Have Towel Will Travel | Travel! Enjoy!

Brunch!

December 15, 2011 by Ford

Ahhhh brunch…one of my favorite meals! These are our faves to brunch in the city

1. Pastis

www.pastisny.com

9 9th Avenue (corner of Little W12th)

A NYC institution. The wait is not always pleasant and they can be snobby but the food is well worth it. Sit outdoors in the summer and get the liver pate, the steak tar tar, the french toast and eggs with salmon. And of course don’t forget a Bellini! A perfect way to start the weekend

2. Schiller’s Liquor Bar

www.schillersny.com

Pastis’s sister on the Lower East Side. Good all around much like it’s swankier meatpacking sibling.

3. Landmarc

www.landmarc-rstaurant.com

179 West Broadway (between Leonard & Worth St.)

Get the Eggs en Meurette and the Pain Perdu. ‘nuf said

4. Mudd

307 East 9th St (corner of 2nd Ave)

Best pancakes in the city hands down. Also great Huevos Rancheros. And the prices can’t be beat!

5. Stanton Social

www.thestantonsocial.com

99 Stanton St (between Orchard & Ludlow)

More than just a little scene-y but the food is great! Kobe beef burger, Warm doughnuts, French onion soup dumplings, Mac & Cheese and the Baby Benedicts are all a must. Portions are small but filling and great Bellinis and Bloody Marrys to match.

6. La Gazzetta at Villa Pacri

www.villapacri.com/lagazzetta

55 Gansevoort St. (between 9th Ave and Washington)

Great place to sit outdoors in meatpacking on a summer morning. Usually less snobby than Pastis but that may change as the place gets etablished. Try the cheese plate, the Uova al Forno (baked eggs) and the Nutella Crepe.

7. Virage

www.viragenyc.com

118 2nd Ave (corner of 7th St.)

Cute East Village spot. Get the Goat Cheese Ftitata and the Mediteranean Breakfast.

Category Restaurants | Tags: , NYC, Restaurants | No Comments
Amsterdam

December 1, 2011 by Arthur

Nightlife

Recomended dance clubs :Hotel Arena , Air, Trouw

Leidsplein (Watering Hole, other places?)

Pijp area (Bazar & Juuls)

Jordaan area (Loup & Bihp)

Shopping

9 streets www.9straatjeonline.com

Concerts

Crea Orkest http://www.creaorkest.org/ Great concert but important to note that the Dutch sie lets you buy online but the english doesn’t so google translae all the way!

Coffeeshops

Abraxas http://amsterdam.abraxas.tv/coffeeshops/abraxas/

Grasshopper

Homegrown

Kadinsky looked cute

Dampkring www.dampkring.nl/

Touristy

Sandeman tour David Cenzer

Van Gogh museum – nice modern building, good audiotour, great giftshop.

Rijksmuseum – great audio tour of the beautiful old masters collection

Would like to visit Rembrant house (no paintings but he lived there and it helped drive him to bankruptcy so gotta be cool)

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Amsterdam Restaurants

December 1, 2011 by Arthur

Our hotel in Amsterdam left some things to be desired…like a bed that two people who are a couple can sleep on…but it did have a great guy named Stephen on the night desk who recommended few great spots.

Little Thai Prince

The first one we tried was a Thai place called Little Thai Prince. When the six of us stumbled into this place an hour before closing it was packed but the very sweet albeit only waitress managed to move very nice seemingly Dutch people around and made room for us.

We ordered a bunch of stuff but the standouts were the tom lha gai soup which everyone who had it LOVED as well as the curries and the pad thai. The only thing missing was mango with sticky rice for desert but everything else was perfect s we were willing to forgive this fau pas.

Zeedijk 33
1012 AR Amsterdam

http://www.yelp.com/biz/little-thai-prince-amsterdam

Bark

When we asked for a spot to eat at 10pm (mind you this is Europe and there is no real concept of 24 hours service) Stephen was at first baffled that we would make such a crazy request but eventually came through again and sent us to Bark http://www.bark.nl/

Some of Stephen’s other recommendations we did not get chance to try but would like to visit next time we’re in the neighborhood.

Indra Pura Indonesian restaurant http://indrapura.nl/?lang=en

De Belhamel Upscale french place http://www.belhamel.nl/

Lieve Belgian place http://www.restaurantlieve.nl/

Moeders Dutch food (we actually tried this place but it was fully booked so call ahead!) http://www.moeders.com/

Cafe De Prins

A treasure right by Anne Frank’s house if you are a lover of all things cheese. The key is to show up at an in between time because this restaurant has a different menu for 1-6pm and 6-10pm. The 1-6pm has a fantastic goat cheese focaccia, the 6-10pm has fondue. We lucked out showing up at 5:45, and were thus able to experience both.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g188590-d952085-Reviews-Cafe_De_Prins-Amsterdam_Noord_Holland.html

Category Europe, Restaurants | Tags: , Amsterdam, Restaurants | No Comments
Onegin Restaurant

November 30, 2011 by Arthur

The food was good but not great. Decore is very pleasant. The service was professional and friendly. The price was quite high given the food quality.

Overall I’d stop by again if I was in the neighborhood but I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here. There is better Russian food to be had in New York.

