Happy New Year At Long Last

I just haven't had much incentive to sit down and write anything. I'm not a Winter Person, I guess - I feel like just hibernating and waiting out the cold weather. At any rate, my best wishes to those of you who read this (and to those of you who I'd like to!) for a very happy 2010. Where's my flying car? What a rip-off century.

It's been a special sort of month already in my life. Apart from the start of a brand new decade (even if it technically isn't, I prefer to start it off with a Zero), I've already observed my birthday (the Big 5-2!), the 28th anniversary at my place of employment, an 18th birthday for a niece, and next week, a 10th birthday for another niece. Later this year, a nephew turns 21 - so there are all sorts of momentous numbers flying around. And get this for a January - it's raining outside!

My neck of the woods went through the entire month of November without seeing a single snowflake - unprecedented in our weather records - but December brought us a series of small centimeter or so deliveries of the white stuff, so that we indeed had something of a White Christmas this year. There is still some snow out there, thanks to the below-freezing temperatures we've had through most of January, but this weekend we've shot up to 36 F and yes, it's pouring outside. Usually this would be some sort of significant snowfall, but I guess I'll ditch the boots again tomorrow and head back to work in shoes. No complaints from me.

I very often have travel plans by this time. Not that I'm particularly antsy to get out of town once New Year's Day is over, but January is the month for Air Canada seat sales that stretch into late spring and the summer, so it's generally around NOW that I figure out what I've got planned for holidays. It hasn't happened this time around. There were some hints of sales around Christmas week and late December, but with every announcement of "great deals" from Canada's national airline, the price tags have been higher. And higher.

Here's an example: I was thinking of a flight to Houston sometime in the spring. This would faciliate my long-standing dream of a Texas BBQ tour, taking in some of the best rib joints in the state (and therefore, of course, the world). In late December, there were fares available on Air Canada for $131. Well, $131 EACH WAY, plus taxes and all kinds of add-on fees. Well, by early January, the fare was suddenly up to $161. And the "great deals" seat sale currently on offer, those wonderful annual January specials? Well, it's now up to $198. Goodbye BBQ!

The present security concerns make flying anywhere seem like an arduous and unpleasant experience, or should I say, even more arduous and unpleasant than usual. So I guess travel is sort of on the back-burner for the moment. I'll keep my eyes peeled for specials, though, and who know? Perhaps something will come along. But when China looks like an affordable destination compared to London or Munich, then something isn't quite right.

I'm holding to last year's New Year's Resolution, which I'm happy to say I kept big-time: To drink more High Quality Beer. A return to Munich last summer, and a first-ever visit to Prague helped me keep that promise, and I was very happy to visit several fine brewpub establishments in the United States as well. I've already made my first visit to a brewpub for 2010, which will be the subject of my next bit of written ramblings. Best Wishes to You All!
NEXT: A New Downtown Toronto Brewpub!

Prvni Pivni Tramway, Prague

Prvni Pivni Tramway

Na Chadovci 1A

272 765 683

All Aboard for a very special beer experience! My Prague Pub Pilgrimage has shifted into high gear by my second afternoon in the Czech Republic, and now it's time for a little adventure.

I boarded a #11 Tram and rode for twenty minutes or so to the end of the line at Sporilov. Not so scenic out here in the 'burbs, is it? But Lucky Number 11 will deliver you directly to the front door of the Prvni Pivni Tramway, "The First Beer Tramway" pub!

What an amazing and truly unique pub! Part of the interior is laid out like an old-fashioned Prague Tram.

Inside I found a hard-rockin' atmosphere, veering towards a punk/goth soundtrack. They had settled down to U2 by the time I left. The main bar area was covered in all kinds of "stuff", much of it somewhat on the risqué side, and all of it loads of fun. The staff were very friendly, and whenever they felt like it, they rang the authentic old Tram Bell (directly over the server's head). Ordering a second beer seemed to get me the Ring-a-Ding treatment!

The First Beer Tramway differs from most Prague taverns in that it isn't a strictly one-brewery operation. The sign outside indicates that Pilsner Urquell is indeed available here, but Prvni Pivni also prides itself on a "rotating tap" or a visiting draft. This was the Guest Beer when I showed up - a Holba Serak from the eastern part of the country. Very nice and tasty, if a little bitter to my (after)taste. For 29 CZK (approx. $1.75 Canadian) a pint, who am I to complain? I'm not complaining! It's a Pleasant 7 on the Goodness Scale!

Oh my. Oh my. Here's the real deal. On tap that wondrous day was a Primator Premium Dark. Wow! I've never tasted anything quite like it. Very filling, with a hint of coffee. Evan Rail's guide also mentions cola and ginger notes. Do I detect cocoa as well? No matter, it was magnificent. One of the best glasses of beer it has ever been my pleasure to slurp, and easily a 9 out of 10 on my Yuk/Yummy Scale of Goodness, and maybe a 95% overall, but I'll have to return to Prague and visit this lovely bar again for a longer period of time and verify this rating. Suddenly, I felt at home. I must have been smiling a lot by this time, as I kept hearing that darn Trolley Bell! What a great place!

NEXT: Lose your cares At The Little Bears!

Ferdinanda

Ferdinanda, Prague

Opletalova and Politickych

222 244 302 http://www.ferdinanda.cz/

This was my first pub in Prague, and it's a good one! Where else will you be offered "1 small bear" with your entree? Looking back, it seemed cleaner and more spacious than most of the traditional Prague pubs I visited. The staff was friendly, the food was delicious (great caesar salad, nice fries, tasty fried bread with cheese), and the lager was excellent.

Of course I managed to lose all my details of how much everything cost, the various % of alcohol, etc. But this photo shows that a "big" beer comes in a 0.4 liter glass, perhaps a tad short of a full pint. The prices in Prague were very reasonable, so no complaints there, and this was delicious!

My friend Ute, who generally prefers the darker beer, reported that hers tasted very nice indeed. It was a great start to our Prague pub-crawl, and I can highly recommend "Ferdinanda". Ferdinand beer, by the way, comes from Benesov, home town of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose nasty end in Sarajevo in 1914 led to the outbreak of World War I. It gets a big 8 out of 10 on my Yuk/Yummy Beer Scale!

NEXT: A Happening At The Hippo!

It's August!!

Crumbs! It's been ages since I have written anything here. So busy...and when I'm not, it's difficult to get motivated to think up something to type. Thanks, however, to my buddy over at Project Fleece, I'm finally getting around to catching up on this year's events.

Let's see...

In February, I fell down. Slipped on an icy patch of sidewalk. Fractured a knee.

In July, I fell down. Tripped over a boulder. Banged up my ribs, bloodied my arm.

Aside from that, it's been all great. I visited Chicago in early May, traveled to Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic in June/July, and tomorrow I fly off to Chicago for a long weekend.

If you have travel plans that involve Munich and/or Prague, and you have a hankering to visit a beergarden or pub, allow me to introduce you to two wonderful Guides that helped me make a great holiday even greater.

This is the second year running that I've made The Beer Drinker's Guide To Munich an essential part of my plans when visiting this sudsy city. Earlier entries have touched on my passion for Munich and its wonderful selection of beers and outdoor facilities in which to relax and drink them. Future submissions will outline my trips to old favourites, as well as describe a couple of adventures to new, and highly recommended, beergardens!

I visited Prague for the very first time in early July. I only had three nights to explore this historic treasure of a town, and especially wanted to make the most of the city's wonderful pubs. Fortunately, a new Guide, The Good Beer Guide to Prague, was there to help me find the best of the best. Yes, I will dish the dirt on my fave pubs in Prague, where a number of drinking establishments scored very high indeed on Mooncattie's unpatented Yuck/Yummy Scale of Goodness. Stay Tuned!

