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Home Brew
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Archived Posts from this Category
Posted by TheShot on 30 Jul 2014 | Filed under: Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Local Brew, Machine, Roasting
You may not have noticed it through most of the usual "coffee media" channels, but this past Saturday San Francisco hosted CoffeeCon's first-ever road tour. You might recall our coverage last year of CoffeeCon 2013, held at its Warrenville, IL mothership. In its fourth year, CoffeeCon has been enough of a success at addressing unmet coffee consumer interest to take the show nationally for the first time — with SF on July 26, NY on October 11, and finally in L.A. on November 8.
CoffeeCon is somewhat unique as a consumer-oriented coffee event, where layman coffee lovers and enthusiasts can participate without being overlooked for coffee professionals or shunned by trade show hucksters. We may have derided the widespread abuse of the term "Third Wave" as self-promotional marketing babble for some eight years now. But if there was ever an experience that epitomized coffee lovers "enjoying coffee for its own sake," this has to rank right up there.
They held it in SOMA's Terra Galleries art gallery/event space, which operated with a surprisingly heavy security detail. A great number of area coffee purveyors came to show off their goods to attendees — including roast-to-order Artís in Berkeley, Blue Bottle, Chromatic, De La Paz, Equator, Flywheel, Four Barrel, George Howell (from MA), Henry's House of Coffee, Mr. Espresso, Old Soul Co. (a gem from Sacramento), Peerless, Ritual Roasters, Sightglass, and Verve. A favorite overheard non-sequitur of the day reflected the variety on display: "Oh, there's Blue Bottle… but I can get that anywhere."
Besides sampling a lot of coffee, attendees could also take courses, experience hands-on demonstrations of consumer equipment, hear talks from professionals (CoffeeCon has contractually locked up much of George Howell's speaking tours), and even check out home roasting equipment in the outdoor space.
We caught Mr. Espresso's Luigi di Ruocco's "Italian Espresso" talk and even had an epiphany or two. For example, the Italian art of balance in espresso blends makes all the more sense when you think of how many each Italian sips in a given day. Punchy, overbearing brightness bomb shots would create more palate fatigue if experienced multiple times daily. It also dawned on us how important a rounded espresso flavor profile is to end a meal on as a complement, rather than competitor, to the food you've just eaten.
KitchenAid was one of the event's key sponsors, and they announced a new home coffee brewer currently in factory production. It attempts to automate manual pour-over coffeemaking with an enclosed system of water-pulsing that follows a programmable pour-vs.-steep algorithm. In that sense, it seems a little like a consumer version of Clover's Precision Pour Over concept, which has seemingly gone dark over the past couple of years.
While KitchenAid has been long known for its mixers, it first got into the coffee business with the A-9 and A-10 coffee mills back in 1937. They still do amateurish things, such as exclusives with Williams-Sonoma (who notoriously offer some of the most overpriced and most substandard/landfill-bound consumer coffee appliances on the market). But in recent years KitchenAid has introduced decent-for-the-price-point Pro-line Burr grinders and other worthy consumer coffee products targeting what they now, unfortunately, call the craft coffee market.
Side note: the term "craft coffee", appropriated from the beer world, is really just a pound-for-pound stupidity surrogate for the ever-more-embarrassing "Third Wave" term these days. Use of the term is made all the worse by the decades-old homonym, "Kraft coffee": i.e., the Big Four coffee purveyor more commonly known as "Maxwell House." This is akin to the craft beer market calling itself the "blue ribbon beer market". *Facepalm*
So it's with curious irony, lost on KitchenAid, that they're now offering an appliance that push-button automates a manual pour-over in the name of craft coffee. (And not an Alanis Morissette "irony" either.)
As a home-grown event with little professional event staffing, CoffeeCon seemed to experience a bit of chaos outside of its mothership confines for the first time: running out of badge-holders, a lack of pre-event press, some improv when an occasional speaker didn't show on time, and a couple of classrooms separated only by a hospital-room-like thin cloth barrier. The last one generated audible cacophony when the class next door would roar with coffee grinders. But all in all, the event was anything but disappointing.
We even reconnected with Aleco Chigounis, whose coffee sourcing we've long been big fans of. He's since established Red Fox Coffee Merchants. (No relation, however, to "This is the Big One. Elizabeth, I'm coming to join you, honey!".)
Posted by TheShot on 27 Jun 2014 | Filed under: Add Milk, Foreign Brew, Home Brew, Starbucks
Not unlike Carmel, CA, Half Moon Bay is a smaller oceanside community that serves as something of a test of quality coffee penetration. Located only 30 miles from San Francisco, and possessing its own Peet's and Starbucks (unlike Carmel), Half Moon Bay remains surprisingly isolated and remote from many of the coffee fads and baseline standards that the cityfolk up north have grown accustomed to.
Thus finding a solid espresso in town is a real challenge. Half Moon Bay is fraught with many wrong turns and dead ends that lead to an over-extracted, watery ash flavor that many San Franciscans might recognize from 1988. But there are some mild exceptions — such as Blue Sky Farms.
This roadside café, coffeehouse, and nursery (yes, nursery — the plant kind, that is) constitutes a rather dark wooden hut that you might miss if you drive up Highway 1 too quickly out of Half Moon Bay towards El Granada. There's a parking lot with a main entrance to the rear of the building, right alongside the nursery and gardening supply.
Inside the simple wooden frame building, it has a typical rural café feel. It might seem a little like a family-run spot, but it's more together than that. They serve baked goods, breakfast items (eggs, burritos, weekend waffles), and other light dining fare. There are several indoor metal-topped café tables — and some worn wooden picnic bench seating in the rear patio outdoors.
Using a three-group Conti machine in the service area, and Moschetti coffee (Moschetti makes their service area presence well-known in Half Moon Bay), they pull shots with a pale to medium brown mottled crema served short in a shotglass-sized cup (Romania ceramic from IKEA). It has a healthy body and a smoothed-out flavor of mild spices.
For milk-frothing, they can be a bit irregular and frothy — but they will ask if you want your cappuccino wet or dry. Their milk-based drinks are deceptively large-looking and come in white or blue IKEA cups. All things considered, you will hope for something better — but this is one of the better coffee options in this outpost town.
Read the review of Blue Sky Farms in Half Moon Bay, CA.
Posted by TheShot on 06 May 2014 | Filed under: Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Machine, Starbucks
When not on my best of days, I'll be the first to admit that I can sometimes be a sarcastic jerk. But even the most acrid sarcasm can be neutralized by a shocking dose of absurd reality. Case and point with this story in today's Daily Mail: Grower's Cup, World's first DISPOSABLE 'coffee machine' lets you brew on the move | Mail Online.
You see, there's long been a lot of consumer environmental angst when it comes to single serving coffee made from pods and capsules. That angst is not at all misplaced, but it's largely viewed from the wrong end of the telescope. Virtually all discussions that cite the environmental impact of coffee pods obsess exclusively over recycling. Meanwhile, they throw "reduce" and "reuse" under the bus — completely ignoring them.
If we remember our Environmentalism 101, the ranked order of efficacy is this: reduce, reuse, and then recycle. Thus the great environmental atrocity of pod coffee machines isn't throwing the pods away. It's that, by design, these coffee systems seem to maximize the amount of materials extraction from the earth, materials processing, machine energy consumption, manufacturing waste by-products, excess packaging and shipping weight, and additional transportation fuel consumption with each and every serving of coffee. The introduction of coffee pods created incremental new demands for all of these, where none existed prior for "traditional" coffee formats.
To sarcastically illustrate this point over the years, I often go from zero to ridiculous in one sentence: that if they manufactured an entire life-sized, pop-up, disposable Starbucks with every coffee serving, the entire system would earn a green "pass" by most consumer definitions if the disposable Starbucks were made of recyclable materials. Imagine a cardboard Starbucks with 1,800 square feet of indoor space, including cardboard men's and women's bathrooms, thrown away with every serving of coffee. Can you recycle it? Say "yes" and planet earth and a choir of bluebirds will thank you.
So imagine my shock and horror — and the death of my sarcasm — when I learned that the first step towards creating the disposable Starbucks had already been made with the 2012 introduction of the world's first disposable coffee machine. Sure, you could say that the proliferation of pop-ups marked the first introduction of the disposable café, but the holy grail here is the single serving disposable café.
Homer facepalm indeed…
Posted by TheShot on 07 Apr 2014 | Filed under: Barista, Beans, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Home Brew, Machine, Quality Issues, Robusta, Starbucks
As we noted last month, tonight on Rai 3 — a regional TV news network in Italy — they aired an investigative exposé on the state of espresso in Italy titled "Espresso nel caffè": Report Espresso nel caffè. Rai 3 produced this as an episode of their Report program, which has been something of a platform for barebones investigative journalism since its inception in 1997. (Think a scrappier 60 Minutes on a shoestring budget.)
The 51-minute segment isn't groundbreaking for either journalism nor for any awareness of coffee standards. That said, it is aspirationally legitimate coffee video and television. Far too often on the Internet, the idea of a good "coffee video" — with few exceptions — is equated with a sensory montage on YouTube or Vimeo packaged like a roaster's wannabe TV commercial.
There's never any storytelling ("Plot? We no need no stinkin' plot!") — just coffee porn close-ups of the stuff either roasting or brewing, complete with a coffee professional's platitudes voiced over B-roll. Coffee fanatics have largely only encouraged these low standards by joining in on the self-congratulatory social media circle jerk that follows video after identical video.
