California

Los Gatos
Walk up and down historically rebuilt Los Gatos just a few miles outside of San Jose.  Parking can be a little difficult, but the attempt is worth it.  This town was hit hard in the 1990 earthquake.  Most of downtown had to be rebuilt.  They did a great job, the shops that line Santa Cruz Avenue are very diverse and make a great way to kill an afternoon/evening.

Located at 130 N. Santa Cruz is the Los Gatos Brewery - casual dining in downtown Los Gatos.   Los Gatos Brewery serves an excellent variety of micro-brewed beers and has a very good wine list to boot.  They have a good variety of brick oven pizza with spent grain dough, they are excellent.  The other items on the menu looked very good, but were not tried.  

If you are a cigar smoker and know that in California, you cannot do that, there is a tobacconist just around the corner that has good prices and a smoking room for your indulgent pleasure. 

Just down the street at 15 1/2  N. Santa Cruz is the Los Gatos Bar and Grill.  This local hangout is located upstairs and has a great bar with a varied cliental, Connie may have been young, but she knew how to make a perfect martini!  If you are a visitor and are having dinner, request a table by the window, you have nice view of the people walking up and down the street, plus a great view of the mountains.  The night I was there, the moon was rising over them to give a great effect. The Bruschetta appetizer was excellent.  Varied menu and all was prepared perfectly.

Porterville
If you are traveling in the Porterville area, you must find some Armstrong Olives.  These are the best olives I have ever experienced.  Armstrong packs about 20 different kinds, up from the eleven when I discovered them back in 1987.  I was driving through the area and had run out of olives for my martinis.  Saw a sign for fresh packed olives and stopped the van.  WOW, what flavor, couldn't have made a better martini if I had pressed and fermented the juniper berries myself.

San Diego
South Beach Bar & Grill
5059 Newport Ave.
Ocean Beach 92107
Tel: (619) 226-4577

Just like Real Estate has three rules; Location, Location, Location.  This place follows suit, with its casual atmosphere for a  beach bar that is famous for three main things: fish tacos, fish tacos and cold beer. And if you have not tried the first two, do so.  I know it sounds strange, but when in Rome!!! Or like MJ says "Just do it"! If you have any questions your server will assist you with your order.  We had Kelly and he took a great job of our group of 20.

Add in the facts that it's in the heart of the Ocean Beach scene and within walking distance from the beach, and you've got a joint that will never go out of style. There's a full bar too.  One other thing to remember when going there is they take two types of payment, CASH or TRAVELERS CHECKS!  No credit cards, so just plan ahead, it is well worth the trip and off the tourist path!

Recommended Dishes: The line-up of muy bueno fish tacos includes a choice of grilled wahoo or mahi mahi, calamari and a traditional Baja batter-fried model. Folded into your choice of flour or corn tortillas, these tasty treats are topped with excellent salsa fresco and white sauce and garnished with cilantro.

San Jose
Home to Fry's Electronics.  If you like computers or electronics, then you must make a visit to Fry's.  They have more computer sales per sq.ft. than Best Buy, CompUSA & Circuit City combined.  

Just down from Fry's at 525 Almaride Dr. is the Elephant Bar.  You want happy hour in this part of town, you just found it.  This place is packed, but worth the trip.  Drinks are generous and bartenders sure take care of you.  I had the fish sandwich with seasoned fries.  It was superb.

1812 Hillsdale Ave. is Flames Coffee Shop.  The breakfast menu looked tasty, but I could only get there by lunch time.  True diner/coffee shop format, lunch was great and portions were very large.  If I had room, I would have tried a slice of pie, but had no room left.  Pies and pastries were made fresh every day and looked like the best thing there.

Gordon Beirsch is located at 33 E. San Fernando, downtown San Jose.  Good local hangout, but limited variety of hand crafted beer.  I tend to judge a brewpub on their use of the spent grains in their bread and their brick oven pizza.  Pizza was good, but there was a waste of spent grains here, they were not using them in the breads.  Cheese fries were almost as good as Eskimo Joes, www.eskimojoes.com  in Stillwater, OK.  Gordon Beirsch is a chain so you know what to expect at the next one you find.