I shall close with a photographic teaser of what's to come. What a lovely holiday! Except for the Schneider Weisse, of course. Cheers!

Once you've had a Schneider Weisse, the rest of your holiday is bound to feature better beer!

A night of blues music, and a Staropramen. Oh well, at least the blues music was great!

Ah, now that's more like it! A nice stein of Spaten Helles.

NEXT! Mooncattie's first Prague Pub! Where will it be? Can you say "Archduke"?

Hot Dogs in the Windy City

Chicago is famous for its hot dogs. Unlike Toronto, there are perhaps dozens of establishments in the Chicago area where the humble wiener is the #1 item on the menu. This year, I decided to do a bit of Tuber Research and track down some of the better-known hot dog spots.

Well, first up was Hot Doug's at the corner of N. California and Roscoe.

Yikes! I arrived at 10:45 am to find a lineup around the corner and down the street. I got in line, didn't move during a ten-minute wait, and decided that was enough time to spend on a hot dog, no matter how highly-rated it is. And it is, from what I've read. Hot Doug's offers a variety of sausages, including "duck-fat fried french fries" on Fridays and Saturdays. Well, lets see if I get lucky at a spot up the road a bit.

Next stop: Chubby Wieners on North Western at Leland.

Yikes again! Chubby's couldn't be more conveniently located, right under the Western stop on the Brown Line, but here we are, after 11am on a Saturday, and it's closed! I'm not doing so well, am I? I do have another back-up location to try, though.

It's on to U Lucky Dawg, further up N. Western, north of Pratt Avenue.

Bingo! It's Open, we have a nice Iconic Sign praising Vienna Beef products, and I'm hungry. I ordered a hot dog and a polish sausage. I preferred the latter, although they were both good. My dogs come with mustard, onions and sport peppers (something I've only seen in Chicago, they're these little green things of variable texture and heat). One sport pepper exploded over my t-shirt - this is a fine spot for a great dog. I did feel lucky!

So lucky, that I was ready to try one more location in Chicago's north side.

It's back down the street and around the corner to Wolfy's on W. Peterson at Fairfield.

Open...check! Iconic sign out front...check! Vienna beef served here...check! A generous parking lot, and time for a Char-Polish all-beef sausage. Yum! By this time, I had learned to add celery salt to the ingredients, although I want no part of the traditional "Chicago dog" makeup of neon green relish, slice of dill, and tomato slice. And one thing about hot dogs in Chicago. No. Ketchup. Ever. Ever! Fine by me, I don't like ketchup. My sport pepper on this dog was kind of wrinkled, not juicy at all, and not particularly spicy. But the sausage itself was delicious and perhaps edges out U Lucky Dawg by a nosehair. Well, I'd like to return to both spots, maybe in reverse order, to try 'em both one more time.

Another day, another visit, another dog. Let's hit the south side for a couple of Maxwell Street legends. First, we have the Express Grill.

The Express Grill is open 24/7, and since its move from Maxwell Street (a block over, now dominated by buildings owned by the University of Illinois), it sits on Union Street, eye to eye with the Dan Ryan Expressway, and next door to its great competitor, Original Jim's. The Express Grill was opened and operated by family members that broke away from Jim. The building features a counter, built along the outside wall (there is no indoor dining) for folks to eat standing up. You can get a Polish sausage...or a Polish BEEF sausage for ten cents' extra. I guess that latter offers less snout? Well, you can't knock the hours, and there certainly wasn't a lineup to worry about...but you can walk for thirty seconds and find a better sausage over at...

...none other than Jim's Original Maxwell St. Polish! Lots of photos showing the old location from back in the day, another counter helpfully provided along the outside wall for stand-up diners, and similar prices and menu concept to the Express next door. I chomped into one of the beef polish sausages. I found it a bit tastier than the Express, until I bit into one of the atomic-strength sport peppers. Wow! By far the hottest pepper I've ever tasted in a sausage. I think that's what makes Jim's Original so memorable - well that, and having an expressway less than 50 feet away across the street. Jim's is also open all day, every day. Are you listening, Hot Doug?