The Report episode begins by covering the necessary espresso machine hot water purge before pulling an espresso shot — and by noting how few baristi know to follow this practice. A Lavazza trainer notes how 70% of the aromatic properties of coffee are lost within 15 minutes of grinding it. Comparisons are shown of a correct and incorrect coda di topo (or "rat's tail") pour from an espresso machine, showing how equipment can get gummed up without proper and immaculate cleaning. The program also reviews how few baristi know how much arabica versus robusta is in their blends, noting the resulting impacts on flavor and costs.
They visit cafes such as Gran Caffè Grambrinus and Caffè Mexico at Pizza Dante, 86 in Napoli. They interview some heavy hitters — from Lavazza to Caffè Moreno to Kimbo, from Biagio Passalacqua himself to Davide Cobelli of the SCAE (featured last month in Barista Magazine) to Luigi Odello of Espresso Italiano Tasting fame. And probably too many guys in lab coats.
Overall, the program is a bit condemning of espresso standards across all of Italy. But remember, this is a national news program that targets the general public: the goal is to educate and, in some ways, outrage the public about what they may be putting up with currently. If only one percent of the coffee porn videos in English would attempt something so high-minded as that.
Defensive posturing aside (he's not alone), the commissioner also welcomes those interviewed for the program to visit local Napoli coffee shops and producers to witness the mobilization Napoli has mounted in response. As such, Andrej Godina has done God's work: raising public awareness of lagging coffee standards, starting a dialog, and inciting action to improve these standards.
Posted by TheShot on 23 Sep 2013 | Filed under: Beans, Foreign Brew, Home Brew, Machine
Last Friday, the Economic Times posted an interesting article concerning the history, fanatics and obsessives with South Indian filter coffee: How can filter coffee be so different, yet good? – Economic Times. The Economic Times is a business paper from the Times of India — and the world's most widely read English-language business newspaper after the Wall Street Journal.
For Westerners without much exposure to the subcontinent, you might associate India with only tea. But the story of coffee in India is older than the USA itself and arguably larger (by capita) than its consumption of coffee. South India has grown coffee since the 1670s, and the article recalls how coffee consumption was particularly introduced to the Tamil households of South India by way of Britain in the 19th century.
Back then, "Tamil Brahmins resisted the tea campaign as too down-market, giving tea a working class (and Muslim) reputation it has never entirely shrugged off in the South." The article even makes reference to a bottled coffee-chicory essence called Camp Coffee, first made by the Scottish company Paterson & Sons in Glasgow in 1876 and featuring a Sikh bearer on the label. By the 20th century, South Indians added sugar and milk, leading to its more widespread adoption.
We fell in love with the stuff on our first visit to South India. It's made as a sort of strange middle-ground between the popular fast-brewed hot coffee of espresso/pour-overs/Mr.-Coffee-makers and the slow, slow brewing of cold press coffee.
Traditionally it is made with chicory root (the article mentions a magic 15-20% range), a coffee substitute and additive known more in the West by its affiliation with New Orleans and colonial America. Here, as in India, it was introduced as a means of more cheaply cutting the more expensive pure coffee. However, in New Orleans the introduction of chicory as a coffee additive was of purely French origin: instigated by Napoleon's initiation of the Continental Blockade of 1808 that deprived the French of much of their coffee supplies.
All of this cutting with chicory, milk, and sugar and the common use of fine coffee "powder" naturally leads most Westerners to a rather downscale impression of South Indian filter coffee. And for many examples of it, they'd be right. But that's also the case with most coffee served here in America. However, it doesn't help that my few attempts to make a version of it here with one of the unique South Indian filter brewers I purchased (on Mahatma Gandhi, aka "MG", Road in Bangalore) produced some of the most undrinkable coffee I've ever made.
Of course, there are those who truly love coffee in its many shapes, forms, and varieties available. And then there are others who only like a rarefied, elitist, mutant sliver of coffee extract that's possible with exacting farm origins, brewing methods, precision equipment, TDS ratios, and when the lunar tides are just right for four days out of the calendar year. While I very much admire and appreciate what can come out of the latter category, it might come as a surprise that I am a complete softie of the former variety.
Posted by TheShot on 10 Sep 2013 | Filed under: Beans, Home Brew, Quality Issues, Roasting
The Internet sags from a surfeit of posts from Do-It-Yourself (DIY) types. But at the risk of seeming like we're piling on, we're posting some of our bean-to-cup experiences with coffee grown quite literally in a family backyard.
But this coffee isn't the result of an obsession where home roasting just didn't take things far enough. Instead, it's an isolated glimpse into a casual family production of green coffee — much in the same way your extended family might grow its own garden tomatoes or cucumbers. It arrived hand-delivered by a family friend in a Ziploc bag, some 5,000 miles from its origin.
While there have been multiple efforts to commercially grow coffee in California's Santa Barbara County since the 1850s, the coffee for our story was grown on the island of São Jorge in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. The subtropical, volcanic islands of the Azores are the only real coffee growing region in Europe. Although bucolic São Jorge produces agricultural exports such as its famed cheese, its coffee production is dominated by personal rather than commercial use (with very rare and minuscule exceptions, such as Café Nunes in São Jorge's tiny Fajã dos Vimes).
Our mini coffee lot originates from a few acres of property that stretches from the center of town in Urzelina to the Atlantic Ocean. More than once over the years, my wife and I climbed a ladder and sat on a wall of this property — located across the street of the Igreja de São Mateus church where my in-laws were married in the Sixties — safely observing one of the many crazy street bullfights in the central Azores, called touradas à corda, that took place below our dangling feet. Thus we'll jokingly name the coffee's origin as Fazienda dos Touros Loucos da São Mateus.
It neighbors similar lots where other families grow, pick, dry, and sort their own coffee for home use. Isabel graciously offered a few pounds of the stuff from her property, and we played no role in its processing nor pedigree. Thus the goal was to experience what home-grown coffee in the Azores might truly be like. I'm no botanist, so I can't tell you if it's Typica or Bourbon or Caturra (highly unlikely). It most resembles a Yemen-like Typica variant or a shortberry harrar, which also explains a little of why it is dry-processed rather than washed.
As for any screening and hand-sorting, well, this is, after all, a family farm operation. Fortunately the sorting was clean enough that I did not have to worry about my burr grinder gagging on any obvious stones or twigs.
The first thing you notice about the processed beans is how darkly colored and irregular they are compared to commercial coffees. This is hardly unique to dry-processed coffees, but this takes the commercial grade stuff a step further.
And the beans themselves are quite small, and the screening used on the family farm isn't very stringent. But to their credit, there are few major irregularities in size. Everything is larger than a sunflower kernel and there's only the occasional large and/or off-colored bean. Even so, we resisted the temptation to further sort the coffee to keep it true to its personal use in the Azores. Long before commercial buyers, processors, roasters, and coffeehouses existed, this is how most people experienced coffee.
Pan roasting is typical among families who grow their own green coffee beans. Even James Freeman started Blue Bottle Coffee with a baking sheet in his oven. Although I could have reverted to some of these very original and primitive roasting methods, I'm no good at any of them and have no real practice. All of which spells trouble if you've only got a couple of pounds of coffee to work through to get it right.
Instead, I made a slight nod to modern convenience and opted for my old, trusty Fresh Roast+ roaster. It is essentially a glorified hot air popcorn popper with a chaff collector that I purchased over a decade ago, and I've had years of practice making pretty decent roasts with it. And unlike the newer Fresh Roast models with larger roasting chambers (normally a big plus), its tiny two-ounce batch size lent well to dialing in a target roast profile quickly with a limited supply of green coffee beans.
The first thing I noticed is that the coffee lacked a real discernible first or even second crack. Without the sound or a temperature gauge on my roaster, I thus had to determine my target roast levels by sight (color) and smell (and smoke) entirely. The second thing I noticed is that the bean size inconsistencies and bean shape irregularities required a lot of post-roast culling to even out the result. The third thing I noticed was that the chaff looked a lot like bird food.
After a trial with several roasting levels and tasting the results (after a couple days rest for the CO2 to escape), I rediscovered what all commercial coffee roasters have known for eons: by roasting cheaper grade coffee more darkly, you can hide a lot of problems.
Which isn't to say that we believe dark roasting is universally bad; there are some good body-heavy coffees from Indonesia that shine best under darker roasting conditions. But dark roasting is the lazy roaster's shortcut to consistency. We could only imagine how uneven pan roasting would contribute to this effect.
Any bean and roasting irregularities of course came out in the resulting brew, as a few under-roasted beans would lend a grassy or sometimes downright wonky taste that could spoil the entire cup. (This is a big reason why Ernesto Illy was religious about Illy's screening process.) Fortunately the combination of a darker roast profile and post-roast bean culling mitigated these problems quite a lot.
So how best to brew this beast? Espresso would be too sensitive to the bean quality and irregularities. We tried a small French press pot, but the inconsistent beans somehow imparted a little too much grit in the cup to our liking. Not surprisingly, the Moka stovetop produced some of the best results — mirroring what many families have used for years to brew coffee in the Azores. But we also did have a little success with an Aeropress, which seems to lend well for this type of coffee profile: a body-centric cup with little to offer at the bright ends and a flavor of smoke, spice, and the unfortunate edge of ashiness.
The resulting cup was definitely drinkable, but far from anything we'd write home about (save for this post here I suppose). The experience served as both of an appreciation of what coffee was informally like for consumers before the advent of the commercial coffee industry. It was also an exercise in appreciating the many quality and process improvements we enjoy from that same coffee industry today.
Posted by TheShot on 10 May 2013 | Filed under: Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Machine, Quality Issues, Roasting
Perhaps the biggest irony is that nobody should ever need a CoffeeCON.
