Jenn K.'s Profile

I certainly never thought I'd be moved to review Old Navy of all places, but my goodness, I was wildly impressed by the staff here.  Every person I encountered at the Austin Old Navy on Monday August 4th was professional, kind, outgoing, and most of all, sincere.  From the guy who let me into the dressing room, to the staff on the floor, to the cashier and the woman who bagged my items-- each and every one of them made eye contact when they talked to me (amazing the difference this makes) and seemed to be genuinely interested in what they were doing and my experience in the store.

Old Navys seem to be cut all from the same cloth, vast warehouses of cheap fashion manned by the standard semi-disinterested retail employees of malls across America, each differing only in minutely in its layout.  The Austin employees, though, have made their Old Navy stand out and if it makes any difference at all, I'll shop there over their otherwise identical-seeming counterparts.

Hotel Vintage Park wins instant points for providing free wi-fi.  This is probably nothing big in a city that offers free wireless connections like other cities offer exhaust fumes, but after a string of conference hotels where I had to pay exorbitant fees and buy ethernet cables, it's a real treat to just open up the laptop & connect.

Beyond this minor wonderfulness, the hotel is actually quite nice and well appointed.  Aveda products in the bathroom, an impressively stocked minibar, complimentary plush animal-print bathrobes and purchasable animal print undies (which is a little weird).  I wasn't keen on the feather pillows which collapsed like souffles with any sort of cranial impact, but otherwise, the bed was nice.

And let's not forget the nightly complimentary wine tastings in the lobby, featuring Washington winemakers and their wares.  Amazingly, we only made it to one tasting (it really was a beer-fueled trip), but I enjoyed the generous pours in the small front room of the hotel.  The tasters on a Thursday night were few, but apparently Friday night the room was just packed.

Locationwise, the hotel was a bit removed from restaurants and the convention center, but Seattle is so walkable, I didn't feel isolated or lacking for nearby coffee or beer options.  From the backside of the 11th floor we had a crappy view of the tops of shorter buildings and the exit ramp of the highway, but the front of the hotel overlooks the Seattle Public Library, so that's fun for librarians.

All in all, I recommend the hotel for wine fans, folks who don't mind walking a bit, and bookish types.

If I lived in the area, Virginia Inn would be the kind of place where I'd hang out a lot.  It definitely has that cozy, fun, homey feeling.  We found the place rather by accident-- wandering the downtown streets on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, determined to eat a warm meal and have a couple fortifying beers.

The menu is uncomplicated, but every blessed thing on there looked fantastic.  We started with a meze platter-- hummus, herbed goat cheese, and pickled peppers with toasty pita.  Josh had a goat cheese & roasted pepper baguette and I had the salmon cakes-- excellent both.  The Virginia Inn has a great drinks menu and full bar with a solid range of beers on tap.  

We got in just before the place started filling up for lunch, but even as it got busier, the service stayed spot on.  There were only two waitresses and a bartender, with the manager/owner? running plates and helping people find tables as needed.  The waitresses were fantastically attentive, never letting our drinks run low, never looking harried or rushed.  The entrees followed the appetizer at a well-timed pace and we never felt neglected.

The space was really charming-- wood paneled walls, tall-backed booths, little tables with bistro chairs, and a great round cozy round booth in the front window.  The art work, big bold and bright, helped define the space as playful and fun.

I'm really glad that we stumbled on the Virginia Inn and wish that we had the time to revisit it for dinner.  And like every place in Seattle, they had a very tempting happy hour menu.

An interesting combination of local favorite and tourist destination, Lowell's is pretty pricey for a place where you order at the counter & wait at your seat for your meal (table service is available on one of the 3 floors).  On the other hand, the food was *really* good.  Our Seattle friends recommended Lowell's for our last breakfast before heading home and I'm glad we wandered down to the Market in the chilly Sunday morning rain.  The lousy weather probably helped thin the crowds in the Market, but Lowell's was hopping.  There was a 20-30 minute wait for table service, but the counter was moving right along.  

The breakfast menu is extensive and features the items you expect (french toast, pancakes, egg/toast/meat combos) and plenty of unique and regional options (egg dishes featuring salmon, shrimp and even oysters).  My California Omelet special may have been the single priciest dish I ate in Seattle at $14.95, but I couldn't resist (even though it said California and not Washington)-- pepper jack cheese, avocado, salsa, bay shrimp & cilantro with surprisingly good toast and spot-on hash browns.  Josh couldn't resist the corned beef hash and was amazed at how good it was.

The festival seating area on the first floor was chilly but despite the business they were doing, we easily found a couple stools by the window where we could peer out over the water.  

We cleaned our plates and were filled up sufficiently for the long flight back to Chicago.

When we go out of town, we like to find a place where we can become temporary regulars.  By chance, we found The Brooklyn and immediately moved in.  In just a three-night stay in Seattle, we hit The Brooklyn three times, and had a phenomenal experience each time.

