Wilson

Of the steakhouses in Boston, I'd say Grill 23 is the most generic of the bunch. If that's what you want, I'd recommend either the Oak Room or Locke-Ober. In the case of Locke-Ober, the place isn't a steakhouse but they have a wonderful chateaubriand for 2 on the menu. My favorites in Boston are Locke-Ober, L'Espalier and Le Soir. - Locke-Ober. Ancient institution. Was fading badly before being rescued by Lydia Shire, a noted local restauranteur. She kept what needed to be kept and changed what needed to be changed, and now it sparkles again. Besides the chateaubriand, I recommend the beef stroganoff and JFK's lobster stew. - L'Espalier. French haute cuisine in the Back Bay. Get the tasting menu with the wine accompaniment. Perfectly paired, and the service is just outstanding. - Le Soir is in the nearby (10 miles) suburb of Newton. Reachable by the Mass Pike (I-90) or the Green Line (Newton Highlands stop and a three-block walk). French bistro with wonderful food, warm and personal service. The only negative is that the room is noisier than I'd like. But that's common in Boston. I'm not high on Radius. It's a love it or hate it kind of place, and I'm afraid I'm more in the hate-it crowd. The food's never done much for me, and the attitude is a bit much. The space is uninspiring. I'd also avoid Rialto, a vastly over-praised place in the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. They have a celebrity chef of some sort, hence a bunch of fawning reviews. I thought it was pedestrian. Special favorites, more moderately priced: - Stellina's, an Italian bistro in Watertown, a nearby suburb (8 miles) reachable via the Mass Pike. One of the best Italian restaurants I've been to outside of Italy. Authenic cuisine, and a warm tomato salad to die for. - Evoo, a New American bistro on the Cambridge-Somerville border. Good food, great value. "Evoo" stands for "extra virgin olive oil." Very Cambridge. I haven't been to #9 Park. Hamerley's Bistro is a good, solid New American sort of place. Varies from very good to excellent, depending on the evening.

Rogue makes an Imperial Pilsner, and I just finished a bottle yesterday. It's extremely malty and 8% alcohol. I didn't much care for it. I don't know what it is about the brewers in the Pacific Northwest. They seem to be deathly afraid to make a balanced brew.

I lived in Boston until late 2003 and know the restaurants there and elsewhere in Massachusetts quite well. Before I take the time to give you recommendations, I have some questions for you: 1. What kind of food do you like? Do you have particular preferences or dislikes? 2. How much money are you willing to spend for meals and accommodations? Give numbers, not adjectives we can drive a truck through. 3. Will you be drinking wine at dinner? This vitally affects how much your meal will cost. 4. Where on Cape Cod will you be going, and how will you be getting around once you are there?

tighe, I suppose I was defending one of the sacred cows, and I suppose I am doing it in something of a continuing reaction to the cheap-eats mentality that pervades Seattle along with a certain level of irrational envy and resentment directed at an "establishment" institution that makes no apologies for an old-guard social clientele. I really do think I bring a fresh set of eyes, ears and tastebuds to the place, and if it hadn't been up to snuff I'd have had absolutely no hesitation to say so. If you look at my comments about Pacific Northwest ale on the beer board, could you doubt that I have enough of a contrarian streak to be capable of ripping Canlis a new one if I thought they deserved it? The place reminds me in a certain way of Locke-Ober, a Boston dining institution that had slowly declined before being rescued and renovated by Lydia Shire, a noted restauranteur back there. I had really loved the place but had stopped going there as it declined. Then Shire stepped in and kept what needed to be kept, changed what needed to be changed and now the place just sparkles again. Not that Canlis had ever declined -- I wouldn't know -- but rather in the sense of a dining institution now being just as good as it ever was said to be. There are plenty of Bostonian foodies who look askance at Locke-Ober in the way that plenty of Seattle foodies seem to think Canlis is hopelessly retrograde, but Locke-Ober was the last place ate before leaving Boston for Seattle. I bid Boston a fond farewell over scallops and a bowl of JFK's lobster stew. I don't care what anyone says, but JFK's lobster stew is the best lobster stew on the East Coast which means it's the best anywhere. Like the new Locke-Ober, the Canlis I visited was absolutely not resting on any laurels. It's an excellent restaurant and they clearly work very hard to make it that way. They charge full price for this, and they deserve to. It's a good thing when a place can last this long and still be this good. So I lift a toast to Canlis, and will be back, even at the risk of being considered a stick in the mud reactionary.

