Travel

Thomas Keller is most renowned for his world famous Californian restaurant French Laundry.  It remains exceptionally exclusive and difficult to land a reservation.  I tried and I failed.  Per Se, its sister restaurant in New York, was a slightly easier proposition to get a table. You only have to call up at 9am local time, exactly four weeks out from ...

Chef Eric Ripert’s French seafood cuisine at Le Bernardin is some of the most highly decorated in the world.  Most recently, it was recognized as the 19th Best Restaurant In The World, in Restaurant Magazine‘s annual awards.  It has upheld a standard of excellence for an unprecedented thirty six years since it first opened in 1976 and is a permanent ...

New York New York Cityyyy!!! We had high hopes and a million plans for New York.  It was the longest leg of our American holiday and it was our most anticipated destination.  We planned and we crammed our itinerary with so many things to do.  I certainly enjoyed my trip to America enough to want to revisit the country in ...

I’m currently reading the memoirs of Roger Ebert, the famous film critic and one of my favourite writers.  I’m up to a chapter that is entirely dedicated to praising the Shake n’ Steak fast food chain. The Steakburger is a symphony of taste and texture.  Steak n’ Shake has always boasted “We grind all the select cuts – sirloin, porterhouse, ...

Washington D.C Washington D.C – the nation’s capitol!  We flew in from San Francisco and had two days to go exploring.  I didn’t know a whole lot about American history before I arrived here but I watch a lot of The West Wing so I have a vague notion of what the famous landmarks are. When I think about the ...

San Francisco I’m pretty happy living in Brisbane.  The weather is good, we have a good football team and there are nice people here.  Having said that, if I was to move to anywhere else in the world, it would probably be San Francisco.  It is a gorgeous, picturesque city that is absolutely full of character.  The Golden Gate Bridge, ...

Anaheim After our short stay in Los Angeles, we headed up to Anaheim for a couple of days.  Anaheim is 45 minutes or 3 hours drive away from Los Angeles, depending on the traffic.  It’s best known for being the home to many famous theme parks including Knotts Berry Farm, Legoland, Seaworld, Universal Studios and of course, Disneyland. Taxi Cab ...

Los Angeles Flying into Los Angeles from Brisbane is basically embarking on the longest day of your life.  We flew out of Brisbane Airport at 10am, sat on the plane for 14 hours, then landed in LAX on the same day at 7am.  If you don’t get some sleep on the plane, you’ve got a seriously long day ahead of ...

Hey Everyone, To get 2013 kicked off, I’ll be a writing a series of entries about my recent three week vacation in America.  The short version of events is that I had a lovely time and the people there were wonderful.  But I was fortunate to do a good number of activities in my 3 weeks and I’d like to ...

I don’t mind telling you, it’s been a hell of a year.  Both Jen and I have survived a rather challenging twelve months in our careers and we will gladly see the back of 2012.  We’ve both had it pretty good up to now and have stayed at our respective companies for fourteen years combined.  But this year, for whatever ...