Ain't Europe Grand (Tour) with Chryss and George (Day 1)

Kicking off a series of posts about 18 days of travel is sort of like heading off on the trip one-more-once, except now you know exactly how much attention-love-surprise you're going to have to spend on each stop before you get there. That's why it's good to open with a mostly travel day to settle in and find a rhythm. Chryss and I had the great fortune, thanks to her stepmom and dad's generosity (and her great achievement, finishing her PhD), to be guests on a Viking river cruise known as the Grand European Tour. That's Budapest to Amsterdam, Danube to Main-Danube Canal (sort of--consider that foreshadowing) to Main to Rhine. Think of it as the C+C Vacation Factory, "Everybody Castle and Cathedral Now" trip.

To get even more out of Europe, we got to add on the three-day Prague extension, which was particularly interesting to me since my mom was Slovak, so that's pretty close (I mean they shared a country conjugal bed for 75 years). I won't bore you with hours on a plane and more time in the Frankfurt, Germany airport than one should spend, or, as I thought of it, I managed to spend 4 hours in a German airport and avoided having a beer--see, I'm not a drunk! But we finally arrived in Prague at 5 pm their time, and we were out of time, trying to figure out where we fit.

One place was the fascinating Corinthia Hotel, completed just as Communism and the USSR influence was in decline, making it a sort of monument to the Moscow-based functionaries who no doubt stayed there when crushing some Czech hope was necessary. At 26 floors, it's easy to think of it as a small simulacrum of the building in The Towering Inferno, without the flames or OJ or Bill Holden or Faye Dunaway or Fred Astaire or Paul Newman (that was a weird cast).

It photographs pretty at twilight, though. And our ninth-floor room in this borderline brutalist tower gave us a gorgeous view of Prague, too, even if most of the classic sight-seeable spots are a bit out of view's reach. Note it's a very green city, something Europe seems to do so well. To think they've been around for centuries, these towns, and didn't manage to chop down every tree.

Not that we didn't have to figure out, at first sort of poorly, the not pedestrian friendly  traffic circle the hotel is built alongside as we walked to Vysehradsky Restaurant Kandelabr (that first part is just the Prague neighborhood name), as it was very close and our-travel addled brains needed something easy. Plus the very pleasant Viking driver from the airport, propitiously named George, suggested it as a good spot.Unlike the website, waiters did speak English, which also helped. (Of course in Europe, pretty much any person willing to sell you anything speaks English, even if they generally begin by saying, "I don't speak much English," despite doing so just fine.)

Kandelabr is casual, clean and clearly a local spot--as a Santa Barbara comp I'd suggest something like Benchmark. People are watching the world hockey championships on a big screen TV. Others look like they just came from work. The menu runs wide--there's even nachos, but c'mon, we know better than that. Instead, we start with what we must in Prague, Pilsner Urquell, which, maybe it's just vacation mind making me happy, but it seems to taste even better than any you get Stateside. Plus you get a half a liter for just about two bucks. How can you not drink much beer here?

For dinner I had POMALU PEČENÉ MASO Z VYZRÁLÉHO HOVĚZÍHO HRUDÍ V UZENÉ OMÁČCE S KMÍNEM A ČESNEKEM, KYSANÉ ZELÍ, PEČENÁ BRAMBORA S PAŽITKOVOU ZAKYSANO SMETANOU. Sorry for the all-caps, but I'm too scared to try to change it and lose the diacritics in the process. Did you know there are 42 letters in the Czech alphabet? Mispronounce them all!

As you can see from the photo, that's basically as basic as it can get--meat and potatoes. And also sauerkraut, because you have to pay a special tax on any meal that doesn't include fermented cabbage. Think of the slab of beef as the Czech equivalent of pork butt in Mexican food--cooked long and low and slow and deeply delicious, with a bit of a crunchy crust and what's sort of au jus if that didn't dandy it up too much. Think pan drippings. Yummy potatoes, too. It was a very nostalgic meal for me, with the kraut like the kind that would emerge from a crock in my Baba's cellar and that meat so overdone yet done right.

