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By Pete, February 5, 2010 4:26 pm

The Drive...

Hello from the Big Easy!! I’m in New Orleans to ride in the Excalibur Parade tonight!! I’ll be wearing a ridiculous outfit and be tossing a bunch of beads into the crowds!! Should be good times… =) And also seeing how the Saints are going to be playing in the Super Bowl, I’ll be here until Monday to soak in the festivities!! I’ve enabled public sharing for this weekend only so ya’ll can see approximately where I am (or rather, where my phone is). Hope ya’ll have a good weekend!!

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By Pete, December 19, 2009 10:10 am

[Map generated using Google Latitude's History App]

I snuck out of town early in the morning – when I pretty have the whole road to myself. Check out the Texas sunrise!! FWIW, the picture doesn’t do it justice… (It’s not easy taking a picture at 75mph!!)

Sometimes, I wonder how many times I’ve driven this drive…

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By Pete, November 25, 2009 11:52 am

Thanksgiving isn’t the same without some football… Here’s a little something to get you psyched up…

[Nike Pro Combat: Texas]

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By Pete, November 6, 2009 11:59 am

I am not too sure which kid is not fascinated by aviation, but I’ve always wanted to go to an air show. So last week, I made a trip back up to the DFW area for the Alliance Air Show in Fort Worth. The US Navy’s Flight demonstration team – Blue Angels – were headlining the show. There were also a lot of other pilots/performers there.

For those of you without a flickr account, you can check out some of the shots of the air show that I got at a higher resolution at the link below.

2009 Alliance Air Show (Will open a new window)

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By Pete, October 11, 2009 9:08 am

With most of my tennis buddies out of town, I’ve been busily working on a project I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. What you see above is a screenshot of my new food blog. Like most shiny new things, I’m pretty excited about this project. I think most people around me know how much I love talking about food, so this food blog will probably have a lot more entries than this (my personal) blog.

If you’d like to test drive the new website, let me know and I’ll send you the link. The site is not live yet because I’m still trying to generate a little bit of content before and let it go live.

Also, I’m looking for guest contributors every once in awhile. So if you’ve got an interesting recent food experience, be sure to let me know!! =)

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By Pete, August 28, 2009 11:12 am

I’ve been on a tennis/mahjong binge lately. So that’s probably why the last post I did was on Alinea from my July 4th trip to Chicago and my series of posts on my Spain trip in May is still unfinished. I have decided to break my silence on my blog with the discovery of Gizmodo’s coverage of food tech this week when I’m catching up with my google reader.

Nick Kokonas, co-founder of Alinea, has been contributing to a new series of posts on Gizmodo (a tech blog) about technology and food called “taste test” (other notable contributors include Wylie Dufresne and Alton Brown). If you want to know about cutting edge technology in today’s kitchen, this is a pretty good series to catch up on. Meanwhile, check out this AMAZING video of Alinea…

Alinea/Crucial Detail – Tokyo Taste Intro from 2061wc on Vimeo.

If you want more, Chef Achatz is doing a live stream from the Alinea kitchen throughout the next few days, check out the link here.

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By Pete, July 9, 2009 10:41 am

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then no matter how many pictures I post or how many words I write, NOTHING will do justice to what I experienced at Alinea. My only hope is to recall and capture through words, a tiny fragment of that splendid 3.5 hours for both myself in the future and for you.

Seeing how I called in to make reservation at the earliest allowable time (2 months ahead), it is fair to say that I planned my trip around Alinea. For those of you unfamiliar with the menu at Alinea, they only offer 2 menus, a 12-course tasting menu and a 20-course tour menu. Initially, my thoughts were that since we were already there, let’s just do the tour and chalk that up as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But upon reconsideration, I decided that there was no way I would be able to do a 20-course meal. So we decided on the tasting and got our reservations on July 3rd at 7:15pm.

I’m not familiar with Chicago at all. So when the cab stopped, I just followed Carol & Tiem, my friends who live in Chicago, to two gigantic doors that leads into an unmarked building. Had there not been a valet outside, I probably would have walked right past one of America’s best restaurants without ever knowing it.

A dimly lit, declining hallway awaits on the other side of the double doors from the street. There was no music, there wasn’t much decoration. It felt like that it was a transition place to give patrons a chance to leave the world on the opposite of the doors that they just walked through.

