Tag Archives: beer

Eataly’s Birreria

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One of my favorite parts of my recent NY trip was having lunch at Eataly’s Birreria. Eataly has been on my “must-do” list for awhile now, and it did not disappoint. Janelle and I went there midday on a Saturday and it was insanely crowded; I definitely want to go back sometime – at a much quieter time – and explore all the amazing products for sale. But, on Saturday, it was just too overwhelming and packed. So, we made a beeline for the rooftop restaurant.

I have to say, I loved it. You’re up on the 15th floor, so there are great views. And it’s just a fun atmosphere generally. And the food? Pretty great. Here’s what we had:

We shared a carafe of “Ommegang Rare Vos” beer, which had a hint of orangey-ness about it, as you can see from the photos. I’m not a beer drinker, but this was tasty.

We also shared a cheese plate. We chose parmigiano reggiano (my favorite), asiago fresco, and provolone madarone. It came with some sort of honey concoction to dip it in. Sooooo good.

Janelle also got a salad and I got fried shiitake mushrooms – both very good as well. It was a ridiculous amount of fried mushrooms, and I would’ve liked a dipping sauce or something to go with it, but it was still quite tasty.

All in all – I loved Eataly, and would gladly go back (again and again).

Travel Notes: Amsterdam

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In May and June of 2011, I spent 5 weeks traveling around Europe. This post is one of a series chronicling the different places I visited on that trip.

Looking back at my photos from Amsterdam, they all seem a bit depressing – grey and dreary and rainy. But, in actuality, we loved Amsterdam and it was one of our favorite destinations of the trip (even though, yes, it was grey and dreary and rainy the entire time).

We took the train from Berlin; it was a long seven hour ride, so we didn’t arrive until the late afternoon. After checking in at our hotel, we decided to head to the Heineken Experience, which was just down the road from where we were staying.

The Heineken Experience bills itself as more than just a “museum” of Heineken – it’s an interactive tour. I thought it was pretty fun and a nice change of pace from our typical sightseeing.

There were also several displays of their ingredients – there are four, water, barley, hops, and yeast – and they allowed you to smell and taste them if you wanted. I heard barley was quite bitter, so I didn’t taste it, but I thought it looked oddly pretty:

The most unique aspect of the tour is the “Brew U” experience. You go into a room and stand on a platform. The idea is that you are the beer. You go through a simulation of the brewing and bottling process. The platform jiggles and shakes at different parts, and sometimes water is sprayed on you. Kind of odd, but definitely an uncommon experience!

The tour ends with – what else? – a beer tasting. With your tickets, you get 2 tokens allowing you 2 beers. I’m not a big beer drinker so this part wasn’t all that exciting, but it was still fun. Randomly, we met a really nice couple from Brazil while we were drinking our beers and chatted with them for awhile. One of my favorite things about traveling is the opportunity to connect unexpectedly with people from all around the world. You never know who you might meet!

The next day, we started out at the Rijksmuseum. I really loved this museum because it was small and relatively quiet, but had a fantastic collection, including several Rembrandts and Vermeers.

Near the museum was the famous “I Amsterdam” sign. It was neat to see, but so crowded with tourists. And it’s pretty hard to get the awesome pictures you were envisioning when there are people everywhere.

Next we headed aboard a boat for a canal tour. Our tour took us through the main canals of the city and then out onto the open water for a bit. Even in the overcast weather, the canals of Amsterdam are lovely. Looking through my pictures, I felt a bit disappointed that none of them looked as pretty as I remembered it being (although that’s usually the case with photographs, and especially travel photographs, isn’t it?)

After our tour, we headed to a little cafe for lunch. We decided to sit outside, which was a good idea for awhile, but it kept getting colder and colder (seriously, what was up with the weather this trip?!?). We had to end our meal with hot chocolates just to warm up! Honestly, the most satisfying part of the hot chocolates was just holding them and getting our hands warm!

After lunch, we headed to the Anne Frank museum. This was the highlight of Amsterdam for me, and perhaps even the entire trip! The museum was fascinating – and so sad. I couldn’t believe just how tiny the space they were living in was. And, the stairs leading up to it were terrifyingly steep. I cannot imagine how frustrating it would have been to remain confined in a place like that.

