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NOPA San Francisco

NOPA is located north of the panhandle in San Francisco and serves up rustic wood-fired cuisine. We stopped in for brunch on a Sunday morning and it was standing room only. Luckily I made a reservation. We were immediately seated at a table upstairs overlooking all the action. We had a view of  the open kitchen, bustling bar [...]

The Melt

The man behind the Flip video camera has opened up a high-tech chain of grilled cheese fast food restaurants called The Melt all over the Bay area. Since we were at the Stanford Mall in Palo Alto to pick up the new S’more cupcake at Sprinkles we stopped in for lunch. The menu was fairly simple [...]

Umami Burger

When humans eat, they use all of their senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) to form general judgments about their food, but it is taste that is the most influential in determining how delicious a food is. Conventionally, it has been thought that our sense of taste is comprised of four basic, or ‘primary’, [...]

Fremont Diner – Sonoma

Fremont Diner is a small revamped diner in Sonoma that serves up tasty vittles like pulled pork, corn fritters, Oyster Po’Boy, mac n cheese and fried pies. Yes, another healthy meal for us! When we told a local we were heading over for lunch he said the food was good but then warned us about the service. When [...]

72 Hours in Seattle

Mike and I spent a long weekend in Seattle visiting friends. We had never been so we arrived with a long list of things we wanted to check out and luckily our hosts were game to show us around. Here are the highlights! Day 1 We arrived around noon and it was amazingly sunny and [...]

Cambridge: Hungry Mother & Toscanini’s Ice Cream

For our last evening in Boston we headed to Cambridge. We decided to first check out a small restaurant called Hungry Mother that serves up seasonal southern grub. We ordered the following: GREEN TOMATO GAZPACHO: maine crab salad, cherry tomatoes, cornbread crumbs FRIED CHICKEN: sautéed collard greens, compressed watermelon, tabasco honey LOCAL CATCH: summer corn [...]

SPORTELLO restaurant & DRINK cocktail bar

On our second evening we ventured to the waterfront area for dinner and drinks at Sportello and Drink, both owned by one of Boston’s most renowned chefs Barbara Lynch. Sportello (Italian for counter) is a modern Italian take on a diner. The restaurant is composed of almost all counter seating with an open kitchen. The [...]

Sam Adams Brewery Tour

BEST FREE TOUR EVER!!!! If you have time to go out to Jamaica Plain and do this tour I highly recommend it because you get to drink beer for free ~kinda (they suggest that you leave a couple bucks that is donated to the local community). Mike and I are not big beer drinkers but we still had fun. [...]

Mike & Patty’s

I had heard that an itty bitty sandwich shop in Boston’s bay village neighborhood serves up some killer breakfast eats so on our way to the Sam Adams brewery tour we stopped by for some morning grub. You don’t want to drink on an empty stomach ! We ordered 2 sandwiches: – fancy bacon and [...]

Flour Bakery

Joanne Chang is the chef/owner of Flour Bakery. The Harvard grad turned pastry chef beat Bobby Flay in a Sticky Bun throwdown so of course we had to stop by one of her 3 locations to see what all the hype was about. We arrived at 1pm so it was a bit busy with the [...]

Neptune Oyster

Our first meal in Boston had to be seafood and all reviews pointed to Neptune Oyster. I knew ahead of time that it was difficult to get a table because they don’t take reservations and they only have 6 small tables and a long bar. Protocol is to arrive and put your name on the list and [...]

Boston 2011

We had an awesome trip to Boston the first week of August. We stayed at the Omni Parker House Hotel which is not only in a super location it’s the birthplace of the original Boston Cream Pie! The pie is actually a cake with a custard filling and if you order room service they will bring [...]

Old Port Lobster Shack

I gotta get this out before we leave for Boston tomorrow. Hi, My name is Nicole and I’m a lobstaholic. I can’t believe I’ve lived in the Bay for over 24 years and never heard of the Lobster Shack until late last year. We finally made the trek to the Redwood City Shack in December [...]

Dishcrawl San Jose

Dishcrawl is a new company that hosts walking food tours in select cities across the Bay Area. I love a good food tour where you get to sample new and unique eats. Mike and I decided to go on the San Jose crawl on Tuesday June 28, 2011 at 7pm. Each crawl features 4 destinations. [...]

The French Laundry

What did we do for our 5 year wedding anniversary? We went to one of the best restaurants in the world…the French Laundry owned by Chef Thomas Keller!! How did we get a reservation? See below. It was a gorgeous July day in the Napa valley when we arrived for our three hour lunch. As we entered [...]

Mrs. DeLish’s Cupcake Boutique

A friend (Thanks Julie!) brought Mike and I a sampling of cupcakes from Mrs. Delish’s cupcake boutique. She felt they were better than Sprinkles…. Here is what we got: Red Velvet – good frosting & cake but tasted like a cupcake I could make at home. Coconut/Coconut – best of the bunch..loved the toasted coconut [...]

Farmstead Restaurant

Mike and I had lunch at Farmstead on one of our many trips to Napa to work on our Crushpad wine. The restaurant is unique because it sources many of the ingredients from Long Meadow Ranch including all-natural grass-fed beef, vegetables, extra virgin olive oil, and honey. If you venture outside they also have a garden and a [...]

Zero Zero Restaurant

We were in the city checking out the wine exhibit (which was pretty cool) at SFMOMA. After we needed to eat so I jumped on Yelp to see what was in walking distance and I was pleasantly surprised to find Zero Zero. I had heard many good things about their food. We arrived at 2pm just in [...]

Heaven’s Dog

A friend from LA was in town for business and staying near the Moscone center. I needed to find a place to go for dinner and drinks on a Friday night near by with only a few days notice. Heaven’s dog was one of the few restaurants I could make a reservation before 9pm and [...]

Tropica Restaurant

For our one special dinner out in Maui we decided to eat at Tropica, our hotel restaurant because it was outdoors overlooking the beach and had a lovely prix fixe menu. We were seated at a romantic table with a fantastic view of the water 20 minutes before sunset. We decided to start the night [...]

Hali’imaile General Store

Bev Gannon is a super famous chef on Maui so we decided to give one of her many restaurants a try. We headed to the Hali’imaile General Store which serves up fresh island cuisine in a refurbished plantation store located Upcountry in the middle of nowhere. We started off with the popular Sashimi Napoleon:   [...]

Geste Shrimp Truck

Finger lickin’ good! Who would have thought that one of the best meals I had in Maui would be served from a truck? I read all the stellar reviews about the Geste Shrimp truck on Yelp and had to give it a try. It is located less than 10 minutes from my sisters’ house on [...]

Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice

Shave ice… where have you been all my life? Don’t be confused…shave (not shaved ) ice is nothing like a snow cone. Forget about sugary syrup and chunky ice cubes piled into a paper cone that leaks from the bottom. Shave ice takes fun frozen treats to a whole new level. While in Maui we [...]

Joe’s Cable Car

Joe’s Cable Car is another place I saw on Triple D (Diners, Drive-in & Dives) and the owners want you to remember that. There are pictures of Guy Fieri all over the interior as well as the actual episode running on a loop on a TV. The restaurant (built to look like a cable car) opened in 1965 and was originally [...]

Humphry Slocombe ice cream

Crazy ice cream flavors in the Mission. We finally made it to Humphry Slocombe. Although it was December and freezing outside I still had to have it. I ordered the “Secret breakfast” (cornflakes & bourbon) which may sound disgusting but was d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s! Mike opted for the “guinness gingerbread”. As an Irishman just days before Christmas he had no other choice. [...]

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