Category: Drinking

Kilt me now

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

I’m trying, I really am. 

I’m trying to get super excited about Scotland, much as I tried a year ago to get jazzed about Ireland. 

We know how that turned out: I bought a flight to Dublin only to exchange it a week later for a flight to Paris. It was after I studied the destination with a flea comb, burrowed into my research, only to arrive at the great existential query: What am I thinking? (I ask this frequently in my life.)

I’m sure Ireland is splendid, despite the fact that pubs, pubs and pubs are invariably named the top experience in everything I read. A friend just returned from Dublin and said it’s terrific — for two or three days. Then you run out of things to do. At that point, of course, you rent a car for the verdant countryside and … yawn, you lost me. 

I’m an urban traveler. I seek culture, cuisine, cobblestone. Art, edifices, bustling humanity and idiosyncratic neighborhoods. I also seek cool climates — I’m done sweltering in the tropics — for summer travel. Last July I went to Buenos Aires to, among many reasons, escape our heat. I slipped on my jacket each day with a big grin. 

And so, Scotland. I’m eyeing a May trip to the capital Edinburgh and Glasgow, the largest city in the country, both of which brim with museums, castles, street art, music (here is where I make peace with bagpipes), hearty food (do I dare try haggis?) and, a-ha, whisky. May weather hovers in the mid-50s and below and I’m already happily shivering.

Like Ireland, Scotland is comprised of highlands, lowlands, islands, cliffs, crags, rolling pastures and billowing grass. It’s lousy with forts and castles. It doesn’t look like I’ll get into all that, though I might be whisked away on a day trip. I probably should.

Maybe I’ll spot Nessie, the wondrous Loch Ness Monster, and hitch a ride on her mythical scaly back through the chill waters. (As a kid, I used to love Nessie, that bashful and elusive lake dinosaur. I thought she and Bigfoot should get married.)

I am a wee nervous about the language, specifically the knotty Scottish brogue, which contorts familiar English into musical pretzels and thick-tongued tootles that leave some of us wincing with incomprehension. I once worked with a native Scot named Alan Black and I couldn’t understand a damn word he said. We got along swimmingly, but I’m sure I missed 60 percent of what he was telling me. 

This worries me, the rogue brogue. I’ll be made the fool by cheery locals who will snicker at me between sips of lager and Glenfiddich, doing spit takes. I’ll be the dumb American carrying around an ear funnel, going, “What’s that, mate?”

I can do this. The more I excavate, the more Scotland attracts. I’m thinking seven days between the two cities, yet there’s more to explore. The trip could get longer, epic, out of control. It could go from a jaunt to a journey. I like that. (Cue: “Loch Lomond.”)

Am I sure about this?

Getting down with dinner, and keeping it down

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Last year in Lisbon, Portugal, I was served a 12-course meal that stuffed me so brutally, I was this close to dashing to the restaurant bathroom and purging myself. I felt like an engorged zeppelin, about to burst with the sloshing goulash bloating my belly. I was in theatrical distress. 

And the food, which was amazing, kept coming. And coming. I finally had to hold up a hand when the server brought the final course, which was a square of baklava the size of a matchbox. That hand said, “Cease. Go back wherefrom you came. Take that morsel of food with you. Be gone before disaster strikes.” 

Still, he insisted on boxing up the dessert. I conceded. All the while an argument raged between my mind and my stomach. The mind won. By the grace of god, I did not vomit. 

I was reminded of this fine-dining discomfort the other night at an eatery that’s the opposite of the gourmet Portuguese blowout: La Tapatia, a homey, festively painted Mexican restaurant/cantina in Concord, Ca., some 30 minutes east of San Francisco. 

(My brother and I are in the East Bay clearing out my late Mom’s townhouse and putting it on the market. Wading through Everests of old photos is by turns amusing, exhausting, and wildly depressing.) 

We adore La Tapatia and anticipated its decadent cuisine before we left the East Coast. It’s a destination spot dishing up fiercely old-school Mexican food: chips and salsa, margaritas, rice and refried beans, tacos, burritos, the whole enchilada. 