As we posted last year, on the same day as the inaugural CoffeeCON 2012, we were instead attending the Grand Tasting of La Paulée de San Francisco: a $300-per-person consumer Burgundy appreciation event backed by a tremendous amount of wine industry support and name-brand chefs & restaurants. The event was packed.
And because who doesn't love a good wine analogy, the closest consumer event that coffee has to offer is — well? — free admission to CoffeeCON in bustling, cosmopolitan Warrenville, IL. (Note: this year CoffeeCON introduced a $15 ticket price, so things are starting to get snooty.)
Not to throw the merits of CoffeeCON under the bus, but this very fact is outright shameful — a rather inexcusable embarrassment to the specialty coffee industry. We have legions of adoring coffee lovers who can hold their own waxing poetically alongside the world's biggest wine snobs. We have many who work in specialty coffee giving plenty of lip service to phrases such as "consumer experience" and "educating the consumer."
But heaven forbid that anybody employed in the biz open a legitimate dialog with their customers. Instead, coffee consumers have to take the reigns and do it themselves. Completely unlike the wine industry, the specialty coffee industry has been too incompetent, disorganized, and too focused on navel-gazing to hold an event about anything that ultimately isn't directly about, or for, themselves.
Contrast this with the media coverage for events like the SCAA conference, which essentially operates as a bloated insider trade show. Magazine articles, blog posts, and tweets hype the event as the "center of the universe", a don't-you-wish-you-were-here type of thing. But mind you, it's a universe that deliberately excludes the very customers who keep all the attendees employed. (Side note: CoffeeGeek's Mark Prince recently showed off the long-defunct SCAA consumer membership on his Twitter feed. Mistake long since corrected.)
You could argue that coffee consumers shouldn't take the industry's apparent anti-social attitude so personally. Some people are just naturally too shy for eye contact, right? But meanwhile, some industry blogs promote a self-indulgent, Spring-Break-like image for the SCAA conference: complete with wannabe-frat-house tales of endless parties, binge drinking, and baristas covered in spray cheese. Yeah, party with Tina. How long before the competitive SCAA exhibitions offer up wet T-shirt contests in wet processing tanks? (Oh wait, we're too late.)
All of us may tediously groan at the aloof and disgruntled barista stereotype, looking down on their customers. But unfortunately that stereotype is rooted in a little too much reality. Worse, it often seems deliberate and not just the result of a lack of social graces. Many customers can be self-entitled, acute hemorrhoids as well. But far too often than should ever happen, consumers feel the need to treat coffee professionals as necessary irritants that must be tolerated instead of allies and fellow coffee lovers. Can't we all just get along?
Coincidentally, my brother is a long-time resident of Warrenville, IL and a big fan of quality coffee. He's also a former next-door neighbor of Kevin Sinnott — half of a husband-and-wife professional video production team, a Second City improv school graduate, and a dedicated coffee prosumer who is the impetus (and personal possessive name) behind CoffeeCON. I just happened to time a long-overdue visit with my brother over CoffeeCON weekend, last weekend, and thus had to check it out.
CoffeeCON bills itself as follows:
CoffeeCON is a consumer event featuring tastings of the world's great coffees roasted by craft roasters and brewed by an assortment of different brewing methods. Our goal is to present every bean, every roast and every method. The second goal of CoffeeCON is to present classes on brewing and roasting methods at all skill levels.
Heavy emphasis here on the consumer part of the event, which is what makes it an oasis in a vast desert. One thing it professes not to be is a trade show. Last year Mike White over at ShotZombies called it The Dubious Anti-Trade Show Trade Show, but I can say first-hand the event is a refreshing contrast from the SCAA conference.
Kevin may have gradually earned a modicum of respect at trade shows like the SCAA, but he lamented over stories where consumers/prosumers are looked upon as time-sucking vermin by some of the industry types: too many questions and not enough five-figure purchase orders.
Kevin also told me the story of once entering the SCAA show floor with a few fellow prosumers a few years back and overhearing whispers of, "Here comes the animals." Of all the legends about wine snobbery, you just never hear of stories like this when wine consumers interact with the wine industry.
Back to what redeems CoffeeCON. Besides classes on everything from grinding to water to siphon brewing, plus a rear patio demoing various home roasting methods (even including the infamous "HGDB" method, a.k.a. "heat gun/dog bowl"), one of the aspects I much enjoyed about CoffeeCON was the opportunity to sample brewed coffee from many purveyors side-by-side.
The purveyors may have been primarily local, but they included River City Roasters, Dark Matter Coffee, FreshGround, Passion House, Counter Culture Coffee, Metropolis, I Have a Bean, Oren's Daily Roast, Regular Coffee Company, Halfwit Coffee Roasters, and, well, Lavazza. Last year Starbucks operated a booth to coincide with the launch of their then-new "Blonde" roast. But to the credit of CoffeeCON attendees, word has it that the Starbucks booth was ignored like a leper colony. Starbucks didn't show their faces at the event this year.
Our favorite coffee at the event had to be Oren's Sumatra Mandheling — and we're not normally Indonesian freaks — followed by their Burundi Kayanza Gatare. The best espresso on the day had to go to Counter Culture Coffee's Finca El Puente Honduras pulled from a La Marzocco GS/3.
As for personalities at the event, George Howell lead an impressive 2-1/2-hour session on coffee from bean-to-cup with several breaks for interactive sensory evaluations along the way. He's performed this routine many times before, but for lay consumers to soak in that wisdom is something special.
A couple of our favorite lines from his session? "Cupping is the only way to buy coffee, but it's not the best way to taste coffee." (Take that, Peter Giuliano!) His recommendation to freeze greens to allow a seasonal crop to last all year long runs counter to much of the conventional, "seasonal-only" wisdom of many coffee roasters. And I also liked his concept of "incredibly loud coffee" — i.e., coffee with flavors so acutely punctuated that they drown out any breadth or subtlety in the bean.
Last but not least, it was great to finally meet Jim Schulman in person. To most people in the coffee industry, where influential prosumers and home roasting are about as familiar as a Justin Bieber set list, Jim is probably only known as that troublemaker who got Extract Mojo inventor, Vince Fedele, worked up to a fine microfoam and threatening to sue him because Jim (somewhat justifiably) dismissed the device's accuracy at measuring coffee extraction levels. Given that Jim was pioneering PID controller use in home espresso machines on Internet newsgroups over 20 years ago, Jim is a prosumer coffee legend when it comes to coffee science, invention, instrumentation, and measurement.
Would we travel hundreds of miles to attend the world's biggest consumer coffee event? Definitely not. But we're glad it exists. The event also manages to appeal to consumers at different levels of expertise and engagement. Kevin deserves a lot of credit for taking a big personal risk to help meet a gaping public need that the coffee industry has done nothing to address. And if we were in town visiting my brother again during the event, we would definitely attend again.
Posted by TheShot on 22 Jan 2013 | Filed under: Café Society, Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Roasting
LaCoppa has had a strange history for such a relatively "young" espresso roaster and café chain. Owner/founder Arnold V. Spinelli is the one constant — as he developed this endeavor after selling off his 14-store Spinelli Coffee chain (founded in 1986 San Francisco) to Tully's Coffee back in 1998. (Curiously enough, Tully's Coffee has since run aground from a chronic lack of cash flow and recently turned to Grey's Anatomy hearththrob Patrick Dempsey to either save or sink them faster.)
Arnold had a period where he collaborated with Sal Bonavita and where the combined enterprise shared Sal's last name. But today it's all Mr. Spinelli, and LaCoppa Coffee sits proudly on Mill Valley's main Lytton Square off on a corner — roasting their own but also serving retail coffee drinks.
They sport outdoor bench and French café chair seating along the Throckmorton Ave. sidewalk for maximum people-watching. There's also covered outdoor seating overlooking Lytton Square along Miller Ave. Inside it's a small space with mostly bench seating and a couple of tiny, zinc-topped café tables. There's a dessert counter and bean sales for their many blends (they use their Espresso Speciale for their espresso drinks). They also offer a true Melitta bar service, reminiscient of a time a decade ago when the few pour-over bars in the Bay Area were decidedly German and not Japanese — as current trends dictate.
Their four-group Pasquini machine at the entrance shows its age, and the staff show their unawareness by leaving the portafilters cooling outside of the machine's group heads. (Doh!) Espresso shots are served as gargantuan doubles by default: with a thin, paltry layer of crema on a huge surface of a wide-mouthed, classic brown ACF cup. It tastes of tobacco smoke and some of that old-style dark SF-style roasting (i.e., Spinelli) with a touch of ash. The milk-frothing is generally decent, even microfoam. In any case, it's not your best coffee shop but it's a likeable one — even if it's a complete throwback to espresso in 1980s San Francisco.
Read the review of LaCoppa Coffee in Mill Valley.
Posted by TheShot on 25 Nov 2012 | Filed under: Café Society, Home Brew, Local Brew, Machine, Roasting
Trish Rothgeb and Nick Cho are coffee notables from the Northwest and D.C. area, respectively, and they've combined forces in recent years as the roasting/brewing partnership behind Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters. Nearly seven years ago on this Web site, Trish and Nick became a rather infamous pairing ever since Trish was first credited with coining the coffee term "third wave" — i.e., before it was immediately co-opted by coffee hucksters and carnival barkers.
The idea behind Wrecking Ball is that Trish — a former Director of Coffee for Seattle's Zoka — focuses on the coffee roasting. Meanwhile, Nick — portafilter.net podcast host, former Murky Coffee owner, and famous wannabe cockpuncher — focuses on the brewing and coffee service.
