Oh, yeah. That was fun! Weather was perfect – mid-80s all week. Cooking classes were fantastic. Location couldn’t have been better.
Casa Pelican is a B&B and a cooking school in historic Algiers Point. It’s a quiet residential neighborhood – but it’s a five minute ferry ride away from the French Quarter. So the best of both worlds. If you’re old, getting around New Orleans is dirt cheap. I bought the 31-day senior pass to everything – trollies, ferries, and busses – for $14.00, and just rode everywhere. They’ve got an absolutely enormous World War II museum, and a first class art museum.
Karen Duncan ran a Cajun restaurant in Toronto for 15 years, and then moved down here. The school and B&B is her retirement project. Breakfast every morning – and I don’t mean granola and toast. Sausage gravy and biscuits; omelet and bacon; pancakes and sausage – I didn’t eat many lunches out because I was still full from breakfast.
So I spent four days there. Nice time, but I don’t think I’m moving there. For one thing, everything is uphill both ways.
But nice time! Some recommendations, if you’re thinking of going.
Pinball. I looked at the Asheville Pinball Museum, and… meh. 35 whole old machines for $15!! Skip it. Instead, go to Level 256. Better machines; better beer; $10.
Breweries. They have more breweries per capita than anywhere else. Here are my favorites.
Burial. Zope, if you go there this is where you will park yourself and never leave. Big, big NEIPAs. As in, three triples and five doubles. And then there are the 14% stouts…
Zillicoah. Couple of miles outside the city on a real nice site with food.
Digression here. If you go to Asheville in the summer and decide to do something sane like use Uber to get outside the city – beware of Saturday afternoons! I took an Uber to Zillicoah for $7 at around 1PM; decided to go back at 3PM, and… it was $35. And not only was it $35, but there were no cars available. So I did the only smart thing.
At around 5PM, prices went down and things got normal. I asked, and got this explanation. All of the cool wedding venues are a half hour out of town. So two hours before the wedding, everyone calls an Uber; they all go away for an hour or so, and thus my issue. Makes sense.
Food. As is true everywhere, there is a lack of staff. I went to one place and it was 2/3 empty – and yet there was a 45 minute wait for food. Luckily, it was a tequila bar, so I found something to do with the time.
Mayfel’s. Excellent NOLA food. I had my weakness, the Oyster Po’ Boy.
Sovereign Remedies. Cocktail bar with wicked good food. And a killer Vieux Carre. Two blocks from the hotel, thank God.
Lobster Trap. What it says. Great Cioppino. Excellent live music 6:30 to 8:30.
Even though one of my sisters lives in Cincinnati, I’d never been to the city. Been to her place of course, but it’s a long way from downtown. Comparable, I guess, to someone living in Cranberry and saying they live in Pittsburgh. So in my summer of small trips I spent a couple of days down there and had a great time. Daily Beast had a great article about Cincy: https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-midwest-city-is-getting-something-rightso-dont-miss-it
Over-The-Rhine is the hot area now, comparable to Columbus’s Short North. Bunch of brewpubs, including Sam Adams – their main production facility is in Cincinnati – Rhinegeist, etc. A Pins Mechanical – I love the elevator notice:
But there are also some world class museums. The Taft Museum of Art was simply surprising. It’s a lovely old house, but doesn’t look very museum-like. No guards. And hanging in the rooms are paintings by Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Hals, Whistler…
And, of course, food. Best tapas place I’ve ever eaten at, Mita’s.
Went to the Ohio State Fair for the first time in, I don’t know – 20 years maybe? – last week. Fun time. Wandered around, looked at the goats, thought of Bohin. This has been an incredibly dry summer here, so of course it started pouring. Luckily, I had a plan B – there are like 30 breweries in Columbus.
I went to a new one downtown, right off of Fourth – Holy Trinity Brewing. Fun place with a nice varied collection of beers. Too many places are doing the ‘Which kind of IPA do you want?’ lineup, which is fine – I like IPAs – but really boring.
American Express sent me a good deal for two days at The Industrialist, an absolutely wonderful hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, so I took advantage of it last week. I’ve been to the city a bunch of times, but all for a couple of hours – never spent any real time there. I had a fantastic time. Walked from The Point to The Strip a couple of times. Went to the Natural History Museum, Heinz History Center, and Fort Pitt.
Rode the Incline:
Played pinball at Coop De Ville, and ate dinner at Cioppino. I had, of course, the cioppino.
And on my way back stopped in at Dana and Lori’s for dinner. Great trip! 18,000 steps Friday, so I’m moving a little slow today.
Checked one off of the bucket list yesterday when I went down to Columbus to the Brewdog Brewery. Of course I’ve visited many breweries. But this one has something special: a hotel.
Yup. A hotel attached to the brewery. With features. So many features.
Like a tap in the room:
And a shower refrigerator:
Neon over the bed:
And pinball! Much pinball. Nine different machines.
A good time was had. Fun place with more different beers that I knew of; I guess only the IPAs make it up my way. But they’re doing a lot of barrel aged stuff:
I will go back there, and that is not something I expected to say.
This is a bar with 300+ beers, and it’s got a glass for each one. There are rows and rows of bottles and cans of world class beers, mainly Belgian. But if you look at the cans on the right; third row up from the bottom, about in the middle:
Yup. I asked the bartender ‘Can yinz give me one of them?’
Just got back from a week in Florida. My sister has a place in Estero. It was 85 there. When I flew in last night, it was 6. Why am I here?
Dang, those hands look a lot worse than they feel. Although a day in saltwater did them no good. Anyway, that’s a sheepshead. And note the high class glasses. Won them in pinball last week.
