Gueuze and Kreik sitting on a barrel at Cantillon (or Brasserie Cantillon Brouwerij if you want to be specific) in Brussels:
I didn’t have time to take a tour this time, but it was a nice little stopover.
Cantillon
photos
best of the east bay party 2010
Went to the 2010 Best of the East Bay party at Jack London Square put on by the East Bay Express on Saturday. There was a good mix if people, food, art, merchandise and music. Here are some photos. Good times.
I watched the skateboarders for a bit. This is Lem:
Ferry terminal, Jack London Square:
Lead singer for Everything Must Go! Wild set.
Gift of Gab and Lateef the Truth Speaker + Headnodic from the Crown City Rockers = The Mighty Underdogs. They put on a damn fine show. Gift of Gab shredding the mic:
Lateef the Truth speaker:
Freestyle:
lateef: freeze!
Eating About Beer 2010
this past weekend, about 32 of us were treated to an eight-course beer-paired culinary adventure: eating about beer 2010. More extensive descriptions of the event will be written by the makers in the near future, so for now just I’ll share a few pictures:
- homemade sopressata
sopressata, cured at home
- pickled veggies
“a selection of seasonal pickled vegetables” arranged symmetrically
- homebrews
homebrews in fancy packaging
- soba-to-be
buckwheat soba noodle making
- avacado cutting
- beer
homebrews on ice
- soba
soba going through the pasta maker
- for the fritters
topping for the sicilian chickpea fritters
- pickled veggies
pickled vegetables cut up for serving
- beer model
marzen model
- soba
soba with cale, shredded daikon and dipping broth
- empties
- ceviche
peruvian ceviche
- ratatouille
ratatoullie with cheese scraping
- pork
pork chop
- prost
prost!
- salad
adding wheatberries to the salad
- mustard
mustard, in nugget dipping containers
- nuggets
nuggets, with dipping containers, in serving boxes
- silverware
fancy napkins for the nuggets
- dessert
tapioca with a hazelnut and coffee shortbread cookie
- the eab crew
the eab crew at the end of the night
giant octopus kites at cesar chavez park by the berkeley marina
went to cesar chavez park to say goodbye to brook. along the way saw some gigantor octopus kites that make up the octopile, for a preview of the berkeley kite festival:
remedy drip coffee
photo from remedy coffee in temescal (4316 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA)
temescal street fair 2010
Today was the 7th annual Temescal street fair along Telegraph ave in Oakland between 45th and 51st avenues.
Berta Olivia y su mariachi performed an impressive set near 51st ave:
there was a train (with a horn) for the kiddies:
oakland recycles and composts:
I couldn’t resist stopping by the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. I’d sadly never been in there. There is so much awesome junk just begging to reused (or “upcycled” if you will):
awesome drawers of markers and pencils with scribble marks everywhere (of course!)
Raciel and Tara (and sorry, I don’t know your name) from Tara’s Organic Ice Cream at their tent:
Bartender at Barlata:
bike and coffee shops in new york (part 4)
This is part 4 of the bike and coffee tour.
(part 1 of the tour and part 2 and part 3)
Abraco (86 East 7th Street New York) is a small space with a strong smell of coffee and a distinctive neon sign that is featured prominently as their logo on their website. The beans are from counter culture, and the guy apparently has Bay Area roots and had previous experience at blue bottle. For more information, there’s a good writeup in New York magazine.
Abraco’s website pushes some delicious looking pastries, but I only ended up getting an espresso:
The espresso, a ristretto, had a very “traditional” taste to me.
As claimed, the place was tiny and crowded. Nothing wrong with that.
Sam and I continued walking in the east village, headed towards brooklyn but in search of food.
We stopped by Dumpling Man for a snack:
I only ended up with a shot of the bathroom. “Please be good”
We took a little stroll through Tompkins Square Park and then came across Busy Bee Bikes (437 East 6th Street, New York, NY)
Nothing too crazy here. You can see a pretty big used part selection behind the glass on the right and a pretty bright paint job outside where some of the people from the shop were working on repairs.
Our next stop was Bike Works (106 Ridge Street, New York), just on the manhattan side of the Williamsburg bridge. they had a decent selection of cycling caps here, so I picked a couple up as souvenirs.
Also in front of Bike works:
The city was painting new bike lanes on Rivington St as we approached the Williamsburg bridge. Fresh green paint!
