The goby blog: fish tales

@goby_chicago, a.k.a. Lisa, put together a list of great, traditional Valentines activities in Chicago.

What to do:

Ice Skating at McCormick Tribune Ice Rink It’s romantic to ice skate, whether you’re gliding together or falling into each other’s arms.  It’s just $5 to rent skates and use of the rink is free.

Music Box Theater – on February 13th at 2:00 p.m. the Music Box Theater will host its second annual Casablanca Sing Along.  Tickets are $11 and audience members will have a chance to watch the classic movie AND to join in all-audience sing-alongs to classics like “You Are My Sunshine” and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”

Hershey’s Chicago – What to do, what to give, and what to eat all in one!  And on the Magnificent Mile.  You and your sweetie can make your own chocolate at the Magnificent Chocolate Works Machine.

What to give

Tiffany’s – Tiffany’s needs no introduction.  Famous for gems, and the perfect blue boxes that make heart’s flutter – Tiffany’s provides the ultimate in Valentine’s Day gifts.

Where to eat

Mercat a la Planxa – a fantastic Spanish Tapas restaurant.  Sit at the intimate bar and share small plates to begin your evening on Valentine’s day.

Geja’s Cafe – Fondue and Flamenco are so romantic – and both are provided at Geja’s Cafe.   Geja’s is hosting special Valentine’s Day dinners on the 12th, 13th and 14th.  The price is $95 per person, and that includes, “The Valentine’s Dinner Package includes Geja’s creamy Gruyere cheese fondue, a glass of sparkling rose, Geja’s salad with tangy Dijon vinaigrette, entrée fondue of Beef Tenderloin, Lobster Tail and Jumbo Shrimp, Geja’s luscious flaming chocolate dessert fondue with coffee.”

Hot Chocolate – Not just a delicious drink, it’s also a fantastic dessert spot.  The full name is “Mindy’s Hot Chocolate” and owner Mindy Segal has been a James Beard finalist for best pastry chef for the past four years.  Stop by after dinner to continue your Valentine’s Day celebration.

Jane’s Restaurant – Should you be fortunate enough to to still be celebrating Valentine’s Day on the morning of the 15th, stop by Jane’s for a big breakfast.

Valentine’s Day?

Cans Bar and Canteen – This, could go either way.  You can enjoy a beer-y, cheap, hispster kind of date with your sweetheart, or you can come here for an anti-Valentine’s drink-fest.  Either way, good brews at good prices.

Here’s the lineup for this week.

Self-described as “Victoriandustrial”, Emilie Autumn was Courtney Love’s violinist. Corsets, Glam Rock with strings and edges. Whether you like the music or not, it’s going to be a unique show. At the Armory in Somerville. You have been warned. (update: I think this show is sold out. bummer.)

Patty Larkin. A dependable folkie at the Homegrown Coffeehouse in Needham. If you’re in the ‘burbs, a great night out!

Cowboy Mouth is at the Middle East on Saturday night. This act is way too big for this venue; don’t miss a chance to see them in such an intimate venue!

Touring around his highly regarded new release, “So Runs the World Away”, Josh Ritter is at the House of Blues. Intriguing, unique, but accessible.

Mary Gauthier is the classic singer from the wrong side of the tracks. She didn’t start performing until later in life, and the earlier part of the life was apparently pretty rough. If you’re free Friday night, take a drive up to Marblehead, have a nice dinner and take in some gravel-voiced, honest stories.

You can see this list in more detail here.

As always, drink responsibly (or better yet get a driver!), drive safely, and information on all this and more can be found at boston music this weekend.

If you’re lucky enough to be newly in love, everything you do together feels romantic. Some very fortunate people manage to keep the magic going even after years together; some of us need a little help. You don’t have to wait for Valentine’s Day to do something special with your honey. Take some time; get away and put the spark back into your relationship. Sure, a romantic, candle-lit dinner in a posh restaurant will do it; if you want something more unusual, here are some off-beat places that spell romance.

1. Take a soak for two.  The western United States is loaded with thermal springs, take advantage of them. Some only offer communal soaks; a few have private ones. What a great place to reignite the flame in your relationship. There are some hot springs that are so special that even though they don’t have private soaking options, they scream romance. Check out these options in New Mexico and Colorado.

2. Stargaze.  Grab your significant other and head away from city lights and look up. Nothing says romance like being out in the dark and looking up at the stars. If you time it right, you can view meteor showers, making the night even more special. Want to know what you’re looking at? Go to an organized sky-watch. If you want to be almost alone, book a guide with a telescope and star-smarts and look up at the heavens. .