With a tangy margarita, I had a chicken taco and chicken enchilada. The plate was massive, flooded in a sea of beans and rice: 

It was deliriously good. But here’s the thing: I got so gorged on chips and dinner, I spontaneously puked when I got back home. It was quick and painless, and I topped it with a gin and tonic. I’m disgusting. (A girlfriend once told me I have the “constitution of a bird.” I cannot argue with this.)

To offset the stress and gloom of this seven-day trip, we’ve turned it into a foodie foray, hitting many good places — we’re eating out twice a day, every day — as well as favorite restaurants we’ve long loved in the area.

Like the scrappy, frantic joint in San Francisco’s Chinatown. From the SF airport, we went straight to our reliable haunt House of Nanking, where I had the celebrated Nanking Sesame Chicken, a dish of cosmic savoriness:

I’ve mentioned before that I own a House of Nanking t-shirt. It’s that good. I learned that scenes from “The Matrix Resurrections” were filmed there. Photos of Keanu Reeves with the beaming owner paper the windows. For some reason, I’m proud.

Yesterday we met our old friend Tony for lunch at the classy, very bougie Acre Kitchen & Bar on College Avenue in Berkeley. Though the sardines, arriving with three tiny bottles of Tabasco, were wonderful, Tony was the highlight. He’s about the nicest guy you could know, a real mensch, radiating a gentle joy that inspires faith in the world. He ate a French dip and took a selfie of us.

Sardines and Tabasco. Tony didn’t have any.

In Berkeley, where my brother went to Cal, we kicked around used book and record stores, working up an appetite for an early dinner at Alice Waters’ legendary restaurant Chez Panisse. Considering this could be our final trip to the Bay Area, we splurged on the crazy-expensive four-course dinner menu, which changes daily, and it went like this: 

California white sea bass tartare with Meyer lemon, ginger, and fried capers

Wild mushroom ravioli in brodo with Parmesan

Corvus Farm guinea hen roasted in the hearth; with potato-rutabaga purée, spring onions, and spinach

Hazelnut sherbet and chocolate ice cream meringata

Guinea hen roasted in the hearth.

Pretentious? Nuh-uh. Chez Panisse keeps it real with a humble farm-to-table ethos that’s exquisitely prepped and presented. Service is impeccable, always with a smiling expansiveness, never fussy, and often with a quip or two. The food: spectacular without being show-offy. It’s special but to the point.

I don’t think I’m overselling the experience, because we went back two nights later  (after scrambling for a coveted reservation) for the more modest à la carte menu, no less delicious and memorable. My appetizer was “sprouting broccoli roasted in the wood oven with preserved lemon and mint yogurt”; my main course was “grilled lamb leg with shoestring potatoes, glazed carrots, and red wine butter” — all of it superb, as expected.

Bonus: I didn’t throw up. 

My big birthday wish list (aren’t I worth it?)

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

My birthday’s fast approaching. Here’s what you can get me (thanks!):

1. The hefty new book “Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears” by New Yorker staffer Michael Schulman. It sounds frivolous, and a lot of it surely is, but it also promises a chunky serving of cultural history about the loved and lambasted Academy Awards, dusted with tidbits, like the similarities between two of my all-time favorite movies, “All About Eve” and “Sunset Boulevard.” Reviews say it’s compulsively readable, if you’re into that stuff, and I am. The damn thing costs $40. 

2. Monkey 47 — A deliciously complicated and original gin that’s out of my price range by a good 30 dollars. I generally wait to get this bottle as a gift. So I say to you: Go for it!

3. A pair of Black Ghost sneakers from Italian brand Oliver Cabell. They run a gulping $270 (that’s with a $68-off promotion code). But these “fashion-forward” kicks are true beauts: top-notch black leather matched with clear rubber outsoles — not white, black or gum, but clear. They’ll probably rack me with flesh-shredding blisters, but what’s searing pain in the name of unspeakable hotness?

4. Dinner for two at four-star, impossible-to-get-into restaurant Le Bernardin in New York, where you can nosh an eight-course tasting menu with caviar and langoustines for a piddling $298 per person. I promise you a doggy bag. Maybe.

