Perpetual Carouse

Robots + Cocktails = Awesome

Had dinner at Nopa earlier this week.

It was easily the best meal I've had this year. The food was excellent, service was perfect (even while the restaurant was packed to the gills) and the company was great. My buddy Travis was in town from Portland, so we were celebrating his new baby, and my new job. Cheers all around.

Highlights?

Anything with the house-cured bacon.

The warm goat cheese with crostini and pickled beets was pretty awesome too... and theoretically I hate beets.

Bauer gave 'em three stars, but in my book, four definitely. I think Nopa is my new favorite.

I stumbled upon this video via a friend of a friend, and I'd have to agree with his advice.

Don't ever make this drink. Ever.

Mint Juleps are awesome... one of my favorite drinks, but what the hell this crime against humanity and good bourbon is, I do not know. This bartender ought to be ashamed of herself.

1. Ming Tsai is getting fat... but he's still a bad ass.

2. I get the idea of this challenge... being able to identify quality product is crucial for a chef. But... price is not the same as quality. Why are they showing the price of the respective items as an indicator of quality?

Looks like $20,000 coffee machines are the new food fetish objects.

I have a hard time wrapping my brain around spending that much on a coffee machine, even if intellectually I can understand how they might be really, really fantastic. Maybe. I have to think that the point of diminishing returns has to kick in somewhere well south of both these machines' price points, though. My $20 press pot brews up a pretty good cup, after all.

The $20,000 Japanese machine has touched down in SF, so I'll post a full report when I get a chance to check it out. With any luck, I can convince some comrades in Portland to send us a report of the more modestly priced $11,000 miracle machine in use at Stumptown.

Stay tuned.

Bacon Salt: Everything should taste like bacon.

I can't say I disagree.

Via BoingBoing: Trader Vic's is having a warehouse sale to get rid of some of their surplus tiki stuff. If you've ever had fantasies of converting your basement into a tiki bar (and really, who hasn't?) get yourself over to Richmond, CA.

Trader Vic's Warehouse Sale
623 S. 32nd St.
Richmond, CA
Feb. 23-29
10a-7p

Faced with growing competition from cheaper rivals, Starbucks Corp. is selling small cups of drip coffee for $1 with free refills as part of a test in its hometown.

- AP, Via the Chron

It's no secret that I hate the 'Bucks. Mostly, it's that whole thing with the coffee sucking and all, but I'm not into the pretentious faux-Italian either, nor the fact that every Starbucks everywhere looks like every Starbucks everywhere else. But seriously, does Starbucks need even longer lines than they already have? Really?

This just in:

A dude at the Nuremberg airport chugged a liter of vodka rather than throw it out or pay to have the bottle checked as cargo. He was later admitted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.

In not-really-related news, I watched the airplane episode of Mythbusters last night, and unfortunately they did not address the myth of being able to hijack an airplane with a three ounce bottle of liquid that only has an ounce of liquid actually in it. So we're still stuck throwing out nearly everything before getting on a plane.

Sigh.

Cool time-lapse of this year's ginormous gingerbread house at Disney's Grand Floridian Hotel: