I kind of love this, actually. It treats "American" food the same way America fusion cuisine treats everybody else's. (And I say this as a fan of that kind of fusion cooking.) Lots of things I'd eat here.

Totally true.

Driver of this Uber has managed to find a playlist of non-stop Christian Country songs. I'm equal parts disturbed and impressed.

Possibly the nerdiest 3 days of my life, but the thing I've wanted every time I started a fan history research project now exists in the world. Want to know what the definition of a any Hugo Category was in any year since 1970? Now you can! I realize I am prolly the only person who wants that, tho.

I am in the middle of a very nerdy project of documenting the definitional history of every Hugo category. The research has been surprisingly delightful, like stumbling across this ad from 1973 which I think is advertising a still-existing library branch in my Toronto neighborhood.

No lies detected. You should go.

another day thinking about The Mouse, The Bird, And The Sausage (totally wild deep-ish cut Grimm fairytale of which every part is more off the rails than the last)

I just noticed that the IBA has a copy of Trader Vic's iconic 1947 Bartender's Guide available for free perusal online. While unattributed, these drinks cover a range of international sources, from the 1890s through the 1940s. issuu.com/iba-world/do...

This looks really cool! Just one of the amazing things happening at this year's Worldcon in August, if you haven't made plans to go, you should think about it.

So we have stumbled into a tasting menu. We happen to be staying across the street from the restaurant of a chef that we met at a special event at Michelin 2* Etz in Nuremberg in February. They do coffee and pastries in the morning and casual fine dining at night. And omakase, cause why not?

@chrisquartly.bsky.social is the recommendation winner of the trip. We had a lovely time at last night's bar, but every drink we've had here tonight in one round is better than any drink we had last night. Thanks Chris!

Time to eat some German food.

Round 2 and 3 (there are 6 of us at this point). We've been ordering all menu drinks, and as I expect from a European cocktail bar, they are all very well crafted but just a little too sweet for me. Dave must have been ordering classics off menu.

A double rec from @vidiot.bsky.social and @davidwondrich.bsky.social and so far worthy of a bunch more!

Last night we went to a proper German bierkeller. Giant mugs if beer, enormous bretzels and really good duck that I forgot to take a picture of

Immensely powerful long read.

This thread is quite amusing.

Our hotel in Nuremberg has a Gin & Tonic focused lobby bar with 50 gins written up in a book, and more possibly available beyond that. I picked a German one, of course. Menu design is great - the botanical illustrations show major flavor notes, so I could easily find the juniper-forward ones!

Hello from Nuremberg and currywurst for lunch!

Well that was a lovely afternoon drinking beer with @evanrail.bsky.social in Prague! Thanks Evan!

It's 15F cooler today than yesterday, but that still means f-ing hot! But I braved the heat to head up to Prague Castle, which so far has been worth the trek. Decided to wait till I get back to the pool for an Aperol Spritz and had ice cream instead.

We walked around after dinner, and thought about sitting on a patio and drinking some wine, but it was just too hot. So we came back to the hotel to get a drink at the bar. And the cocktail menu actually looks interesting. But I downed half a large bottle of sparkling water and now I'm just done!

Since following Dave's advice has worked so well so far, we did that again tonight. Dinner at Mincovna was great! The presentation was impressively elegant for a restaurant with a lot of tourists in flip flops, lol.

Hello from Prague. It's hot. Very hot. Fortunately our hotel has a pool. The poolside bar has exactly one cocktail, which is a) exactly what you think it is and b) the only one I need on a day like today.

For our last dinner in Vienna our local friend took us to Plachutta, which specializes in Tafelspitz. Very good, the soup especially was divine. We also tried a dish from the summer menu - beef tips on cream sauce with buttered noodles. Can't get more light and summery than that, lol. Was great tho.

Despite it being VERY hot this afternoon (high of 100F) we did go out for a walk through the Stadtpark across the street from our hotel. Got to see male pigeons strutting around trying to impress the female pigeons, and some very cool crows.

Need a laugh? This short sketch is guaranteed to give you one.

Delicious post-lunch drinks were had at Loos American Bar, which was a serene space to escape the heat on a Saturday afternoon! Very impressive room, designed in 1908 by the famous and influential architect Adolf Loos. Beautiful space, with mirrors that make it look bigger than it is.

Lunch today, thanks to Stephen's recommendation was delicious little sandwiches and a tiny beer (iPhone for scale). Very fun! Also pictured: the "cut your own vinyl 7" booth we passed on our way there!

A friend took us to the Wien Museum this morning. It recently reopened after a multi year renovation, and they took all the old stuff and redisplayed it with modern museum design best practices. It's fantastic. Lots of questioning about who creates history, how, and why. Highly recommended & free!

Since everybody's doing it...

And so begins lunch at Steirereck.

Tonight I invoked my "Google 'wine bar'" superpower and we had a lovely evening of yummy wine, delicious open faced sandwiches on great focaccia, vinyl records, and awesome china. The story of this superpower goes back to when I was corresponding with a bartender in Lisbon a few years ago. 1/

How to beat 94F in Vienna. Shady cafe patio, Aperol Spritz and a book. I'm leaning hard into this vacation thing right now.

Had some very tasty schnitzel for lunch today but forgot to take a picture. Then we wandered around a bit in a very relaxed way because of the heat. Stepped into St Michael's Church mostly to cool off, but it ended up having many interesting things to look at. 1/2

It's noon in Vienna and all the church bells are going off at once, creating utter cacophony.

Vienna hotel is rather more posh than the last one.

The basic-ness of our hotel room extended to not having a kettle or coffee making equipment, and we had to leave before breakfast opened. But have now achieved airport cappuccino and pistachio croissant, so all is well with the world.

As always @davidwondrich.bsky.social's advice is great, and Yellow Spot is a great summer dram. Having just listened to a Speakeasy ep about Fettercairn's tropical flavors, I took a look at their whisky menu for that. But they only had a 1988 30 yr old cask strength bottle, so, um, no, not today!

Also, while it's a very basic hotel room, the hotel bar is apparently one of the 50 best whisky bars in Germany. No list online that I can find, but do any of my dram fans have a suggestion for a good summer whisky I should look for?

Braved the heat to visit a walkable point of interest - a Berlin Wall memorial site honoring people who died at the wall.

Latest essay from my partner Bruce.

Today is a day of contrasts. The conference in Berlin was at the Waldorf Astoria. But now we're at a very bare bones hotel with no air conditioning in the middle of nowhere. We left the stuffy room and are enjoying Spritzes sitting on the terrace of the hotel which is quite charming.

Our first stop on this trip is Berlin, but just long enough for my partner to give a talk. The conference was at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, and after a glorious nap I was going to grab some lunch. Saw a Waldorf salad on the menu, and figured that was the way to go. 1/2

For Sunday brunch, I had to go to the liquor store at 10am to get ice. The cast of characters that I interacted with in my short visit was stunning. The next day, a Reddit Boston thread on alcohol laws yielded this gem: “The drunk knows when the bars close. The alcoholic knows when the bars open.”

Wine selection in the airport lounge was uninteresting, so I mixed the meh pinot with San Pellegrino Aranciata Rossa for an entirely satisfactory Tinto de Verrano riff.

Signs that climate change is real: packing all the same clothes to go to Germany and Austria that I packed to go to Zambia and Botswana last month.

Bumping this one more time before we get on a plane this afternoon. Thanks for any tips!

Fun thread about why (if?) some foods taste better the next day.

Joys of open windows in the city - there's a string quartet playing in the house next door, and it's drifting in through the windows in the most lovely way. Much nicer than the pot smoke that drifts in other nights!