As we walked around the house, I think what struck me most were the photographs of the Frank family. I kept looking at them, these simple everyday snapshots, and thinking “wow, they look just like a normal family.” And I guess that’s the point really, and what makes it so horrifying – that this happened to so many ordinary, every day families. It gives you a lot think about, you know?

The next day we woke up to – big surprise – grey skies and ran. We decided to start at the Van Gogh Museum so we could escape the rain for awhile. The museum was super crowded, but it was definitely worth it to see such an extensive collection of Van Gogh’s works. The thing I enjoyed most about the museum was that it’s organized chronologically, so as you walk around, you can actually see the evolution of Van Gogh’s work. That’s pretty awesome.

Next, we decided to follow one of Rick Steves’s walking tours. We took the tram to Dam Square to start. One problem: while on the tram, it started pouring. We got off at the square, and it was still pouring. I half-heartedly took a few pictures, but the conditions were awful.

So, our big walking tour turned out not to be so awesome. While we technically followed the book’s walking tour, we didn’t really stop at any of the places because we mostly wanted to get out of the damn rain. Plus, at a certain point, I had to put the book away because it was becoming soaked through with rain! This pretty much sums up how we felt:

And with that, we ended our adventures in Amsterdam on a somewhat depressing note. However, the rain did not dampen (yeah, yeah, pun intended) my enthusiasm for the city. I though Amsterdam was perfectly charming and would love to go back! Hopefully in a sunnier season, though.

Travel Notes: Berlin

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In May and June of 2011, I spent 5 weeks traveling around Europe. This post is one of a series chronicling the different places I visited on that trip.

Ah, Berlin. I really, really loved you. You are different from most of my very favorite European cities – less cozy and charming, less historic and pretty. Instead, you are modern, large, energetic, sprawling. But I love that about you too.

From Prague, we headed onto Berlin. We had one evening and then three full days there, and I still probably could have stayed longer and explored more. In fact, I think I could add Berlin to the list of cities that I could see myself living in someday. I liked it that much.

After a long train ride, we arrived at Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Central Station), which is huge and modern and pretty fantastic, as far as train stations go. We grabbed a cab to our hotel and absolutely loved our cabdriver – he was so nice and had lots of helpful advice. So things were already off to a great start.

Because I traveled an insane amount for my last job, I had a lot of hotel points. So, in Berlin and later in Amsterdam, we got to enjoy large, super-American chain hotels for free. Yes, I like the cozy little family-owned hotels that are more authentically European. But, after weeks of tiny bathrooms, walking up several flights of stairs, and using gigantic wooden room keys, I was ready for some sleek, generic comfort. Janelle, I think, was even more ready. So when we arrived at the Marriott and got a free snack upon arrival because I’m a Platinum member, she got a little excited:

Since we arrived in the evening, we didn’t do much except venture out to grab dinner. We found a little place a few blocks from our hotel and grabbed a few of the dishes we had loved in Munich – spatzle, pretzels, and Radler. Always a solid combination.

The next day, we headed to the Reichstag. It is a beautiful building, but the highlight is clearly climbing the dome. Except, we did not get to climb the dome – apparently, because of security reasons, there’s a brand new online reservation system. And, because you have to reserve several days in advance, it was impossible for us to get reservations during our time in Berlin. Bummer.

From the Reichstag, we walked to the Brandenburg Gate, stopping en route to look at a memorial to the victims of the Berlin Wall (people who tried to escape but were killed doing so). I know the Brandenburg Gate is one of the iconic sites of Berlin, and it was very cool to see in person.

Next, we headed to the Holocaust Memorial. Above ground, it’s like a massive abstract art installation – hundreds of giant blocks of concrete. Below ground, it’s a small museum commemorating some of the Holocaust’s victims. It was fascinating and sobering;

From the Holocaust Memorial, we continued down Unter der Linden, stopping here and there to check out famous buildings. But, if I’m being honest, I’d tell you that the site we were most intrigued by was…Hotel Adlon, the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby off the balcony. Because, you know, in a city filled with landmarks, that’s what really matters.

We continued down Unter der Linden until we reached Museum Island. We didn’t actually visit any of the museums (yet), but we did spend some time admiring the Berlin Cathedral. We didn’t go inside, but it’s a spectacular building – and I love the green dome.