While their roasting operations are near Redwood City, they have a lone retail café in SF in the Firehouse 8 event space. A former firehouse (there's even a brass fire pole towards the back), it's a vast, airy space that's frequently inhabited by pop-ups that sell jewelry & clothing or weekend waffles. There are occasional display cases to show off some of these wares (giving it a slight museum feel), plus brick masonry at the entrance, stone floors, tall ceilings, and a row of simple café tables lined up at the entrance. Wrecking Ball is something of a permanent fixture here, however — just opening earlier this month.
In a rear corner they sport Kalita Japanese brewers (Nick has long been quite a fanboy) and scales for measuring coffee grounds precisely. They also sport a two-group La Marzocco Strada and a La Marzocco Vulcano grinder. For their espresso they use their 1UP blend ($2.25 for a doppio) and pull shots with a dark, even, textured crema. There's a strong herbacity to it, and fortunately it tastes more like coffee and less like blueberries and flower petals like many new roasters seem to profile too heavily.
Solid stuff: this is definitely one of the finer (if not quieter) places for an espresso in the city. And credit to Trish, as the take-home 1UP beans worked great on our home espresso setup as well. We only wish the roast dates weren't approaching two weeks old when we bought it.
Read the review of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters.
Posted by TheShot on 23 Oct 2012 | Filed under: Add Milk, Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Machine, Quality Issues, Starbucks
Two months ago we reported on our trials with a superautomatic home espresso machine representing much of the state-of-the-art: the Philips Saeco Syntia Focus. Reading Saeco's product literature and marketing communications, you'd be led to believe that this machine made "the perfect espresso" every time. But to most people who read our original post two months back, the Saeco committed unforgivable crimes against coffee.
The truth lies somewhere between those polar opposites. And now that we've had two months of regular use to better explore the machine's merits and limitations, here we revisit this topic in greater detail.
First of all, it's critical to note that there's very little (if anything) uniquely problematic with the Saeco Synthia Focus that you won't also find in many of its up-market, superautomatic home espresso machine bretheren — whether they are made by the likes of Jura, Capresso (and now Jura-Capresso), Nespresso, or the decidedly more dubious Breville, DeLonghi, or (*gag*) Krups.
However, when talking about superautomatics for the home, the source of their coffee is a major differentiator within these product lines: there are coffee pod machines, and there are machines that use real coffee. That we use the term "real" coffee — to differentiate what most people recognize as coffee from anything that comes packaged in a proprietary system of cartridges — is only partly facetious.
Pod machine coffee may be marketed and priced as if it were elite quality coffee, but in truth it is arguably just a step up from instant coffee. Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi may have signed on as ambassador to Nespresso. But since Nespresso is pre-ground coffee produced by the world's largest food conglomerate, she may as well be the ambassador to Del Monte canned peas.
Any coffee brewing system with the option of using whole bean coffee, ground to order, and where the consumer can vouch for the coffee's roast date, should theoretically have a massive freshness advantage over its pod machine competition. Except that's not exactly what happens in practice. The Saeco Syntia Focus has this great advantage. But like many of its peers, it squanders it — producing espresso shots that hardly seem like an improvement over pod coffee. Most visibly notable is how sickly pale the crema is on the shots it produces.
To improve the shots, we took advantage of several machine adjustments: setting the built-in grinder to its finest grind, setting the volume of coffee deposited in its filter basket to its maximum, and reducing the overall volume of the shots. The first shot the machine produces after powering up is always a ghostly pale blonde and is rather insipid. So we let its built-in "Adapting System" tune itself to the coffee with a few successive shots, which do noticeably improve to a crema that's slightly fuller, darker, and with more texture that might even include microbubbles.
Hence one of the myths we discovered about superautomatic espresso machines: despite their promise of robotic consistency, the shots are somewhat variable.
Yet despite all of our improvement measures, the best shots we could muster with the Saeco Syntia Focus quite literally paled in comparison to the routine shots we pulled with our Gaggia G106 Factory (with a new brass piston) + Mazzer Mini home set-up. Once we fixed our old home machine, we used a four-day-old roast of The Boss from Barefoot Coffee Roasters to run side-by-side experiments. The flavor and body of the Saeco shots didn't measure up to the Gaggia pulls, but the visual difference was even more dramatic.
As if the question isn't rhetorical, which of the two espresso shots looks more appealing in the photo at left? Hint: a friend pointed out that the shot made with the Gaggia "looks like cocoa". The other shot looks like weak drip coffee mixed with milk. Meanwhile, a brochure that comes with the Saeco (called a "Passport") states that the crema "should be hazelnut brown with occasional darker shades."
Despite our Saeco machine adjustments, clearly something is wrong with its extraction. We managed to rule out the Saeco's built-in grinder as a major problem, as the Saeco offers an option to bypass its grinder with pre-ground coffee. Using our Mazzer Mini, we poured fresh grinds of the same coffee directly into the machine and didn't notice a significant difference in the resulting shots.
After a lot of trial and error, we narrowed down the Saeco's failures to brewing times. After a pre-infusion of around 4.5 seconds, the machine runs an extraction for only about 10.7-11.3 seconds. This is significantly less than the 20-second-plus extraction times recommended in most reputable espresso guides. And unfortunately, extraction time is one variable that the Saeco machine does not let you adjust. (A Saeco customer support woman in Ohio attempted to follow up with us to help "correct" our problems, but she never returned our call.)
While the pressure of espresso extraction certainly accelerates the necessary 3-4 minute brew times of proper coffee-to-water contact in a pour-over cup, a mere 11 seconds is far too little brewing time for espresso. We've recently seen reviews boasting of a coffee machine's 45-second end-to-end brewing times, and here the Saeco Syntia Focus requires a mere 33 seconds from button-push to serving.
This is akin to a hospital's maternity ward boasting that you can have your baby there in only 7 months. Premature babies are bad, and so is premature espresso. Is waiting 10 more seconds that unreasonable to get a properly extracted espresso? How is this a selling point?
Despite its obvious quality limitations, we honestly like the Saeco machine and have even grown somewhat fond of it. We still use it quite a lot and even look forward to the so-so espresso that it produces. Why we still use it is largely a matter of push-button convenience. Call it "laziness" or less time spent making acceptable espresso.
Because time is money, despite what the home finance trolls keep telling us. Even the pod machines aren't quite as convenient as the Saeco, because you can go through several rounds of push-button espresso before having to empty out the tray of spent pucks.
But speaking of spent grounds, the Saeco is far from "self-cleaning". It's a bit like automating your own sloppy minimum wage employee, given the internal mess you have to clean up every few days.
The Saeco's product designers clearly took some shortcuts on keeping it clean back there: the black plastic and embedded compartment make visibility of any coffee ground mess particularly difficult to see without a small flashlight, and the stuff accumulates in the oddest random corners. Let it accumulate too long, and the machine will jam up like a printer — continually spitting perfectly fine ground coffee into its spent puck dumpster, with only a momentary warning light flashing just before nothing comes out of its brew head. Then the lights proudly tell you the machine is ready to brew another shot.
This is perhaps the most aggravating thing about the machine: the "Saeco Adapting System" will waste multiple shots of your best new coffee beans — immediately dumping them in the spent grounds litter bin without even extracting so much as an ounce of coffee — while it tries to adjust itself to the new coffee. There are few things more agonizingly wasteful than seeing your prized, expensive coffee beans being ground up and spit out in a wet, dirty waste bin for several cycles with no indication of when it might decide to produce any espresso.
One surprise was that its milk frothing, with its wacky pannarello wand attachment, is surprisingly good — blowing away my Gaggia G106 Factory in terms of steam pressure and foam consistency.
All things considered, we still wouldn't pay more than $350 for the Saeco — despite its $1,000 retail price tag. And even for that money, we would rather have a simple, used Rancilio Silvia. Despite its obvious conveniences, we're reluctant to put top-quality coffee in the Saeco. We certainly wouldn't waste our best home roasting labors on the mediocre espresso it produces. Fresh roasted beans do make a difference, but beans of the highest quality are largely lost on this machine.
Thus there's a sort of arrogant hubris to the Saeco Syntia Focus and virtually all of its $1,000 superautomatic home machine competitors. Consumers are promised the "perfect" espresso every time by these devices, and for a cool grand who wouldn't expect that? But clearly these machines have not benchmarked themselves against what's long been possible among home espresso enthusiasts.
Instead, what consumers get is closer to Starbucks' home Verismo machine — a home version of the automated push-button espresso experience that CEO Howard Schultz arguably said sucked the soul out of the company several years ago. Rather than offering technology and features that enable home consumers to enjoy the wealth of freshly roasted, top-quality coffee varieties now available on the market, consumers are given the bland, mass-produced experience common to any of 40,000 identical cafés. Worst of all, these home machine manufacturers tell consumers that this is perfection — and that consumers thus have no need to aspire for anything better than the mediocrity they offer.
This was a bit of a shock, given previous underwhelming results. Grand Cru coffees mark one of the true differentiators for whole bean machines like the Syntia Focus over their pod-based brethren: the world's elite coffees simply do not have the supply volume to make them a viable option for packaging, mass distribution, and mass production in coffee pods.


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Im planning on traveling the state to visit historic sites of the wild west, with a particulariinterestin Billy the kid. I plan on visiting silver city and would like to check out and historical sites. Also I will be riding while I'm there.
So, any one know of some good historic spots in or around silver city? How are the trails? What are the easist ones to find? Any barly rideable trails? Maybe somone from town could show me around?
