Blue Sky Lounge @ Ulaanbaatar

The Blue Sky Lounge is located on the 23rd floor of the Blue Sky building, a sail shaped thing in the center of Ulaanbaatar. From the window you can appreciate the dated cityscape of a developing third world country, vast snow covered hills surrounding the city and gigantic columns of pollution rising up from the West. The beer selection here was a waste, however the crispy pork belly dish reminded me of some of the best meals I had when I was living in Sydney.

Blue Sky Building

View East

Boom Burger + Kanaal Craft Beer @ Sofia

Located a stones throw from off of Vitoshia Blvd, Boom Burger is the only gourmet burger shop in Sofia. If you go here try one of the more interesting burgers, the boom burger looked nice and tasted fairly good, however the surroundings of the meat were the main contributors to taste; I found myself wishing that I'd ordered the pulled pork ribs burger instead. On the brighter side they serve a wide selection of beer here, I got myself a White Stork, which was a crisp Bulgarian brewed compliment to the meal and helped smooth over any negative feelings. Although gourmet burger culture may have a far way to go in Sofia, when you only have 1 choice that makes this the best one in town.

Inside Boom Burger

Boom Burger

Snek Spotting @ Boracay

After a whole day spent mostly arguing with Cebu Airlines and Citibank, I realized I'd be spending an extra day on Boracay. My extra day was cloudy as another tropical depression was working its way over the area, but I figure Id make the most of it by walking north along the beach until I found something new.

Pathway along cliffside

Pudong CBD @ Shanghai

On my first day in Shanghai I did a little visit over to Pudong, the CBD area of the city. The view from the west side of the Bund river looking toward CBD is the postcard image of Shanghai that I'm used to seeing come up on Google searches.

Pudong from across the Bund river

A Cat and a Gecko

While walking around during the day I noticed a sign with a cat on it that seamed to be advertising a restaurant hidden in an alleyway. The cat stuck in my mind all day so when dinner time came around I decided to go back and investigate. After ordering a noodle bowl I waited for a while and sipped on my beer to pass the time, after about 15 minutes something interesting happened. A car drove up next to the restaurant and a kid hopped out with a large box and rushed into the kitchen area of the restaurant, literally 20 seconds later someone popped out of the same door to bring me my dish and the kid ran back to the car. The dish was a great value and the owner seamed like a cool person to chat with, but I'm pretty sure there was no kitchen behind that door.

cat

Le Bain

On our first night we wanted to check out a rooftop bar, we read that the standard had something of this sort, so we rode the subway west. Upon arriving in the meatpacking district, we witnessed an argument between a chick and her cab driver. The lady was screaming about her change causing a scene in front of the bar she was being dropped of at, but the cab driver acted swiftly to end the commotion by punching her to the ground.

After a block or so of walking we found the Standard and made our way up to the top floor. My dress wasn't up to code, so Mr. J approached first with a little act, chatting up the Hostess. By the time I approached he had won them over and they were lenient about the dress code with me.

We sat down at the bar and had a couple drinks. Mr .J ordered a glass of wine without checking the price and got a $35 bill for it.  This place had a pretty nice view, however what we had read about was an open air rooftop, so we did some investigation and found out we were in "Top Of The Standard", but what we were looking for was "Le Bain".

Journey To Lombard Street (Continued from Haight Ashbury)

After finishing up at Haight Ashbury, I continued to walk east toward Soma. However after about a mile or so, a vision popped into my head, one that told me that I would be be at Lombard street by the end of the night. I reoriented myself northward and soldiered on up and down the hilly landscape. I soon found myself in Alamo Square park, where from the top of a hill, I could look to the east and see the city scape of San Francisco proper.

The Utah @ SoMa

I made it over to The Utah Saloon last week, inspired mainly by the gigantic sign painted onto the side of the building and the out of place olive colored paint. I found Heretic Porter on tap which kept me in the place long enough to decide to check the menu. I was leaning toward a burger to get some protein, however after talking to the bar tender they said they'd be willing to throw a fried egg onto the Utah Club Sandwich for me. It came out looking quite juicy and I'd say the egg brought it out of the realm of bar food. I've gone back to this at nighttime during the week and I found the place brimming with activity. I bumped into a bartender I recognized from another place and she explained that this is the main hangout for bar/restaurant workers in SoMa. If you go after 11pm, my only warning is to watch out for flying beverage coasters

Sausalito

Friday I got a late start at getting out into the world, I was interested in taking a ferry to Sausalito, however the last one coming back would be in 2 hours. I decided that I would do it and just budget my time carefully while I was there.

