Double Dragon serves Bahn Mi sandwiches stuffed with pickled carrots and daikon, aioli, jalapeño, and cilantro on toasted French baguette. We tried the Pulled Pork (braised for 6 hours with sesame and garlic) and the Meatball (made with beef, pork, and secrets!!!), the Green Papaya salad, and a toasted coconut cookie. Tasty, all around.

It’s trendy to name one’s new establishment by taking two words and joining them with an ampersand (Beam & Anchor is another example, and here, someone imagines what the branded world would look like if hipsters got their hip little hands on mainstream logos).

Oven & Shaker has both ovens and shakers to back up their moniker. Out of their ovens come pizza creations of brussel sprouts and bacon, and out of their shakers come bitters-dashed drinkables of the Pineapple Trainwreck variety. Nostrana’s radicchio salad even makes an appearance on the menu. It was an easy sell.

Last week I trekked South to Austin for “work” and a “music festival,” but let’s face the facts, folks: we all know why I really went to Texas. I did it for the brisket.

The Salt Lick lies in the ranch town of Driftwood, which is just a wee (deceivingly far) taxi ride from downtown Austin. Worth each of those 900 pennies. And the Salt Lick’s meat smoking operation…good god.

Iron Works BBQ in Austin also delivered the smokey, BBQ-sauce-smothered goods. In between bouts of eating smoked meat we busied ourselves listening to a variety of musical acts that were in town to either preform their hits or to hit the big time…

This, you see, was the view from the passenger seat as we drove towards the coast. That confetti-like detailing on the windshield is snow. Snow at the beach. And I was to get into the sea; into the coldness and the dark waters that harbor unseen horrors like giant man-eatings sharks and undertows that will land you in San Francisco.

Then the sun shone through the cloudy ceiling and I realized that ain’t nothing getting through those 6mm of neoprene, and, alright, it was glorious.

We toured High West Distillery, Utah’s first distillery since the 1870′s, and it was there that I discovered High West Lemonade–my new favorite libation. I also endorse their Rendezvous Rye and Double Rye whiskeys.

Then came a drinkable epiphany: a barreled Manhattan.  A BARRELED MANHATTAN. High West dubs this their 36th Vote Barreled Manhattan, and the name commemorates Utah’s role as the deciding vote to end Prohibition in 1933. The recipe–two parts rye whiskey to one part sweet vermouth and two dashes of bitters–is matured in rye whiskey’s American white oak barrel for 90 days. Stupendous.