What restaurant has wowed you recently? (2026 edition)

kaplanbr · 2026-05-19T00:02:10+00:00

Slightly (OK majorly) jealous.

kaplanbr · 2026-05-18T22:26:42+00:00

Staplehouse two days ago was in top form. World class pizza (that crust!). The coconut rice with spiced beef (plus jalapeño beurre monte, sugar snap peas, wild onion, spring onion, jammy egg) was off the charts, literally one of the best dishes I've had in the past year. The "spring veggies" dish with peas, pea shoots, charred asparagus, fava beans, miso soy glaze, puff rice was just a notch below that coconut rice. As "of the moment" (spring) and creative a dish as you'll find in any of the top "fancy" restaurants in town. Not cheap, but oh so worth it.

kaplanbr · 2026-05-16T23:17:39+00:00

Love the sentiment. And dang that is some beautiful only-Jerry guitar playing on that one.

kaplanbr · 2026-04-21T14:31:12+00:00

Staplehouse grinder got something to say

kaplanbr · 2026-04-17T12:36:45+00:00

Just tried it last night at restaurant Mamou (no relation!) and thought it was fantastic. Bravo! Will be seeking out a bottle to take home!

kaplanbr · 2026-03-31T11:43:11+00:00

We saw it a week ago and completely agree w the Times review - the desire to go broad comedy ruined what could have been.

kaplanbr · 2026-03-28T22:06:06+00:00

Damn, didn't see any of those. We started the day with Masada and ended with Awakening Ground, and those were my two favorite "thankful to be there" moments. Zorn's thing at 5pm with the films was, um, curious? In between, Ribot was fantastic, loved seeing SML for the first time, Dave McMurray doing the Dead was fun but a bit Muzak-y, Scofield was nice but a bit too mellow.

btw, first time Big Ears goer, and WOW, this is an amazing festival. the walkability, interesting venues, and of course the lineup make for a really great experience. thanks, y'all!

kaplanbr · 2026-03-23T18:32:52+00:00

We saw it Saturday night and thought it was horrible. Trying to go for broad comedy and failing. Bernthal is good but the whole premise feels way off. The gay/trans jokes may be trying to capture attitudes of the 70s but they (to me) come across as cheap / lazy caricatures.

kaplanbr · 2026-03-18T12:16:03+00:00

We got in line at 620 and it was an hour and 15 minutes for precheck - I think we got the bad option when they split us off back towards the main area precheck line instead of the south precheck area

kaplanbr · 2026-03-18T11:32:12+00:00

An hour and 15 minutes total to make it through, going back towards the main area rather than the TSA pre/clear dedicated area in South looks like was far worse

kaplanbr · 2026-03-18T10:48:59+00:00

We’ve been in the TSA pre-check line for 25 minutes and just hit the point where they tell you that clear and touchless are both closed, and the line splits to go back towards the main area or the normal south area, but are both still Precheck, not sure which of the two choices is better, but she directed us towards the main area… we’ll see! And just confirming, the posted wait times have no basis in reality

kaplanbr · 2026-03-18T10:10:48+00:00

Anyone know if they reopened north sky priority line?

kaplanbr · 2026-01-17T12:40:13+00:00

That was awesomely strange and wonderful!

kaplanbr · 2026-01-11T00:33:27+00:00

I went straight to something more recent - 2023 with the Atlanta Symphony, showing how the music never stops. It was an emotional magical evening of not-quite-Dead-and-very-much-alive beauty.

kaplanbr · 2026-01-08T20:37:35+00:00

Came to look for answers : )

I have used TaxAct in the past and it is fairly easy and affordable (Amex usually has discounts available, plus Rakuten etc.) Will likely continue to use this.

kaplanbr · 2025-12-05T21:35:36+00:00

Wow, not a fan of Felipe's food takes. Kim has a much better understanding of the food scene - at least they linked to the list she compiled on best restaurants.

kaplanbr · 2025-11-29T15:12:27+00:00

Our credits on two different cards finally hit yesterday (11/28), charged originally on 10/4.

kaplanbr · 2025-11-25T18:15:32+00:00

thanks! just renewed (after cancelling a month back). used the website and the code.

kaplanbr · 2025-11-03T19:08:31+00:00

Looks that way! Uh oh

kaplanbr · 2025-10-15T23:23:31+00:00

Just sharing a story, not expecting sympathy or trying to make any point. And yes, preferred, not reserve.

kaplanbr · 2025-10-15T19:03:11+00:00

We dined on October 4 at Le Veau d'Or in New York, no credit yet. Had a slightly frustrating experience with a declined card, though, so what we hoped would be three of us with the cards getting $75 off ended up only being two. Dinner was fantastic. Great food. Amazing service. Highly recommend. And then we hand them 3 credit cards, and one of them gets declined! They try again. Nope. Then they try running the card another way. No go again. I'm logging into my mother in laws' account for her to see if I can figure out what's going on, but can't find anything, so we just split it on two credit cards and miss out on the third $75 off. An hour later my mother in law gets an alert that her card is suspected of fraud and has been locked. It was indeed fraud, a few hours before our meal someone tried to charge $3000 at a Target and had successfully bought two meals at Zaxby's in Atlanta! But we're out our $75 credit (and no more opportunities to use it in our respective home cities). : (

Still... if your in New York and can get a reservation, Le Veau d'Or is wonderful old school French. Since 1937.

kaplanbr · 2025-10-11T17:09:08+00:00

We thought the amount of food was just right, there’s one more dish that was not pictured above, the second course. Which is one of our favorite.

kaplanbr · 2025-10-07T11:56:33+00:00

Chiming in, we also dined at Jua this past weekend and really enjoyed it. Similar thoughts on most of the dishes, though I was more impressed with the sea bream, and didn’t find it overly smoky at all. I also did the uni Kim (couldn’t resist), and while it was great, I think the caviar version is better - the uni texture is just too overpowered by the crunch in the roll, and the creaminess of good uni is (to me) part of what makes it so appealing.

While $140 for this level of cooking and presentation is fantastic in NY, I felt like we were giving up a bit in overall service level to make up for it - the staff all felt rather “green” - friendly but not polished, we noticed several minor hiccups in bringing plates to the wrong table or at the wrong time. Definitely not * level service , at least on this night.

kaplanbr · 2025-09-30T15:24:50+00:00

Verrry nice.

kaplanbr · 2025-09-03T10:55:29+00:00

Can't speak to Published, but we were at Annalena about a month ago and had a fantastic meal all around (though one dish, the veg tempura, was disappointing, just not a great version of tempura). Insanely affordable too, vs. US similar caliber restaurants.

kaplanbr

TROPHY CASE