Onegin Restaurant

391 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY

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WestCord City Centre Hotel in Amsterdam

November 27, 2011 by Ford

The WestCord City Centre Hotel in Amsterdam has one primary redeeming characteristic and that is its extremely central location. Its primary detracting characteristic is its complete disregard for customer service and quality assurance. It doesn’t have to be that way though. For not only is the hotel well situated, it also has a rather pleasant and modern boutique-like feel. The hotel is clean, well kempt and sports a trendy design in both the lobby and the rooms. The rooms themselves are quite small but poses appealing and unique design elements such as : (1) the reverse positioning of the bed with the headboard facing the center of the room and serving as the back splash for the room’s desk and (2) the bathroom being entirely walled off from the main portion of the room by glass walls.

And here the first signs of the hotel’s complete disregard for quality first rear their ugly heads. Our queen bed, though possessing one common queen size bedspring and one completely immobile queen-size headboard, nevertheless (for some extremely absurd reason) had two independent twin size mattresses over the common bedspring. Two twin mattresses that had nothing holding them in place due to the very minimalistic design of the bed. Two twin mattresses that ensured that at least one of bed’s occupants found themselves in the hole that quickly formed between the mattress by morning should they attempt to cuddle or engage in sex with the other occupant on the mattress across the chasm. Simply rolling over in your sleep proved rather perilous as well.

To this one must add little annoyances. The garbage can in the bathroom that is positioned in a corner in such a way that it is impossible for the lid to open more than a third of the way when you press the pedal. The two rather dark stains and a prominent rip on one of the mattress’s otherwise rather clean sheets. The fact that housekeeping neglects to take empty water bottles out of the room as garbage. These sort of issues (even the bed debacle) can easily be avoided by greater attention to detail and quality assurance by the hotel’s management and staff. But they are not. In fact the hotel staff take a rather uncaring, and if I may say so European, attitude toward servicing their guests. When requesting a room with a single bed, the front desk did not poses the insight to make a note of my preference but rather insisted that I stop by every morning as early as possible (during my vacation) to see if any became available. Recommendations for restaurants and questions such as “Do you think they’ll have a table for 6?” were followed up with answers of “Maybe” and a shrug, rather than a call to the restaurant to confirm. It seemed you had to walk the hotel staff through their own jobs, one instruction at a time, in case you wanted to get anything done. Smiling at the customers was completely out of the question.

That being said, one of the evening front desk staff, Steven, though initially seemingly surprised by our request, was extremely helpful in making restaurant suggestions on several occasions and after some time warmed up to us and took on a far more helpful and friendly attitude than the other staff.

Given its location and generally pleasant décor I would go as far as to recommend this hotel and stay at it again if the price is right; say $120 a room a night. I would highly recommend on doing your own quality control and being proactively insistent on getting the level of service you require. Given the debacle with the beds (and it was a complete debacle given the importance I place on both sex and a good night’s rest when I’m on vacation) I would say the $180 a night we paid for the hotel was excessive.

Oh and call ahead and insist on a single large mattress in your queen room. On the other hand swapping what sexual positions actually worked for whom the night before over breakfast with your friends can be an unforgettable vacation experience.

Really, why the hell would you put two mattresses on one bedspring especially if you can’t move them apart to make two beds?

Category Europe, Hotels | Tags: , Amsterdam, Hotels | No Comments
Have Towel, Will Travel (and report back!)

September 14, 2011 by admin

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

— Douglas Adams

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

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Flying Kuwait Airlines Reviewed

September 2, 2011 by Arthur

Having had my Virgin flight canceled as a result of Hurricane Irene, I sought to get the next available flight from New York to London. When Virgin didn’t have a flight for me for another 12 days, I started looking for alternatives. I was surprised to find a one-way business class flight from New York to London on Kuwait Airlines for a little over $1,000. Given that due to the post-hurricane cancellations, most major airlines were charging something similar for an economy ticket, I decided I’d give it a try. I figured that in the worst case I’d at least get an extra wide seat and some extra leg room. Which is more or less what I got.

Overall I think the flight was worth it and I would fly Kuwait Airliness Business Class again.

Lets start with the rant. The airplane is old. I’d say it could have been cleaned better too, but it might just be the age showing. Entertainment systems were the handheld type they give out not the in seat ones. That being said, they were not just portable DVD players I’ve seen some airlines use. The systems were harddrive based and had a wide selection. The system response time was annoyingly slow though. Given the age of the plane, the seats left a lot to be desired. The legroom and seat width were fine. But the leg rest was way to short for me and the recline angle was pretty meager for a business class seat. More than fine for working or reading a book but not great for a nights sleep. The airline was strictly Halal and did not serve alcahol on the flight. I can’t say it bothered me on this particular flight but I can see this being an issue and I feel like fair warning should have been given. For me the biggest annoyance was the lack of a goody bag. I don’t fly with my own slippers/socks or eye mask and expect the airline to provide these. They weren’t even available when I asked for them explicitly. This is really an expected colon denominator for business class flying and the airline needs to step up and spend the extra $5 per seat.

On the bright side: The service was very cordial and genuinely friendly. The food was fresh and quite good as far as airline food goes. My business class ticket included an invitation for London Hethrow’s customs and immigration Fast Track line. This is a huge timesaver given that the line at Heathrow can easily take an hour or more. Disapointingly Virgin does not provide Fast Track for their Premium Economy passangers for comparable, if not higher, prices.

Overall the airline could use some improvement, but at a certain price level its definately worth it.

Category Uncategorized | Tags: , Airline | No Comments

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