We also had a bit of a funny incident there – in front of the cathedral, there’s a large fountain. For some reason, my sister and I thought it would be funny if I walked into the fountain and posed for a photo. While I was doing that, a goofy Russian man ran over to me, and asked if he could take a picture with me. I have NO idea what was going on there. Did he think I was someone else? Did he just want a picture with the crazy American girl in the fountain? The world may never know.

After the cathedral, we headed to Brauhaus Georgbraeu, an awesome beer garden right on the river. We sat outdoors; it was a great, fun atmosphere. I ordered schnitzel and spargel and the portions were huge!

Once we had finished lunch (and I was in a schniztel coma), we headed to Checkpoint Charlie. I can honestly say that the museum there was one of the quirkiest I have ever visited. First of all, it’s filled with stuff. Literally, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, covered in memorabilia and lengthy descriptions. There was room after room of objects, photographs, letters, and fun displays. It was overwhelming and fascinating. There was also an entire room dedicated to Ronald Reagan – because our dad’s a big admirer of him, we took a bunch of pictures of his display.

After visiting the museum, we headed out to see a few fragments of the Berlin wall. There’s not much left, and it’s not much to see, but it’s a lot to think about. I made a mental note to check out a book on the Wall’s history (though who knows when I will have time to read it).

We headed on to Fassbender and Rausch, a fancy chocolate shop. Our Rick Steves guidebook told us that we would find an “erupting chocolate volcano” there. We were intrigued. We wanted some molten chocolate. But, when we asked our waitress about it, she only gave us blank stares. I ended up with plain old hot chocolate, which was tasty, but disappointing. We noticed that downstairs, they had a giant chocolate volcano model – so maybe that’s what the book was referring to? If so, I cry foul, Rick! Misleading advertising! (Seriously, though, I still love your guidebooks).

Our day was pretty jam-packed, so didn’t do much that evening. In fact, we could only muster up enough energy to visit a Chinese restaurant near our hotel for dinner. It turns out that a Chinese restaurant in Berlin is pretty much like a Chinese restaurant anywhere in the US – and that’s oddly comforting, I suppose.

The next day, we headed to West Berlin and visited the zoo. This was Janelle’s idea, and I have to say that, generally, a zoo is just a zoo to me – not very exciting. Plus, since the Berlin Zoo’s star attraction, Knut, recently died, I felt even less motivated to visit. However, it was actually a pretty cool zoo with a large and diverse collection of animals. And, you know, lots of gorilla statues for us to pose with.

We also stopped by the aquarium, which was really awesome. Seriously, you would not think a collection of fish could be cool, but it was. There were so many different species of fish, plus collections of jellyfish, coral, and other assorted unique things. Fascinating.

From the zoo, we walked over to KaDeWe, a gigantic department store. A little backstory is necessary here: my mom visited Berlin in 1983 (1982?) and absolutely loved the KaDeWe. Naturally, she said that we had to make a visit to the store too.

I have to say that – no offense, mom – it was pretty much just a department store to me. Sure, it’s huge and has just about anything you could ever think of wanting, but a store’s a store. So says me, the girl who hates to shop, so take that for what it’s worth.

We also ate lunch at KaDeWe, upstairs at what was the most dangerous buffet ever. I say dangerous because the pricing system was in German and completely unclear to me. So I picked some random stuff and ended up with a 26 euro plate of food. It was tasty, but not 26 euro tasty.

Next, we headed to the train station to get our tickets to Amsterdam and Paris all sorted out. Sadly, we wound up waiting in line for about two hours. I was not a happy camper after that one, and we both decided that we needed a drink (or four) stat.

We took the U-Bahn to the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, which was very funky and fun; Janelle said it reminded her of New York’s Lower East Side. We made our own happy hour miniature bar crawl – 2 bars, 4 cocktails each, plus some garlic bread. Good times.

After we were done drinking, we grabbed some Asian noodles (a cheap food staple for us while traveling) and headed back to our hotel.

The next day – our final in Berlin – we finally hit some of the city’s many museums. We started at the Gemaldegalerie, which had a fantastic collection of 13th-18th century European art – I’m talking Rubens, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael. But my favorite was, by far, Caravaggio’s Love Conquers All. Mostly because Cupid was totally rocking out.

In the afternoon, Janelle was museum-ed out, so I soldiered on alone to the Neues Museum, which is famous for housing the bust of Nefertiti, which was gorgeous. There was also an interesting collection of other Egyptian artifacts – from etchings to murals to jewelry to small statues. Very cool.