3. Watch a Sunset.  The sun setting over the ocean or viewed from a mountain perch never loses its magic. Pack a bottle of your favorite wine, a baguette, a hunk of cheese and head for the hills or the beach to view the show.

4. Take a train.  If you love to ride the rails, Amtrak offers scenic romantic getaways. Travel in style; book a first class compartment, bring a bottle of wine or two and voila, romance. While it’s not quite the Orient Express, there’s still a mystique to train-travel.
Here are three spectacular routes:

Ride along the Pacific Ocean on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight.  You can board anywhere from LA to Seattle and travel in either direction. There are some incredible ocean views no matter which direction you’re going. Ride the entire route or pick the portion that works for you.

See the desert southwest on the Southwest Chief from Santa Fe to LA. Get off at Flagstaff and head to the Grand Canyon and stay at the vintage El Tovar or stay on all the way to the ocean. Again, you can board anywhere along the route and go either east or west.

Love mountains? Take the California Zephyr from Denver west. The ride through the Rocky Mountains along the Colorado River is nothing short of breathtaking. Take a day trip or stay on to San Francisco and enjoy the breathtaking Sierra views.

5. Rent a convertible.  Nothing says sexy like a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Barbara and Carmel. The route will take you through the magnificent Big Sur and over the historic Bixby Bridge.

6. Float up, up and away in a hot air balloon.  Gliding along above the landscape is the ultimate in romance. And you get a bonus, most balloon rides end with a Champagne toast. It’s a great way to start a special day together. If you don’t want to share the experience with anyone but the pilot, charter the entire balloon.

7. Get out on the ocean.  Board a sailboat; take a whaling-watching trip or a ride a ferry to a romantic island. Nothing beats the ocean air and the sunlight shining on the water. If you’re lucky, you’ll see whales and dolphins, some of the most magical creatures on the planet. The ultimate: charter your own boat and crew and sail into the sunset.

There are endless possibilities for romance, use your imagination. If you’re with someone you love, any place can be special.

I understand.  You’re bitter about the way the season ended for the Jets.  And that’s completely understandable.  But the process of healing begins with forgiveness, and on Super Bowl Sunday, forgiveness means joining 78% of Americans and watching the Super Bowl on TV.  We’ve pulled together a list of spots that will show the Super Bowl, while catering to different tastes.

Go For the Tradition

1.  Blondie’s Sports Bar - 212 W. 79th St.

Famous for wings and college football, Blondies annually rises to the occasion of the Super Bowl.  On a big sports day, be sure to get there early so you can get a seat.

2.  Sidebar – 118 E 15th St.

Sidebar is a candidate for BOTH “go for  the food” and “go for the tradition”.  Around since 2008, SideBar boasts six flat screen televisions, Guiness and Bud on tap, and a nice selection of better-than-expected bar food like guacamole mini-burgers, truffled french fries, mango-honey BLTs.

Go for the Food

1.  Walker’s Restaurant – 16 N. Moore Street, Manhattan

Traditional pub food that is *very* well executed; you can sit at the bar to enjoy drinks and pints during the big game, or take a seat at one of the white-table-cloth tables.  TVs are big enough that you can see the big game from any seat in the house.

2.  Shorty’s – 576 9th Avenue

Phenomenal cheese steaks and beer served in a little hole the wall with 3+ large flat screen TVs.  The space is intimate, but there’s enough television coverage that (proivded you can get in) you can’t possibly miss any of the game.

Go for the Beer

1.  Mug’s Ale House – 125 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn (Williamsburg)

A great beer bar that’s mere steps away from the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg, they always have at least 6 Brooklyn’s on tap.   They DO have TVs, but they are neither large nor many (2) so go early to get a good corner seat.

2.  The Gate – 321 5th Avenue, Brooklyn

24+ taps and cask ales are on offer here.  The bar has TVs, but there is no food offered here so either arrive well fed or make sure you’ll be allowed to order in before you go.

Go to Avoid the Super Bowl

It happens, 22% of us won’t be watching the Super Bowl.  If you are among these few, then we have some alternatives for you:

1.  McSorley’s – 15 E 7th Street, NY

A classic – the oldest pub in NYC, there are no seats at the bar (You lean.  Like a man.  From 1880) and there is sawdust on the unfinished floor.  There are no TVs and if you’re at McSorley’s you’re obviously there for the classics – onion slices, saltine crackers, chedder cheese and one of two McSorley’s brews: light or dark.  Go here, enter a previous and darker version of NYC, and don’t mention football.

