of weeks there, we definitely got the impression that Antilleans are not known for taking any initiative.
If you're a foodie, you will find the menu boring, as it doesn't deviate from the standards found at other restaurants. In fact, some of the items are things you can find for a lot less money at the roadside "snack" shacks for lunch, like the beef stew (karni stoba). Amazingly, unlike every other reasonably upscale restaurant in town, Gouverneur de Rouville did NOT have a Catch of the Day. When we asked about specials for the evening (the menu invites you to ask), our waiter said there were none. The menu incredibly did not list a solid fish dish, only fishy-Y dishes like fish stew, a "fried" assortment of three fishes, etc. In every other restaurant, we were able to order a delightfully understated steak or fillet of fish. We asked about this, and specifically asked if they could simply grill us a piece of fish. Our waiter had little understanding of the menu items and didn't know the answer. Fortunately, a Dutch woman who brought us our wine (the sommelier, sort of?) was able to intervene and explained that the "fried" fish assortment was actually pre-grilled first, and then left ("mise en place" as she explained it) to be finished later in a pan-fried sort of way. This sounded fairly disgusting, but at least she was able to explain it. I ordered it, and it was as she described, with visible grill marks but apparently finished in a pan with a sauce. It was edible--in fact not bad. But why can they not simply have a freshly grilled fish item? Oh, I almost forgot: They DO in fact list a fish. It is salmon! A fish flown in from thousands of miles away! I would not order salmon in the Caribbean any more than I would order grouper in Alaska.
All in all, this was one disappointing restaurant ... will a great view of the harbor.
Half Shell Raw Bar, Key West
After reading reviews of Half Shell Raw Bar here and elsewhere, and friends having raved about the place to us, we were really looking forward to eating here. So when we arrived to begin our vacation in Key West and promptly made our way over to Half Shell Raw Bar on Caroline Street for our first meal in the town, we walked in at around 9:30 pm on a Tuesday night (Sept. 2, 2008) and as soon as we walked in the door were shooed away by a really brusque manager who offered no apologies for closing the place early. He said they sometimes close early when business is slow, but when I asked him whether we would be okay to come back tomorrow, and whether the place would be open at 8:00 or 8:30 or 9:00 or whatever--we wanted to have at least some rough idea of what time we might be able to eat dinner--he wouldn't answer and just told us goodbye and pointed to the door. Wow. I have never experienced anything like that. We were tourists looking to enjoy our first meal in Key West at a place that came highly recommended, and this guy wouldn't even give us a rough idea of what hours the place was likely to be open or offer any apology for the early closing that night. We weren't looking for a freebie or to be babied, just something more than being pointed to the door we had just walked in and brusquely asked to leave because they were closing "NOW." Wowee. I'm not one to hold grudges, but I don't think we will ever return. Other places in Key West have oysters without the attitude. We ended up going across Caroline Street to Pepe's Cafe, another Key West institution (since 1909), where we got the friendly treatment and the tasty platter of bivalves that we had come to Key West for.
People having a bad day should not take it out on well-meaning customers. Pepe's: thumbs up. Half Shell: Thumbs down.
