Destination: San Miguel de Allende

by Pat Perrin on

Year-round near-perfect weather, picturesque colonial setting, perpetual flowers, and relaxed ambiance draw visitors from all over the world to San Miguel de Allende. But be warned, many who come for a brief vacation never manage to tear themselves away; you’ll find them here among the permanent residents.

Founded in 1542 by Friar Juan de San Miguel (who named the town after the favorite arcangel), centuries later San Miguel became a center of Mexico’s long struggle for Independence (1810–1821). “De Allende” was added to the name in honor of the native-son war hero, Ignacio Allende. In 1926 the Mexican government named San Miguel de Allende a National Monument, which meant that the colonial buildings and cobblestone streets would be carefully preserved. An influx of artists followed the opening of the Instituto Allende Art School in the late 1930s. The lively expatriate community is now a mix of early retirees, artists, musicians, writers, and small business owners. The town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008.

Keep in mind: San Miguel is situated at 6,400 feet, so if you’re not used to high altitudes you might feel tired at first. As in any town where strangers mingle, keep your wallet tucked safely away, don’t flaunt valuables, and don’t wander side streets or parks alone late at night. To avoid illness, it’s best to forego the tempting foods sold on the street. Carry smaller bills and coins, because some shops and taxis never have any change.

This is a town of many festivals. If you can plan your trip for Semana Santa (Easter holy week), the Dia de las Locos (mid-June), Independence Day (September 16), Christmas, or New Year, you’ll be treated to parades, performances, and delightful local traditions. Also check ahead for chamber music or jazz and blues festivals and for literary events. But magical things happen around town at all times, and fiestas break out with little warning. Current activities and searchable maps are available.

[Photo credit: Flickr, Easter in San Miguel, TR Ryan]English is spoken in many shops, galleries, restaurants, and hotels, and if your Spanish is tentative, the locals are pretty adept at understanding foreign accents. In-town taxi rides run $25-30 pesos, more at night. You can easily hail a taxi on the street or have your hotel call one for you (which costs more). You should discuss out-of-town fares with your driver in advance. If your Spanish isn’t up to that, ask your hotel clerk what to expect for specific trips.

Begin your first day in El Jardin, the main town square with trimmed trees, abundant benches, and a gazebo. The area is dominated by the towering Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel-a painted pink granite parish church that’s a masterpiece of mixed architectural styles. Buy the Atención newspaper if it’s available.

Sit on a park bench or at a cafe table, browse the newspaper for possibilities … and watch. You’ll likely view locals, tourists, expatriates, performers, animals, and people selling all kinds of things. In the Jardin, you can get your shoes shined while you listen to a medley of languages and often to live music. Inquire at the tourist booth for information about walking tours and sightseeing rides on a couple of trolley-type vehicles ($60 pesos).

Lots of attractions are within easy walking distance of the main square if you’re wearing sensible shoes-the only practical choice on stone streets and uneven sidewalks. The Jardin is surrounded by great shops, restaurants, and cafe. San Miguel offers many good choices for meals; these are nearby and recommended:

Breakfast, lunch, or dinner: Mama Mia, half a block away on Umaran, Mexican breakfast buffet ($90 pesos) and delicious specialties (up to $250 pesos), frequently accompanied by live music. The Café de la Parroquia (at night becomes Le Brasserie) at Jesus 11 ($120 pesos) adjoins El Tecolote, an English language bookstore. Lunch or dinner: For unhurried authentic Mexican cuisine in a colonial courtyard, the Bugambilia is 2 ¼ blocks north at Hidalgo 42 ($200 pesos up).

Evenings: the Berlin Bar, Umaran 19, Mexican and German menu (up to $200 pesos), and terrific botanas (snacks). Harry’s New Orleans Café, Hidalgo 12, has a popular bar and Creole, Cajun, and Mexican meals (an evening for two, $250–400 pesos). Tio Lucas, Mesones 103, is the place for jazz and steaks (Chateaubriand entree for 2, $370 pesos).