2.  The Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel – 10 Central Park South

Here, you can try some of the most elegant (and expensive) liquors and concoctions known to man.  The setting is stately, quite, and completely with televisions.  Very, very little risk that you’ll run into a die-hard football fan here.

Get the complete list of goby’s places to watch or avoid the Super Bowl in NYC.

OK. It’s snowing. It’s been snowing. It will continue to snow. Snowmageddon, Snowpocalpyse, #snow, whatever you want to call it, it’s here. In honor of all the snow, here at goby we’re checking out music from a place that’s warmer than Boston. Iceland. Seriously. It’s warmer in Reykjavík than Boston today. Anyway. Check out this documentary about Icelandic music – there’s some cool new music here. http://www.seriousfeather.com/iceland/index.html. Ok, now back to our regular programming, Boston concerts this weekend.

Combining Latin, Hip Hop and World beats, Ozomatli comes to the Royale Friday night. Your feet will move whether they want to or not.

Robyn. Friday. House of Blues.

Wavves, Best Coast and more at the Paradise on Friday night.

If your tastes run this way, 15-time Grammy winner and international treasure Tony Bennett will perform at the Wang Theatre on Saturday.

Joshua Bell might be one of the best violinists in the world. Check this out. His violin is a Stradivarius that cost almost $4M. Seriously. He’s also been involved in some cool stuff, including this (via Wikipedia:).

In a curious experiment initiated by Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten, Bell donned a baseball cap and played as an incognito street busker at the Metro subway station L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. on January 12, 2007. The experiment was videotaped on hidden camera; among 1,097 people who passed by, only seven stopped to listen to him, and only one recognized him. For his nearly 45-minute performance, Bell collected $32.17 from 27 passersby (excluding $20 from the passerby who recognized him). Weingarten won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for his article on the experiment.

Bell plays Friday night at Symphony hall.

Viktor Ullmann and poet Petr Kien were prisoners in the concentration camp Terezin, where they created this almost inconceivably wry and touching opera, entitled The Emperor of Atlantis. They died at Auschwitz. Their opera survives – an allusive, haunting, texturally rich testament to their spirit. At the Calderwood Pavilion of the BCA in the South End.

Breaking with our usual rules, there are a few Thursday shows important enough to bring to your attention:

When you were younger (a long time ago!), do you remember the guilty pleasure of “Play that funky music” by Wild Cherry? If so, go see Chromeo at the House of Blues on Thursday.

John Mellencamp. Nuff said, you like him or you don’t. In Lowell.

Neko Case – folk? country? bluegrass? alt-country? indie? rock? who knows? who cares? she’s amazing. go see her. At the Wilbur Theater.

You can see this list in more detail here.

As always, drink responsibly (or better yet get a driver!), drive safely, and information on all this and more can be found at boston music this weekend.

As weatherman Phil Collins once observed: “There is no way that this winter…is ever going to end…as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow.”

Seems like Google has the same idea. Checkout the ad offered when you search for “groundhog” on goby:

Okay, time to get over our sorrows. Repeat after me: The Bears are out.

Well, whether we like it or not in Chicago, the Super Bowl is still on. Yes, the Bears are done (sigh), but we might as well have fun watching game anyway, right?  Kickoff is 5:30pm CST next Sunday and even if you’re not exactly cheering for the Steelers or Packers (okay maybe you will be cheering ‘against’ the Pack), you can still eat lots of junk food, wings, and drown your sorrows in a beer or three.

There is no shortage of sports bars in Chicago at which you can watch the game. Stop in any bar around Wrigley Field or up and down Lincoln Avenue and you will find plenty of big flat screen TVs to gaze at. Plus dozens of bars are offering all kinds of food and drink specials. Whether it’s the “10 feet” of screen promised at Schuba’s or the funky Super Bowl Bruch at the Girl & the Goat, goby has got the perfect spot for you in Chicago. Click here to see goby’s list of some of the best places to watch the Bears-less contest, and click here to see goby’s complete list of sports bars in Chicago.

Denver is a town that takes sports and sports-watching seriously. The town has a lot of sports bars. If you can’t make it to Cowboy Stadium for the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 6^th and you live in or are visiting Denver, head for Lodo. The Lower Downtown Historic District was formed in 1988. In the 1990s it became the hip, revitalized area it is today. Lodo is a mix of offices, residential buildings, hotels, shops, galleries, restaurants and sports bars. Here’s what some of those bars have planned for the big day.

Lodo‘s Bar and Grill plans drink specials, a build your own Bloody Mary bar and beer and liquor specials. Manager, Cassie Connor, suggests that if you want a seat, arrive about two hours early. For added fun, they’ll have Football Squares and a Wingy Ding contest at half-time to see who can eat the most wings. They plan some team-specific food specials; check with the bar to find out what they are.