I do understand (and sympathize with) people not wanting to spend huge amounts of money on meals. It all depends on your budget and your preferences, doesn't it? But that doesn't mean a high price is a poor value. "Value" is a hard concept to apply to restaurants, given that it's relative and non-linear concept. A $200 plate isn't required to be twice as good as a $100 plate, which need not be four times as good as a $25 plate. That's not how it works, so people who say they stay away from the top places on that basis aren't telling the truth, either to themselves, to others or both. Anita, don't you think that $390 is a ways away from $190? While there isn't a linear relationship between price and quality at the top end, if you pay twice as much there really ought to be a difference, wouldn't you think? Last time I looked, Canlis wasn't hyped as another French Laundry. By the way, was that a lunch or a dinner? If it was dinner, you got off pretty good. I paid $400 for lunch for two at Lucas Carton, and for that price we got a meal that opened some new vistas. Same deal with the $510 dinner at Mistral. And agnolo, just for the record there was nothing so-so about dinner at Canlis. And I haven't protrayed it as anything but expensive. In fact, if you'll look back in this thread you will see that this is exactly the word I used for Canlis. But it's also true that it is not way out there in the stratosphere by premium restaurant standards. I agree that Canlis's prices are near the top end of the range for Seattle, but not they aren't at the same level as some others in town. Dinner at Canlis last night was outstanding -- there was nothing "so-so" about it. Their food was quite interesting enough for me if not for others here. It's not Mistral -- but it's not priced or pitched that way, either. If you don't want to pay $100 a plate for a so-so experience, the place to shy away from is Cafe Juanita out in Kirkland. Judging by last night at Canlis, pay $100 a plate and you definitely get your money's worth. In fact, it was also better than our last meal at Campagne, which I frankly think has slipped a bit since the late-'90s.

You don't go to Canlis for cutting-edge food. Schielke, you nailed it when you said Canlis is a fantastic restaurant for a safe bet. Most of the time, I go for safe bets. The cutting edge wouldn't be the cutting edge if you did it all the time. seacrotty, I don't quite get your comment that their prices are so stratospheric that the place must absolutely be "perfect" every time. It was a $100 plate. Sure, it's expensive but it's hardly outlandish by today's standards. I've been at places with $200 to $350 plates that weren't "perfect," yet I was still quite satisfied. A good example is Mistral, where we paid $510 for two. Why should Canlis have to be "perfect" at $100 a plate? Isn't that setting the bar a bit too high? By the way, we went to that Italian place in Kirkland a month ago that seems to get such rave reviews -- Cafe Juanita. We we paid $190 for a dinner that wasn't as good as the one we had last night, with service not in the same league and an atmosphere not even in the same universe. Both of us agreed that it was good but that we wouldn't take the trouble to go back.

Two of us went to Canlis in Seattle tonight and had an outstanding meal. We started with an amusee (sp?), a tiny cup of five-onion soup that was just delicious. I had dungeoness crab legs for an appetizer and my dining partner had a Canlis salad, which is a lot like a Caesar salad. The crab legs were very tasty and came with a nice mustard sauce for dipping. My entree was a large piece of Alaskan halibut that was fresh and perfectly prepared. My compansion had hazelnut chicken. I had a little bit of it and the sauce was just delicious. We shared an "apple bowl" dessert with some ice cream on top, and that was excellent too. (Sorry for the blunt superlatives; a newspaper restaurant critic's job isn't in my future.) The service just couldn't possibly have been better. We were greeted at the door by Chris Canlis, who thanked us for coming. I told him we hadn't been there for seven years and he came over to the table and we chatted a bit about how we'd moved from Boston, and the weather in the respective places. A very gracious, polished and sophisticated host. It's not often that you're greeted by the guy whose name is on the place, let alone be greeted with such grace and warmth. It really meant a lot. I really appreciated the selection of wines by the glass. We usually get a bottle of wine at dinner, but lately my dining partner hasn't been drinking much wine so I was getting glasses. They had an outstanding Sancerre, and a chardonnay from Arcadian winery in California, which I happen to buy cases from directly. It was nice to see that Canlis doesn't do what too many restaurants do, which is to offer very pedestrian wines by the glass to effectively force people to buy by the bottle. The ambiance was magnificent. The restaurant is an architectural gem, an example of late '60s/early '70s architecture, with a magnificent view. We were seated right near the piano player, and while it was on the loud side it wasn't deafening by any stretch. Generally speaking, the combination of service and ambiance led me to believe that this is an establishment where regular customers are well known but where newcomers (which we really are) are graciously welcomed. I've read some comments on-line to the effect that the formality of Canlis, and the relative affluence of the regular customers, is offputting. I didn't feel that way in the least. There was nothing stuffy about it, certainly not in comparison to the stiff service you'll find in Boston where we came from. I didn't feel intimidated in the least; quite the contrary, it felt as if we had been going there for years. After tonight's experience I really wonder if the critics of this place have actually ever been there, because the Canlis I experienced has utterly nothing in common with the Canlis described by some of its detractors. The check for two, including Seattle's 9.2% sales tax and a 20% tip, came to $198. It was well worth it. We'll absolutely be back. Canlis is an instant favorite.