Williamsburg bridge photos:
Heavily covered with graffiti good and bad:
aand plenty crowded with cyclists and pedestrians. It was cool to see the variety of styles. There were old beater bikes, fixies with chopped bars, cheapo mountain bikes and nice road bikes.
We took a break to sit down and rest our legs in Williamsburg. There was some group ride going on that looked more instructional than anything else:
we started walking in the general direction of park slope, feet and legs starting to get tired. I happened to spot Bicycle Station (171 Park Avenue, Brooklyn, NY). I went in for a bit. The shop seemed small, and relatively sparse possibly due to the fact that they had moved to this location not too long ago. A family came in with a bunch of bikes needing attention and they were starting the repair as I left.
I stopped into La Bagel Delight for some food and then took a quick peek into Bespoke Bicycles (64-B Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn) before meeting Sam for a beer at Mullanes across the street. It was well-lit with some beautiful signage.
replenished and rested, we continued towards park slope.
Saw this on Atlantic Ave:
worst prizes ever. but cool tape job.
This little amendment to the BNE sticker took some planning. I got a kick out of it:
we had some time to spare before meeting up with Sam’s friend for dinner, so naturally we walked up and down 5th and 7th avenues.
Stopped into R&A Cycles (105 5th Avenue Brooklyn) for a second:
R&A has a big shop with many fancy road/tri/whatever bikes.
passed by Dixon’s (792 Union Street Brooklyn), so I stepped in for a second too:
Dixon’s is also a pretty large shop but their focus seemed to be used bikes and repairs:
We walked on to Tea Lounge (837 Union Street Brooklyn) where I didn’t get more coffee because I was already 2 espressos in for the day. Instead, we sat on a comfy couch and rested.
I tried making a google map of all of the places visited but am having a hard time embedding that onto this site. So, here’s a list of places that I visited (thanks again to Brooklyn by Bike and the New York Times Interactive Coffee Map! and the people who helped me along the way)
- recycleabicycle
- cafe grumpy
- b’s bike shop
- king kog
- blue bottle coffee
- oslo coffee
- nycbikes
- gimme! coffee
- affinity cycles
- velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop)
- lit fuse cyclery
- recycleabicycle
- stumptown roasters
- conrad’s bike shop
- abraco
- busy bee bikes
- bike works
- bicycle station
- bespoke bicycles
- dixon’s bike shop
- tea lounge
bike and coffee shops in new york (part 3)
This is part 3 of the bike and coffee tour.
(part 1 of the tour and part 2)
my time for the rental was running out and I was meeting friends at pacifico for dinner. I left lit fuse and rode through downtown brooklyn to get back to recycle a bicycle.
chris at recycleabicycle invited me in to take more pictures.
I took the subway back to my sister’s place in manhattan. It was kind of sad to leave the cruiser behind.
I caught this before the end of the night:
your brake levers overlap! but I suppose it’s good to at least have brakes.
I had to work the next day but continued the bike shop and coffee tour the day after that, on foot with my friend sam.
first stop: stumptown.
I was really impressed with stumptown (18 West 27th Street New York, NY). It’s a really well done little spot attached to the swank ace hotel.
the line was about 8-10 deep, which was a bit long but manageable.
there was lots of fun stuff, coffee and not coffee related on the walls.
stumptown’s espresso was my favorite of the tour by far.
saw this guy parked outside stumptown:
has anyone ridden a no-nose saddle before?
next stop: conrad’s in tudor city.
conrad’s bike shop (25 Tudor City Place New York, NY) looked like they got pretty serious with the bike fitting:
there was a decent selection of apparel and accessories as well as many fancy bikes on the floor.
sam and I walked down to the east village next, to hit abraco.
this guy had a good look:
and this note, hilarious:
“Don’t come crying when we cut your chain and remove your bicycle from the fence! THAT’S A BIG SIGN!”
one more to go. part 4 comes next.
ritual coffee at maker faire 2010
here’s the coffee counter from the ritual trailer (‘sputnik’) at this year’s maker faire:
here it was last year at the eat real festival in oakland:
we got a flight of espresso. $7 got you a shot of each of these costa rican coffees:
- five candles seasonal blend
- el alto, grace calderon jimenez
- los chachones, arturo chacon
the five candles was my favorite. I’m not big on tasting notes, but it tasted buttery.
I wasn’t very diligent with the pictures, so I present here 2/3 of a flight:
and of course the bike cart (photos here as well) was there:
