Vino Vino wine bar! Local wine, great ambience, and reasonable prices
In our admiration of drinking wine, we stumbled across an unpretentious and cool wine bar in downtown San Jose called Vino Vino. It is located in the new San Pedro Square Market, which opened to the public in October 2011 in former and abandoned buildings on the corner of N San Pedro St and W St. John.
The wine bar has great food and cheese plates versus more expensive wine bars I have been too. They serve a variety of wines that come from local vineyards such as Livermore, Morgan Hill, Saratoga and the Santa Cruz Mountains. In addition to great wine they also have delicious sandwiches made with bread from a local bakery. They layer the great tasting bread with unique blends of artisan cheeses, herbs, fantastic meats and unique dressings such as basil and pesto. To top it off you can end the night with their fantastic cheesecake, which is to die for.
The ambience is cool and low key. There is a bar; two tables in each corner and two long concrete counters that hold about 8 people each. Additionally there is some out door seating and a standing bar, which is wonderful with the nice summer weather, we have been having.
If you want great wine, fantastic foods, and good company at a reasonable price, check out Vino Vino in downtown San Jose. It is one of our favorite hangouts after work or before going to a show or game at the HP Arena.
Check out this CBS Eye on the Bay video talking about San Pedro Square Market and Vino Vino: http://vinovinosj.com/news
Bocanova – Jack London Square offers hip Pan American fusion restaurant
Last Friday I got to go to one of my favorite restaurants in Oakland at Jack London Square called Bocanova. For those of you that haven’t been to Jack London Square in a while it is becoming a little hip site for some trendy new restaurants like Bocanova or Haven, candy shops, outdoor activities like kayaking, great Sunday farmers market, and jazz concerts.
Bocanova has great food and a great ambience. As it starts to get warmer you can sit outside with a great view of the marina and Oakland estuary. The inside is very modern, a sort of hip Vegas restaurant feel with dark woods and great lighting. Not only is the ambiance good, but also the food is amazing.
Bocanova is a combination of cuisines from North, Central and South America all made with sustainable California ingredients. They offer killer cocktails like Lavender with Vodka and Honey, to Cucumber Gimlet, to so many artistic creations using various types of tequila. The food is to be shared among the table and I can’t say there is not one thing I have not liked. The ceviches are…click below to read more
Skydive without jumping out of a plane; being superman at iFly
Who said floating in air like a bird was not fun? I have always wanted to skydive, but have put this off till my kids are a bit older. Recently, I got a gift to go to iFly in Union City, CA with my son. It was a blast and more than I could have imagined.
iFly, simply put is flying. They have a vertical wind tunnel that moves air up in a vertical column, creating an indoor skydiving experience. You will basically soar on a column of air inside a wind tunnel. It is as cool as cool gets.
Instructor doing tricks at Union City Location
iFLY uses superior technology and is unique; multiple fans located at the top of the flight chamber produce a wall-to-wall airflow that is smooth and fun to fly in. The airflow is totally controllable; this, combined with their professional instructors, makes for the most exciting flight experience possible.
You can buy certain amounts …click below to read more
Track Your Running and Cycling Mileage Workouts on Google Maps
In the search for a tool that would let me plot my runs around the neighborhood, I stumbled across a very cool web site that let’s you do this on Google Maps. Gmap Pedometer is a site that uses Google Maps to let you record your distances by plotting your walk, run or cycling routes. The site offers a lot more as well. It lets you create and save your routes, track your times and workouts as well as saving them on a calendar, see how many calories you burn, and much more. You can also use the site with Nike’s iPod shoes.
The owner of the site states: “As a runner training for a marathon for the first time, I found myself wishing I had an easy way to know the exact distance a certain course is, without having to drag a GPS or pedometer around on my runs. Looking at Google Maps, and knowing there was a vibrant community of geeks hacking it, I knew there had to be a way. So here it is. I placed the a link to my Web app on a couple of running message boards, and the rest was history.”
Cirque du Soleil’s TOTEM Comes to San Jose
Cirque du Soleil’s latest show, Totem, comes to San Jose in March. Opening night is March 2 – April 15. I had the privilege of attending a preview, warmup show last night.
In the usual Cirque du Soleil style, Totem has numerous gravity-defying acts, fantastic music, beautiful costumes and numerous acts of amazing strength and body manipulation. I found this show to have a broader artistic flavor than previous shows. It takes the audience across the evolution of man from amoeba and insects to chimpanzees, to native tribes in Africa, to Native Americans dancing and performing amazing acts across stage, to Eskimos, to Darwin performing experiments in test tubes, to modern man, and finally astronauts defying gravity in space and live.
