100 Places in the D’s Top 10 Places Visited in Year 3

Cornerstone Barrel House (#198)

OK, this post is months and months and months overdue. Usually after the end of each 100 Places in the D blogging year (which ends in early February, given that the anniversary of the first post on the blog is February 8), I’ll give a top-ten list of my favorite places visited during that timeframe. I still hadn’t done that for Blog Year 3 – until now (FINALLY!).

Given that it’s Thanksgiving Eve and that many of my fellow Metro-Detroiters will have ample time to go out and explore this holiday weekend, I thought it would be an ideal occasion to post this belated-yet-still-relevant top-ten list for Blog Year 3, which specifically encompassed February 8, 2016 through February 7, 2017. So here they are, my faves of the bunch, listed in no particular order; they are all Number 1s in my heart!

Detroit Institute of Bagels (#164)

–Detroit Institute of Bagels (#164, Detroit): Turkey, Bacon & Avocado sandwich with gouda and spicy mayo on a toasted Everything bagel – be still my heart!!! Loved the friendly staff and pleasant vibes of this Corktown bagel shop, too; it’s the kind of place I could hang around all day. A must-visit.

–Cornerstone Barrel House (#198, Detroit): Classy and contemporary yet down-to-earth, the Woodward Avenue whiskey bar is the perfect place to enjoy both the company of friends AND an excellent meal (tomato caprese salad AND juicy sirloin steak AND bread pudding made with Krispy Kreme donuts? OH YEAH.).

–Natalie’s Bakery (#208, Madison Heights): This bakery’s got the goods! The rosemary-garlic ciabatta and seven-grain loaves of bread I picked up from Natalie’s were fantastic – perfect for Thanksgiving stuffing – while the pumpkin-mousse-filled fried croissant pastry is as ridiculously delicious as it sounds.

–Chartreuse Kitchen and Cocktails (#194, Detroit): I had probably the best dining experience of my life at this gorgeous restaurant with exceptional food (those tender spare ribs! That killer corned-beef sandwich!). The fact that it happened during my 32nd birthday lunch made it that much more special.

Tom’s Tavern (#204)

–Tom’s Tavern (#204, Detroit): I felt a wave of sadness while writing this when I realized that I have not been back to Tom’s Tavern, that most venerable and glorious of Detroit dive-bar establishments – because Tom’s Tavern is EPIC and demands to be experienced first-hand at least once a year. One of the most magical places I’ve ever been.

–Mabel Gray (#175, Hazel Park): You know how Mabel Gray has gotten a crap-ton of accolades? The reason for that is totally legit, I discovered, when I enjoyed one of the best restaurant meals in my memory (I’m sensing a trend here) in its ribeye steak (perfection!) and chocolate torte.

–Le Petit Zinc (#169, Detroit): This charming, colorful crepe café off the beaten path in Corktown was inherently lovable. That citron sucre (lemon-sugar) crepe! I recently read that Le Petit Zinc is currently location-less after its landlord gave it the boot from its once-home on Trumbull Street – Wah Wah. Hopefully it will be back soon!

Source Booksellers (#195)

–Source Booksellers (#195, Detroit): My heart was grabbed by Source the instant I walked into the Cass Corridor bookshop. Small, thoughtfully curated, and with an owner who is downright lovely, it emanates this welcoming, community-fostering vibe. SO. GOOD.

–El Patrón (#193, Pontiac): With an extensive salsa bar and carnitas enchiladas that equal YUMMM times INFINITY, there was no way I was not going to fall hard for this place. Mexican is LIFE when it’s done right, and El Patrón does it RIGHT.

–The Old Miami (#196, Detroit): The dive bar majorly captured my affections with its charmingly grandma-esque backyard area. How many days until summer?

Reflections on Year Three of 100 Places in the D

The patio of #196, The Old Miami, Year Three

As 100 Places in the D celebrated its three-year anniversary on February 8 (woo-hoo!), it’s time to reflect back on the last year and how I stacked up against the goals I set for the blog.

