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As most people know, Syracuse's food scene is not equivalent to NYC, Boston, DC, Philly, or even Albany. That's not to say there aren't some decent finds out there, but you have to work at it a little bit. There are also some great dives, good appetizers, and of course the one, true, amazing standout, Dinosaur BBQ.

Lauren Young, of youngeats.com, does a great job of profiling the places you don't want to miss in Syracuse and the surrounding area. She also travels and writes about the places she find. Her review of the Brickskeller in DC was right on. I think La Tasca's review could have been a bit better - while I agree places in the US don't do justice to tapas like Spain, La Tasca (at least the one in Old Town Alexandria I ate at last weekend) was pretty darn good. Especially the meat plate and cheese plate. The sangria didn't come close to sangria in Spain, but let's be honest, that has as much to do with being in Spain as the taste of the wine! (And I should know, I spent 2 1/2 years in Spain enjoying sangria AND tapas!)

But I digress, essentially I was recommending her food blog because she showcases good finds in Syracuse. And no one else I've seen has ever profiled Chuck's specials.

Last night I had great Hanger Steak-Frites at Jack's Oyster House in Albany. Jack's has a terrific seafood menu, as well as steaks, veal, chops, and more. A friend had the Clams Casino, and while I'm not a fan of clams usually, this was good! The rack of lamb looked delicious, as did the filet. For dessert the cheesecake was beautiful, and the creme brulee was pretty good.

Service was impeccable, with our waitress very attentive. She also took a special order from one of our party, and took it in stride. I'd recommend the place, good food, good atmosphere, pretty traditional power-broker steak house. And the pricing was reasonable, with the hanger steak just $25.

Flavorful food, well presented, by very good wait staff. We arrived at opening and were the second couple seated, and it filled up quickly over the next hour (a Saturday night).

Tableside guacamole en molcajete was very flavorful, we had them add juice from two extra lime slices and that really made it come alive. The sopa Azteca was very good, interesting tomato flavors in a Mexican soup was new to me - and the soup was poured into the bowl with the fresh ingredients at the table. The braised pork enchilada was served with Mexican rice that was seasoned very well, not to dry and not too wet and refried or mashed black beans.Topped with crema fresca and pico de gallo the dish was complete. I thought the enchilada shell was cooked very nicely, just on the edge of crisp. Another side was a corn tamale. It had great texture, but needed a sauce to go with it as it was dry otherwise, and a bit too bland.

We skipped dessert, though they looked good. I'd go back because everything was well prepared, with excellent flavors.

Jeannie and I were in Boston over the weekend and had the opportunity to have brunch at Miel in the Intercontinental Boston.

Brunch was about $32 per person, and included a fruit smoothie or a mimosa. Both were excellent. They also have a selection of eggs, bacon, sausages, pastries, mini desserts, cereals, and such, but the highlight was absolutely the fresh fruit. The berries (blackberries, cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries) were fresh, flavorful, and plentiful. There were assorted cheeses (soft and hard) as well.

The highlight, however, are the small plates. We had a leisurely brunch and tried several of them. Depending on your tastes some are outstanding, and all are well prepared, innovative dishes.

First up, the Bacon Wrapped Sea Scallops. They have endive but that's appearance as far as I'm concerned. The pine nuts were fine but the rosemary honey dressing was too sweet for me. The scallops though were fresh, well cooked, and very flavorful. Second was the Crab Cake Benedict - it's a traditional poached egg but that's where it stops. It has spinach, and shallots, and a roasted red pepper hollandaise. But the real innovation is that it rests not on an English muffin, but on a crabcake. A bit over the top, but interesting.

The best of the small plates was the Steak and Eggs - it was a nice slice of steak, well seasoned, resting on truffled hash Browns, spinach and on top was a sunny side up egg. It was innovative, flavorful, but still captured steak and eggs as a dish. It looked like an eggs benedict with steak but absent hollandaise at first.It was very pretty on the plate as well.

The Sausage Omelet is just that, but it was well done with sausage, onions and cheddar cheese. The Croque Monsieur had Béchamel, honey ham and Swiss cheese, nice enough. The Toasted Baguette with goat cheese and tomatoes was more similar to a bruschetta, but good. The Crêpe aux Fruits Rouge had sautéed mixed red and black berries and white chocolate shavings and the crêpe was nicely done. Very good flavors, great mix of berries and the white chocolate.

Service was very good, the view was nice (though winter is less exciting to look at on that segment of the river in winter than in summer). The manager stopped and chatted when we engaged with him, and remembered us the next day when we stopped for the regular hotel breakfast. Excellent food, good prices, excellent service, I'd recommend it.

One of the things my wife and I love to do is travel, though we haven't done as much lately as we'd like. We took advantage of a three day weekend to go to Boston, and enjoyed several great restaurants, as well as a few sights. The New England Aquarium was great, as was the Boston Museum of Fine Art. I'll review the restaurants separately, but they included Ole, Oceannaire, Miel, and Sushi-Teq. I had a glass of wine in one, but otherwise no wine to review this trip, sorry!