5. A round-trip ticket to Istanbul in the fall. Expensive, you say? Hey, economy class is just fine. I like pretzels.

6. Any ritzy anti-aging serum that’s not hawked by Gwyneth Paltrow or Jennifer Lopez, those obscenely compensated airbrushed quacks. I’ve got a couple of crow’s feet that are absolutely mocking me. 

7. I chose seven gifts because my birthday lands on April 7. It’s a neat number, and a lucky one, too. But it’s awfully small. So how about $700 in cash, please. Cool.

Best. Birthday. Ever!

Flitting about Florence

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

The humongous duomo (cathedral) that is the centerpiece of Florence slams you with its blunt-force beauty. Instead of describing it, which would reduce its flamboyance to a clinical chill, here’s a couple of shots that hint at its Renaissance marble glory:

Elaborate, bold, proud. And yet the cathedral’s interior is almost naked, largely stripped of art and artifice, the gaudy trimmings of Catholicism. Except for some stained glass, it is cold and gray, stubbornly spartan. 

But then you look up at Brunelleschi’s mind-boggling, logic-defying dome and soak in Vasari’s “Last Judgement,” one of the world’s largest paintings, a spectacular sprawl of doomsday religious commotion. I craned my neck and arched my back for a proper peek, stretching body parts that I’ve never used before. The painting, which gives the interior a dazzling kick, is outright sublime.

As is Florence, which at times seems to be one enormous fashion show cum gelato shop. That’s not a complaint.

Last night, I ate my first sit-down dinner here at a highly acclaimed restaurant (ristorante!), whose groovy chef/owner wears so many arm bangles he practically looks bionic, or like a distant cousin of C-3PO. He’s one of those characters who hangs photos of himself with celebrities like John Travolta all over the joint. 

Today, to see more of Tuscany, I beat it about 40 minutes outside the city to Chianti, land of fine red wine. I was with a tour group of mostly swell people for a wine tasting and damn it started early. We had to meet at 8:45 a.m. and the drinking began at 10 a.m. sharp and lasted till 1 p.m. We were all baffled. But it turned out well and I was back at my hotel by 2:30 p.m.

The guides basically left the group tipsy then thundered off in the big bus. Everyone I talked to said they were going to go take a nap, which I shamefully admit I did (for all of 20 minutes). 

At one of the wineries, three Labrador Retrievers roamed the idyllic grounds when they weren’t begging for belly rubs and general adorable attention. I liked the dogs immensely, even more than some of the wine poured so generously — and frequently. This place is vino mad, and I like it.

Getting there is half the battle, but so worth it

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

It’s a blinding blue 60-degree Monday in Florence, Italy, and I just about broke my neck slipping on a yellow glob of melting gelato on the sidewalk. Except for the fact that I almost became a paraplegic, I will not complain. 

See, this happened a block from my hotel, which — both boon and bane — is plumb in the fluttering heart of the ancient Renaissance city center: the Duomo, Medici Museum, Academia, Uffizi, and I’ll stop before this embarrassment of riches makes me flush. I say bane because it’s teeming with bodies — though, from what I gather, most are locals; they’re speaking Italian and looking stunningly chic. Locals are good, even local tourists. They almost always make a journey better. Fellow American tourists? Meh.

Yet I’ve only been here an hour, so what do I know? Maybe I’ll get mugged, or pummeled for persistently mispronouncing grazie. Big plans await this week in Tuscany, a region peppered with medieval towns and fecund vineyards and a particular tower with dismal posture. I will tour cathedrals and museums, take day trips to crumbly towns, and sip vino, nectar of the gods (next to bourbon and gin).

An angle of the Duomo, Florence

Getting abroad is always fun for me, ha. I can’t sleep on the seven- to 10-hour red-eyes, and this time I had a delightful layover in Munich, where the short flight to Florence was delayed and my fortitude, eyes and shoulders were drooping gruesomely, Quasimodo-ly. 

Finally we were herded into a standing-room-only shuttle bus and dumped at the bottom of steep stairs leading to a tiny jet. Ascending, I felt like Joe Biden, like I should turn and wave to the press scrum and his half dozen fans.

I had a bad feeling about this winged, rickety rust bucket. When it finally got off the ground, creaking and rattling, I was reminded of a bi-plane, or worse, one of those tiny-tot airplanes you put a quarter in and rock about on the curbside in front of Safeway or Target. 

But we made it, despite the bloody fingernails and crippling jet lag. More on how the hell it’s all going down later. For now, a much-needed cocktail at swooningly classy bar/restaurant/book and flower shop La Ménagère, a stone’s throw from the Duomo:

A flaneur in Florence

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

The frivolities in my life are legion, but travel isn’t one of them, despite how trivial a far-flung journey might seem — or ultimately be. (Most trips soar. Some sink.) 

In three weeks I head to Florence, Italy. Though I’ve been there twice, the last visit was in the Paleolithic Age. I wanted something mellow, somewhat familiar, distinctly European, with lots of marble, museums, manicotti, and mustaches on both men and women.

The city is a cornucopia of artistic abundance: Michelangelo’s David; Donatello’s bittier David; the Uffizi, that Renaissance eruption of Botticelli to da Vinci; Ghiberti’s bronze doors; Brunelleschi’s dome; the locals’ luxuriant facial hair.

I was last in Italy in March 2022, ferrying between Rome and Naples, the latter a bracing revelation, rough-hewn and bristling with a singular urban snap. As novelties go — serpentine side streets, graffiti, killer Neapolitan pizza — it sort of kicked Rome’s ass. In July I swanned to beautiful Buenos Aires. In October, magical Madrid.

Florence seemed like a good middle-ground — encrusted in a glorious past but not overly exotic; grand but not overwhelmingly vast. It’s not like going to jostling Taipei, say, or sunbaked Algeria, which I hear is majestic. Yet Forbes did name Florence the most beautiful city in the world in 2010.

No, this would be a week luxuriating in western art, architecture, food, drink, scenery, inhaling the rarefied air of undiluted enchantment. I imagine me a self-styled flaneur, strolling the cobblestones, gilded walking stick in one hand, tipping my top hat to passersby with the other. And then I snap out of it and pinch the bridge of my nose.

Florence is not massive. So I’m making at least one day trip to Central Tuscany, namely Siena and San Gimignano, medieval towns cluttered with Gothic architecture and honeycombed with history. The region is also a wellspring of Chianti, and tippling some of the red elixir from the source is essential.

I have made five restaurant reservations in Florence, from a traditional trattoria to a Michelin-star bistro. I will eat pasta and pizza and exist — and subsist — a bit like Stanley Tucci, without the bald pate and skinny chinos (but with the dashing scarf). I might also employ a larger vocabulary of superlatives than just, “This is so good” when I taste something delicious.

And though Tucci meets up, and hams it up, with lots of local hosts, he makes it appear he is his own man, ambling the streets of Italy, the stylish flaneur (that word again), when really, of course, he’s accompanied by a small battalion of producers and technicians taping him all the way.  

If life were only like that. I travel solo most of the time, by choice. But once in a while it might be nice to have a crew of professional sycophants at your beck and call, filming you, powdering your nose, providing the background about everyone you’re about to meet and everywhere you’re about to go so you appear super smart and amply informed. 

I do what I can. I read books, watch Tucci and Bourdain, comb the net, view movies. In the end, I’m still alone, tramping about the glittering city, whose promise is assured. I think that’s pretty cool. And I think that’s quite enough.  

New Year’s Eve, or New Year’s Evil?

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

New Year’s Eve — long known as amateur night for all its novice partiers (the ones who puke in the backseat of the Uber) — is a sloppy spectacle charged with debauchery, douchebaggery and, on occasion, responsible revelry. 

It’s tailored to the same people who get all giddy and bug-eyed over the very idea of a celebration, be it Mardi Gras, spring break or a bachelorette party. It’s all about skin-deep decadence, dude! Now put your tongue back in your face.

