Mother Approved: Amul India

Recently, we had the chance to meet up with a long-time Indian-American friend of ours, who had dropped by town with his wife and two very young children to visit family. With the limited time we had to meet up, we determined it would be easiest to meet up at his parents place to watch some football, eat, and just hang out and enjoy each others company.

As the night went on, the conversation somehow turned to the Indian restaurants around the Columbus metro. Our friend's mother asked us what our favorite places in the area were. When we mentioned Amul India, she nodded and smiled, saying that was one of her favorite places.

It's always good to get confirmation from someone who should know their stuff.

Tea for Two and Ma Po Tofu - Tripping into San Francisco

The South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood in San Francisco stands a bar with a
name many Columbus residents would recognize in Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker's

Christmas in San Francisco has become a tradition for us on our trips back to the West Coast. Perhaps the most unusual thing about this trip was it was the only day we made our way into "The City by the Bay" (cue background "whoa-whoas" by Steve Perry now.)

Of course, with the day being Christmas, the venues that are open are limited, and those that are are often jam-packed with people wanting to get out of the house for the day. We both agreed very early on that the touristy places were generally ones to avoid, but slowly but surely they have made an appearance on our itineraries with a bit more regularity. On this day, we journeyed to Golden Gate Park for a visit to a place neither of us had ever visited before: the Japanese Tea Garden.

Berkeley Brew-seeking: Fieldwork Brewing/The Rare Barrel

A close up of the "non-protest" side of the "Berkeley Big People" sculpture tandem
from Scott Donahue, located (somewhat oddly) on a freeway pedestrian bridge

In craft beer terms, one generally thinks of the San Francisco side from a historical perspective: Fritz Maytag's efforts with Anchor Brewing provided the inspiration for numerous homebrewers of that era and the original wave of modern craft breweries. However, Berkeley, located on the opposite side of the bay and generally is better known for non-craft beer topics, has a little bit of its history here as well in Triple Rock, opened in 1986 and touted as the oldest original brewpub in the country.

These days, the craft beer scene is looking up: one of the companies spawned by Maytag's efforts, Sierra Nevada Brewing, opened up a hub for their beer along Fourth Street in the form of The Torpedo Room in November of 2013. Other newly established efforts such as Fieldwork and The Rare Barrel, both of which we visited during our time in town, have been earning their own acclaim.

For The Sake of Sake: The Takara Sake Museum and Tasting Room (Berkeley, CA)

Berkeley, California: where free speech monuments and
sake museums can reside next to each other in peace

My first experience with sake, the Japanese beverage fermented from rice that dates back to roughly 300 BC, was an indirect one, Back in high school at a party hosted by a mutual friend, we found a fairly ornate bottle containing this truly exotic beverage (for us at that time, Corona qualified as exotic.)  One of my friends particularly found the sake to his liking...too much so, as it turned out. That was the first time I had seen anyone so stinking drunk in my presence, and it still ranks well in the top 5 examples of this unofficial and ignominious personal category.

Flash forward to today, where my spouse and I have made craft breweries one of our top targets during our travels. If nothing else, this has led to a pursuit of other forms of adult beverages on a lesser scale, including wines, cocktails and spirits, and mead. When it came to sake, our experience pretty much amounted to combination of nil, nada and zilch. Combine that status with a willingness to try new things and some free time to kill before the holiday family gathering, and we found ourselves in, of all places, Berkeley, California.

California Brunching (Pt. 2): Cabin Fever and a Keller Instinct

A look down at the cities of the East Bay from the Berkeley Hills

The second of my California breakfast/brunch posts for 2016 takes our first peek into the San Francisco Bay Area proper, where we enjoyed the a fine sit-down meal inside a vintage catalog house.  Also, a glance at a Wine Country town known worldwide for its gourmet restaurants and some of the prettier pastries you could ever lay your eyes (or taste buds) on.

You don't exactly go looking for log cabins within the urban landscape, nor would you expect to actually find one. However, Sam's Log Cabin, located along a main thoroughfare just outside of Berkeley proper, is worth seeking out for some scrumptious early day eats.

Built in 1930 from a Sears Roebuck catalog home kit, the space which houses Sam's has served many different capacities: speakeasy, roadhouse, and a gambling institution (as in off-track horse race betting.)  Current owners Mike Daillak and Rhasaan Fernandez took over the space in 2010 and have implemented a focus on organic and local food sources as well as an expanded backyard that doubles as a community/music event space and a customer waiting area.