Oysters.  By the end of our weekend, we had renamed ourselves the Walrus and the Carpenter after ordering a total of 67 oysters (20 of which were shared with friends).  It was awesome to have a full selection of West Coast oysters and took advantage of the Baker's Dozen special on two visits.  The platter was accompanied by very thorough tasting & origin notes-- I can't understand why Shaw's in Chicago doesn't do this.  Our bartender on Thursday afternoon was our ideal-- super friendly and outgoing, willing to chat with us about oysters, Seattle in general and basketball and gave us suggestions on other places to check out while we were in town.

Beer.  Great local beers that we can't get or don't see in Chicago.  The Brooklyn features several drink & oyster samplers which looked really, really tempting including the 4 beer/4 oyster sampler.  Also alluring: the vodka, oyster, caviar sampler.  If we lived nearby, we probably would have been regular enjoyers of the bourbon sampler, too (not matched with oysters, BTW).

Non-oyster food.  After our initial 13 oysters on Thursday, we had lunch-- a bowl of super-rich clam chowder for me and a salmon sandwich for Josh.  Both were very tasty and *extremely* filling.  Although we only took advantage of the 99cent oysters at the happy hour, the other specials looked great, including dungeness crab wontons and some crazy sounding spicy lamb nachos.

Setting.  The bar is a great space-- copper bar top, plenty of seats around the four sides with high-tops and counters by the window.  Table-clothed tables line the front of the bar.  The dining room was interesting-- a mix of intimate booths with very high backs and SS Enterprise-style captains chairs along a long curvy bar allowing diners to watch the open kitchen.

We loved The Brooklyn and will miss it greatly.

I'm surprised to read the lousy reviews of Midtown.  I bought my Yaris there two years ago and the buying experience was quiet good.  I had to pre-order the car and the salesperson was very straightforward about how much time it would take, what I would get and how the paying process would work.  Compare this with my (brief) experience with Grossinger Toyota-- they wanted money down without an estimate of when the car would arrive or even a reassurance that I would get the color or features that I wanted.

My Midtown salesperson (who was on his way to joining the police academy when we got the car) was about as low-pressure a salesperson as you can get in a car dealership, I think, and the experience was about as good a one as you can have.  Not slimy or creepy or uncomfortable.

I recently had to bring the Yaris back for a recall issue.  They assured me I wouldn't need an appointment and told me how much time it would take.  I also had them reset my Maintenance Required light and look at my CD player which had stopped working.  The recall repair took exactly the amount of time as they had estimated and although they couldn't repair the stereo, they ordered the part at no charge since it's covered under warranty.  The part came in within their estimated time of arrival and I'll be getting that work done at my convenience.  Tom, the service manager that I dealt with was friendly, professional and easy to work with.  I'm not especially knowledgeable about cars but never felt talked down to or patronized.  Most of the customers in the waiting room were women and all seemed to be dealt with by staff in a very professional manner.

Once the car is out of warranty, I'll probably shop around if I need any repairs.  I'm lucky to have an auto savvy husband who can do the minor stuff.   But I have to say that for warranty work, I was very satisfied and will continue to go back to Midtown.  And if I buy another Toyota in the future, I will go back, too.

I'd say that of the three Spring Restaurant Group restaurants, I'd have to list Custom House as the 3rd.  Not that it's a poor showing, but the competition is stiff and Custom House just doesn't have the same verve as Spring & Green Zebra.  Perhaps its the location-- 500 S. Dearborn just doesn't have that neighborhood feeling as Uke Village or Wicker Park.  Combine that with its hotel adjacency and you rather get that corporate downtown restaurant vibe.

The food, however is quite good and the menu, with its local products and flavors makes narrowing your choices difficult.  I began with a house cocktail,  the delicious Pear Shrub-- champagne, fresh pear and pear shrub (a sweet, tart concentrated syrup that dates back to colonial times).  Josh had a Lagunitas.  We did try to undermine fancy restaurant convention by requesting oysters before putting in our dinner order, but the waiter said it wouldn't be a problem since it was a fairly slow evening and oysters are oysters.  Our plan failed though-- either the waiter forgot to put in that order or the chef decided to spite us-- as our first courses appeared before the oysters.  The waiter was awfully apologetic, but it hardly mattered to us-- I'll eat oysters for dessert.

So, 1st course-- sweetbreads with soft polenta in a cute Staub roasting dish and the white anchovies with capers and oven-dried tomato.  Both were lovely and the anchovies reminded me of boquerones, but smaller and more delicate (and more plentiful than a tapas serving).

Oysters, 3 Long Cove and 3 Kumamoto were served on a bed of rock salt garnished with juniper berries and red peppercorns and accompanied by house cocktail sauce and a fennel relish that reminded us of unseasoned ratatouille.  

