Review of Love Cafe

Love Cafe is the hang-out offshoot of Cake Love, a luscious DC bakery. Warren Brown, the owner of Cake Love and Love Cafe is an attorney turned baker who also hosts Sugar Rush on the Food Network.

Cupcakes are the specialty at Love Cafe, and it's hard to walk by there without picking one (or several) up. I have to admit that I find some of the cupcakes a little less moist than I prefer. However, whatever they lack in gooeyness, they more than make up for with the frostings.

Unlike most cupcakes, the frostings at Love Cafe are made with real flavors (not extracts) and you can tell. I love the raspberry frosting and the coffee frosting. I'm really making myself hungry here. Rumor has it that cafe has a cupcake bar where you can make your own concoction. They also have other pastries (huge, yummy eclairs), but I can't resist the cupcakes.

Love Cafe, 1501 U St., NW Washington, DC 20009

Review of Pizzeria Paradiso

This is the Georgetown location of Pizzeria Paradiso. There is also one in Dupont Circle. They have a simple menu of wood-fired pizza and panini. They make an absolutely perfect crust, especially when they let the good bubbles form. The pizza is never to heavy on the cheese or sauce. All the ingredients are super fresh.

The Dupont location has a beer and wine list that is very decent. The Georgetown location has an enormous beer list and a full bar. The prices are reasonable, especially by DC standards. It's a great place to hang out with friends or go out on a casual date. I really recommend sitting at the counter so you can watch them throw your pizza into the brick oven. Those guys are focused.

Pizzeria Paradiso, Dupont Circle, 2029 P Street NW, Washington, DC
Pizzeria Paradiso, Georgetown, 3282 M Street NW, Washington, DC

Review of Dolcezza

That man is about five minutes away from a food orgasm. He is standing at the counter of Dolcezza, an Argentinian gelato place in Georgetown.

Dolcezza has become something of an obsession of mine. There was a couple months there where Chris was biking down to Georgetown every Friday to pick up our weekly pints. (Yes, that is pints with an s.)

The flavors range from your standard chocolate or coffee to lime-cilantro and tangerine-honey-cardamom. The creamy gelatos are unbelievably smooth. The icier ones are so refreshing, you've devoured a pint before you even realize what you are doing.

If you are ever in DC, go to Dolcezza. Period.

Dolcezza, 1560 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20007

Blown Away Again by Raul Midon

Chris and I first saw Raul Midon perform at the Van Dyke Cafe on Miami Beach. That must have been seven or eight years ago. He completely blew us away with his jazz/soul/r&b. So we were really excited when we heard he was playing.

He played last weekend at the Kennedy Center open house. Every year the Kennedy Center opens its doors and does an entire day of free performances - everything from ballet to salsa. So not only did we get to see Raul, we didn't have to pay. Gotta love that.

As phenomenal as he was the first time we saw him, he was so much better. He's added some more sounds to his repertoire (Cuban, folk...) and his guitar playing is now incredible. He's known for his ability to imitate horn sounds with his mouth. The look on the kids faces in the audience when he started doing it was priceless.

I could go on and on. His recordings are great, but it is the live performances that are really outstanding. If you ever get the chance, don't miss it.

With the Fishes at the Baltimore Aquarium

This fish has some serious personality, not something you hear a lot to describe a fish. The fish resides at the Baltimore Aquarium. Every time someone would go up to his/her tank with a camera, the fish would swim right up and pose. It was hilarious.

I was at the Baltimore Aquarium because, my work decided to spend the day there for our biannual team day. We spent the morning having a meeting in the huge building owned by Catholic Relief Services. When we arrived one of my work mates joked that she was amongst her people. (She's Catholic.) My first thought was that her people liked to put my people on medieval contraptions and then burn them alive, but I figured she wouldn't really want to hear about that.

After what was a boring (and undoubtedly useless meeting that will never be followed up on), we traipsed through the depressed Baltimore streets to gorge ourselves on plates of pasta at Amicci's in Little Italy. I tried not to think about what Chris's friend, the restaurant health inspector, said about Little Italy restaurants. The food wasn't bad in that cheap, plentiful, Americanized-Italian sort of way.

As for the aquarium. It was pretty good, not as good as the one in Monterrey, but worth a trip.

