Pike Place Market and the Bubblegum Wall – Seattle
So, first question: is pike place market worth an afternoon? The answer is a qualified “yes”. If it’s your first trip, definitely go. The street theater, like the fish-tossing-guys, is entertaining, and, lest I forget, this is a *real market*, with fantastic produce, seafood, flowers, and other odds-and-ends. Try samples, eat at one of […]
Puget Sound Ferry Mini-Road Trip – Seattle
If it’s your first visit to Seattle, or even if it’s not, it might be worth your while to take the ferry across Puget sound to either Bainbridge Island or Bremmerton, drive up the strait, and take the Kingston ferry back. I’ve termed this a “mini-road-trip.” Once across the sound, stuff gets rural. In […]
Boeing and The Future of Flight Tour – Seattle
It’s easy to appreciate one of America’s great companies and the real-life sci-fi movie set its factory contains if you’re a nerd like me. I’m going to go out on a limb, though, and argue the Future of Flight tour at Boeing’s Everett, WA factory has far broader appeal. True, it’s part science fiction, […]
Travel Hacks – Uber
Photo by Diego Torres Silvestre If you’ve ever tried to hail a cab in the rain, negotiated one price with a driver and ended up paying a different one when you arrived, or schlepped your luggage up or down the subway stairs because you thought it would be impossible to get a cab, get […]
Travel Hacks – Car Rental
I was all set to publish a review lauding the virtues of the mainline agencies like Hertz, Avis, and Entreprise, and lamenting that their primary competition, Zipcar, hasn’t yet delivered on its promise to a sufficient degree to be taken seriously – then reality intervened. SEATAC, this week, Hertz counter – Agent: The car […]
The Underground Tour – Seattle
Seattle’s now-famous underground tour could go one of two ways – either it’s a kind of sex-and-the-city tour of the 1890s – one in which you grow to know a few key “characters” in Seattle’s history and appreciate the locations for their significance in the story, or it’s a mildly-interesting set of cellars with […]
Shabu Shabu 70 – The Best Restaurants in NYC
Shabu Shabu 70 is named for East 70th street, where it sits, but it might just as well have been named after the ’70s, because that’s how it feels when you walk in the door. The walls are painted in an off-white so off it’s almost lime green, and it’s the type of paint […]
Nha Trang One – The Best Restaurants in NYC
87 Baxter St, New York, NY In the US, at least, Vietnamese restaurants are judged by their pho, just as Thai restaurants, for better or worse, are judged by their…don’t make me say it… Photo Credit How large a factor should authenticity be? If a restaurant conjures something delicious, how much should we care […]
Corner Bistro – The Best Restaurants in NYC
Like many New Yorkers, I have a long and warm association with Corner Bistro. My “first time” was in March of 2001, when I was staying in the West Village with a family friend, visiting for an audition. (A story I know half of New Yorkers my age share in common;) Tired from the […]
Clinton Street Baking Company – The Best Restaurants in NYC
You can thank Bobby Flay for the lines. At least partially. In 2009 Flay challenged the good proprietors of Clinton Street Baking Company to a pancake match on his ridiculous/wonderful show Throwdown, and a legend was born. 35 minutes of continuous high-definition blueberry pancake porn must deaden the reasoning centers in the brain. Why […]