Main course:  Duck breast with beet tartare for Josh and rabbit two-ways for me-- there was the rabbit loin wrapped in house-made bacon (sliced, it looked like sausage) with braised rabbit leg topped with shaved fennel.  I couldn't taste the fennel much, but the rabbit leg was so fantastic I could have eaten it all day.  The waiter told us that the main courses were served with "seasonal accompaniments"-- a euphemism for "without vegetables".  The beet tartare was a scant tablespoon of color on the duck plate and the shaved fennel was garnish.  We split a side dish of the wonderful baby turnips with sunchoke puree, but rather wish we had gone for a green vegetables (they were out of Brussels sprouts) or had had a salad starter.  The sunchoke puree was put on bread and enjoyed as a dip for both the duck and the rabbit.  The turnips were tasty and tender but several were rather blackened on a side and suffered in flavor for it.  We paired the course with an Utiel-Requena.

Although I read great things about Custom House's coffee and enjoyed seeing the shiny French Presses go to tables near us, we took a pass on coffee and dessert and went for the cheese plate paired with the loveliest apple ice wine from Quebec.  The cheese (a goats milk with ash, a blue and an almost pecorino-ish cow's milk cheese) were served with fruit & nut crisps, macerated figs, a spicy mango chutney and the most amazing honey I've had in awhile.  

Now, the bathroom review (very important)-- it's a hotel bathroom.  You actually have to leave the restaurant, pass through the entry (chilly in January...) and use the restrooms in the hotel.  Not a far walk, but you feel odd walking by the host stand and out of the restaurant.  

The host was very nice and pleasant, the GM said hi and welcomed us while we waited at the stand and the waiter was competent if not over-apologetic.  We did pour our own wine a couple times, but made sure he wasn't looking when we did.  I've been scolded for this before...

All in all, a very good meal, but I'm much more likely to revisit Spring and Green Zebra before returning.

Ace Hardware stores can be cluttery and seem disorganized.  Some of the items on the shelves look as if they've been there for years.  The floors are uneven, the walls at odd angles, the rooms a bit labyrinthine, but the customer service, almost without exception, is of the almost extinct kind.  Gillman Ace, my new local favorite, is no exception.

All I needed was some canning supplies.  I called before I left the house to make sure they had the right size jars.  They did, and the man on the phone assured me that they had several dozen.

At the store, I found that he had set aside the jars for me.  We had a great conversation about canning, how he noticed it seemed to have become more popular lately.  I told him about an article I had read in the Trib to the same effect and he seemed genuinely interested.

The entire experience left me feeling so *good*-- when was the last time a trip to the hardware store actually made you happy?  I'll go through the trouble of finding on-street parking for the superior service I get at Gillman Ace.

Like I said in an earlier review, Home Depot can bite me.

Uggh.  What extra super bad customer service!  I won't even go into the impossibility of navigating Home Depot-- I'm sure it makes sense to someone who goes there often or who is serious about their renovations, DIY, home repairs, etc.  And I won't harp on about the things that *real* hardware stores carry that Home Depot does not (mineral oil, canning supplies...).  I'll excuse these things but I will NOT excuse the phenomenally bad customer service at the paint counter.

Dude comes in, late apparently from his lunch break, with a giant sack of food from Church's.  There's one guy at the counter already helping someone with a complex paint issue (?!).  Dude says he'll be right back-- he needs to use the bathroom.  The guy at the counter tells him, um, no, there's folks needing help.  Dude is sullen and proceeds to assist the waiting customers using as little vocalization as possible.  There's some muttering, a lot of hand gestures (ie. instead of "follow me, the product that you need is in this aisle, I'll show you where it is" he points at a customer and waves him on as if he's directing an airplane").

I'm no paint expert.  I'll admit that.  I assume that my job is to have a paint swatch in hand and a brand of paint in mind.  I usually grab a can that I think is appropriate and don't have a real sense of which base number or whatever.  I know brand and I know matte or eggshell or what have you.  Dude, after indicating with a vague gesture that he'd help me, seemed actually annoyed that I had the wrong can of base for the color I picked.  The loudest most understandable thing he said at the counter was "You got the wrong kind of paint"-- practically announced it to the store over the intercom.  Thanks, Dude.

The whole experience was crappy.  The store was busy, there were only three registers open and each line had at least 7 customers in it.  The folks at the register where cranky.  I actually saw a staff member sass a customer that she more or less deliberately walked into.  

Not everyone was a jerk, I have to say-- there was a nice staff member, an older man, who offered me a cart and the security guard who checked my receipt at the door was very polite.

From now on it's Gillman Ace Hardware on Milwaukee for me (http://tinyurl.com/8wa49h).  The place was a cluttery mess, but the guy at the counter was so helpful and nice and we had a great conversation about canning.  

Home Depot can bite me.

Just wanted to share photos from the latest CSA delivery, including completely smashed tomatoes, the world's saddest-looking celery, and a pure waste of time called bolted lemon balm...  And, to be fair, a picture of the very nice squashes we got.

http://www.flickr.com/...