travel

Dinner at Next

August 19, 2011
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We ate at four Chicago restaurants in five days. I let friends take care of the reservations for three of them, but I knew if we wanted to eat at Next that I would have to wrangle the table myself. Chef Grant Achatz and partner Nick Kokonas had settled on a ticket-based system that would [...]

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Dinner at Boka

August 17, 2011
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The plan was to get a reservation at Alinea. With all of the attention focused on Next, we assumed that a table at Grant Achatz’s other restaurant would be easy to obtain. Unfortunately, those lousy Chicago summer tourists managed to snatch up every available reservation for the week we’d be there. Fortunately, Claudia, an old [...]

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Dinner at Publican

August 13, 2011
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Our Chicago hosts for the week, having recently moved to the area themselves, asked me to recommend a place for dinner that would accommodate their varied tastes, which ranged from the adventurous to the not-at-all adventurous. I recommended Publican, the newest addition to chef Paul Kahan’s empire which also includes Blackbird and Avec. The atmosphere [...]

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Chicago Dogs

August 11, 2011
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We were somewhere around Park Ridge on the edge of the Chicago when the fatigue began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge hot dogs, [...]

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Dinner at Lola

August 9, 2011
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We have returned from out vacation trip to Chicago, a drive that we thought best to split into two days each way. On the westbound leg we decided to stop in Cleveland for the evening, knowing the next day would begin with a visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I also viewed [...]

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Goin’ to Chicago

July 29, 2011
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Starting tomorrow, She Who Must Be Obeyed, He Who Will Not Be Ignored, and I are taking a well-deserved vacation. We’re driving out to Chicago by way of Cleveland (Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Lola restaurant), spending a week sightseeing and eating (Next, Publican, Boka, and various hot dog emporia), then returning by way of Buffalo [...]

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Au Pied de Cochon

August 19, 2009
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The best meal I ate in Montreal was planned months in advance, inspired (predictably, if you’re a regular reader) by the Quebec episode of No Reservations, first aired in April of 2006: Yes, I remembered this restaurant for three years, and jumped at the chance to attend the World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal just [...]

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A Montreal Culinary Baseline

August 12, 2009

The Shaw clan spent six days in Montreal, where we attended the 67th World Science Fiction Convention. In keeping with He Who Will Not Be Ignored’s ongoing project to eat a hot dog in every new city he visits, we chose to end our walk through the old city with a lunch at McGill Hot [...]

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What I Say

April 29, 2009

We’re back from our London vacation. I was reviewing some of the video footage we shot, and found this, taken by Diane at the British Museum: We were concerned that Miles would be either bored with or overwhelmed by the amount of information at the museum. As you can see, our fears were unfounded. Not [...]

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Borough Market

April 26, 2009

Our friend Gretchen, who has lived in London for 13 years, took us along for her weekend shopping trip to Borough Market, literally under London Bridge. I feel quite lucky to live near the Union Square Farmer’s Market. It’s open on Saturdays from 9 AM to 3 PM, from June through November. It fills the [...]

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