Fells Point and the Weirdness of Baltimore

Baltimore doesn't look so weird in the photo, I know, but it's an odd city. The first time Chris and I went there, we went to a street with a bunch of bars on it. In the course of about 20 minutes, we saw three drunken brawls break out.

This trip was a little more chill. We stayed in Fells Point on a very quiet night. This time there were bars, but no brawls. The odd thing about Baltimore is that you never really know what you are going to get and it always seems just a little bit sad.

Fells Point is a nicer area than most. Much of Baltimore feels like a run down industrial city, way past its prime. They have urban renewalized much of the harbor area, so now it is filled with cheesy tourist bars and chains. Not sure which is worse to tell you the truth.

Stuffing My Face on the Stephen Taber

This is a shot of the galley on the Stephen Taber. That huge stack of fresh corn went very nicely with our lobster that evening. I kept myself under control and only ate two lobsters. Chris had two lobsters and a couple claws.

We downed the lobster with lots of wine and then sat around on the deck of the sailboat rubbing our engorged bellies. Sexy huh? Who cares when you get to eat two lobsters. I don't even care that lobsters are related to roaches. They cannibalize each other like roaches too. (Is that too much information?)

Review of Cafe Miranda

Pictured is funky little Cafe Miranda in Rockland, Maine. It came highly recommended by all the guidebooks and the owners of the bed and breakfast we stayed in.

Cafe Miranda can only be described as schizophrenic, but in a good way - like Robin Williams in The Fisher King. The menu is hand scribbled and incredibly long. There's no room to divide items up with nice sub-headings like "salads" or "entrees" so it's all just squeezed in together.

The menu items are even more schizo than the menu scrawl. Items include Big Duck Unit, Polish Hippie (grilled knokwurst sausage on an arugula and beet salad), and Six Week Itch (rigatoni pasta with red sauce and romano cheese). We went with the seared sea scallops with green chili tartar sauce, sweet potato fries with secret spice, Et tu Brutus (the salad that "kills a Caesar"), and the fish special of the day.

The scallops were cooked perfectly. They were in two sauces, the tartar I didn't like so much, but the spicy duck sauce-like substance was delicious. The sweet potato fries turned out to be covered in Indian spices (which makes sense since they served it with yogurt). They were good, but I'm partial to hotter spices on my potatoes. The caesar was a bit heavy on the dressing for me, but good. The real treat was the fish. It was cooked in the wood oven in a light broth with tomato and seasonings and some wide noodles. The flavor was incredible.

Of course we left a little room for the homemade ice cream, which was creamy and delicious. Then we rolled our big bellies out of there. If your headed that way, Cafe Miranda is worth a trip. Not all of the dishes hit it completely, but that's how it is with art.

Funky Portland, Maine

These are some kids walking down the street in Portland, Maine. Notice the "IMPEACH" graffiti on the wall behind them. I saw quite a few Obama signs as well. I can't remember having seen any McCain ones.

There are lots of tattooed youth wandering around Portland. There are several schools in town, including an art school. The town definitely has an art school vibe in some places.

It seems like a place that is regenerating, and not in that top-down lets build a strip mall sort of way. It is being resurrected by kids, artists, and local businesses (businesses which appear to be cherished and protected).

There is a surprisingly good museum for such a small town and quite a few interesting restaurants (although we only tried a couple). All in all, I dug it.

Biking the Maine Coast

That's me taking a photo break on our marathon bike ride between Rockland and Camden, Maine. We were told the ride was 8 miles, which didn't seem that bad. Sadly, I did not take into consideration hills and wind. My legs were killing me by the time we got back.

I'm cracking up because I had just finished taking a picture of Chris and discovered, upon putting my camera down, that he was taking a picture of me. We're such dorks.

Sore legs aside, the bike ride was great. The weather was perfect. The road followed the coast and took us into a little wooded peninsula below Camden where we took a break and watched the sailboats go by.

Sailing the Maine Coast

This picture of the Maine coast was taken from aboard a historic schooner called the Stephen Taber. The Maine coast is filled with beautiful old wooden boats, but none has been sailing as long as the Taber.

There were 29 of us on board, 22 passengers and 7 crew. Most of the day we spent cruising by islands covered with impossibly green trees and impossibly large houses.

Other passenger boats were out there. So were private pleasure boats and working lobster boats. I can't recall hearing anything so crass as a motorboat and I definitely didn't see any water skiing. This is a place for just chillin.

Check out more Maine pics here.