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Hilton Molino Stucky Venice
Hilton Molino Stucky Venice in Venice
Hilton Molino Stucky Venice
Hotel Guest Rating: 8.4/10
Giudecca 810
Venice 30133
Hotel Freebies Available*
• Special Discount 10% on select dates show dates
• On Sale Now -> Save 21% on select dates show dates
• Free Internet Available show dates
Welcome to the Hilton Molino Stucky Venice
Offering beautiful views of Venice, a complimentary shuttle boat, five on-site restaurants and a spa, the Hilton Molino Stucky Venice is highly rated by Priceline guests.
Hotel Features
This eight-story hotel has 379 rooms. Each room includes air conditioning, an iPod docking station, a flat-panel cable TV, marble bathroom amenities and a coffeemaker. The hotel offers five restaurants and bars. For leisure time, guests enjoy a fitness center, a seasonal outdoor rooftop pool, spa and wellness center. There is a business center with photocopy services for guests' convenience. A free shuttle boat is offered to St. Mark's Square. Pets are allowed for a fee.
Hotel Location
The Hilton is located in Giudecca Island, one mile from St. Mark's Basilica and the Rialto Bridge. Murano Island is three miles. Marco Polo International Airport is nine miles from the hotel.
Guest Favorites
Priceline guests of the Hilton Molino Stucky Venice say the "location is perfect" and the hotel is "top of the line" with "wonderful views of the main canal."
Top Amenities (see all)
- Internet services
- Outdoor pool
- Fitness centre
- Business centre
- Pets allowed
- Room service
Hilton Molino Stucky Venice Amenities
- 24-hour front desk
- Air conditioning
- Allergy-free room
- Babysitting/child services
- Bar
- Breakfast in the room
- Bridal suite
- Business centre
- Concierge service
- Currency exchange
- Dry cleaning
- Facilities for disabled guests
- Fax/photocopying
- Fitness centre
- Free WiFi
- Gift shop
- Hammam
- Heating
- Hot tub
- Internet services
- Ironing service
- Laundry
- Lift
- Luggage storage
- Massage
- Meeting/banquet facilities
- Newspapers
- Non-smoking rooms
- Outdoor pool
- Pets allowed
- Restaurant (à la carte)
- Room service
- Safety deposit box
- Sauna
- Shoeshine
- Shops (on site)
- Shuttle service (free)
- Snack bar
- Spa and wellness centre
- Terrace
- VIP room facilities
- WiFi
Hotel Information
When not included in the room rate, the price for breakfast is calculated per person per night.Please note that the spa and wellness centre is available at an extra cost.The swimming pool is open from mid-May to September.
Hotel Guest Reviews of the Hilton Molino Stucky VeniceOur hotel ratings and reviews are from real hotel guests. Priceline.com ensures that its reviews are guests-only by proactively sending hotel surveys to customers after they've completed their hotel stays. In the post-stay surveys, priceline.com hotel customers are asked a number of questions about their stay and the hotel. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best, the survey asks guests to rate their overall experience and specifically rate the hotel's cleanliness, staff and location. Priceline.com does not allow site visitors to post unsolicited hotel reviews.
Sort by: All Travelers | Business Traveler(1) | Solo Traveler(1) | Traveling as Couple(25) | Family with Young Children(3) | Family with Teens(3) | Group Traveler(3)
Verified Hotel Guest from Rancho Cucamonga, CA
November 28, 2014
November 28, 2014
The wifi in the hotel is only free in the lobby, but it was very slow.
Kimberly from Surprise, AZ
November 7, 2014
November 7, 2014
The bidet and the big bathtub were nice
Far from everything. Soul-less hotel in a city full of charm. If you are a snob and recluse with no desire to be in the heart of the culture, then this this your hotel. I expected more from Hilton, and got much less. Not worth my money.
Verified Hotel Guest from Sydney, Australia
November 2, 2014
November 2, 2014
Amazing view of Venice from the roof top bar at this hotel.
Only heating option provided in all rooms in winter months. We stayed there in Oct - on some nights it could get a bit too warm and stuffy. The option we had was to leave the windows open to let the breeze in.Not something I expect from a 5 star hotel.
Verified Hotel Guest from North Brunswick, NJ
October 13, 2014
Group Traveler
October 13, 2014
Group Traveler
The rooms and the hotel were wonderful.
The concierge gave us bad information about how to get to the train station. Made it very inconvenient.
Verified Hotel Guest from Brewster, NY
October 12, 2014
October 12, 2014
This guest did not leave comments about this hotel.
Verified Hotel Guest from New Milford, CT
October 9, 2014
Family Traveling with Young Children
October 9, 2014
Family Traveling with Young Children
This guest did not leave comments about this hotel.
Verified Hotel Guest from Goyang, Republic Of Korea
October 5, 2014
Solo Traveler
October 5, 2014
Solo Traveler
Rooftop Pool. Absolutely great! View from the room is good.
You should take shuttleboat to move anywhere. Problem is this shuttle bus always full and you might wait another 1 hr.
If you stay just in the hotel, this hotel is might be good. But if you want to enoy venice (ie: San Marco), you need to be patient.
Barbara from Daytona Beach Shores, FL
October 3, 2014
October 3, 2014
Cleanliness and. Locations
For the price we thought we should have a better view.
Lovely converted mill.
Stephen from El Dorado Hills, CA
September 28, 2014
September 28, 2014
Beautiful place, wonderful room, very friendly staff.
Water taxis get old/expensive but hotel has a dedicated, free shuttle into town. Very helpful.
Just gorgeous. Loved it.
Verified Hotel Guest from Broken Arrow, OK
September 18, 2014
September 18, 2014
Air conditioner did not cool room. Only had hot water in the evening...cold showers in the morning
Reviews of Hilton Molino Stucky Venice
(1 - 10 of 39 reviews)
(1 - 10 of 39 reviews)
from $141
- Molino Stucky from $203 (0.1mi)
- Residenza Grandi Vedute from $167 (0.1mi)
- Sarah Sun Island from $100 (0.1mi)
- Cà Della Giudecca from $128 (0.2mi)
- Fondamenta Sant' Eufemia (0.2mi)
- Lido (2.2 mi)
- Tessera (4.7 mi)
- Torcello (5.8 mi)
- Mestre (6.4 mi)
- Malcontenta (6.5 mi)
- Oriago (8.1 mi)
- Marcon (8.4 mi)
- Spinea (9.4 mi)
- Azienda Le Trezze (9.6 mi)
- Mira (9.8 mi)
- Quarto Daltino (9.9 mi)
- Mogliano (10.0 mi)
- Lughetto (10.6 mi)
- Martellago (11.2 mi)
- Cavallino (11.5 mi)
- Mirano (11.7 mi)
- Preganziol (12.3 mi)
- Dolo (12.6 mi)
- Salzano (12.7 mi)
- Campagna Lupia (12.7 mi)
- Camponogara (13.1 mi)
- Roncade (13.6 mi)
- Zero Branco (13.8 mi)
- Casier (14.5 mi)
- Sottomarina (14.7 mi)
- Meolo (14.9 mi)
- Noale (15.0 mi)
- Chioggia (15.4 mi)
- Santa Maria Di Sala (15.5 mi)
- Fornaci (15.7 mi)
- Stra (16.0 mi)
- Musile Di Piave (16.2 mi)
- Lido Di Jesolo (16.2 mi)
- Codevigo (16.3 mi)
- Treviso (16.6 mi)
- Zeminiana (16.7 mi)
- Trebaseleghe (16.8 mi)
- Vigonza (17.2 mi)
- Santa Cristina (17.3 mi)
- Plove Di Sacco (17.4 mi)
- Scorze (17.5 mi)
- San Biagio Di Callalta (17.6 mi)
- Mignagola (17.6 mi)
- San Dona Di Piave (17.7 mi)
- Cive (18.0 mi)
- Zenson Di Piave (18.3 mi)
- Noventa Di Piave (18.3 mi)
- Paese (18.5 mi)
- Borgo Di Fontane (19.2 mi)
- Eraclea (19.3 mi)
- Castagnole (19.5 mi)
- San Bartolomeo (19.6 mi)
- Istrana (19.9 mi)
Most Popular Guest-Rated Hotels in Venice
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Jebel Ali Golf Resort and Spa Hotel, Dubai
Rooms: 392
Reviews - Jebel Ali Golf Resort and Spa Hotel
- Age Group: 51 - 60
- From: United Kingdom
- Traveller type: Mature Couple
- Age Group: 31 - 40
- From: United Kingdom
- Traveller type: Honeymooners
- Age Group: 41 - 50
- From: United Kingdom
- Traveller type: Mature Couple
- Age Group: 31 - 40
- From: Luxembourg
- Traveller type: Young Couple
Excellent spa for relaxing time, and a French gastronomically restaurant. We loved our stay in your beautiful hotel.
Want to see more hotels? View all hotels in Dubai
Historical Traveller Reviews of Jebel Ali Golf Resort and Spa Hotel
Would not stay there againfrom Hils_g
Jebel Ali just amazingfrom A TripAdvisor Member
Wonderful hotel - great for familiesfrom sarajellis
a millionares paradisefrom A TripAdvisor Member
Service was excellent (dont take quietness to be rudeness its the way they are)
Rooms were small but comfortable, one spends of the time by the pool anyway.
Food was first class, as was the choice, highly recommend the tapanyaki bar. booking was no problem, always do it anyway, therefore nvr dissapointed.
Choice of pools was excellent and ability to sit anywhere.
Private beach was a plus and unlikely to find such elsewhere in dubai.
