Mark’s Duck house is an amazing Cantonese place I go to when I’m home in Washington D.C.. There’s nothing fancy about them other than the food but they make a lot of stuff, and they make it all really well.
The Darkening Dream just got it’s first pro review, from Kirkus Reviews. Highlights include: “A vampire novel with actual bite” and “wonderfully twisted sense of humor.”
This biography is primarily a character study. It seeks by detailing the man’s actions to try and quantify and qualify the traits that made him the iconoclast that he was. The hero of this book is not a particularly likable man or even that rational. He was a fierce demon of passionate opinion, amazing taste, and an extraordinary instance of talent at the intersection of technology and art.
An Icelandic TV station aired this peek at the end of shooting in Iceland for Season 2 of Game of Thrones (the awesome HBO Fantasy series). It even includes a glimpse of Ygritte (one of my favorite characters from the series) around the 6:30 mark.
Founded by aspiring game developers Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin back in 1986, the pair knocked together a number of little-known titles on the Apple II and Amiga before changing their company’s name to Naughty Dog. A four-game deal with Universal Interactive Studios, starting with Way of the Warrior – a Mortal Kombat-style fighting game for 3DO created using footage crudely filmed in an apartment led to none other than Crash Bandicoot on PSone.
Jaleo is like a good Tapas place in Spain but a little slicker, with perhaps more consistant quality. And they don’t have fresh anchovies! It is also a little (actually more than a little) more expensive than a typical Spanish tapas place in Spain. But considering the scarcity of good tapas places in America… worth it.
The Gaia Wars: DEADLY SECRETS have been buried in the Cascade mountain wilderness for centuries. Hidden. Out of sight and out of mind. Until today…
Besides the shameless grab at our wallets BDP1 is certainly the most cringeworthy episode yet. First of all, from a structural point of view, the first half has no conflict. Therefore no plot. But I enjoyed myself during the film. I laughed a lot. A real lot. But it was “at” not “with.”
I deployed a new video game topic page yesterday. This was a good chunk of work. I use a modified iThemes Builder child theme and so continued to use their custom layout and variable widget systems to build out a special page…
I made a bunch of updates to the excellent (but overpriced) Brentwood Italian, Villetta. This includes another meal worth of dishes. Read the full review here. I’m working on a bunch more website upgrades which I should have out in…
this Neapolitan style pizza joint just over the border into DC is the real deal. The dough here is incredibly good. Neapolitan flour and slow fermentation for sure. This was a pizza dough good enough to munch through all the remaining crust.
Zaytinya, which means “olive oil” in Turkish is part of José Andrés’ little culinary empire — which started first here in Washington D.C. and then spread to various other outpsts in the country including LA and vegas. Zaytinya, however, is neither Spanish or particularly molecular. It focuses on the Eastern Mediterranean cuisine of Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon. These are all former Ottoman zones and despite their political animosity toward each other share much in common — foodwise.
Back “home” in DC we wanted a quick and easy meal and so headed out to Reston to this reliable place. I reviewed Coastal Flats last year, another member of the same small chain. This isn’t really chef driven cuisine. It’s basically comfort food. But it is well done.
I’m very busy right now with different stages of both my novels. I’m line editing Untimed and trying to get my first, The Darkening Dream, ready for publication. One of the more fun parts of this is the art design….
Part of the tradition for the ThanksGavin weekend of gluttony is a Saturday deli brunch. As we celebrate in Philadelphia, we have access to all sorts of good deli and the like. Each component comes from a specialty place, including fried to order donuts!
Given that we went out to the Zoo all day while my cousin Abbe cooked up this followup to the official Thanksgiving dinner, she insists that it should really be called the ThanksFlitter (her last name). Regardless, the gluttony continued. Abbe cooked up a wonderful pseudo-Mexican feast.
It’s Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving and we head down to the Philadelphia Italian market to channel our inner Tony Soprano. A great hoagie from Sarcone’s, Cannoli from Isgro Pasticceria, cheese from Di Bruno’s!
Every year my mom and her sister cook up an incredible feast for the family. And every year, incredibly, the food gets slightly better. In a tradition developed over the last twenty years, the Gavin Thanksgiving weekend is defined by four major meals. This is the second — and most important — of them.
And with a blast the ThanksGavin 2011 is off. Canonically, in a tradition developed over the last twenty years, the gavin Thanksgiving weekend is defined by four major meals. The Wednesday night dinner (out somewhere, usually in downtown Philly), the main event on Thursday, the Friday night dinner at my cousin Abbe’s, and the Saturday deli brunch. For this year’s kickoff a downtown intimate French restaurant was chosen. This was a very good meal. Classically French, yet with a slightly updated palette and a deft touch. If you are in Philadelphia I highly recommend.
As we rapidly approach the season of ThanksGavin I would like to take a moment to relive last year’s week of ultimate gluttony in anticipation of another fat and flavor filled week of food blogging. The full list of ThanksGavin 2010 posts…