When traveling in the San Jose area and are looking for a great radio station, check out 107.5 KPIG or listen here on your computer at www.kpig.com 

Colorado

Denver
2220 Blake Street - Breckenridge Brewery- just down the street from the home of the Colorado Rockies.  Great place to grab a few good brews before heading to the game.  Typical brew pub environment with a pre-game crowd while I was there.  Very festive, but services were very good as were the appetizers before heading to the game for a Ball Park Frank.  Good variety of excellent locally brewed beers.

Downtown Denver is the Brown Palace Hotel located at 321 17th. St..  An elegant old hotel that is worth a visit even if you are not staying there.  The lounge has the old library style feel with wing back chairs and deep seated couches.  Great selection of single malt Scotches as well as their own private humidors for their regulars.  If you didn't bring your favorite stogie, they have an excellent list to choose from if you so desire.
Connecticut

Mystic
A visit to the old seaport is a must with a visit to Mystic, but in addition to the seaport is a great aquarium.  Being a resort town, there are many dining establishments, but if one is looking for a great place to have a special dinner, you must try the Bravo Cafe at 20 East Main Street.  Reservations were made, but due to a wreck on the interstate (not involving me) we were over 30 minutes late, but they still held our reservations even though they were turning away patrons at the door.  I got to celebrate my 40th birthday at this place and could not think of a better way to do so.  Since I was traveling with my brother on this trip, as I parked the car he ordered me a martini.  In lieu of an olive, they came with a caper berry.  My first experience with one and not to be the last.  I like my martinis better than most, but this was an excellent one and the caper berry really set it off.   This place was noisy and crowded, a sign that it was the place to be.  I ordered the catch of the day and it was prepared to perfection with what else as a garnish, but caper berries!  Forget Mystic Pizza, rent the movie and eat here!

Illinois

Marion
If you have to fly through or even travel through Little Egypt and end up in Marion, IL, you must dine at the restaurant in the Marion Airport.  The night I was passing thought there, they were taking reservations for the Senior Prom.  A good indication that it was one of the best places in town.  Not a bad place to have a flight delayed.

Michigan

Kalamazoo
The Corner Bar located at 1020 E. Vine Street.  This is a converted bowling alley, great B-B-Q and great customers.  If you are there on Monday night during the winter months (most of the year), it's cigar night.  They have their own walk-in humidor in the back.  Very good prices and great selections for a bar.  Then you can sit down with the proprietor, have a drink and talk cigars.  What a way to spend an evening.

Ohio

Columbus
Lots to do here, if staying in the Worthington area there are a number of hotels in at the intersection of I-270 and Highway 23 (High Street).  In addition to an abundance of hotel rooms, you have plenty of restaurants to choose from.  Be sure to check out the J.Gilbert's Wood Fired Grill. It is part of the Houlihan's Restaurant Group.  They have great martini's and don't miss their fresh potato chips topped with Maytag Blue Cheese.

Other chains in the area are J. Alexander's, Chammps Americana, One The Border, Panera Bread, Ruth's Chris, Bravo Italian Kitchen.   Just to name a few.

A must catch if visiting Columbus is Easton Town Center. This is the Disney World of shopping.  Built and designed by the founder of The Gap and Victoria's Secret, this place is clean, safe and has EVERYTHING.  Great shops, excellent dining experiences and even a 30 screen movie theater.  You can easily spend a whole day here and there is something for everyone.  Check it out!

Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh
My first real trip to Pittsburgh.  If you are staying downtown, try the Hilton.  It is expensive, but if you get a room with a view, you are in for a real treat.  I got a corner room with big windows on two sides.  I could see the rivers, Heinz Stadium and the tunnels.  We had plans to catch a play on Friday night, but wound up in "Olive or Twist" at 140 Sixth Street.  You can go to those restaurant review sites and get mixed reviews about this place.  At 4:00 PM is was pretty dead, but you could see something was going to happen, 4 bartenders and all busy doing something.  At 5:00 the flood gates opened and the crowd rolled in.  I was glad we had tried the fresh made potato chips with gorgonzola cheese before the place filled up.  It was 4 deep everywhere.  Action packed and a great mix of M/F.  Looked like one could have a good time here.  My date and I had so much fun we skipped the play and stayed here.  Very friendly crowd and even met the "self proclaimed" future mayor of Pittsburgh, (if he can leave his laundromat business long enough to get a hair cut).  In addition to the fresh potato chips we had the black olive bruschetta and it was very tasty.  Check out the Grainger fans on the ceiling.

