Archive | May, 2009

I Love LA, Part One: Bacaro L.A. Wine Bar

31 May

LA*: what a world of possibility; what a world of great food and places to go!

I was meeting up for dinner with my friend Camille from high school and had to find a place to eat.  But where to eat?  I looked around the internet and scoured the annals of my own experience to come up with four or five choices, which I proffered to her to choose from.  She chose Bacaro, a wine bar in South LA.

(Thanks to Yelp! for the pic.)

(Thanks to Yelp! for the pic.)

Bacaro came recommended from one of my fellow bloggers, Horny for Food.  It was supposed to have a good, reasonably-priced wine list, and good, reasonably-priced small plates.  Note also the cool atmosphere–blackboard wall, wine bottle ceiling, good mix of yuppies, hipsters, and yupsters.

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How French Women Are Great for a Wine Blog and for Champagne Sales

21 May

One of the cool things about being the administrator of a blog–at least powered through WordPress–is that I am able to see what search phrases people are using to get to my site.  Some of the most direct are phrases like “joon song wine blog” or “vinicultured.”  Others are things like “wine blog” or “hip wine blog” (since when did my blog become hip?).  The most popular phrases involve “pinot noir” or “best pinot noir”–my most popular entry, actually, is suitably titled “Mission Wines Tasting: The (Second) Best Pinot Noir I’ve Ever Had.”

Then, others are… well… not what I would have ever anticipated for a wine blog.  “Wisdom teeth coffee” has come up–presumably for my entry on how getting my wisdom teeth pulled temporarily ended my wine drinking career.  “LegalZoom sucks” has come up 24 times since I started my blog–and I can assure you quite readily that LegalZoom does not, in fact, suck.  A morbid series of phrases deals with how to throw a party for a dying person–which is somehow derived from my post on the psychology of a dying party (as in a party that is winding down, not a party for… well… dying).

But perhaps one of the most enjoyable series of phrases shows how the Internet is truly being used: the second most popular search phrase on my site is “French women,” the fifth is “women smoking,” and somewhere lower on the list is “French women smoking.”  My post isn’t really about drinking per se but is about the relatively recent ban on smoking in France.  (Look out for the nasty comment comparing me to a Southern slaveowner!)

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Beautiful Berkeley

19 May

What a beautiful place, Berkeley.  I didn’t really enjoy the place until late in my college career–perhaps starting my fourth year, definitely my fifth year.  I have been back up numerous times, but through a number of reasons was unable to do so for nearly the past year and a half–far too long in my book.  Thus, I planned to visit the Bay Area for a spell of a few days after my exciting and rainy adventure in New York the previous week.

The concrete reason for my trip was to visit two of my former residents (and current friends), Semra and Kana, and their awesome apartment up in the hills on North Side.  There was a sentimental reason, too–namely, that all of my residents and thus the vast majority of the people I knew in Berkeley would be graduating and leaving for the big vast world after college.  

There was a oenological reason, too: I wanted to drink a lot of great wine!

Again, as in my New York post, I’m going to just write down phrases that will hopefully serve to jog my memory when I’m looking back after a few decades.  =)

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New York, New York!

12 May

ArtichokeI am currently typing this post a half-hour past midnight here in my friend James’s apartment in Williamsburg, New York.  I spent the past few days here, “recuperating” from finals and the first year of law school.  I say “recuperating” in quotation marks because I’ve done a lot here–a lot of walking, taking subways, eating, drinking wine and other alcoholic beverages, drinking coffee and espresso, seeing jazz recitals, etc.  It might not have been recuperation in the physical sense, but more in a… well, spiritual way.

I stayed away from Times Square and the touristy things.  I thank my friend James as well as my friends Jen, Jonathan L., and Heather–all Berkeley grads and transplants to the City.  It was good also to see Colleen and Jon S. here in New York as well.

I promise that I will write more on wine per se–for now, however, suffice it to say I visited four or five different wine stores (including the very awesome Chelsea Wine Vault in Chelsea Market), purchased seven different wines, and drank a lot.  This post, however, will serve as a journal entry to myself–not very detailed, but just phrases to jog my memory in the future.  

For an alternate telling of the deliciousness, click here for my friend James’s entry on his blog.

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