Don’t miss:

The Biblioteca Pública, Insurgentes 25, a colonial building with a large bilingual book collection, offers classes, community services, lectures, music, movies, performances (English and Spanish), and publishes Atención. Their Cafe Santa Ana is good for breakfast or lunch. Sign up in advance for the often-spectacular Sunday House and Garden Tour, $200 pesos.

Bellas Artes, Hernández Macias 75, a gorgeous 18th-century former convent with a large courtyard garden and murals inside, now a major art center with exhibits, classes, and theatrical events. Try their Las Musas–Café Italian for snacks or lunch.

If there’s something on stage at the Teatro Ángela Peralta on Mesones, the grand 1873 neoclassic theater is well worth experiencing.

The Mercado Ignacio Ramirez up on Colegio is a huge, colorful local market. Wander back down through the multitude of crafts stalls in the Mercado de Artesanias.

Parque Juárez has a playground for kids, shady walking paths, sculptures, flowers, fountains, basketball courts, and sometimes music, art exhibits, and sales of plants or organic produce.

Fabrica La Aurora on the north side of town in a handsome renovated factory building offers fabulous art, craft, and furniture galleries, plus the excellent Food Factory restaurant. Take a taxi there, perhaps walk back.

Other options:

For relaxing, visit one of the hot springs near town. La Gruta features caves, pools, changing rooms, and a restaurant. Admission is $80 pesos; taxi one-way $80-100 pesos; have the taxi return for you or take the bus back.

For leisurely walking or hiking, Jardin Botanico El Charco del Ingenio (Botanical Garden) has an enormous collection of cacti, lovely canyons, hiking trails, and guides. Uphill from town, you can take a taxi there and walk back down.

Pat Perrin is co-author of The Jamais Vu Papers She has written, edited, or contributed to some 65 books, mostly in collaboration with her husband, Wim Coleman. Pat and Wim live in San Miguel de Allende. Read her blog on Red Room.

[Photo credit: Flickr, Jesus Guzman-Moya]

Top Five Strip Club Restaurants in the United States

by David Farley on

There once was a time–so I’m told–when the only feast at strip clubs was for the eyes. And when food eventually popped up it was in the form of a lunchtime buffet: the greasy fried things, limp hot dogs, and meatballs of questionable provenance sitting for hours in a hot dish left visitors with a flaccid appetite. But that’s changing, as strip club owners have realized that all that ogling can build up quite a hunger. And why deprive these “dance aficionados” a good meal.

As a result high-quality, titillating grub has emerged in various strip clubs around the country. Sure, some eaters might have a hard time taking any restaurant seriously when it’s served a few feet away from where women named “Roxy” and “Cherry” are gyrating against a chrome pole. But a few strip clubs have added some edibley enhanced menus that could rival restaurants where people (normally) keep their clothes on. So, here, without further ado, is the highly subjective list of the top five strip club restaurants in the United States.

Just to get you in the mood, click here for a striptease soundtrack for your reading enjoyment–if you’ve never seen someone remove their clothes to this song then you haven’t been, uh, eating at enough strip clubs yet.

[Flickr photo by PinkMoose]


•Robert’s Restaurant at Scores, New York City

“Where else can you have a hot topless woman literally feed you a great piece of steak?” said Scores manager Edward Norwick when he was explaining why having a great in-house restaurant is an excitable experience in more ways than one. Welcome to Scores, where topless women from three elevated pole-studded posts writhe and chef Will Savarese cooks up hearty man-food for the big-spending clientele at Robert’s Restaurant, located inside the club (with views of the rest of all the action). Savarese, who has manned the stove at acclaimed restaurants Le Cirque, Aureole, and Le Cote Basque, is masterful with brick-thick cuts of juicy steak as well as creamy truffle-oil risotto, miso-glazed Chilean bass, and tender Moroccan-spiced lamb chops.