Squirrel Hill
While checking out Penzey's Spices, the urge for food overcame us and we decided to fine a bite to eat.  Zeb's on Forbes Ave hit the spot.  It was a very active place with a great looking menu.  I had a roasted pepper & gorgonzola sandwich that was fantastic and my date had the cajun chicken sandwich which was equally as good.  We both substituted the pasta bean soup over the fries.  It was very good and being a cold and snowy day, really hit the spot.  However the fries looked great, they had both regular and sweet potato, you could even get them topped with cheese.  Check it out.

Texas!

Houston - Galleria Dist.
Berryhill Tamales & Tacos
1717 Post Oak Blvd. (Corner of Post Oak & San Felipe)
Now I am not sure how I found this place, I was driving around looking for a place to grab a bite around the happy hour time.  If you are from Houston, you know Rush Hour traffic is bad!  I skirted the traffic and wound up in this shopping center, this place caught my eye and I thought, well maybe a beer and then find some food.  It was a Wednesday, I walked in and it was hopping.  I ask Laura, my server if it was always this way and she said it was dead, you should see Thursdays and Fridays.  They had plenty of good beer (not Bud, Coors...) on tap, so I ordered a Fat Tire Amber and checked out the menu.  They touted the best tamales in Houston, plus many other good dishes.  The menu has lots of variety and the tamales were in fact some of the best I have had.  Great place to wait out traffic, grab a beer some good Mexican food and maybe even a date!  Looked like there were plenty of singles in the place.

Washington

Tacoma

Somehow, a few years back, before I arrived.  Tacoma got a bad name for this part of the country.  While only being 40 minutes south of Seattle, it has done some aggressive ventures in the past few years to erase that image.  It is now billed at "America's #1 Wired City" referring to mass number of internet connected citizens.  Economic Development is also at the forefront of the city fathers.  Tacoma is doing what is needs to become its own identity and separate itself from Seattle.

Proctor District
Pomodoro's (Updated!)
26th & Proctor
Greatest unknown treasure in Tacoma!  The food was very good, now it is great and service is second to none.  In the kitchen you have Mossimo from Italy who prepares the most wonderful specials, his other help in the kitchen are Juan and Mike and they are all capable of creating a first class meal.  Markeen is the new owner and has taken this place to a new level of excellence, most nights you can find B.J. behind the bar who can mix most anything you desire.  If you are fortunate enough to have Barbara or Jason as you servers, you know you will have some of the best.  I have always been fond of places that have open kitchens so you can see how your food is prepared.  This place is not large, so I would recommend reservations on the weekends or busy nights.  What you have to check out when weather permitting, are the windows!  The open like no others in the Northwest!  Almost worth the trip just for that, but the food beats the windows any night!

Wisconsin

Greater Milwaukee Area (Waukesha, New Berlin, Brookfield...)

Silver Spur (The Spur) Texas Smokehouse BBQ, 19990 W. Greenfield Ave, Brookfield, WI
In spite of the fact that the place has been remodeled since my last visit, the BBQ was still great!  What used to be a real BBQ dive type place now looks a little more upscale, but the food was just the same.  Large varied menu, but in my opinion the BBQ is the best in the area.  The meat has a great smoked flavor, but the sauce is somewhat bland.  The bar is the real draw here.  Andrea really knows how to draw one of the may draft beers they provide, but what they are really known for is their Tequila!  Either Bob the bar manager or Sue the dining room manager can mix a great margarita!  Not to mention the large selection of Tequila shooters they are known for.  Cindy claims that Wednesdays are the best for their Long Island Tea specials for $2.50.

Don't be discouraged by the above remodeled description, owner Todd Moro has done a great job of taking what was a dive into a comfy environment into a much larger dining establishment with an outdoor patio area.  If you are looking for the out of the way place where the locals hang, this is it.  Don't pass this place by if you are in the area.

Panos' Char House Restaurant & Sports Bar & Zorbas Banquet Halls, 20290 W Bluemound Rd, Brookfield, WI
If you like happy hour or Greek food, this is the place for you.  Happy Hours is GREAT at this place!  Call drinks are only $2.50 and the happy hour snacks are fantastic.  If you are lucky, you will get Gretchen as your bartender.  She usually works weekends, but happened to be working during the week when I was there.  Drinks are liberal and the food is great.  If you are in the Brookfield area and looking for a place to have a banquet this is it.  They have seating for over 500.  Check it out.