Chapter 2: Cigar notes

Someone at the LOV blog recently said "I can't believe it took Rev this long to have a blog entirely devoted to food."


How wrong you are. This blog is devoted to so much more than food.


What, you think my life is one eating fest after another? That I live my life longing for the next opportunity I get to take a bite out of something else?


OK... bad choice of words. My life is actually pretty close to that. But in between bites, I tend to enjoy other pleasures of life.


I'm learning more and more about cigars every week. It's becoming quite the passion.


Now don't get me wrong. I am far from an expert. I'm not really good enough to tell you little intricacies about cigars such as "the cigar had a predominately creamy almond and coffee flavor" unless it's an actual almond and coffee flavored cigar. Basically, either a cigar is good or it ain't good to me.


So what makes a good cigar in my world?


Know one thing about me. I'm not a rich man. I'm not going out and smuggling $40 Cuban cigars into the country on a regualr basis. I need a pretty inexpensive smoke. My budget in life pretty much demands that.



But know another thing about me. I'm not smoking cheap cigars. I'm not going around with an ElProducto in my mouth.


What I've found is that it is really possible to get a really good cigar between $2 and $5 that smokes just as good as one that is $15. We're talking real imported handmade cigars, not the cheap machine made ones like the Phillies blunts. And some of these particular inexpensive cigars have earned high ratings in well respected cigar publications right up there with the high end smokes.


Now, every now and then, I will splurge for one of the higher end smokes. I've never gone wrong with a good Cohiba, which you can't get one for less than $12 anymore. But most of the time, I pick out a nice smoke in that $2 to $5 range.


For the first cigar post, I'll throw out my top 5 cigars at the moment. And in future cigar postings, I'll review something new. If you're looking for something to try, you can't go wrong with one of these 5 choices in my world.


1. Padron 1964 Anniversary Series

I'm a big Padron fan. Often I go for a Padron Londres for $2.50 a smoke, or a Padron Palmas for $3.50. These are higher end. You can get a decent size 1964 series cigar for 9 dollars. Some of the bigger ones are more. Padron also makes a 1926 Anniversary Series cigar that is even higher end, but I haven't partaken one yet. Judging on how smooth the 1964 series are, I can only imagine the 1926 must be heaven.



2. Partagas Black Label

The previous Padron's are medium bodied. This particular Partagas series is definitely on the stronger side and more full bodied. This may be the strongest cigar I smoke. The first time I had one though, I was so impressed. Problem was, later on the cigar actually caught up to me and I felt a little ill. A strong cigar doesn't usually affect me like that, but this one kicked my ass a bit. The cigar was so good though, it was worth getting a little sick over. I've had more since then, and I'm happy to report I'm much better now.



3. Rocky Patel 1990 Vintage Series


Rocky has put out many different lines of cigars. This one is by far his best. There's a 1990 series, and a 1992 series. The 1990 is a little smoother than the 1992 in my opinion. There are different sizes, but you can actually get a tin of 5 mini cigars of this line for $12. That to me is the best deal. Those mini smokes last you a good 20 minutes or so.




4. Onyx Reserve


When you can grab a cigar that the experts are rating in the 90's up there with the good stuff, and get one for $4-$6 a smoke, you gotta try at least one. I've tried more than one, and they definitely smoke as well as anything more expensive.


5. Perdomo Reserve Champagne

This is probably the mildest cigar on my list. I bought a few as part of a package deal with about 8 other brands one time. I knew nothing about them. Decided to smoke one on a whim. And I loved every damn minute of it. I'm glad I have two more in the humidor waiting for me.


I'm sure the next blog posting will be about food. Maybe.

Chapter 1: Traveling

The first topic I would like to touch on is traveling to a new city.

This is inspired by a comment made on the old blog. I had mentioned that on my upcoming trip out west in a couple of months, my biggest goal so far was to find an In-N-Out burger. Apparently that surprised some people, and didn't surprise others.

I'm happy to report that since I wrote that, I came up with a few more goals. But interestingly enough, most of them involve eating. For instance, I'm pretty sure I will be eating here at least once in Vegas. And chances are in San Francisco, I will visit here at least once.


To me, the most important thing about visiting a new city is finding good food. And I have some personal rules about that which I try to follow.


First rule... I will always attempt to find out what food item the city is most well known for, and I will try to go to a place that is most well known for making that particular item.


Just like if you ever come to Philadelphia, you need to try a cheesesteak. When I go to Boston, I will find a good bowl of clam chowder. When I go to Chicago, I will have some deep dish pizza. When I go to New York, I will get a good bagel or a pastrami sandwich or a piece of cheesecake (NYC has a lot of signature food items). When I go to Baltimore, I will get some crabcakes.


