Dublin for Thanksgiving 2012: Introduction

It is common every year for several airlines offer good deals in business class from the US to Europe during the Thanksgiving holidays due to minimum business travel during this time. Having relocated to the US, this would be my first time taking advantage of this deal.

Dublin being one of the two cheaper options with ~$2000 roundtrip tickets in business class from Austin on a combination of United and Lufthansa. The flight routing rules seem to be pretty flexible and allowed for backtracking to the west coast. Yes, it was crazy to flight back west ward but hey, more miles are always good and would help in my UA *G requalification.

I had researched flight options for a couple of weeks and was planning on flying Lufthansa via Frankfurt on the 747-8 on the outbound and A380 from the inbound but did not pull the trigger as I was not sure if I could actually make the trip due to work commitments. The fare was non-refundable and there was a nasty change fee so I had to be 100% sure.

When I did finally wanted to make the purchase, there was no longer availability on the 747-8 flight in the required fare class for my ticket. Dang! They did open up some more seats later but I couldn't change to it unless I wanted to pay the change fee. We'll wait for another time to try the 747-8.

Due to work commitments again, I couldn't take extra days off and have the entire week off. At the end, I settled for a routing AUS-SFO-IAD leaving right after work on Wednesday with a day to explore Washington D.C. before continuing on United and Lufthansa to Brussels and Frankfurt/Dublin respectively. On the trip home, I manage to tagged on a IAH-LAX flight to try the 787 before turning right back to AUS to get me home late on a Sunday just in time for work on Monday.

I waited until pretty late to pull the trigger on the hotels and got lucky thanks for the Hilton sale with close to 40% discount. We opted to stay one night at the Conrad in the city center and another at the Hilton Dublin airport since it was not only way cheaper but we had super early 5.30am flight and I needed the extra stay to try to quality for Hilton Honors Diamond.

Hilton La Jolla

Another long overdue post. We spent my birthday this year in the San Diego/Los Angeles with one night spent at Hilton La Jolla. The room was only ready an hour later after arriving at 3pm at the hotel. Sort of annoying but gave us a chance to explore the hotel.

Lydia pulled a surprised by calling the hotel ahead of time trying to arrange an upgrade.I was shocked that we were upgraded to a massive suite with an amazing view of the adjacent golf course.

Balcony from the suite

Ippudo New York

Austin just does not have a good ramen place even with all the good food in Austin. I'm not talking about some half effort ramen place that serves some diluted miso based broth with the ramen. My idea of a high quality ramen place is those that make the noodles in front of out and have pork based broth cooking for hours or even days.

Lydia read about suggested going to Ippudo during our trip to New York to satisfy our ramen craving. Ippudo is located in the NYU area and conveniently, it was a couple of minutes walk from where we were going to watch the Blue Man group. We rushed out after the show and made it to Ippudo fifteen minutes before closing. Even at this hour, the restaurant was packed with what looked like the NYU crowd.

We started off with some pork belly sliders. The bun was soft and warm and went well with the caramelized pork.

I went with the traditional hakata ramen, which is the pork based broth ramen. It was flavorful and of high quality. It tasted like ramen you would get in Tokyo!

Lydia went with something different and ordered the squid ink dipping noodles. The sauce accompanying the noodles were bursting with flavor and had some sour notes which made it really appetizing.

  

 We would definitely make the trek to Ippudo if we're back in New York and have some ramen craving.

New York City Highlights

We didn't plan our days as such but we ended up with a routine the 4 days we were in NYC. The day started off with the complimentary Gold breakfast at the hotel before heading out to one of the tourist attractions. I blame the summer heat and humidity but we were exhausted by 3ish in the afternoon and would head back to the hotel for a much needed nap. We would then grab a bite to eat before heading to enjoy a show in Broadway.

Some of the tourist attractions:

Times Square

More Times Square

Statue of Liberty

9/11 Memorial

Brooklyn Bridge

Best meal in New York: Morimoto

Our visit to Morimoto for lunch unexpectedly ended up being the best meal we had during our stay in New York. We continue to reminiscent about it till today. Morimoto is owned and named after chef Masaharu Morimoto who is most famously known as one of the Iron Chefs.

Entrance

Lydia stuck to the restaurant week lunch menu which consist of a typical Bento offering - wagyu beef, some sushi and rolls and tempura. It was nothing out of the ordinary. Since we had been eating tons of heavy dishes for the last couple of days in New York, I opted for something lighter and ordered the chirashi bowl. This is bowl filled with sushi rice and topped off with an assortment of fresh sashimi. The rice was perfectly cooked and fish was amazingly fresh and reminded me of the fresh sushi and sashimi I had during my visits to Tokyo.

The best part of the meal was dessert. We were pretty full by now and was actually thinking of skipping dessert. Thank god we didn't! We ordered the "tofu - hot & cold" which was selection of desserts made of soy and tofu. It was just AMAZING. The tofu cheesecake was soft and creamy. The tofu ice-cream was light and flavorful and the souffle was just delicious.

Morimoto is definitely on the list of places to return once we're back in New York. Just can't wait...