Speaking of overdone, flowers in the hotel lobby. Like I said, a fascinating place.

Go to Day 2 Ain't Europe Grand (Tour)

The Simply Named Sushi|Bar Is Far from Generic

Your mind will compare fish bites with the finest sips of wines, as both have delicious, lingering finishes. Your fish will come gracefully scored by the deftest of knife slashes to help hold its sauce, to tenderize. Your kitchen knowledge will grow, as you will now know why to score fish at home. Your cup will runneth over, as it’s a celebration of abundance. Your sense of an outside world will fade away amid a soundtrack of 1930s and ’40s Japanese jazz and the centering presence of a room rich in wood and golden tones.

You are dining at Sushi|Bar, the third attempt to make the old bar space of the Montecito Inn work — RIP Frankland’s Crab & Co. and Chaplin’s Martini Bar. This one sort of has to make it, as it’s practically perfect, if certainly dear. Now a 10-seat jewel box of an omakase restaurant — that is, the chef serves you what he thinks you need — it’s the second such sushi spot owned by Phillip Frankland Lee, whose original is in Encino.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Reinvigorated Root 246

When locals lamented the closure of Solvang’s Bacon & Brine in August 2017, many didn’t know that Crystal DeLongpré — better known as Chef Pink — landed a new job just two months later. That’s because Chef Pink had so many changes to make at Root 246, the restaurant at Hotel Corque owned by Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, her arrival there wasn’t announced until last fall.

“I don’t think of this place as being a hotel restaurant,” said Chef Pink recently, “but we had to prove ourselves when I started. Hey, we can do this kind of food in this environment, and people are going to embrace it.”

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Sip This: Outpost’s Tipsy Turvy Mocktail

In an effort to provide alternative food and drink dinners, Executive Chef Damien Giliberti and team are creating a Cinco No Drinko fest on May 5 by the firepits at The Goodland (5650 Calle Real, Goleta; 964-6241). Along with four scrumptious courses of food — think cilantro, hibiscus, and white tortillas to honor the Mexican flag as well as lamb barbacoa tacos — the evening will feature a series of nonalcoholic cocktails (including a mole with corn and a hibiscus with coconut milk), and then a star of the current menu, the Tipsy Turvy.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Bella Vista’s Biltmore Bargain

(Chef Marco Fossati in the Biltmore garden)

A parmesan wheel is an impressive hunk of formaggio, pretty much four feet in diameter, two feet tall — a Mack truck tire worth of cheese. Striking all by its mighty self, the wheel is really something to see when hollowed out and turned into a mixing bowl of sorts for your supper. But that’s the kind of treat in store for you if you head to Bella Vista at the Four Seasons Biltmore for a Wednesday Chef’s Table.

It’s almost like an extension of Restaurant Week, a rare chance to sample fine dining at a reduced rate ($45 per person). The menu kicks off with a choice of two first courses, proceeds to a pasta dish — perhaps a Gnocchetti “Cacio de Pepe” that gets prepared tableside in that giant parmesan wheel and finished with extravagant summer truffle — and then a dessert, which some weeks will be a sampler.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Pico Brings Burger Night to Santa Barbara

When Pico opened in the Los Alamos General Store three years ago, they wanted to support North County locals by offering half-off meals every Wednesday night to card-carrying residents. “But when winter came,” Chef Drew Terp explains, “we knew we were not going to make any money if we kept charging half price.”

Instead, Terp started making a secret burger menu every Wednesday night just for those regulars. Week one, they sold 19 burgers. Week two, 70. Week three, Terp says, “We sold out of burgers in an hour.”

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Poetry on the Air!

Want to hear me talk about poetry? Here's a PA Spotlight segment from KCSB with reporter Jenny Boyar. We talk the SB poetry scene, about my book, and I read a poem too.