But I won't go just anywhere for these things. You see, when I get clam chowder in Boston, I won't just go to any Tom Dick and Harry joint to get it. I will go to the Warren Tavern or the Union Oyster House. When I get bagels in NYC, I'm going to Bergen's in Brooklyn. When I get cheesecake in NYC, I'm going to Junior's. When I get that pastrami sandwich, I'll go to Katz's or the Carnegie Deli. For pizza in Chicago, I'm looking for a Lou Malnati's or Gino's. You get the point. You have to find a place that is most well known for it and get it there.


This is why I'm going to get me some sourdough bread in San Francisco. Hell, I might kill a couple of birds with one stone and get some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. I hear the chowder in San Fran is as good as Boston's. I'll be the judge of that.


Second rule... if you go to a new city, eating at a place that you could get at home is forbidden. My opinion is that if you go to Vegas, and you hit up an Applebee's, you are an idiot.


Now, the exception to this rule is that if you happen to live in an area where there are no Applebee's for hundred's of miles around, and this would be the first opportunity you had to try an Applebee's in Vegas, then I say go for it. But only go for it once. If you're going back to Applebee's the next day, you're back to being an idiot. This is not to say that Applebee's isn't good. But you don't travel thousands of miles to go to one more than once.

And may I add... if you live in an area where there are no Applebees, then you are in a pretty desolate area. They have an Applebees in Beirut, Lebanon for cryin' out loud.


Third rule... fast food joints in new cities should never be frequented. You really should be trying to find local cuisine in my book. This goes back to eating things that you can get in your home city. Why go thousands of miles to eat at a McDonalds? Of course, there are exceptions to this rule.


One exception is my In-N-Out burger rule. And this goes back to the previous Applebee's example. We don't have any In-N-Out burgers in Philly. They are apparently legendary on the West Coast. So I say that In-N-Out burgers qualify as local cuisine and should be searched out even though it is fast food. Because that is a unique experience to someone like me.


Another exception is a foreign country. Le's say you're halfway around the world in India, and you happen to find a McDonalds. I say it is perfectly acceptable to go into a McDonalds in India to see what it tastes like. From what I hear they are radically different. Just like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction speaking about the Royale With Cheese. This is encouraged, unless you're in Canada. I don't think a McDonalds in Canada is going to be any different than here.

I think three rules is enough for now. And for the record, I do have my reservation for Emeril's in Las Vegas ready to go. There will be an update on that in May, I assure you.

Prologue: The road to not sucking

I came up with a great idea yesterday.

Well, maybe great is a harsh word. A great idea would be something more along the line of writing a whole best selling novel. That would be truly great.

No, this idea is maybe more along the lines of moderately decent, or somewhat palpable.

Let's just say I'm shooting for one or two percentage points above mediocrity with this one.

So yesterday, I'm sitting in Center City Philadelphia all by my lonesome. I'm at Holt's Cigar Company enjoying a nice Padron Palmas. I got a whole big leather couch all to myself in their smoking lounge around 4pm (just including the links so you can get a visual of what I speak of). Life was pretty good. I was pretty mellow, and enjoying every second of it.

It hit me while I was in the middle of my tobacco induced haze. It's stuff like this I should be writing about from now on.

I should be writing reviews of places. I should be writing reviews of food. I should be writing reviews of goods I've used. I should be writing about my opinions on how the good life should be led.

Now, I'm not suggesting that I should be telling you all how to live your lives. I'm not a qualified life coach. Hell, you're all free to foul up your lives however you wish as far as I am concerned. Far be it from me to judge or to tell you you're doing it wrong. I'm not that smart.

I'm also not suggesting that I am any sort of expert on this stuff. I'm not a professional reviewer of stuff by any means. I haven't been to a lot of places in my life. Hell, I haven't even been off this continent yet. So I'm not overly worldly here.

But I have done a few things in my life. I have opinions on places I've been. I have opinions on things I've done. I have opinions on restaurants, lounges, wine, cigars, products, cities, etc.

This idea was based on a few things. One of the main things is that way back in the day I had a different kind of website before I did this blog stuff. And on that website of mine, which is now defunct, I used to have a restaurant review page. (I've been to more than one restaurant in my life... big shock to those who know me well.)

Why did I do it? No real reason other than curing boredom. But what I noticed is that besides all the other crap I had on my page, that particular page got the most views of anything I had. I must have been doing something right.

I'll be doing stuff like that here. But I'll also throw in other things. I'll try to appeal to everyone, which is damn near impossible to do. And I won't limit myself to reviews of particular places or things. Every now and then, you might get my take on things we all do in life, like traveling.

This blog just might not suck. Then again, it could. But I'll try to keep it out of the suck.

I had trouble coming up with ideas on my old blog. But I have a better feeling that more ideas will come to me here. Maybe.

And feel free to disagree with me or tell me I'm a moron here. Hell, you might have a different opinion on the stuff I talk about. Share it, please.

Come with me, and let's not suck together.