I’ve done my share of Jim Morrisonian indulgence on New Year’s Eve, long time ago when a frilly party hat and chintzy noisemaker didn’t mortify me. Now even streamers and confetti make me blush and I really sink into a sulfurous funk when I see giant eyeglasses with frames spelling “2023” in glitter. Outsized and clownish, they look fit for an orca at SeaWorld. 

But I’m not allergic to a robust get-together with wine, folks and song, even though I shy away from them year by year. Hell, tonight I’m begging off a gathering of five for drinks in a living room. And it’s a pretty safe bet that I won’t be watching Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen get hilariously-slash-obnoxiously tipsy for the Times Square ball drop on CNN. (The dropping ball — what does it all mean?)

My last NYE soiree was pre-Covid, naturally, and it was fine, fun, chill. Maybe 10 of us, imbibing, blabbing, noshing, each one getting visibly more exhausted as midnight ticked-tocked to blast off. I get bored just thinking about it.

The rest of you tear it up, safely, sagely. Wear the dumb glasses, hurl confetti, drink up. But don’t bother anyone, rankle your fellow revelers. Especially the hardworking, don’t-want-to-deal-wth-drunks Uber drivers, who’d also really appreciate it if you didn’t barf in the backseat. I’ve talked to these people, and believe me, tonight they are dreading you. Don’t be that guy.

Spirited away

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I had the local liquor store — a florescent-splashed airplane hangar thronged with miles and miles of bottles — deliver some goodies to the house. One, because I’m lazy. And two, because I’m lazy. 

But really, the Amazonian efficiency of having port dropped on your porch or Stella on your steps is unbeatable. I’m all in my sweats and sockies and here’s Delivery Don, waving as he heads back to his van, leaving me a box of hooch that will make these polar evenings that much toastier. 

This was a Christmas score, because I was lucky enough to receive a $100 gift card for said booze emporium. So I splurged, spent the whole thing in one big gulp, all on gin. As a gin dilettante, I generally sip the low-shelf stuff at home and order a suave tipple like Hendrick’s, The Botanist or the mighty Monkey 47 at cocktail bars. 

With the gift card, I was going to kick it up a bit. I wanted to get three gins that I’d never tried before. Obviously they couldn’t be too pricey — I would have loved to get some Monkey 47, but a small bottle runs $75 — yet they could still be good, even exotic.

I poked around the web doing due research and soon found a trio of intriguing options. The first to hook me was the hot new Sông Cái, a dry Vietnamese gin “crafted from wild, hand-foraged mountain botanicals” that boasts a pleasant herbal burn and a strong cinnamon finish. For a gin and tonic, my go-to, the distillery suggests adding a pinch of salt. I did and it was deliciously alien and inarguably apt. A winner. (Check out Sông Cái.)

Second was on the gimmicky side, the Dorothy Parker New York Gin, distilled in Brooklyn and, yes, a tribute to the legendary wag, wit, writer and imbiber, who I happen to adore. You’d expect bite, pungency — Parker was the epitome of acid-tongued — but the drink exerts an old-fashioned smoothness. Botanicals are juniper, orange, lemon, grapefruit, cardamom, cinnamon, elderberry and dried hibiscus petals. It’s gently complex, richly satisfying. (And just under $30.)

Then there’s the elegant French gin Citadelle — Jardin d’Été, a strong, zesty bracer infused with melon, lemon, yuzu and orange, like a fruit garden, hence the name. Fancied as a fair-weather drink, it works anytime of the year, like now, in the shivery gloom, because it’s so refreshing yet muscular, especially if you add your own fruit garnishes. It rattles the icicles right off. 

While I’m a wine and whiskey guy, gin’s my main sin. I don’t know when I became so partial to the 500-year-old spirit (while watching too many “Thin Man” movies?), but I find it sophisticated, beguilingly herbal and neatly versatile. Though no martini fan, I will drink the more fragrant, flavorful gins sans mixer, on the rocks. Monkey 47 is good like that. So is the underrated Brockmans, an affordable dram singing with lively grape notes. 

