Archive | 9:43 pm

BoozeCarriage.com Review

10 Jul

I really enjoy blogging here at NYCNomNom, but free booze certainly makes it that much better!  BoozeCarriage contacted me with an offer to try out their service with a $50 credit.  Couldn’t turn that down! So now I will live blog the experience…

I browsed their website and first found it strange that wine and liquor were separate from beer. I checked out the beer page first and found they had an okay selection, with about a dozen craft beers on their list. None of them tickled my fancy, so I switched over to the liquor/wine page and dove into White: France.

Low and behold, two Vouvrays on the list! Our favorite type of wine is quite rare, so this was a lovely surprise.  I clicked on each one and sadly, there is no information about the wines. This seems like a great place to put in a quick blurb and some tasting notes. Hopefully they are working on that! Oh and no vintage? That’s a bit strange.

Prices seem reasonable, with most in the $12-$20 range and one coming in at $24.99.

Into cart: Remy Pannier Vouvray for $12.99

Went to try a Search and realized they had no Search.  Not loving the UI of the site or information therein, but hopefully this is a work in progress. I see that they have a way to rank it by review, but there are no reviews yet, so I have to assume I’m seeing a beta version.

Now to see if they have Russian River Chardonay.  White: California…

57 options… no vintages and no descriptions on where it’s from. I found Patz & Hall, the wine that started our Russian River Valley obsession, but it’s $40 and doesn’t specify what year. They had some $40 years, some $80 years, and some $20 years. Ehh… why not? Patz & Hall Chardonnay it is.

BoozeCarriage has a promise that anything on their site will be delivered, for free, in 30-60 minutes. You have the option to add a tip to the delivery-person, which I appreciate since I don’t always have small bills handy.

The check-out process is easy enough, but when entering my code in for the credit, it only displays a small note but still shows the total cart amount in the box.  I hesitantly hit the button to proceed and hope that the credit goes through. Payment information on the next page shows I’ve only been charged for the amount I went over on the credit. Phew!

Order placed at 8:35pm…

By 9:35pm, can I really have wine in my hand without any planning ahead of time?

My mind wanders… Party runs out of wine, no need to run to the liquor store, order from BoozeCarriage! Come home from a bad day and really need a scotch? No worries! BoozeCarriage is there for you.

My pondering is interrupted by a phone call.  It’s less than 5 minutes after I place the order and a nice gentleman is informing me that they are out of Patz & Hall but they DO have another Chardonnay from Napa that is on sale for the same price.  Hopefully it really is a $40 Chardonnay!  I find it listed on the site (Grgich Hills Chardonnay) for $42.  Fingers crossed it’s good.

I’m disappointed by this, but the customer service is good enough that I’m not too upset.

9:10pm: Doorbell rings… but it’s our dinner instead (Thai food… a good pair with our white wine!)

9:17pm: Doorbell Take 2… SUCCESS!  The wine has arrived. Ordered just 40 minutes ago. Not too shabby!

And they are chilled! Even better.

9:19pm: Wine is open. Thai food is set. Life is good.

We try the Chardonnay and yup… it’s damn good.

Thanks BoozeCarriage.com

Full disclosure: BoozeCarriage.com reached out to me and provided me with a $50 credit to try their site with the purpose of reviewing it.  The review I have posted is reflective of my honest opinion about the experience.

Maine Cubed: Boothbay Harbor- Dockside Grill

10 Jul

Our trip to Maine concluded with a visit to Boothbay Harbor, a town on a peninsula about an hour from Portland.  I heard it was beautiful, but a bit too crazy during peak season, so I was happy to be there when it was just before the high time.  We decided to take a Whale Watch on Cap’n Fish’s. We looked it up on our GPS and wound up at the hotel instead of the actual whale watch, but luckily they also sold tickets. We asked them for a recommendation on where to have breakfast, and they sent us to a property behind the hotel on the dock called Dockside Grill.

1DSCF9899

A sign on the door sited apologies that they were closing early, about an hour later than the current time. We got in and realized that this meant they were out of a lot of items on the menu.  But we’re not picky!

The inside was a very casual diner atmosphere, almost greasy spoon-like.

Mike got the Meat and Cheese omelette and said it was “an omelette.”

DSCF9894

They were out of everything I wanted but I wound up getting a lobster omelette (that came with cheese that I believe was swiss) and some pepper-less potatoes.

DSCF9896

I actually really enjoyed mine. Only in Maine do you pull up to a random diner and get an entire hunk of claw in an omelette. Mine was a wee bit watery, and if not for the lobster quality itself it would have been a pretty average omelette, but you can’t resist this.

DSCF9898

Overall, it was a fine breakfast, but if I hadn’t taken pictures of it, I probably wouldn’t have even remembered we ate there.

Total Nom Points: 5.5 out of 10

Total Nom Points: 5.5 out of 10

As a sidenote, we had over 15 sightings of whales on the Whale Watch later that day, as well as a seal sighting and just an incredibly wonderful time.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,