Went over to Bottleworks today. Great store, by the way. Among other things, the bottle of Czechvar had a February 2004 expiration date as opposed to the one I got at Magnolia Thriftway with an expiration date of June 2003. Someone there gives a rat's ass. Now I know where to buy my beer. I talked with a knowledgeable young guy who told me that I'm right about PacNW being pretty barren country for bottled pilsners or other beers that aren't uber-bitter. I bought a six-pack of LaConner pilsner, one of which is sitting next to me as I type this. It's o.k., but all they really did was tone down the hops a little bit without toning up the malt. It's quite a far cry from Blue Paddle, Gartenbrau, Anchor Steam or Gordon Biersch Marzen, not to mention Budvar/Czechvar or Pilsner Urquell. At least I feel as if I have given it a fair shot. On those occasions when I'm in taverns (far and few between, quite honestly) or in the mood for a beer in a higher-level restaurant (even farther and fewer between) I'll continue looking for balanced beers from the PacNW but I basically don't think they really exist here. I really think that's too bad, not so much for me because there are plenty of more than acceptable out-of-region brews, but for the PacNW brewers who are almost completely ignoring what is by far the biggest beer market. But, hey, I'm sure they can be comfortable running stagnant small businesses without my money!

Is it bottled or is it another one that's only on tap and therefore I have to feel like a lowly idiot because I don't hang out in taverns?

Got a six-pack of Alaskan Amber today, and am not too high on it. Better than a macrobrew, but then what isn't? I would agree that it's not bitter, but there's a sourness to it that I don't really enjoy. I still have five bottles to go, so I'll have some more opportunities to put my finger on it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give those places a try.

If we consider AK to be part of the Pacific Northwest then so is Northern California, right? Same overall climatological profile from Juneau to San Francisco. Anyway, I have to re-load on beer today so I'll get some and let you know what I think. I've looked for the "Big Time" brand that someone suggested and found it unavailable at two grocery stores (Larry's on Queen Anne and Thriftway in Magnolia) that tend to have a really wide selection. Can anyone suggest a place with better selections of bottled beer?

You're right about that, Lew, and this has occurred to me. But the PacNW is where gourmet coffee started. You'd expect the region to have a higher market share for specialty beverages. I don't think 5% is anything to be proud of. They should being doing a whole lot better. Corrrect me if I'm wrong, but am I correct in thinking that the craft brew market share has been stagnant for quite a few years in the PacNW as well as elsewhere?

My comments about the PacNW's inferiority complex, etc etc., came fairly far into the discussion and were meant as cheeky asides. If people want to get all weirded out about it, well, fine. As for the bitter brew here vs. a more balanced Eastern style, I think there's merit to that but my recollection is that the Eastern craft brewers made the really bitter stuff too. A wider variety of craft brew styles there than here -- that's my point. I guess I should also say that I don't see myself as a "traditionalist" in beer or much of anything else. For example, I prefer the California brandies to cognacs because cognac is too constrained in the varieties they can distill. I generally think California chardonnay is preferable to white burgundy, and I welcome New Zealand's screw-top wine bottles. And where I grew up -- Milwaukee -- craft beer was an oddity until only a few years ago but I've been drinking it for more than a decade. But I don't go for the non-traditional for its own sake. For example, I think Asian fusion cuisine is a conspiracy to jack up the price of a won-ton. So sue me. I do know a few brewers, and to a man they will agree that the unbalanced, hop-heavy style characteristic of the PacNW hides a lot of brewing sins. I don't know enough about the mechanics or techniques to agree or disagree, and I'll be the first to note that my brewer friends prefer a different and more balanced style so their bias could easily be steering their judgment. Hey, all I do is drink the stuff. But I find it interesting that many experts in the field have their own reasons to agree with my viewpoint. That's not to say that my taste is the "right" taste. Part of me celebrates the idiosyncratic signature PacNW beer flavor, even if it does tend to make me wonder if I'm drinking a mixture of battery acid and grain alcohol. But even at least it's different and not homogenized. Gotta hand it to the region for sticking with a style that people here enjoy. I guess I'd be a little more convinced of that if the craft brewers here weren't struggling as much, or if they had more of the market.