It’s nice to splurge now and then on a top-shelf gin, say, Kinobi, or Monkey 47. But really, 30 bucks should get you an excellent bottle, and the selection in that range is huge. Shop around, do some homework. Better liquor stores have informative websites, with write-ups, reviews and trusty staff picks. One of my favorites is Astor Wines & Spirits in Manhattan. Take your time. Ask questions. Purchase. Pour. Go nuts.

I’m going, no matter what

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Am I getting sick, dammit? Is this portentous throb in my brain the on-ramp to a massive cold? Is that familiar scratch in my throat a tease to a burning ribbit? Do those worrisome pangs in my limbs augur aches across my entire body?

Am I pissed about all this?

Yes, I am!

For one, I hate being sick — and that, reader, is the winner of the most unoriginal statement in the history of the world. 

Two, I have a date. With Philadelphia to be exact. This week. A three-day assignation with some fine art, that’s what it is. And excellent food. And an unapologetic dive bar named Dirty Frank’s. That is correct: Dirty Frank’s. 

Philly is only two hours away. And there happens to be two art shows worth some time there: “Matisse in the 1930s” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (the place with the mountainous steps that Sylvester Stallone scales in “Rocky” — and why did I feel I had to mention that?), and “Modigliani Up Close” at the peerless Barnes Foundation, one of my very favorite venues for aesthetic astonishments.

And food. I will indulge in delicious vittles (and drink) at Village Whiskey (burgers, the eponymous hooch, and oodles of class) and The Dandelion, a “sophisticated homage to the British pub.” Last time I was there, I ate right next to a crackling fireplace.

We can’t overlook Dirty Frank’s, that famous cash-only, no-nonsense skank bar just around the corner from my hotel. It’s a neat, neon-splashed, Bud-in-the-bottle joint, replete with a hard-rocking jukebox, darts, pinball and miles of tats. Vice magazine calls it “a gleaming oasis of weird in a town beset by 21st-century slickening that’s always made people its primary business, no matter who those people are.” Word-for-word, my cold seems to fade at that description.

But is it actually fading? My head still thumps, my throat slightly sizzles. It’s time for three more Advils. I got a flu shot in September, so it can’t be the flu, can it? And I’ve had Covid and I don’t have any respiratory symptoms. And yet …

Take it easy, I tell myself. As I gulp down the pills, I toast good riddance to any sick and hello to Matisse, Modigliani — and Frank. Now, as further deterrence, I plop down for a nap. And I dream of Philadelphia.

A few years ago at Dirty Frank’s. The pooch and his pilsner.

Winkless at 35,000 feet

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Right now it’s 104 degrees at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, which seems appropriate considering the facility’s infernal namesake. I have arrived from the East Coast, where it was 74 at 10 a.m. — it will hit 94 — and I am connecting to a flight that will take me to the land of 54 degrees, for it is winter in Buenos Aires, my latest destination on my quest to see as much of the world as I can before it blows up.

Hours later, I write this in the dark on a punishing nine-hour redeye during that weird interval when the pilot douses the cabin lights so his human cargo can go sleepy time. I’m a jet-plane insomniac so that trick ain’t working. Instead I atrophy in my seat, reading a bit, maybe watching a few minutes of a movie (or eavesdropping on what others are watching — almost uniform tripe), but mostly fiddling my brain’s thumbs and sneaking the occasional mini bottle of scotch that I smuggled aboard. (Contraband. I rule.)

Of course, as always, the guy next to me is comatose, swaddled in a blue airline blankie, a rivulet of drool squiggling down his chin — paradise. And there I’ll be when we disembark, sleep-deprived, pissed-off, testy, tetchy, impatient — and singing glory hallelujah I’m in South America, my first time on the continent! Bloodshot eyeballs, bewhiskered, frowzy hair — who cares. The miracle of modern aeronautics has delivered me someplace new and far, uncharted and exciting. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into.

And that’s the gist of it. No matter how physically miserable I am right now — there’s six hours left on the flight and I’ll be burning untold calories fidgeting, not to mention enduring fearsome temblors of turbulence — I still have much to look forward to, lots of which I’ll probably share here. 

Meanwhile, I have a funny novel to finish, some hooch to furtively sip and a few episodes of “Rick and Morty” to watch. Things could be a hell of a lot worse.