A honeymoon to rememberfrom A TripAdvisor Member
We paid quite a bit of extra money to stay in the Royal Jasmine suites which are the ground floor apartments overlooking the sea - WOW! Worth every single penny because included in the price was a champagne breakfast each morning and complimentary cocktails in the evening.
The hotel itself is quite simply better than any I have stayed in - we stopped our final night in the centre of dubai as we had been advised that Jebel Ali was quite a trip from the city.... and we both wished we had stayed in Jebel Ali!
Dubai is a mass of construction - and this hotel is a beautiful haven away from all that bustle.
Take advantage of a trip into the desert - dune bashing is a LOT of fun..... but does jolt you around so be prepared!!!!!
The Wild Wadi waterpark is great fun and well worth a visit!
perfect locationfrom john-and-mandy
Difference of Opinionfrom Rayo
The only down side (which did not bother us too much) was the evening entertainment, the group were very good but a bit boring after a while. I think they were told to keep it calm though. So, overhall we enjoyed the holiday and would go back again. We moved into the city after the Jebel Ali and stayed at the Grand Hyatt ...no were near as good a service as the Ali.
TIP....Dont get the 630pm coach into town. Take the earlier one. It takes far to long cos of traffic in the city. Hope this info helps people in their decision. All the reviews prove that people have so many different opinions.
Palm Tree Courts - NOT a Leading Hotel of the World...from frequenttraveler
For about £225 a night, I was expecting a bit more than the Palm Tree had to offer. The room looked like a box with no atmosphere, no Middle Eastern theme, nothing to indicate that i might be in any old hotel. You would expect proper wooden furniture, luxurious amenities. The actual hotel looked a bit tired despite being built in 2001. I also don't think that sharing the facilities with the Jebel Ali works. As a result of people paying £120 a night at the Jebel Ali, they can make their way over to the Palm facilities meaning - No lounge chairs at the pool (which is too small anyway), difficulty getting restaurant reservations, etc... Although our dinners at Signature, and Orchid were admittedly incredible, the room service food was dreadful - always cold & limp. I think that the room service food was always cold, because their delivery service was always late. As my wife is pregnant, she couldn't find any tasty Non-Alcoholic drinks either, which is a bit strange as this is a non-alcoholic drinking country!
In the end, i would rate the Jebel Ali a 3 to 4 star, and the Palm Tree Courts a 4 - 4 1/2 star - which is a shame, because the beach and Spa facilities are quite nice. (Spa recently renovated). As a result of our disappointing stay, we moved on Day 5 to Bab Al Shams in the desert for 4 nights, which was a welcome relief. The desert hotel had incredible service, and a pool to die for. The room was the complete opposite - an amazing & quirky atmosphere (Morroccan theme) over looking the sand dunes....
Enjoy your holidays
Thoroughly recommended!!!from A TripAdvisor Member
Food throughout was first class ... much above my expectations for a 'resort hotel'. Yes you had to book tables in advance, but that's the beauty of having done some research before going! Signatures French restaurant was as good as most restaurants in London ... guide price £75-100 for 2 people with glass of champagne + bottle of wine.
Avoid the main hotel ... it does look a bit of a 1980's concrete relic. Palm Tree Court, however, was extremely clean and recently renovated throughout. Brand new Elemis spa was fantastic. Good tennis coach (£20 per hour), fully-equipped gym and excellent 9 hole golf course.
Very few English people, which is always a plus ... hardly saw a tattoo all week, and no Burberry baseball caps ... except at the airport on the way back!
Very chilled, low key and relaxed, even with a 1 year old.
On the crucial issue of noise/construction, there is some major building going on offshore ... but noise is very limited (occasional 'thunder rumble', say 2-3 times per day), and nothing can be heard from inside the rooms. Aesthetically, it is no big deal ... unlike the massive projects going on near Jumeirah beach.
All in all, thoroughly recommended!!!
PS Book your own flights and the rooms direct with the hotel ... you'll get a better rate than through the brochures. Then if you don't agree with my review, you can leave the hotel the next day with no cancellation charge, and book in somewhere else!!
Very Disappointingfrom lertyui
The complex itself is along way from the centre of Dubai but with their courtesy bus running 3 times a day we didn't find it a huge problem.
Most of the staff in the hotel were ok but there was also some staff that really made you feel that they didn't want to help you.
It is a complex of two styles of building and when you walked round it really changed atmosphere moving from one to the other.
One problem we encountered with the restaurants was they really liked you to book a table and could be quite funny if you didn't. As far as expense we were quite suprised how reasonable the food was for saying you were miles from any other competition, drinks were about average for a hotel.
We really do feel that it only should be rated as a 4 star hotel, it is in need of some updating in parts but also to make it feel like it all belongs to one complex.
Top Local Tips for Dubai
Traditional eating in Dubai We were told in the hotel of trad eating place in town, where you sit on the floor and the food is very traditional and cheap. At the end of the meal they just wrap up all the bones etc. in the tablecloth and throw it awy. It's a favourite with people from Dubai. Can't think of the name of it and we didn't go, but a lot of others in the hotel went and said it was an awesome experience. Your hotel rep/staff will know it well if you ask them
Summer is roasting I would advise anyone thinking of travelling to Dubai to go in the winter as in the summer is was REALLY hot (42c) and you couldnt be outside for too long, so go in winter when its in the 30's!
getting about Very easy and the quickest way to get around.
- (hotels)
Other names for Jebel Ali Golf Resort and Spa Hotel
- jebel ali hotel dubai
- jebel ali hotel
- jebel ali golf resort spa
- jebel ali golf resort
- jebel ali
- Address: Po Box 9277, Dubai, UAE - Dubai - United Arab Emirates
"Fabulous place to relax & chill" - Graham
"5 Star Luxury" - Pamela Sharp
"Excellent and luxurious hotel" - brian robinson
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- (hotels)
Hotels Near Jebel Ali Golf Resort and Spa Hotel
- Shangri La Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 35.1 km / 21.8 mi
- Crowne Plaza Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 36.7 km / 22.8 mi
- Emirates Towers Dubai Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 36.8 km / 22.8 mi
- Towers Rotana Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 35.7 km / 22.2 mi
- Dusit Thani Dubai Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 35 km / 21.8 mi
- Ibis World Trade Centre Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 37.9 km / 23.5 mi
- The Fairmont Dubai Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 12999.3 km / 8077.4 mi
- Rydges Plaza Dubai Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 37.8 km / 23.5 mi
- Jumeira Rotana Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 37.6 km / 23.4 mi
- Dubai Marine Beach Resort & Spa Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 36.3 km / 22.5 mi
- Golden Sands Hotel Apartments Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 38.3 km / 23.8 mi
- Ramada Dubai Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 40.5 km / 25.2 mi
- Capitol Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 38.4 km / 23.9 mi
- Raffles Dubai Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 39.5 km / 24.6 mi
- Movenpick Hotel Bur Dubai Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distance: 40 km / 24.9 mi


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What credentials do you hold as a core measures abstractor?
- 0Nov 18, '09 by Nurse_JenniHi! I am just rediscovering this forum after a long time away. I am hoping everyone can shed some light on something for me. I have been doing Core Measure abstractions for 4 years now, and I am wondering what credentials all you CM abstractors are holding out there. I hear I am a minority w/ an LPN and nothing further. Is this true?
- 1Nov 13, '13 by PMcCorveyHi Nurse_Jenni, I know this is a late reply but I just became a member and saw your question. I currently work at a hospital as a Quality Review Analyst and I abstract the core measures required for The Joint Commission and CMS. I currently hold the following credentials: LPN, RHIT, & CPC.
- 1Feb 6 by RHIA, RNI just started in this role. As my screen name states, I am a RHIA, RN. My actual title is Performance Improvement Data Analyst and I will have other duties but so far--- I have been abstracting core measures. We use Press Ganey software and are transitioning to monthly reports from quarterly.


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BlackBerry Fund Shows Signs of Life
In March, Apple launched the iFund, a $100 million iPhone developers fund managed by the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
The iFund has announced at least two investments, the first of which was in the mobile social networking company Pelago.
Last month, it invested in the gaming startup ngmoco, which has former Electronic Arts executive Neil Young as its CEO.
Both RIM and Apple already have a framework in place to help distribute applications for their phones. But the developers fund is the first time the two companies are backing efforts to offer monetary support to software makers to spur innovation for their platforms.The battle of the funds is also significant because most industry watchers see the availability of attractive applications as a sales driver for a device and ultimately the reason why a phone will retain users. BlackBerry Partners Fund's Talbot says the unexpectedly large response from developers to the fund threw operations out of gear but says it is now back on track. "Since the fund was announced, we have been deluged with opportunities," he says. "We have lagged a little bit behind because of that." So far, the BlackBerry Partners Fund has reviewed more than 1,500 investment opportunities, and it says it hopes to announce its picks soon. "It is clearly a very exciting and dynamic market," says Talbot. Most of the funds' investments are likely to be in North America, with a few in Canada, Europe and Israel.
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Yes psloggedon blah-blah.. but I wanted a few other features and knocked up a script. Current options below - are there any obvious ones missing e.g. it only outputs where someone is interactively logged on to a machine and I can't make my mind up about whether to have switches to display machines that are off or sitting at the logon screen.