Cirque du Soleil Totem Trailer
This is the first Cirque du Soleil show I have…click below to read more
Great German Pancakes
This is a recipe my wife found in a magazine a few years back that has been a favorite of ours and the kids for breakfast. It is super easy to make.
German Panckake
Makes 4 servings
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup milk (whole milk is better)
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
Heat oven to 400 degrees. While oven is warming up, in a large bowl whisk the eggs. Once eggs are whisked add the flour and whisk until smooth. Add the milk, salt, and vanilla and mix. Set aside. Add the butter to a large cast-iron skillet and transfer to oven until the butter melts. Remove quickly and pour batter into the hot skillet. Return skillet to the oven and bake until the pancake is puffed and golden, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle on confectioners’ sugar. You can also cut up strawberries and bananas to put on top with syrup or jam.
Gift Cards to Your Favorite Store or Restaurant at Huge Discounts
The other day I was looking to order some new dining room chairs from Pottery Barn when I remembered an article I had read while on a Southwest flight talking about a startup called Cardpool. Cardpool allowed consumers to sell unused gift cards and for buyers to acquire these gift cards at a discount to their face value. I decided to check Cardpool out. The company, a San Francisco startup was acquired in late 2011 by Safeway’s gift card division.
Cardpool offers a variet of physical or online gift cards at any store or restaurant you can think of shopping or dining at; even movie theaters. They even have gasoline gift cards which can be a savior in this day and age. I found cards for stores such as Banana Repbulic, Anne Taylor, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Home Depot, and my all time favorite Target from discounts from 5-35% off the face value of the card. They even offer cards from restaurants such as Morton’s Steakhouse, Maggianos, Chilis and many others.
You can also sell unused gift cards you might…click below to read more
Become Part of a Flash Mob in San Francisco
We have all seen the videos on YouTube or TV of random flash mobs taking place in city streets, malls, college campuses, etc. Wouldn’t you love to take part in a flash mob and check it off your own “bucket list”? Well you can.
Some of you might ask, what is a flash mob?
Wikipedia defines it as:
A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, and then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression
For those of you living in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a local flash mob group in the city, Bay Area Flash Mob, that gets together approximately once a month to perform in public in random places from the Ferry Building, Union Square, the Castro, and Dolores Park. Each time they perform it is typically to a medley to performers such as Madonna, Janet Jackson, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, and others. You will find folks dressed to fit the part.
Video of Bay Area Flash Mob Madonna medley performance at Union Square:
My wife and I were going to participate in the last flash mob in…click below to read more
Flour + Water; Italy Comes to San Francisco in Fantastic Restaurant
This past weekend I snuck away to the city and wanted to have dinner at Flour + Water, 2401 Harrison St, San Francisco. which I have heard so much about and have avoided in the past due to the 2-3 hour wait. This time I was willing to wait to see what all the excitement was about. Flour + Water is definitely Italy being dropped into the heart of San Francisco.
It is an Italian restaurant in The Mission. It’s name lives up to the menu since all the pasta is homemade and you will be eating various courses of food you have no idea what it is based on the Italian names and descriptions in the menu. But the food is fabulous and we just asked the bartender to recommend courses for us. I have not eaten Italian food like this on this side of the US.
As it says on their website, “Their (Our) main focus at flour + water is pasta, and our goal while reflecting the great variety is to honor regional traditions and preparations. Each day we have up to eight pastas on our menu, all of which are freshly made in the restaurant.”
The dining room is made up of chunky wood furniture that feels…click below to read more
1920s Speakeasy in San Jose; Great Cocktails and Atmosphere
In the heart of San Jose, one is reminded of a bygone era of gangsters, prohibition, ragtime music, and underground speakeasies as they enter singlebarrel, the new bar in town. One might miss singlebarrel as they drive down to the corner of First and turn right onto W San Salvador St. There are no signs, no loud DJs blaring music, but only an unassuming barrel hanging from the brick wall above a line of patrons waiting to get in.
Even as one enters and is led down a flight of stairs in what seems like a dark basement and through a hallway and past curtains, you might be wondering if you have entered the Rabbit’s hole in Alice in Wonderland. Once you step through the curtains you feel as if you stepped back to the 1920’s and are in one of the many typical underground bars or “Speakeasies” of the time…click below to read more