I booked online through Hotwire because my normal chain was booked fully and I hate to bump people for no reason. After booking I read all the reviews everywhere as we were taking a weekend in Boston to celebrate my wife's birthday and our upcoming anniversary and I wanted to know what to expect in the hotel and surrounding area. Some reviews made mention of bookings not being honored so I was worried and called ahead, no problem, they had the reservation. Asked for a king bed, and was told "arrive early" so I was again concerned. But, on arrival they had the request noted in the system, asked if the standard king was fine, and gave us a city-view on the 11th floor.

The room was beautiful, well appointed with modern luxury touches. The bedside lighting is sophisticated and adjustable - three types of bedside lights. The first are standard table lamps, the second are led spotlights on flexible arms, and the third is a dim lighting in the headboard side panels to either side of the sliding windows between the soaking tub and the room. Additionally there are switches on both sides of the bed to turn on the hall light and not trip over something in the middle of the night. The bed was exceptionally comfortable, with four pillows plus a longer body pillow with nice cover.

The bathroom is well done, marble, granite, tile, wood, ceramic and chrome fixtures, and lots of shelves. There are good photos on this and some of the travel sites. But, beautiful, well done bathrooms.

The room had a chaise at the foot of the bed, a nice chair and ottoman, dedicated office space in the room I was in (it said King Deluxe on the check in slip, but the room map on the door made some rooms look smaller, and the Deluxe was supposed to be the smallest I thought). I can't find a great room layout on any of the sites. Other furnishings were dark wood night tables and dresser/TV console, and desk. There were adequate plug-ins where needed. A nice touch was the iPhone/iPod compatible clock radio - we plugged one in and had our own music in the room.

I was ecstatic because of the rate I paid on Hotwire, and the hotel service backed it up. We tried two of the hotel restaurants, to be reviewed separately, Miel and Sushi-Teq, and had great service in each. The restaurant manager for Miel stopped and had a nice conversation when we engaged with him. Talked about the food, chefs, and local area with us.

This was also an interesting experiment because I've been doing a lot with social media and public interaction recently. So, I posted comments about the trip on Twitter, before, during, and after. I also found the InterContinental's Twitter feed, followed them, and interestingly not one, not two, but three of their Twitter accounts are now following me on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/jschmeling) too. I posted one concern about the service, and then that concern was addressed fully at the hotel (as per above, re: room type). But I also posted about my reservation at Miel, and the manager took time to interact, knew my name, and remembered it the next day when my wife had breakfast there again. I don't know definitively that they reacted to my tweets, but I think it's likely.

I had a terrific brunch at Ivy's Bistro in NYC. Drove around looking for a place for breakfast/brunch, and this one was open, looked inviting, and while I was looking at the menu the waitress walked to the door and invited me in. Hey, that's service!

I highly recommend the traditional Egg's Benedict - it's exactly what I want, with the slight twist that it was a thin slice of ham rather than Canadian bacon. The hollandaise sauce had the lemon tang I expected. The brunch potatoes have peppers, onion, and great seasoning, a little bit of spice. The service was first rate, and they also have a prix fix menu for breakfast that's not a bad deal. They're in Tribeca, and the ambiance was also terrific - a corner table with a view of the river and New Jersey was nice. (Hey, even Jersey looks nice from across the river...) I also liked the photos on the wall - appeared to be mostly Paris, but I'm not certain. All black and white, nicely framed and matted. Classic bistro. Loved it!

Highly recommended, worth seeking out. Ivy's Bistro.

This morning my daughter flew from Syracuse to Cedar Rapids on American Airlines. It cost roughly $600 for a round trip fair. She flew round trip on United at Thanksgiving. It cost roughly $350. My son flew round trip from Syracuse to Minneapolis at the same time. His flight was $50 as a result of using frequent flier miles. Quite a lot of variation for essentially the same distances in a relatively short amount of time.

Both of them were delayed two days at the beginning of their trips, neither had delays on their return flights. Sure, the airlines let us change for free at the beginning of the trip due to weather delays, but the result was a two day shorter trip for each of them, plus extra trips to the airport. My daughter said this morning on the way to the airport "We sure go to the airport a lot, don't we?" She's right.

Ah, the joys of travel, holidays, and families going in multiple directions to spend time with families.  FWIW I used Expedia, Travelocity, and United's sites when booking and planning.

I'm spending some time post-processing various photos I've made. One of my favorite subjects is doors. I need to work on some technique as I often find later that I've cut off a corner, or been at an awkward angle. But I think I made this one well.




It's in El Morro in Puerto Rico.

These are three more of my favorite photos - all taken from the Hilton, Tel Aviv, and all of sailboats on the Med. I really enjoy photographing oceans and boats, and traveling is always terrific.

This photo of a sailboat on the Mediterranean just off of the coast of Tel Aviv, Israel, is probably one of my favorite photos. The Med is amazing to watch, and staying at the Hilton Tel Aviv probably improves the view a bit.



I had the opportunity to take a lot of photos when I visited Israel, and see a lot of historical sites. But, this one remains one of my favorite pics.

I really like this photo:

It took some post-processing, but I liked the final output. It was taken with an old manual focus zoom lens attached to my Pentax k100d.

Pentax K100D 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera Shake Reduction and 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens

I fell in love with the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. This item really represents the collection that was most of interest. Amazing - go see it if you can. Go see it even if you have to skip some other great opportunity!