If you are going to visit such restaurants, go during their first few months of operation. The famous chef, or some competent delegate, will be on hand early in the history of the restaurant to make sure it gets good reviews from sophisticated food critics and smart food bloggers; because the chef is famous, these reviews will appear quickly. Then everyone will want to go there, and the place will become a major social scene. The laughing and the smiling will set in. Beware! That’s when you need to stop going.
Visit Orlando's new advertising campaign, aimed at the business managers who ultimately decide where corporate meetings and industry conventions are held, divides the area around the giant Orange County Convention Center into a half-dozen dining "districts" to highlight talented local chefs and unusual food-and-entertainment options. The districts range from Universal Orlando's CityWalk, with its "adventurous and energetic" restaurants and clubs, to downtown Winter Park with its al fresco dining and "Southern chic."
You’ve no doubt seen $200 tickets to Orlando advertised and wondered, But what on Earth would I do there? As it turns out, plenty. First, drop your carry-on at the 90-year-old Park Plaza Hotel in the budding art exurb of Winter Park. Load up on organic vegan grub at Dandelion Communitea Café, chased with a handspun strawberry milkshake ($7) from Bananas Modern American Diner, before raiding the psych, punk, and garage bins at Vinyl Richie’s Wiggly World of Records in the increasingly hip Milk District.
Founded in Spring 2009, through a partnership between the local non-profit of Hale Empowerment and Revitalization Organization, Inc. (HERO) and a design collective known as Project M, PieLab came to life as a combination pop-up cafe, design studio and civic clubhouse with the mission of: ‘ Pie + Ideas = Conversation. Conversation + Design = Social Change.’
By the Fall of 2009, PieLab had grown to hold a permanent space on Greensboro, Alabama’s Main Street. Visitors and locals now revere it, as they linger over pie and conversation.
I finally got to watch John Rife's awesome locavore video, and I now feel very educated and inspired to explore and sample some of the places and foods he intoduces us to in his first installment of A Local Folkus.
I haven't announced this yet, but in an effort to get Petentials launched that much sooner, I decided I was going to take a month off of blogging - it's more like 2 weeks off, 2 weeks in England, 2 more weeks off.
Still, I find that in the past several weeks, between moving downtown, ELLA Fest and Drupal Drupal Drupal Drupal Drupal, I've missed hearing about what's going on with my friends and the people I follow but haven't yet befriended.
This is a quick podcast Charlie and I recorded at our regular Monday night Panera Bread meeting. We were rolling on the idea that restaurants and cafes should give props to podcasters for the free/cheap advertising.