WhoIsOn Scan entire AD
WhoIsOn /cc3 Scan RM CC3 'Main Site' only
WhoIsOn <computer> Check specific computer e.g. library-03
WhoIsOn <DN> Path to scan e.g. 'ou=Office,DC=My School,DC=internal'
WhoIsOn <OU> /ou Scan specific OU & any sub-OUs e.g. 'Admin Offices'


text:
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United States / $ (USD)
Judaica, Jewish Gifts, Tallits, Jewish Jewelry, Shofars & more
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Hand Made Dreidel with Turquoise and Gold Leaf Design (Israel Version)
Share: Send to a friend:Product ID: DRD-ID-14799
This dreidel is handmade and comes in a turquoise color. The dreidel features a unique gold leaf design. Read more
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Product Description
This lovely Hanukkah dreidel is made of metal and features an exquisite design. The dreidel has a turquoise base color and a design of golden leaves on its face. The four letter Nun, Gimmel, Hey, and Pey are features on different sides of the square dreidel. The letters represent the sentence in Hebrew 'a great miracle happened here' referring to Israel.
This metal dreidel makes for an ideal Hanukkah gift.
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The staff at Design Build Pros is dedicated to creating and delivering the most professional and pleasant remodeling experience possible for homeowners and remodelers throughout Ohio.
Ohio is known as the Buckeye State. The name "Ohio" originated from Iroquois word ohi-yo', meaning "great river" or "large creek". Ohio is the 7th most populous, and the 10th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus.
Design Build Pros offers a unique, pre-construction project profile analysis, budget, design, and development process for highly qualified remodelers or directly with homeowners in OH. Projects of any size or type can be discussed, reviewed, and fully analyzed. This system fully prepares all involved parties prior to the final decisions and the start of the renovation.
The services provided by the Design Build Pros help homeowners choose the right remodeler to build the best project, with great value and savings. The services we provide are available anywhere in the US. The first step is a FREE 15-minute phone consultation to determine if we can help you with your project.


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|Home Software category Just in softwares Submit a program Contact us Link to us
Home > Development::C / C / C# > Speedy Make 2.0
Speedy Make 2.0
For building software faster, replace make and use makefile in XML format.Company: Haskell
Platform: WinNT 4.x,Windows2000,WinXP,Windows2003,Windows Vista Starter,Windows Vista Home
Size: 43 KB
Price: USD $0.00
Release Date: 2008-06-30
Screenshot URL: http://www.scriptol.org/speedymake/speedymake-medium.jpg
Category: Development::C / C / C#
Replaces make by the simplest parser and its makefile format by a portable XML document. Some predefined actions are sufficient to give tasks to the interpreter. It is a small engine that parses recursively an XML file and turn it into a list of command to process. A lot of tasks are automated, for example, the parser needs only for the name of the main source file to build a whole project.
Related keywords:
scriptol source open free make makefile speedy easy speedymake configure install generate
Speedy Make Related Titles:Falco Free Animated GIF Library 5.5 - Loading and Save. C++ and Delphi samples. Show Animated GIF. Delphi and VC++.
Falco Free XLS Library 6.5 - Free Excel Library for Saving/Loading. VC++. Delphi.
Falco Free Script Processor 5.8 - Falco Free Script Processor Library. VC++. Delphi.
Falco Free Animated GIF Library 5.3 - Loading and Save. C++ and Delphi samples. Show Animated GIF. Delphi and VC++.
Falco Free XLS Library 6.3 - Free Excel Library for Saving/Loading. VC++. Delphi.
TRichView for C++Builder 15 - Components for editing documents with images, tables and hypertext links
FFBuild 4.1.0 - FFBuild is a Build System for C/C++ projects.
HS Sockets C Source Library 1.6 - HS Sockets C Source Library for Windows Win Mobile and Linux
VScodePrint 2013 13.0.9 - Print Visual Studio source code and export output to RTF and PDF
.netshrink 2.6 - Executable compressor and DLL binder for .NET applications
Nasosoft Pdf Component For .NET 22.214.171.124 - PDF Components,Create,Edit,Fill,Merge,Split,Encrypt,PDF2Text,.NET,C#,VB.NET
Cppcliexamples collection of C++/CLI examples 1.5 - Cppcliexamples collection - examples for use with C++/CLI .NET
Audio & Multimedia Business Communications Desktop Development Dwg to pdf Education Dwg Converter Games & Entertainment Graphic Apps Convert PDF to DWG Home & Hobby Network & Internet News Security & Privacy Servers System Utilities Web Development Others
Copyright © 2000 - 2014 FreeSharewareCenter.com - Freeware and Shareware Download Center.
All Rights Reserved.


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Auto Shop Invoicer 2010.26
Lightweight and easy to use
Design is kept to a minimum, with only the bear necessities displayed in the main window. Available options are quickly accessible, each one bringing up a new set of info you can keep track of.
Manage customers and vehicles
The application best suits auto repair shops. A client database can be created, where you can fill any contact details and personal information, as well as the vehicle in his possession. However, you cannot keep track of activity because there is no integration function that allows that. It could have been useful to know which customer prefers your shop, and how often he does revision.
When it comes to vehicles, the same can be said. There is a default list of makes and models to choose from, and if you don't manage to find one, you can always add it to the list. The vehicle database is limited to name, technical details only being editable from the customer customization menu.
Manage expenses and create invoices
Parts can be chosen to be displayed in the final invoice, with a price tag you add, but no way to create a database for later use. Two tax types can be set and applied to each item.
In conclusion
taking everything into consideration, we can say that Auto Shop Invoicer is a handy application to manage customers and parts. The user interface lets you quickly adapt, but limited options make it difficult to keep around for long term use.
Reviewed by Mircea Dragomir, last updated on April 18th, 2014
- file size:
- price:
- license type:
- Freeware
- developed by:
- BriBeck Technologies, LLC
- operating system(s):
- Windows All
- category:
- C: \ Others \ Finances & Business
In a hurry? Add it to your Download Basket!
Application descriptionAuto Shop Invoicer is small and simple Automotive Invoicing Software that is easy to use, affordable, and flexible eno...


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Famous quotes by Hector Hugh Munro:Sort:PopularA - Z
|A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
|He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
|He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.
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Now Playing
4:00 am
Fri April 6, 2012
Average U.S. Car Price Tops $30,000
Average prices for cars are at an all-time high, reflecting increased demand and a healthier economy. The average car price has gone up nearly $2,000 since last year. Even though car prices are higher, buyers haven't shied away from picking up a new car.


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"The harder you work, the luckier you get."
Gary Player
Below is the poem entitled Fair memories which was written by poet
DARKLY. Please feel free to comment on this poem. However, please remember, PoetrySoup is a place of encouragement and growth.
Read Poems by
Pretty ponied carousal, red, yellow, blue,
Spinning into a swirling purple hue.
Summer breeze through sweaty hair,
Dog-day memories reside there.
Blue ribbon exhibits on display,
I never won one anyway.
Penned up animals wafting scent,
Craving goodies all money spent
Puffy sweet cotton-candy pink,
Slushy syrup cherry drink.
Chocolate milkshakes super thick,
Ice cream melts in heat doubly quick.
Carameled apples sticky good,
I'd go back in time, if I could.
Artery-clogging fried delight,
Mouth-watering, for just one bite.
Plump corn-dogs on a stick,
Garbage three pointer a grand trick.
Chicken fingers, cheese curds,curly fries,
Shoot the target win the prize.
Stuffed animals, for a bull's-eye,
Spinning Ferris wheels so high.
Rides so damn dizzy, stomach aches,
Fast as any bathroom breaks.
Last in line to relieve the pain,
To silence the gas always in vain.
Fondest August reminiscence I can pick,
Selective memory the times when sick.


text:
You're leaving Wedding Paper Divas to see the Deal of the Day at our parent site, Tiny Prints.
You won't be able to dismiss this by usual means (escape or click button), but you can close it programatically based on user choices or actions.
"Wedding paper divas did a wonderful job on this one! They were so accommodating of the changes I needed to make, like erasing the trim, moving the text, changing fonts/sizes, etc. I was incredibly impresses with how quickly they worked too.....revisions took less than a day, sometimes just mere hours. It helped speed along the process so I could get these out asap. If I could change anything, I would've upgraded paper/finishes because I think it would've made the photo really pop. Overall, I'm a very happy first-time wedding paper divas customer!!"
"This layout was everything i wanted!! I was worried the "getting hitched" blended in to much with the color of my fiances shirt, but the designers review was amazing and helped make it so the getting hitched worked perfect with the big picture i wanted to use!! Paper quality was good, but i wish i got the glossy finish! other than that, LOVE LOVE LOVE!"
"This Save the date was way more then I expected it to be. So beautiful. The picture and text turned out amazing. I also got the Shimmer pearl feature and it made the card that much better."
"Our save the days were fabulous! We used the shimmer paper, which turned out wonderfully with the photo we had chosen to use. Great starting template to add your own design, front and back."
"we needed a simple yet a beautiful design that would stand out with our outrageous photo. We could not have done any better. This design was perfect!! The magnets are the perfect size and not too heavy. Other magnets I have seen are WAY to large."


text:
-Re: deletion technique question
The only limitation with the approach that I can see is that I may not know
every permutation of visibility on a given key, and with the scan-driven
approach I can use the user's entire authorization set as a way to get all
of the rows for deletion.
On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Christopher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The BatchDeleter is essentially a BatchScanner with the
> SortedKeyIterator (which drops values from the returned entries...
> they aren't needed to delete), and a BatchWriter that inserts a delete
> entry in a mutation for every entry the scanner sees.
> You can, and should, select option 2, because you're better off
> sending two column updates in each mutation rather than send twice as
> many mutations, as you'd be doing for option 1.
