I'm not exactly sure what the best 5 beer cities are in the U.S., but they're definitely not the 5 listed in that article. From I've read in lots of beer magazines, reviews, and in conversation, I think Philadelphia is the only one of those which comes up with regularity.

I would think San Diego, Asheville, and Portland would have to be on the list.

Portland is fantastic, and I'm surprised it didn't hit the list -- Rogue and Widmer in the same city? That's just unfair. That said:

Colorado is a pretty solid beer state, so while I'm generally unfamiliar with Denver, it didn't surprise me to see that hit the list. Proximity to Boulder and Fort Collins give it access to a number of really great breweries, e.g., New Belgium.

LA surprised me, though SoCal has solid breweries as well, and I can see picking LA over San Diego on sheer size, since I'm sure you can get the same beer in the two cities. If you have to have a SoCal city, which I find it hard to argue with, I think this is fine.

Cleveland is a sleeper. There are a lot of brewpubs and a few decent breweries in the metro area (way more than it seems), and seriously, if you live in Cleveland, you probably drink a lot. And with all of the fantastic Polish food in the area, it's definitely a town of beer drinkers. Great Lakes, for a relatively locally distributed company, has so many good brews. My favorite thing about Cleveland airport is that you can always find Great Lakes on tap.
http://beermapping.com/maps/citymaps.php?m=cleveland#

Philly, too, is a far better beer city than it seems. But top 5 is questionable. Yards, Flying Fish (NJ), Philadelphia Brewing, and Victory are the top breweries imo, and there are a number of brewpubs, but this isn't quite top 5 material for me.

I don't know SF well enough to judge, but I know there are a bunch of good NorCal breweries as well, so this isn't surprising.

Montana has some really nice breweries and brewpubs, but there are no cities, so that can't really make the list.

Bottom line: Philly out, Portland in. But if you don't include Philly, you'll get accused of being too west coast centric. So, I get it. But it's wrong.

Portland would have been my choice for Cascade's sour ales alone.

Perhaps you might want to consider doing something else occasionally?

Because NYC has a wide variety of great things to do, and people enjoy food/comedy/theater? There's more to life than going to bars; see above.

Atera is worth eating at once, but having done so, I'm pretty unlikely to go back. It's all interesting and there are some very high points but overall I don't think it succeeds--I'm all for hypermodern technique when it's used toward a goal of having the food be more expressive, or bringing out some aspect of it that you wouldn't normally find or consider, but as executed at Atera there's a fair amount of technique for its own sake.

How did you score a reservation. Everytime I check Open Table there is nothing available.

Also, totally understand how people get torn on the molecular gastronomy thing. Managed to make it to Alinea last month which was incredible but have seen it flop at times.

I went there after it had been open about a month and before reviews started coming out, there were plenty of OT reservations available. Fortunately if I ever did want to go back, I know the owner a bit and could probably use that.

I'm all for molecular gastronomy but it has to be in pursuit of deliciousness and/or elevating and illuminating the ingredients, not just kitchen masturbation.

going to dream downtown Saturday for their Halloween party..never been but heard its pretty awesome...def excited

Took gf & parents into the city to go to MoMA yesterday.

Did pre-MoMA lunch at La Bonne Soupe. They have a bowl of soup, salad, beer/wine, and dessert deal for $20, and everything was pretty good.

MoMA -- well, modern art is weird. Even on the "normal" floor everyone just hovered around The Persistence of Memory. I like surrealism and wish there was more. I was just naming the weird-ass art as we went by, like the blank white canvas I named "Cheetos and Weed (what I did instead of painting something)" and the plaster lion face sitting in a frying pan (which I named "Simba Pancake").

speaking of moma



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/ar...moma.html?_r=0

forgot to mention the giant painting of a bunch of basically stick figure men and women with guns pointed at each other and sometimes in each others mouths while several of them were performing graphic oral sex on each other.

If I ever have a call home from a teacher about my kid's disturbing artwork someday, I'll just show them that one and tell them to stop squashing his creativity.

edit: but MoMA is showing all the James Bond movies (I think original footage) over the next few weeks, so if you're around and bored you should check the schedule.

Yo MOMAs so weird, all her clocks have melted.

Modern at the MOMA is really good as well, decent prix fix value too.

Umami Burger Coming to NYC

This is a pretty solid burger.

Any NYC surfers here? I don't know anything about it, but I'd like to learn. Can anyone recommend a school that still takes newbies this time of year?

Checked out the new Westville Hudson location the other week after work - just went for some apps and a few brews. Pretty solid place, will def go back.

Any suggestions for a Saturday 30th bday party (for a guy) in the city next month (12/08)? Figure 6 couples, all professionals in the 27-35 range. Probably 6 of us will be in town all day, possibly all weekend, with the rest arriving in time for dinner. Mostly soliciting suggestions for a good restaurant for a group (the momofuku fried chicken and bo ssam are both booked up) and a fun, chill place for post-dinner drinking, but if you know of anything cool going on during the day or whatever, I'm interested.

As a side note, I was even thinking something like a Russian club in Brighton Beach, but it turns out my office holiday party is doing exactly that (sick brag), and two weekends in a row of that might be a bit much.

Just moved to NYC (Flatiron) this week and have been perusing the thread, thanks to everyone who has been adding value here. Food and nightlife recommendations haven't steered me wrong yet.

I'm a former HSNL guy now working on breaking into early stage venture capital. Don't have much of a network in town yet, always down to grab a coffee/beer with interesting people.

a bit of an odd one:

Anyone got a go-to barbershop that they can vouch for? Old school not a salon. Say in the 30-40$ range.

if you're willing to travel to brooklyn both the stepping razor and tomcat's are great.

awesome thanks, Tomcat's is right on the same subway line as the Barclay's center so I'll try them out

i remember going to a very large, busy barber shop right around astor place / st mark's, can't for the life of me remember the name but they were good. don't get to that area much anymore so i found a guy i like in my hometown. anyone know the place i'm thinking of? i think it was pretty well known.

i think it's like "astor haircuts" or "astor cuts" or something, on astor & broadway around the corner from the bank of america atm.

it's really hit or miss, depending on the person you get. my understanding was that everyone who worked there worked at tons of other places as well, and spends like 5-6 hours max/week at a given shop.

Haven't read all 13 pages, but has someone mentioned Fuerze Bruta yet? I managed to go when it was small and fairly unknown. I'm not sure what it's like given the far bigger numbers. But it's the coolest thing I've ever done there, by a big margin.

looking for a place to eat in Brooklyn before a Nets game. Was thinking BK Heights on Montague St, could do some walking around the area first. Any suggestions in that area or something that is ace closer to the arena?

Not looking for anything formal we will probably be in a bit of a rush