Metro Cafe – the Best Restaurants in NYC
4924 8th Ave Brooklyn, NY 11220 Cliche-avoidance-be-damned, Sunset Park is a treasure trove. We at Smart Getaways actively encourage readers to get out of Manhattan to experience the best restaurants New York has to offer, and you sure don’t have to go as far as Flushing or Sunset Park to find great eats, but […]
Atlantic City 2 – Weekend Getaways from NYC
In part one of this series, I floated the controversial idea that perhaps Atlantic City warranted inclusion in a list of six smart weekend getaways from New York, both because of its well-earned reputation as well-worn tourist-trap and in spite of it. Come for the amazing Asian food, wineries, beaches, and…dare I say it…shopping, […]
Atlantic City 1 – Weekend Getaways from NYC
Forget everything you think you know about Atlantic City. Don’t get me wrong – it is all that. Playground of broken dreams, Ozymandian vestige of ostentatiousness, neon-stucco-and-chrome found-object monument to a time when Roger Moore was Bond, Trump’s hair was real, and you could still get a hot meal on a transcontinental flight. AC’s […]
Voula’s Offshore Cafe – What to Eat in Seattle
658 NE Northlake Way Seattle, WA 98105 Voula’s is just about as directly opposite The Fat Hen as you can get within the confines of deliciousness. For starters, it was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives. High falutin this is not. (And good damn riddance.) Amid spartan surroundings, Voula’s cuts-to-the-chase, serving up big portions of […]
The Fat Hen – What to Eat in Seattle
1418 NW 70th St Seattle, WA 98117 Believe-it-or-not, not every restaurant we visited made it into the “where to eat” section of this blog. We tried several brunch joints, and in the end are including only two, which offer a good “spread”, one representing excellence in “greasy spoon” diner food (it’s not actually greasy), […]
The Fare for That Itinerary is No longer Available – Travel Hacks
If the above looks familiar, you’ve fallen victim to one of the most annoying little-known idiosyncrasies of online flight booking. After weeks of searching, watching the trend lines, monitoring the fare alerts, and comparing airlines and itineraries, you’re finally ready to buy, so you click “select” on your choice-of-flight, you click through to the […]
Airfare Hacks 2 – The Real Way to Score Cheap Airfare
There’s a lot of so-called science about booking cheap airfares, some of it (like the assertion that airfares are cheapest at the beginning of the week) mostly-true, some of it (that 3-months-in-advance is a “sweet spot”, or that certain weekdays are always cheaper to fly) dubious. Luckily, we don’t need folklore. We have Kayak. […]
Hye Ky Mi Gia – Cheap Eats in Seattle
1207 S Jackson St Seattle, WA 98144 Anyone with a finely-honed taste for Asian food respects the mini mall. To some, the concrete jungle of LA’s koreatown, bespotted as it is by nail salons, massage parlors, cram schools, and travel agencies, is a thing of beauty. Of course we’re writing not about LA, but about […]
Umi Sake House – What to Eat in Seattle
2230 1st Ave Seattle, WA 98121 Seattle has, for many years enjoyed a close relationship with its neighbor across the pond, Japan, and Japan has made its influence felt in different ways here than in New York. It’s deeper, older. You notice it right away in the food. Japanese food in New York seems transplanted […]
Green Leaf Vietnamese Cafe – Cheap Eats in Seattle
418 8th Ave S Seattle, WA Like many good Asian restaurants in the US, the Green Leaf presents exceptional food in unassuming surroundings. Located on the south-eastern corner of Seattle’s “China Town” – really an international district including restaurants, shops, grocery stores, boutiques, and even museums representing Chinese, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Filipino […]