•Alluvia at the Cheetah, Atlanta

Sure, some randy Atlantans are lured to this strip club for reasons other than eating (food), but get a whiff of chef Bill Toro’s dishes and another part of your body might soon be rumbling. Think pan-seared duck with caramelized garlic risotto, pastrami-crusted tuna and lobster dumplings doused in a Vietnamese pho broth, and, of course, what’s stripclub grub without a juicy 16-ounce filet mignon–all in a white-table-cloth atmosphere. Reserve the chef’s table for some special attention and eye-popping sightlines of the main stage.

•Delilah’s, Philadelphia

Skip the evening buffet of finger foods and go directly to the restaurant at this Philadelphia riverfront strip club, which takes itself seriously enough to lure the Zagat folks in for a rating (at least we assume they stopped by to dine). Dishes like lobster ravioli sprinkled with a Cognac-cream sauce, steamed little neck clams, and–fittingly enough–a melt-in the-mouth 12-ounce strip steak will dazzle even the most impotent taste buds. And if that doesn’t do it, the gooey, decadent warm lava chocolate cake is the happiest of endings.

•Casa Diablo, Portland OR.

It’s not as demonic as you might think at this Portland, OR club/restaurant where Girls Gone Wild and PETA have collided to make one of the coolest strip club dining experiences in the country. The club’s motto, “The meat’s on stage, not on the plate,” should be a clue as to what you’re getting into here. As the tattoo-clad ladies gyrate in their sexy pleather getups, guests munch on things like veggie burgers, “meatball” sandwiches, and tofu nachos. That’s right, no animals were harmed in the making of libido-laden experience. The fare here isn’t going to win any Michelin stars (and let’s face, it vegan cuisine never will), but Casa Diablo wins points for having the courage to eschew the meat = masculinity formula.

•Sam’s Hofbrau, Los Angeles, CA.

As with the case of Casa Diablo, not every restaurant–or, strip club restaurant, for this matter–needs to serve highly stylized, elevated cuisine to get the attention of flesh-loving foodies. Enter Sam’s Hofbrau. Located near downtown Los Angeles, Sam’s, as the name suggests, serves up a hearty bite of mitteleuropa to go along with the dancing Heidis. But it’s not all Teutonic all the time. After all, this is southern California, so guests can indulge in a carne asada burrito or variations on the theme of taco while ogling the dancers. Wash it all down with one (or two) of the 24 beers available, but leave your lederhosen at the door.

Melville – where to have fun in Johannesburg

by Annie Scott on


On my recent trip to South Africa, I spent a day exploring various neighborhoods and finding out where to have fun in Johannesburg. There was so much I didn’t know I didn’t know about Johannesburg, like the fact that gold was mined there for 90 years, evidenced by the enormous mountains of unearthed yellow sand, most of which to this day are still waiting to be removed. Or, that the Dutch East Indies Company scooped up land there to plant lemon trees and other fruits and vegetables so their ships could stop there and pick up supplies to thwart scurvy. The biggest meteorite ever recorded landed just 60 miles south of Johannesburg, and last but not least, there’s this neighborhood called Melville where all the cool people hang out.

Johannesburg is home to a vast array of wealth and poverty “developing apart” to this day (“apartheid” means “developing apart”). For example, there is posh Sandton, where the wealthiest residents work and reside in gated mansions, and destitute Soweto, where the residents who don’t live in cobbled-together shacks squat in old factory worker dormitories called The Hostels and get in trouble regularly for stealing electricity from the streetlights. Like Los Angeles, the city is spread out and feels like a collection of independent communities — and you can’t really get from one to another without a car, as the buses never seem to come and even the taxi system is considered extremely sketchy. There is a train called the Gau which goes to the airport, but its stops are very limited at this point. I stayed in Sandton at The Saxon Hotel, a former residence-turned-hotel where Nelson Mandela famously wrote Long Walk to Freedom, but shopping at Gucci isn’t really my speed, so I asked around and then told my Abercrombie & Kent guide I’d like to spend some time in Melville, Johannesburg (among other places, but Melville was my favorite).