There's time for one more dog, so I thought I'd make it a double.

I've landed west of O'Hare Airport to Gene & Jude's Red Hots on Des Plaines River Road near Grand. You can see that they offer "double" dogs, and toss a fistful of tasty fries over the finished product. Ahh...that's a nice hot dog!

This is just a small sampling of the many, many hot dog stands you can find in Chicago. Trying them out is lots of fun. Best wishes to you for your next visit, and for your stomach's health!

UPDATE: "U LUCKY DAWG" ain't so lucky anymore....IT'S CLOSED!!!

NEXT: Trains!

Raise Your Glasses!!

It's getting into late October as I write this - months after my wonderful European holiday - but a late-night stein of Hofbrau Oktoberfest beer (thank you, Binny's of Chicago!) has me in the mood to wax nostalgic on a wonderful August visit to Munich, Germany. I've never been there for their Oktoberfest festivities (actually held late-September to early-October), but the beergardens of this lovely city are usually open and ready for customers throughout the year. When the sun is shining, there is usually beer somewhere to be enjoyed!




So....the year 2008 saw me visiting Munich TWICE! I took advantage and visited no less than 8 of the city's famous beergardens. Here's is a rundown of some of my favourites:

Any list of Munich's best spots for delicious beer must include a place run by the fine folks at the Augustiner brewery. The Augustiner Keller, just west of Munich's main railway station or Hauptbanhof, offers a magnificent beergarden as well as an indoor beerhall for when the weather looks less than kindly upon the visitor. The Helles, or lager, is wonderful. The Edelstoff is fantastic. Locals will tell you this is THE best place in Munich for a liter of beer.

So...where do the TOURISTS go?? Well, I've waxed on about the Hofbrauhaus in an earlier post, but for Hofbrau fans there is a special treat in store if you visit Munich's Englischer Garten. It's the Chinescher Turm (or Chinese Tower) beergarden. Both locals and out of towners love to visit this special spot in the middle of the park. A Bavarian brass band often appears at the Tower to offer local drinking songs on weekends. And the beer...well, sublime is a good word! And the food isn't bad either!

Ahhh...Spaten! When it's good, it's REALLY great. I visited one highly-rated beergarden in Munich's southern suburbs in August, and found the local Spaten Helles to be...well, Stale! Very unusual for such a wonderful product. But I remember happier times and better Spatens, such as this May 2008 visit to the Hirschau beergarden, in the northern section of the Englischer Garten. In addition to the beer, you can enjoy ribs, chicken, or (in my case) a delicious pretzel with your choice of mustard. Weekends at the Hirschau feature some fine jazz music if it's sunny outside. It's a bit of a trek from the city centre, but well worth the Metro ride and walk, and a great way of starting a southbound Beer Walk in the Englischer Garten. After hoisting a liter at the Hirschau, perhaps you'll have time to wander south, on a convenient pedestrian bridge across a busy road, to.....

....the SEEHAUS, one of Munich's truly beloved beergardens. It's run by the folks from Paulaner and is located along the shore of a beautiful little lake. You can rent a boat there (not while drinking!), watch the ducks, or just settle into a nice glass of Paulaner's fine Helles and do some serious people-watching. Adjacent to the Seehaus is a fancy indoor restaurant, but if the weather permits then outdoors by the lake is the place to be.

There are many other fine places in Munich to relax over a Maß (that should be "Mass" or a liter of beer). If you're stuck downtown, then I recommend the Viktualienmarkt beergarden, which has the added attraction of "rotating" its beer offerings. If you're lucky (as I was) and arrived on a day when Augustiner was being served....well, RAISE YOUR GLASSES!!

NEXT: I BLOGS FOR HOT DOGS!