Why is a "fact based discussion" preferable when the underlying subject is purely a matter of opinion? Leave out the non-beer comments of mine. My basic point has concerned my -- dare I say it, oh the horror!! -- opinion that PacNW beers are monotonous and highly bitter. The IBU number, if we could get it, is totally beside the point. Anyone who lives here and drinks beer knows that the PacNW is chock full of similar, highly bitter ales. Even those who disagree with my taste opinion acknowledge the prevalence of heavily hopped ales in the PacNW. Their answer is that this is the regional taste, or that a true pilsner is hoppier than I think it is, or that I'm just one of those outlanders. I am genrally a fact-based kind of guy, but not when facts aren't really germance to the discussion. Your line of inquiry here is absurd on its face; it's like asking Joe Friday for the best restaaurant in Los Angeles. In any case, no pun intended, I continue to look for PacNW beer that isn't bitter ale. I continue to be bitterly disappointed. Which is frankly no big deal, because the stores also sell brew from outside the region. They're my dollars, and if I have to send them somewhere else that's what I'll do.

rick, there are American micro pilsners but very few from the Pacific NW. I think Capital Brewing (Madison, WI) Gartenbrau is outstanding. Gordon Biersch's Marzen is excellent. Anchor Steam is very good. Sam Adams Lager is acceptable, as is Pyramid Coastline and lagers from some Vermont micros whose names I now forget. New Amsterdam in Brooklyn makes an outstanding balanced beer, although I'm not certain if it's a lager or an ale. I recall drinking it several times on one of the airline shuttles between Boston and Manhattan.

I made them up, what did you think?! Seriously, no one knows the numbers. What we do know is that the craft brewing business is nowhere near as vibrant as it should be. Only 5% of the market in the PacNW. I'm not arguing that this is entirely because they fail to make a balanced pilsner, but I am pointing out that this does happen to be -- by far -- the most common preference among beer drinkers. Putting aside all feelings here, don't you think the craft brewers here just might be missing something by making a single style to nearly the entire exclusion of the demonstrated preference of most of the beer drinking public? O.K., so I'm crazy. Or maybe the craft brewers are a bit too self-satisfied and insular for their own good. And don't tell me to start my own brewery, o.k.? I've been waiting for someone to pull that rabbit out of the hat. Remember, I'm not saying they should stop making the ultra-bitter stuff. People obviously buy it and some people regard any criticism of it as an attack on everything that's decent and right, so there's obviously a market. I just wish they'd make something else along with it, and I'm not talking something even more obscure like a Belgian style blueberry beer or a 48-proof bottle-conditioned barley wine. By the way, just to give myself a reality check I went out and got a couple big bottles each of Pilsner Urquell and Czechvar. (Man, I love doing this research ) Urquell has a nice, pleasant bite of hops but this doesn't so thoroughly dominate the beer to the exclusion of other flavors. Czechvar/Budvar isn't as hoppy but they're present. The problem is that this beer travels halfway around the world to get here, and it takes a while. The Budvar had a freshness date of June 2003!! And it was still outstanding!!

You're right about all that, and yes there are times when I want something more bitter. I'm not arguing that the PacNW brewers should abandon the predominant style. Every now and then I enjoy it, just like every now and then I'll sit down and drink some Islay whisky. Bowmore or Lagavullin (spelling, I'm sure ... it's either that or the Laphroig, whichever the 16-year-old stuff is). Tastes like a tire soaked in grain alcohol. Occasionally it's just what the doctor ordered, but even the Scots are smart enough to make a lot of Glenmorangie. I wasn't going after you, honest. I was reacting to some of the others who implied that if you don't drink draft beer you really have no right to comment. Sounds great to me. I'd even meet folks before that if anyone cares to. I didn't say I never go out. If we do this, let's see if we can find a place that allows cigars. I'll bring them for anyone who wants 'em. Ashton magnums, a high-quality, balanced smoke ...