%Gallery-107956%If Johannesburg is LA, Melville is Silver Lake. Melville immediately struck me as artsy and cool, and I felt instantly at home in the comfortable, stylish restaurants and cafes with indie-rock vibes and friendly people of all colors. One of the first shops I spotted was a vintage clothing store — a good sign, as that’s an amenity which, in my book, is a cornerstone of any fabulous neighborhood — then a bookstore, a sushi place, and then Love Revolution, a cozy coffee shop with an educated hipster appeal. While Melville has some great bars, there’s no loud, scenester-y dance clubs which would attract the kind of crowd that might disturb the laid-back peace. As I wandered, I encountered a few locals selling souvenirs on the street, and while no one gave me the New York hassle, there were definitely a few vocal shoutouts offered free of charge. In other words, this neighborhood isn’t just cute restaurants and shopping for yuppies, it has a certain gritty, bohemian character.

If you find yourself in Johannesburg, I would highly recommend spending a Saturday or at least a meal in Melville, where you can get a proper (and nifty!) taste of life between the superlative worlds of Sandton and Soweto. Check out the gallery for a peek inside some of the most charming establishments; a mini tour of Melville, Johannesburg.

[Photos by Annie Scott.]

My trip to South Africa was sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent, but the ideas and opinions expressed in this article are 100 percent my own.

Dutch coffee shops face crackdown

by Sean McLachlan on

Is it the beginning of the end for Dutch tolerance of weed? The recently elected conservative coalition has promised a number of controversial measures, including curbs on immigration, banning Islamic face covering, and of more interest to travelers, cracking down on legal marijuana smoking.

The Netherlands has been a destination for pot smokers ever since marijuana was made legal in the 1970s. The experiment intended to allow the use of soft drugs like pot while clamping down on hard drugs like heroin. It has had mixed success and as the political pendulum has swung to the right in recent years, more and more curbs have been put on the coffee shops where customers can buy and smoke pot. Magic mushrooms were banned recently, and some towns are restricting coffee shops or even closing them all down. There are currently about 700 coffee shops in The Netherlands, compared with 1,200 at their peak.

Now the coalition government wants to make all coffee shops into private clubs, effectively getting rid of the drug tourists. The question is, will this work? Common sense dictates that where there’s a demand, there will be a supply. Coffee shops might get around the law by offering temporary memberships or international memberships, or allowing members to bring guests. The measure would also not stop illegal sales of drugs. What it will do, however, is reduce the number of people coming to The Netherlands specifically to smoke their vacation away. While some of the bigger and more established coffee shops will no doubt survive, it looks like the industry is in for a bad trip.

[Image courtesy Tyson Williams via Gadling’s flickr pool]

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Spain cracks down on hookers, requires vests for streetwalkers

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It’s not the same as Amsterdam, and it’s much different from flipping through the Yellow Pages (do people still do that) here in New York for an attractive “escort service.” Spain does things differently, especially outside Els Alamus (in Catalonia). If you want to find some temporary companionship, look for the yellow fluorescent vests … at least, that’s what The Telegraph says.

The prostitutes have gotten a bit lazy about this, and the police are cracking down. A 2004 law requires that pedestrians on major highways wear “high visibility garments,” The Telegraph reports. That means all walkers – including street-walkers. The story continues:

A spokesman for the regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra said: “In the past couple of months the prostitutes have been fined for two reasons: for not wearing the reflective jacket and for creating danger on the public highway.”

Some believe that the town of Els Alamus is anti-hooker, as the bright-vest enforcement wave comes on the heels of a measure to ban “offering sex for sale in public urban areas.” In Spain, prostitution isn’t illegal, but it is a distinctly entrepreneurial affair: one can’t profit from another person’s sex work (basically, you can’t pimp, but you can work for yourself).

So, what can the hookers do instead of hit the streets? How about get a room?

[photo by indi.ca via Flickr]