I don’t remember how I found this place but I did thanks to the internet. Beer halls beer halls! We need more beer halls in Park Slope and not in Williamsburg. Whats not to love about beer halls? Endless beer choices and usually good hearty food to go with beers! That usually equates to meat or something deep fried. I rarely go to 3rd Ave in Gowanus for anything, except the occasional shows at the Bell House. And if you’re familiar with “South” Slope you know how much quieter it is after 9th St on any of the avenues. So to have a beer hall on 3rd Ave between 12th and 13th St well, is that good for business?

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For pure research and to blog more for Drink To Blog, Matt, Phae and I went to a beer tasting at the Beer Table recently. The guest talker was Chris Munsey of Murray’s Cheese. You can read about the stout tasting here.

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Toby’s Public House

This was my 2nd time going to Toby’s and was our last stop on the Brooklyn pizza tour. By then Mo, Howard and I were stuffed up with pizza but since it was our last stop we went all out. A table full of Old Speckled Hen is pretty eh?

Dramatic lighting on my spicy pecorino pizza. Ah.

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What do I know about Baltimore? The Wire? Even when Anthony Bourdain went to Baltimore for his “Rust Belt” show he did it around The Wire. It seems that The Wire is more famous than the city and from the one episode I saw of The Wire I should be really careful when I go. Baltimore has always been a city that I pass by on my way to somewhere else. Springfield, DC, Annapolis…and etc. Visiting Baltimore has never crossed my mind before until my ex-boss asked me to be her wedding photographer. I was honored when she asked me and then I got excited because I get to be out of town for a weekend. Okay I may have exaggerated a bit about only knowing Baltimore from The Wire, there’s also Ace of Cakes!

It’s so weird traveling by yourself. What do you do? I had spent a lot of time in the hotel room with the free HBO. Didn’t really do a lot of sightseeing nor did I venture out too far from the hotel. It helped that the hotel was RIGHT AT the Inner Harbor, tons of museums and shops for mostly tourists. I arrived at Baltimore around 8pm on a drizzling Friday night. After checking into the hotel, half of me just wanted to crash into bed while my other half wanted to go out. Damit it was only 8:45pm. I was invited by my ex-boss to go have drinks with them and their friends. I’m actually kind of shy and am always afraid of being quiet in front of people, especially people I don’t know. Took me 15mins to debate about it but finally decided to go. It was 9pm on a Friday night and I was in another city. I can’t be a frakkin’ loner. I went out and got a cab.
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I remember having frogs for dinner a lot when I was a kid growing up in Hong Kong. Seriously it was one of the dishes that I really looked forward having. Having frog seem such a norm to me. They may be ugly and slimy but once they’re cleaned and chopped and cooked…oh so good. I prefer the dark meat of a frog over the white meat. Can I say that about frogs? Dark and white meat? But ever since I moved to the States I haven’t had frogs at all. Now after 24 years of frogless meals I finally ordered some at Bia Garden. Bia Garden is the brainchild of Michael “Bao” Huynh. I have never been to any of his restaurants nor tasted any food from him. Howard had informed me of this new beergarden and was keeping track of when it was going to open. After much delays it finally opened and we gave it try.
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When I think “beer garden” I think of busty blond wenches in lederhosen serving up sausages and steins of frothy beer (and maybe yodeling while they do so). I don’t have any frame of reference for this association, having never been to a beer garden, but when Jeff & Eva invited me to join them at Loreley Biergarten I had that image swimming around in my head. Loreley defied my expectations — it’s essentially a dive bar that happens to stock tons of specialty German beers and has a restaurant in the back that serves German food. Thank goodness for that.

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