Yeah, and that's kind of how it's marketed: Are you man enough to drink this stuff? Reminds of that phrase the made the rounds 10 or 15 years ago about how real men didn't eat quiche. My answer then, and my answer now, is that real men eat and drink whatever the hell they want to. I'm sure this is true. The PacNW craft brewers aim their product at a tiny group of people who have little sensitivity, I guess. Hey, if that's what they want to do, I can buy the stuff from California or Europe. No real skin off my nose.

Boddington's is classified as an ordinary English bitter. Pretty smooth stuff, not much hop flavor. But it IS a bitter. http://bjcp.org/styleguide04.html And the balanced pilsners (Urquell, Budvar) are certainly not without hops flavors. I can taste the hops in Anchor Steam, too. I like hops. I just don't like to be sledgehammered in the forehead with them. And trust me, I really wouldn't give a rat's ass about this whole subject if just about every damn beer in the PacNW wasn't the same thing. And even at that, I still don't care as much as these impassioned threads would imply. The situation just seems too ridiculous not to comment on it, and seeing as how this is eGullet and that it has a beer board, why not say something? But if the craft brewers are satisfied by catering to one tiny slice of the market for good beer, and if most other people on this board agree for whatever reason, well then who am I to point out there for every guy who wants his tongue burned off there are probably four or five guys who don't? I'm just not much of a tavern sort of guy. We eagerly go to restaurants, but always drink wine in them. For me, beer is what I have at home, often with a cigar, cheese and crackers. So sue me.

tighe, you've got a point about the broad brush I used. Maybe I armed myself a tad bit too fully when going after one of the regional sacred cows, the bitter beer. rick, yeah I understand that you have to make what the customers will buy. I'm all in favor of that. I guess my argument is that craft beer in the PacNW has only 5% of the market and is struggling -- all while there's this whole style of beer that goes virtually ignored. I mean, it's not exactly a whacked out, bizarre idiosyncracy to want to drink a well-made, balanced pilsner lager or a creamy ale that tastes good the second and third time around. Pilsner lager accounts for 90%+ of the market, and there is a huge difference between a well-made pilsner and the swill that Bud, Miller et al. pump out. There's the opportunity staring the craft brewers right between the eyes and they insist on looking the other way. It's just not true that I dislike hops. It's a matter of balance. How can you say that I don't like hops when I've listed favorite beers as Boddington's Ale, Budvar and Anchor Steam?! And yeah, I occasionally enjoy an uber-bitter blast, but less and less. I find most PacNW ales unpleasant to drink. And trust me, it's not a matter of my declining consumption of beer. And yes, agnolo, I'm a curmudgeon. Especially when I write. But I'm really much nicer in person, especially when I'm drunk.

tighe, actually Boston is just the last place I lived, but I was born and raised in Milwaukee. When I was growing up, it was roughly the same size as Seattle and roughly as provincial, but like Seattle it has become considerably more outward looking and sophisticated over the years. Hometown loyalties are great; I am a huge fam of them. I am also a huge fan of Milwaukee but don't live there essentially because I prefer the climate and scenery in Seattle. Taxes are a whole lot lower out here, too, the 9%+ WA sales tax notwithstanding. Although if Seattle keeps doing egregiously stupid things with taxpayer money, it's only a matter of time before the tax burden is just as high as California or any Midwestern or Eastern state. The immaturity of the voters and elected officials out here is really quite stunning by comparison to virtually every other place I've lived other than Washington, D.C., whose local government set new standards for idiocy and corruption while I lived there in the 1980s. Anyhow, it's ridiculous to imply that, because I am sharply critical of the overloading of PacNW beers with hops, that I somehow don't like hops. Put it this way: I like salt in my food but that doesn't mean I want the cook to dump the whole container in there. Easy does it. Next time you're in Wisconsin, you really ought to give Capital Brewing's Gartenbrau a try. They serve it on tap at the U of Wisconsin Union in Madison, and you can buy it in bottles all over the state. Capital Brewing has become the biggest craft brewer in the state, and I think they're set to keep growing as opposed to just hanging on by their fingernails like so many PacNW craft brewers. Or put a bottle of Budvar/Czechvar next to a bottle of prototypical PacNW ale -- something from Deschutes, or maybe Pike Brewery, which I think makes high-quality but horrendously unbalanced products. Don't be so defensive. I've already said that, 1) the PacNW makes a good quality product (ingredients, freshness) that unfortunately doesn't taste very good, and 2) I'd rather find a PacNW craft brew that I liked. If I find such an animal, trust me I will post it here; my criticism is that of disappointment not cynicism. I've lived in lots of places and I have always sought out local products wherever I go. If we should ever get together to hoist a few, you'd see what I mean just by looking around my house. And oh by the way, if we were going to start in on a discussion of Boston or Milwaukee, both of which I have very positive feelings about, I could quite readily find and discuss the flaws without batting an eyelash. Going batshit at criticism is the hallmark not of a world-class town, but of insecurity. Finally, I do realize there's been some overstatement for effect on both sides, so if you promise not to take me completely literally I will do the same ...