> --
> Christopher L Tubbs II
> http://gravatar.com/ctubbsii
> On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Marc Reichman
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I have a table with rows which have 3 column values in one column family,
> > and a column visibility.
> >
> > There are situations where I will want to replace the row content with a
> new
> > column visibility; I understand that the visibility attributes are
> > immutable, so I will have to delete and re-put.
> >
> > Am I better off doing:
> > 1. BatchDeleter with authorizations to allow access, set range to the
> key in
> > question, call delete, and then put in mutations with the new visibility
> > 2. Create mutations with a putDelete followed by a put with the new
> > visibility for each value
> > 3. Something else entirely?
> >
> > For option #2, can I simply do a putDelete on the column
> family/qualifier?
> > Or do I need to "know" the old authorizations to put in a visibility
> > expression with the putDelete?
> >
> > For all of these, can a client get up-to-the-minute results immediately
> > after? Or does some kind of compaction need to occur first?


text:
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Novatech has been helping schools to fulfil their ICT requirements for over twenty years so we not only understand the fantastic opportunities technology bring to teachers and learners, but also the myriad challenges they can pose to schools working within tight budgets.
We design and assemble our own branded PCs, laptops, servers and peripherals and distribute them to schools, colleges and Universities across the country. Our clients range from village primaries using simple netbooks to Oxford and Edinburgh University research departments using super-computers to push the boundaries of science.
From South Downs FE College in Hampshire to Millfield School in Somerset, more and more educational establishments are relying on Novatech for worry free computing.
Click here to see our 2012 Education range catalogue for how we can help you.
Our overriding aim is to make the procurement, installation and maintenance of your ICT as clear and straight-forward as possible. Talk to us today for further insight into some of the ways Novatech can keep your school's ICT up to date without breaking the bank.
Talk to Novatech education today about our simple and cost-effective leasing options. Leasing can ensure that your school benefits from quality technology with complete peace of mind with comprehensive warranty and support options included.
The Novatech 121 scheme gives every learner their own Ultrabook or laptop for use at school and at home that is backed by award-winning British support, zero-excess insurance and a leasing programme that make it affordable for all. It also includes a range of support services for your school to ensure a smooth transition to student-owned ICT.
Novatech's new Zero Client reduces hardware requirements even further with tiny workstations linked directly to the server, giving you your own in-house cloud.
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text:
NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- ChinaCast Education (CAST), Solarfun Power Holdings (SOLF), CNinsure Inc (CISG), Home Inns & Hotels Management (HMIN), JA Solar Holdings (JASO), Zhongpin (HOGS), Longtop (LFT), Trina Solar (TSL), Ctrip.com International (CTRP) LDK Solar (LDK) have upsides in the range of 20%-73%, based on analysts' consensus estimates of 12-month price targets.
Last week, for the third time in the last four months, the People's Bank of China raised key policy rates. It increased one-year deposit and lending rates by 25 basis points each, taking the rates to 3% and 6.06%, respectively. These are part of the central bank's efforts to combat spiraling inflation. Analysts believe that the present rate hike was not unexpected, and expect further rate hikes over the next six months.
Even though the present rate hike did not spook the market, it does not take away the fact that Chinese stocks underperformed its developed market peers. The Shanghai Stock Exchange lost 7% in the last one year, while Dow Jones Industrial Average and FTSE 100 surged 15-16% in the same period.
We have identified 10 Chinese stocks that investors can consider for long-term. The selected stocks have potential to deliver 20% to 73% returns over the next one year with an average analyst buy ratings of 69%.
Select the service that is right for you!COMPARE ALL SERVICES
Action Alerts PLUSTry it NOW
Jim Cramer and Stephanie Link actively manage a real portfolio and reveal their money management tactics while giving advanced notice before every trade.
Product Features:
- $2.5+ million portfolio
- Large-cap and dividend focus
- Intraday trade alerts from Cramer
- Weekly roundups
TheStreet Quant RatingsTry it NOW
Only $49.95/yr
Access the tool that DOMINATES the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500.
Product Features:
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Stocks Under $10Try it NOW
David Peltier, uncovers low dollar stocks with extraordinary upside potential that are flying under Wall Street's radar.
Product Features:
- Model portfolio
- Stocks trading below $10
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Dividend Stock AdvisorTry it NOW
Jim Cramer's protege, David Peltier, identifies the best of breed dividend stocks that will pay a reliable AND significant income stream.
Product Features:
- Diversified model portfolio of dividend stocks
- Alerts when market news affect the portfolio
- Bi-weekly updates with exact steps to take - BUY, HOLD, SELL
Real Money ProTry it NOW
All of Real Money, plus 15 more of Wall Street's sharpest minds delivering actionable trading ideas, a comprehensive look at the market, and fundamental and technical analysis.
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Our options trading pros provide daily market commentary and over 100 monthly option trading ideas and strategies to help you become a well-seasoned trader.
Product Features:
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- Real-time trading community
- Options TV


text:
- News tagged "video recording"
Tuesday, 23 Jul 2013
Xbox One Will Automatically Record and Store Last Five Minutes of Gameplay
A Microsoft Game Studios executive has revealed that the Xbox One will automatically record and store the last five minutes of your gameplay.
Monday, 24 Jun 2013
Android Version of Vine Gets Updated
It appears Twitter is not going to stand by idly after Facebook updated Instagram to allow for video recording and sharing. The Android version of Twitter's video recording app, Vine, has received an update so hit the link for the details.
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News for Past 12 Months
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Two men looking for drugs found help quickly on East Sprague Avenue in Spokane last April. A drug user eager for his next high took them to a west Spokane parking lot, where he handed them a rock of crack cocaine he'd bought from a dealer in a nearby car.
The men gave their assistant a small portion of the drug and drove back to Sprague, but they didn't join him in getting high. Instead, the remaining crack cocaine was secured at the Spokane police evidence room and the man suspected of selling it was charged with a felony.
The investigation was detailed in a court hearing Thursday that provided a rare look at the Spokane Police Department's undercover drug unit, where confidential informants are used daily and some drug users have no idea they're actually helping police.
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TThe professional, knowledgeable staff at Vintner's Circle share their love of the wine lifestyle with hands-on wine classes that teach guests, family, and friends how to bottle wines, distinguish between different varietals, or pair wine with cheese. The shop's unique winemaking courses take aspiring vintners through the accessible four-step process, which begins with choosing wine juices from a selection of more than 50 internationally sourced varieties. Participants then fill more than two dozen bottles with their own vintage. They can emblazon these bottles with custom-designed labels and colorful tops. Vintner's Circle also stocks a variety of gifts for weddings, holidays, and other special occasions, as well as wine accessories and gifts for wine lovers to enjoy year-round. Wine-education classes, corporate events, and team-building events are also on offer.
Little Town NYC unabashedly hearts New York. Of its three restaurants, two are located in iconic Manhattan spots: one in Union Square, the other on Theater District's Restaurant Row. Little Town's fancy for the Empire State shines through on the menu, too, with homestyle dishes such as the Adirondack chicken pesto and an Angus beef burger topped with crispy Berkshire bacon. The Suburb Backyard BBQ platter is piled high with enough buffalo wings, Nathan's hot dogs, and other locally inspired fare to feed a family of four.
Little Town NYC also takes great pride in its beer list, which features more than 100 local brews, including IPAs and amber ales that hail from breweries in Long Island, Ithaca, and Saratoga Springs. At the Restaurant Row location, you can enjoy a pilsner from Coney Island while sitting in a booth constructed from the beach's old wooden boardwalk.
Mario and Anna Abitino emigrated from Naples to the U.S. in 1972. Mario quickly found work in the pizza business, and the couple eventually opened a restaurant of their own: Abitino's Pizza and Italian Kitchen, in Midtown Manhattan. That was more than 20 years ago. Today, the couple and their three sons, Dominick, Mario Jr., and Salvatore, run six New York pizzerias bearing the family name. Each offers an expansive menu of signature pizzas and other Italian entrees, such as gnocchi sorrentino and pasta stuffed with fresh littleneck clams. Their pizzas and calzones use dough made right on the premises, and their tomato sauce is also housemade—with tomatoes from Naples, naturally.
At Thirst Lounge, glasses of draft beer and wine complement a menu of American pub food and Latin American favorites. Dishes range from beef sliders to mofongo, a Costa Rican specialty featuring fried plantains. Cubano sandwiches and buffalo wings pair particularly well with a pint of beer, whereas pepperoni or barbecue-chicken pizzas make for good coasters for the glass.
Whether culled from California's Napa Valley region in the fall or from Chile and Argentina in the spring, every bundle of red and white grapes winds up beneath a patron's stomping feet. Eight months later—after a pressing session and half-hour racking—each red, white, or rosé batch makes the transition from barrel to bottle. Clients then fill, cork, seal, and adorn the bottle with their own label before gently kissing it to remove any curses. For visitors more eager to imbibe wine than concoct it, The WineMakers Cellar accommodates guests with dinners and wine and cheese pairings in its bistro. Handcrafted wine continues to flow at cooking demonstrations, courses, and private parties held within the facility.
True to its name, Just Grapes Lounge focuses on wines, with more than 30 vintages poured by the glass and 18 more varieties sequestered on a reserve bottle list. Microbrews, champagnes, and ports round out the lounge's full bar, complementing a Mediterranean-tinged tapas menu. Small plates, ranging from hummus and crostini to stuffed baked clams, are ideal for smothering appetites or boosting a tiny table's self-esteem. Three styles of rustic pizza artfully pair tomatoes with cheese, whereas molten fondue, served in a bread bowl, comes in varieties including gorgonzola and double-cream brie.