For our final dinner, we revisited the same restaurant from our first meal in Berlin and ordered the exact same thing. It seemed a fitting way to end our stay in Germany, a country that turned out to be way more amazing than I had initially imagined. Like I said already – not only would I love to visit again (many times over), I could also see myself living in a place like Berlin. It has an amazing energy.

One final note. This didn’t really seem to fit anywhere else, but one thing we kept noticing in Berlin was giant bear statues everywhere we went. I started taking Janelle’s picture with them and we wound up with quite a collection. I did some digging and found out more about them – they are apparently United Buddy Bears. Kinda cool.

Travel Notes: Prague

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In May and June of 2011, I spent 5 weeks traveling around Europe. This post is one of a series chronicling the different places I visited on that trip.

From Vienna, we headed onto Prague. My opinion of the city is that there isn’t much to do there, but it’s a lovely place to be – seriously, so many things looked like a postcard to me. Very lovely.

After settling in at our hostel and grabbing lunch, we started in Old Town Square, which was where the loveliness really began. Even though it was crowded (of course) with tourists, I found the square really charming – and so colorful.

The major tourist attraction on the square seemed to be the clock tower. Just before the top of the hour, we saw hordes of people gathering in front of it. Naturally, we joined the mob to see what was up. We waited (and waited), and the hour finally arrived. Little figurines came popping out and the whole clock was in motion, but…it really wasn’t that impressive. Ah, well, onto the the next thing.

We walked a few blocks to the Charles Bridge. While this was – again – a tourist-filled locale, it’s still a Prague must-see, in my opinion. There’s a lot of activity and energy on the bridge, plus great views of the river and the pretty buildings lining it.

Also on the Charles Bridge is a statue that you can rub, and then whatever wish you are thinking of will come true. I can’t tell you what my wish was (duh), but I made one nonetheless. Here’s Janelle taking a turn:

After hanging out on the bridge for awhile, we stumbled upon a matryoshka shop selling all kinds of cool matryoshkas. But when I found this one, I knew I had to have it, no question. If you know me, you know this is pretty much my idea of the perfect souvenir. My only question is, why didn’t poor Novak Djokovic get included??

After shopping, we had some time to kill, which we naturally chose to fill with…cocktails. We found a restaurant advertising “alcohol buckets” for pretty cheap prices. We started with a bucket of orange juice + vodka (not my first choice, but the cheapest option), and then finished with a pitcher of sangria. Needless to say, I was loving Prague by that point.

That night, we met up with our dad for dinner. Coincidentally, he had a business trip in Germany while we were in Europe, so he stayed an extra weekend and met up with us in Prague. One, this was cool because we got to hang out with our dad in Prague. Two, this was cool because it meant we didn’t have to pay for our meals.

The next day, Dad, Janelle, and I headed up to Prague Castle, which is situated on a hill above the city. Prague Castle is probably the major tourist attraction in Prague, but I have to say I was pretty underwhelmed by it. The coolest thing about it was that it offered fantastic views of the city.

The other neat thing about the castle was the Cathedral (St. Vitus’s) on its grounds. It had a beautiful interior – and I especially loved all the stained glass.

We walked from the castle back down into the city, stopping here and there for some more gorgeous views. Like I said before, Prague is pretty!

For lunch, we ate at Klub Architektu. We had a really good meal, but the coolest thing was the setting – it’s in an underground, cave-like space. It was very dark and atmospheric. I wish I would’ve taken a picture of the restaurant itself, but I did take a picture of the beer. So, you know, priorities.

My sister, tired of visiting museums/churches/castles, insisted that we do an “outdoor” activity, so after lunch, we rented a paddleboat and cruised down the Vlatava River. It was fun, except that it sprinkled throughout our mini-cruise. Also, I was sitting in back, and my dad and sister decided it would be hilarious to situate the boat so that they were under the bridge, but I was left out in the rain. Awesome!

Despite the rain, I think we all enjoyed the afternoon. We also got some more typically lovely views of the city from the river:

Next, we took the tram (or trammy, as we affectionately called it) to Wenceslas Square, which is in the “New Town” part of Prague.