Blake Street Tavern with 40 flat-screen TVs will be a happening place. They plan to open all three of their bars to accommodate the expected crowd; total capacity just under 700 people. Bud Light and Miller Lite will be $3 each and they’ll be serving what General Manager, Jenny Slaton, calls the best food in the area. She also notes they have the most attractive servers. Slaton suggests arriving by 3pm.

Jackson’s sitting across from Coors Field is a big Steelers bar according to General Manager, Scott Minshall. The place should be hoppin’ on Super Bowl Sunday. They’ll feature $5 pitchers of beer. Admission is first come, first served. Minshall expects the place to be packed by 2pm when the pre-game programming begins. He suggests arriving by 1pm to ensure great seating.

The Oak Tavern is having a Super Bowl party sponsored by Coors who brews their beer in nearby Golden. Marketing director, Travis Gaddie, says there will be specials on Coors and Coors Light and 50 cent wings. All appetizers on the menu will be $5. In case you need further enticement, the Coors Light Girls will be on hand at the end of the game handing out Coors-logo items. Hold onto your tickets; the big giveaway at the end of the night: a Coors mini-refrigerator (you have to be present to win). The bar holds up to 300 and will take reservations.

Sports Column should be packed for the big game. According to General Manager, Kyle Hesseltine, the bar has a bunch of Packer and Steelers fans, so the play-off outcome is great for business. The big action here is what they call Super Bowl Bloopers. Every time a player makes a gaffe, they’ll announce a drink special. The biggest potential award for patrons comes at the beginning of the second half of the game. If the kick-off is run for a touchdown, Sports Column picks up everyone’s tab to that point. This happened twice during Monday Night Football this season. Besides the drink specials, the 350 capacity bar will have burger and wing deals. Hesseltine suggests arriving about two hours ahead of game time, especially as the Packers and Steelers are playing.  Seating is on a first come, first served basis.

If you plan to go somewhere to watch the big game and plan on drinking, take a cab or use a designated driver.  Have a wonderful and safe Super Bowl Sunday.

goby had a chance to see a legend in a great venue this week! Robert Plant and Band of Joy played at the House of Blues, what a great venue! Robert Plant really is an inspiration; even in his mid-sixties, he’s innovating, creating, and not resting on his laurels or just playing Led Zeppelin songs (although he still does that really well!). As T.S. Eliot, said, “old men ought to be explorers”, and Plant is an explorer. Here’s a quick video; he’s still got the pipes and can howl when he wants to. He played a mix of Band of Joy music, as well as a few songs from his duo album Raising Sand with Allison Kraus, although Patty Griffin stood in for Krauss, as well as performing a few of her own songs. Plant threw in just enough Zep tunes to be wonderful without being too nostalgic. Ramble On, Rock and Roll, Tangerine, and a personal favorite, Gallows Pole, which gets darker as Robert gets older.

This weekend there’s a small number of great shows to see.

The Decemberists are in town at the House of Blues. As mentioned, HOB is a great venue these days; intimate enough you be close up, large enough to attract great artists and a big enough crowd to have some energy. And the bar is very close 8).

Atlas Soul brings it’s unique North African Rai/Jazz/Funk combo to the Regatta bar. Well worth a trip.

Though our particular tastes don’t run this way, we’d be remiss not to point out that Snoop Dog is in Lowell at the Tsongas Center on Friday night.

You can see this list in more detail here.

As always, drink responsibly (or better yet get a driver!), drive safely, and information on all this and more can be found at boston music this weekend.

Need something to do for Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend? We’ve got a few monumental and memorial events taking place around Boston that will feed your need for inspiration.

For starters, the city of Boston will celebrate the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday on Jan. 15, 1929, with a series of concerts, events and special exhibitions at museums and public spaces around town. More details, including times, places and activities, are available at www.BostonUsa.com.

Get the kids involved in history with a trip to the Children’s Museum on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Jan. 17. The museum is celebrating the life and legacy of the civil rights pioneer with “peace games” that promote equality and fairness. Janice Allen and the Children’s Inspirational Freedom Choir will also perform.

If you’re looking for something a little more active, head to Boston Central for the MLK Basketball Clinic. Children in grades K-5 can practice their dribbling, passing, shooting and defensive skills at a basketball clinic at the Leventhal-Sidman JCC in Newton on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, Jan. 17. Participants will be divided by age and ability, and there is a small fee.

Looking for more MLK events? Find something to do on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here.