After getting seated at our table tucked away upstairs towards the back of the restaurant, we were asked again if anyone had any food allergies (they have asked, confirmed, and reconfirmed during the reservation process) and also whether we’d want to order wine or do the wine pairing. We figured since we were already there, we might as well go ahead with the wine pairing (When in Rome, do as the Romans do right??).

Alinea - A New Beginning

Before our food arrived, I mentioned to C&T that it felt a little stiff and pretentious in the dinning room. The room was pretty much silent!! The walls were not bare, but it was a very minimalist decoration. The tables were about 10-12 feet away from each other. Not only was there was no table cloth on the table, there was also no silverware. The only thing on our table was a mysterious “functional centerpiece”, three small square plates (one for each of us) sitting towards the middle of the table with a “pillow” on top of the plate, and a napkin with the alinea logo on it. So many things that I’ve associated with being at a restaurant was completely, and very noticeably, absent. I could almost hear the thoughts in my head as I begin to question if this was a mistake because I’ve always believed that food should be unpretentious and bring people together. As I am looking around trying to soak in the surroundings, I saw out of the corner of my eye that our first course is on its way to us.

The suggested weapon for the upcoming course.

After the jump, I’ll try, to the best of my abilities, to describe in as much details as possible about the food. I’ve included at least a picture of each course as well as the pairings (if there was one). So grab something to drink, sit back, and enjoy. =)

Continue reading 'Alinea – Meal of my Life…'»

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By Pete, June 30, 2009 11:00 am

This is a contiunation (part 2 of 3) of a series of posts about my trip to Barcelona in May 2009. You can see part 1 here.

Cruisin’ Around Town

This was one of my favorite part of the trip. Not only because we got to see pretty much all of the historical landmarks in Barcelona, but it was also my first time on a bike since I got my driver’s license. Since the girls went on the bike tour with the same company in London (and Paris too, I think), we went with Fat Tire Bike Tours (who also offer a discount if you use them in different locations).

I was pretty skeptical about this at first because we ended up having a pretty large group (I’d say around 20) and the streets in Barcelona, for the most part, is pretty narrow. But everything worked out great – I did almost run over a few people, but it was pretty cool that since we had so many people we pretty much could just take up a lane in the road and ride as a pack.

We did the Day Tour, which lasted about 4-5 hours of relaxed riding and a lot of stops for picture opportunities (and even a lunch break on the beach – Sangria anyone??). Even though you hit up a lot of POIs in that time span, there are a few that might be worth your time to at least consider going back to.

Fat Tire Bike Tours – Barcelona
C. Sant Honorat, 7
08002 Barcelona
Spain
(34) 933 429 275

Asian (Staffed) Restaurant in Barcelona??
Before I lose all my credibility here, let me just say that no – I didn’t travel halfway across the world to eat Asian food in Spain. We went to “Les Quinze Nits” on a recommendation from Jen. I think the selling point for this restaurant was cheap, good food – but like all “budget eateries”, the price for this is a looong line that reaches 100s deep.

Tucked away in Plaça Reial, we got the the restaurant a little bit early. Since they don’t start seating until service for the dining room, we just ordered a couple pitchers of sangria and waited it out at the outdoor seating area (ironically, before coming here we went back to Txapela to get more Sangria because the Sangria we had for lunch on the beach didn’t give anyone a buzz). When we finally got in, I was surprised that the staff was all Asian (who knew there were so many Asians in Spain??). But after one look at the menu, I was really confused. Here I was sitting in Barcelona, at a Asian staffed restaurant, and I see a seared John Dory entree and a duck confit entree on the menu – What’s going on here???

Since the food was relatively cheap, I decided to splurge a little bit (that’s how they always get you!!). For starters, I split a fried calamari with someone. As soon as the soggy and under seasoned calamari arrived, I knew that I was expecting too much for this place (the menu sounded soooo goood). For the entree, I ordered both a pasta and a lamb shank (can somebody say this is why I’m fat??). It was a pretty good lamb shank, but as you can see below, the portion size left a lot to be desired.

Minus a little miscue from the waitress, I thought the meal was decent for its price, even though it wasn’t necessarily Spanish cuisine by definition. I’d put this restaurant in a “safe” category, just because I didnt feel like it was an adventure. The food was what it was. I can see the appeal of this place (as the dining room was very formal and elegant), however, I wouldn’t necessarily agree that it’s worth lining up for (maybe unless if you had a couple of pitchers of Sangria in your hand).

Les Quinze Nits
Passatge Madoz 5
08002 Barcelona, Spain
933 173 075