San Francisco from the Water

Baccomatto Osteria

Walking through Darlinghurst the other day I passed a little restaurant with a bar inside called Baccomatto Osteria. I hadn't noticed this place before as it's kind of hidden east of Crown street. Inside I found a great selection of wines and beers all from Italy and ordered myself a Menabrea beer to go along with a squid dish. The beer was a nice change and the Italian's running the place made enjoyable conversation, but when my dish came out disappointment set in. The meal only had a couple of peaces of squid, scattered between some rock looking spongy bread things. I have no idea what this spongy shit was but I'm sure it had zero nutritional value. I won't go back to this place unless I fee like drinking some Italian alcohol.

Baccomatto from the street

Thirroul

I woke up yesterday morning with an urge to see something new in Sydney. I decided visiting the fish market would be worth my time, however it was too far to walk and I wasn't going to pay a cab. Some internet research indicated that a form of public transportation called "light rail" could deliver me to this location for a cheap 5 dollars, so I decide to skip lunch and get to the train station. After I made the walk down to central station and purchased my ticket, I asked the help desk where I could find the boarding area for this light rail thing. The answer I got was vague and difficult to understand through the Japanese accent, however I traced what little I could understand and ended up on the opposite side of the station at a bus stop headed for Thirroul. I didn't think light rail would be a bus, but there's been a lot of track-work lately and so buses have been filling in the gaps, I also didn't recognize the location, but that made sense because the line that stopped at the fish market also went to some place I didn't recognize. When the bus showed up 10 minutes later, I boarded with a great sense of accomplishment.

Mr. Wong's

I spent the night last night walking through CBD with Mr. T visiting various pubs and bars when I stumbled across this Mr Wong's. It was quite well hidden, you have to walk into an alley and around the corner to find it. Once you get inside you can see that this place isn't the shithole you might expect at this location, but instead world class Cantonese cuisine.

Main road

Aquaviva's

During my hung-over sunday, I ventured out yet again. I went north with no plan really, the goal was to maybe hit a couple of pubs to wind down the weekend. Somehow I ended up just south of where Oxford Street crossed William Street where I found a block or so of interesting restaurants that were a bit separated from the herd. After checking out the whole street I decided to venture into one called Aquaviva's.

Manly Beach

Today I took the advice of a co-worker and caught the ferry from Circular Quay over to Many beach. For 14 dollars I was able to buy the two way trip and the return trips went as late as 1:00 am. When you pull into port you'll find a small beach and some restaurants on the wharf, but don't be deceived, this is Manly cove which faces west. If you walk northeast through the shops you'll come out the other-side of this finger of land to Manly Beach looking out into the Pacific.

Aboriginal at Circular Quay

Sydney CBD

I needed to buy a towel today so I decided to walk over to Sydney CBD. I wasn't really sure where to go so I dropped into a bar for a drink at the Westfield and asked the bartender. He directed me over to Myer's and my goal was complete, which left me with hours of time to explore. I was dawn northward by the glimpse of the Sydney Harbour Bridge I could see at the end of the road.

Cock n Bull Pub - Bondi Junction

Tonight I met up with a friend and we searched around Bondi Junction for a good dinner spot. After failing to get into Kelly's Bar and Grill on the top floor of the mall, we tried the seafood place on the floor below. Unfortunately the serving size was small enough that we decided to seek more dinner elsewhere, back outside we ran across an Irish pub attached to the Grand Hotel called Cock n Bull. Although the name was generic and it's probably a chain, it seamed to be a bit more original than the surroundings so we proceeded.

outside Cock n Bull

South American Food on Cleveland Street

After getting home tonight I decided to go out in the rain and find a place to eat out. I made my way to Crown street in Surrey Hills and walked the street to investigate my options. The restaurants ranged from Japanese to Indian food, and from high end diner to hole in the wall shack.

two Indian restaurants on Cleveland

Wine Tasting in California

I'm back in California for a little bit, so I'm taking the time to explore some of California's nicer areas. I've been staying in the town of Lompoc, near Vandenburg air force base in Santa Barbara county.

Last week I ventured out from Lompoc up to San Luis Obispo for some wine tasting and some food with a friend. Our attempt to get to the wineries in Edna Valley failed as we were unable to locate the turnoff from shell beach, so we drove all the way to SLO and then turned south from there and drove passed the airport. The first place we hit was Edna Valley vineyards, the view out the window was awesome as usual and the traffic low. I tasted through the reds, and decided that this was exactly as I remembered these wines from years before, peppery, acidic and smokey.

View From Tasting Room At Edna Valley Vineyards

More South Mumbai

I made it down to south Mumbai again yesterday. Not much has changed, I just kind of explored some of the bars and stuff, one was on top of the Intercontinental hotel with a nice view of the queens necklace. I was able to get some absinth shots here, I'm not sure if it was real absinthe, however I felt pretty strange when I got up today. Btw there was a spot on the lens so all my photos from the day are tainted...