I have always regarded beer as the antidote to becoming too serious. Oh, and I always drink beer out of a glass including the canned Boddie's and Guiness. Well, tighe, at least you went a baby-step above the prototypical small-town insult, i.e., "If you don't like it, go home." I decided to move to Seattle because the advantages (climate, natural beauty, slow pace, easy to get around, good middle-of-the-road restaurants) outweighed the disadvantages (bitter beer, bad governance, relative unsophistication, rampant poverty outside of Puget Sound). People in the sticks always want to hear how great everything is, but I never tell people what they want to hear until it's within an hour of closing time. Oh Seattle! So laid back, and baby I just loooooooooove the beer here! p.s.: Today I drank that $3.50 22-oz. bottle Zephryus pilsner from Elysian, a brewpub in Seattle, that I had bought last weekend at Larry's. It reminded me of the Arrogant Bastard Ale I occasionally drank. Very heavy, alcoholic, tasting like medicine. But the Elysian was advertised as a pilsner lager. If that's a pilsner lager than I'm the queen of England. I suppose I need to go get a couple bottles of Budvar (Czechvar in the U.S. as a distant consequence of Anheuser-Busch having had the farsight to buy the Budweiser name on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia ) and Pilsner Urquell just to be sure, but my taste buds are saying that the guys at Elysian never met a hop recipe they didn't want to double. So far, I'm coming to the conclusion that, when it comes to throwing all the hops they can find into a vat of brew, people around here have slip'd the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God.

Maybe because this is a website where anal-rententive people meet to criticize all things food? If you just want to kick back, see ya at Burger King ...

Lew, the PacNW in general has an inferiority complex, and that's probably responsible for the tone of some of the replies. You see it reflected in weird, amusing little ways. Try telling someone in Portland it's an o.k. town but maybe a little oversold. Try telling someone in Seattle that the new light rail is a huge waste of money -- should have been a dedicated busway instead, and it would have been much cheaper but just as useful -- and that the planned monorail is an outlandishly expensive eyesore that makes no sense whatsoever. Here's one: Try telling someone in Seattle that the state and local governments here are much more corrupt and incompetent than major cities in the East other than Washington and Philadelphia. I really like Seattle and the Pac NW a lot, but cosmopolitan it ain't. At least in Boston -- which, for the East, was long considered parochial by comparison to New York -- if you rip it a new asshole in a conversation the person will likely pause and at the very least say, "Yeah you've got a point," or more likely agree with you wholeheartedly. Ditto for Chicago, L.A. or Washington. Only the provincial places go batshit about criticism. Hey kids, the beer is too bitter and they run the place like Hooterville, but life goes on. Really. The wine and beer selection at my liquor store in Boston beat the variety of anything out here by a very wide margin. Especially French wines. Now I'm sure someone will snap, "Well, if you like Boston so much then why don't you move back?!" The ultimate small town insult. To which I'd answer that I live here in spite of certain things. There's no heaven on earth, and hey, as long as I can get good beer from outside the region in the stores, I'm happy. Oh, and one other advantage of Seattle is that you can have wine shipped. Massachusetts doesn't allow it, which really does suck. But what the PacNW really has going for it is its physical beauty. Try as they might, the various government and corporate entities here have not managed to ruin it. Yet.