Wenceslas Square was pretty neat – full of activity and more beautiful buildings. But my favorite part of it was a rather silly thing – the Marks + Spencer store. When I visited London in 2006, I discovered Marks + Spencer All Butter Chocolate Chunk cookies. Luckily for me, I discovered them in Heathrow Airport as I was leaving London, otherwise I probably would have indulged in one too many over the summer. In any case, when I saw the Marks + Spencer in Prague, I knew we had to go in, and I knew I had to buy some. I was not disappointed.

For dinner, we went to Aldente Trattoria. The food was very good, and I ordered a Sicilian white wine, for old time’s sake. My favorite part was that our waiter came out with a giant inkpad and stamped the dessert menu on our placemats – I love little touches like that.

And with that, our adventures in Praha wound to a close. We had planned to stay for one more full day, Sunday, but we found out that there was likely to be a transportation strike on Monday that would shut down all trains for awhile. Worried we might not be able to make it to Berlin if we waited to take our train on Monday as planned, we decided to head out on Sunday. I think we saw everything we wanted to in Prague, and we ended up loving Berlin, so it was absolutely a solid choice. Ah, European transportation strikes. Gotta love ‘em.

Travel Notes: Munich, Neuschwanstein, and Dachau

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In May and June of 2011, I spent 5 weeks traveling around Europe. This post is one of a series chronicling the different places I visited on that trip.

After Colmar, my sister and I headed to Munich. To be completely honest, before this trip, Germany was probably the destination on our itinerary that I was least excited about. But, I ended up completely loving it – especially the delicious food (and beer, of course) and the friendly people.

After checking in at our hotel (Hotel Munchner Kindl, which we really liked), we headed to the English Garden, which is basically Munich’s version of Central Park. We were looking for the beer garden at the Chinese Tower – and it took us awhile; the park is huge! Once we finally found it, we grabbed our “lunch” – two gigantic Radlers (half beer, half lemonade, all deliciousness) and two gigantic pretzels. When I say gigantic, I am not exaggerating – the beers and pretzels were basically the size of our heads (or bigger).

I have never been a beer drinker, but I absolutely love Radler. When we later told our dad that’s what we’d been drinking in Germany, he made fun of us for not drinking pure beer. But I say, who cares? Radler is awesome.

From the beer garden, we headed to the Residenz, the former royal palace. We got there about an hour before closing, so we had to hustle through 90-some rooms pretty quickly. But, we actually ended up seeing a ton of stuff. Oddly enough, my favorite thing about these old European royal palaces (like Versailles, Schonbrunn, and the Residenz) is usually the wallpaper – it’s always velvety and brightly colored with beautiful patterns.

After the Residenz, we headed to Marienplatz, the busy main square in Munich. We took an elevator to the top of New Town Hall for some fabulous views of the city. I thought Munich was so beautiful from up above – all the red roofs and colorful buildings:

On our second day in Munich, we left the city and headed to Neuschwanstein Castle, which was about a 2 hour train ride away. Neuschwanstein was the inspiration for Cinderella’s castle, and you definitely feel a fairytale vibe there. It’s up on a high hill, and is absolutely stunning against the gorgeous landscape.

After visiting the castle, we headed down into the nearby town and had lunch. It was both very good and very bad. The very good parts: weissbeer, pretzel, and white cheese strudel. The very bad part: veal sausage, which comes with some sort of scary white skin encasing that you have to remove. That was just too much for me.

That afternoon, we returned to Munich (enduring the train ride from hell – it started pouring, so all the windows in the train were closed and it got incredibly muggy and humid. So gross). But, we managed to rally and headed to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner.

I’m sure that there are more authentic, less touristy beer halls in Munich, but the Hofbrauhaus was quite the experience – I’d recommend it to anyone. It is a HUGE building, very loud, and very rowdy, but so much fun! We each had gigantic Radlers and shared cheese spaetzle (which is basically a delicious version of macaroni and cheese with onions on top).

On our final day in Munich, we rode the S-Bahn out to Dachau to visit the concentration camp. It was very somber and thought-provoking. It is not your typical, upbeat tourist destination – but it is so worthwhile.

After heading back to downtown Munich, we grabbed lunch at a little restaurant right on Marienplatz. For my last meal in Munich…I had an exact replica of my dinner the previous night – Radler and spaetzle. So good.

That afternoon, we grabbed a train and headed to our next destination – Salzburg. I was a little sad that we didn’t have even more time in Munich. It was such a cool city, and I definitely plan on returning!