OK, so overall, I kind of sucked at achieving the Blog Year Three goals. The Type A part of me is annoyed about that, but the fun-loving, relaxed part of me is like, “Hey, it’s OK – there’s always this year!” I’m liking the latter perspective. The journey of doing the exploring for and maintaining of the blog this year was fun, and fun is the reason I’m doing all of this. Still, I plan to better prioritize this year’s goals – which I’ll reveal here, too – for the sheer enjoyment of the challenge of pursuing them.

Getting into last year’s goals: the first one was to visit 60-75 new places. I achieved that one, visiting 66 new places (YAY!). To be honest, I didn’t remember that I’d given myself such a number range; somewhere along the line, I forgot that and fixated on my goal being 65 specifically. No matter – I hit the mark either way.

My second goal was to visit at least 25 new places in Detroit proper and to get more comfortable driving down there by making solo visits to the city at least once a month. I ended up visiting 19 places downtown – not the target number, but decent. And I was awesome about pushing myself to drive down to the D regularly for about the first third of the year; then I fell off in the spring. Whoops. I’m still easily flummoxed by the cray-cray network of roads in the downtown epicenter – I was just driving down there Monday en route to a new place and doing my usual death-grip-the-steering-wheel-and-try-not-to-hyperventilate routine – but can we all agree that it’s advanced-level driving down there? Seriously, those roads are WILD! I’m at a point where I’m at least proud that I push myself to drive downtown despite my fear of it. I love visiting Detroit, and I’m not going to let my nerves around being behind the wheel stop me.

I flat-out failed at my third goal, which was to visit one new-to-the-blog city a month. Given that I didn’t even write my Year Two reflections post and goals until March 5, nearly one month into the start of Blog Year Three, I was already setting myself up for failure on this one. Poor planning and prioritizing of this goal further exacerbated things, and a few months in, I’d already pretty much abandoned pursuing it. In the end, I only ended up visiting six new-to-the-blog cities in Year Three, those being:

Bloomfield Hills

Bloomfield Township

Harrison Township

Hazel Park

Oakland Township

Pontiac

To these six fine cities: you are a delight – I am happy to have gotten to know you better!

What are my goals this year? Well, for one, I’m vowing to reattempt this quest to visit an average of one new-to-the-blog city per month. The goal intrigues me, and I think with even a little bit of planning and foresight I can achieve it, because there are still quite a few Metro-Detroit cities where I haven’t visited places for the blog. I’ve compiled a list of 12 prospect towns so I can plan ahead. I visited one of them last weekend (post forthcoming!) and will be hitting another next week, so I’ve got a good start.

In terms of overall volume of visits, my goal is 71 new places (so I can hit 300 lifetime-total places visited by the end of this blog year!). That means I’ll need to visit an average of six places a month, which seems doable – but again, it will take intentional planning. My third goal to visit at least 20 places in Detroit – about two a month – which should also be easy enough to hit if I actually track it.

These goals are worth tracking, I’m realizing, because they involve stuff that is fun to me, and fun stuff is important stuff. So I’m going to make them a priority in my life, for the sheer pleasure of achieving them, because one thing I’m realizing as an adult is that finding enjoyment in every day is critical to ensuring one doesn’t become one of those shriveled up, miserable people.

It’s too easy for me to get caught up in responsibilities and to-dos and mortgage payments and with-what-money-am-I-going-to-buy-that-new-dryer scenarios? But I’ve decided I won’t not let myself stay mired in all of that stressful adulting. I’m going to continue eating dinners at former auto shops (here’s looking at you, Katoi!), taking in music at the dive-iest of dive bars (Tom’s Tavern, my love!!!!!!), and searching for the ideal coffee shop (Eos Café, you are pretty damn near perfect). ~Sigh.~ Sounds like a delight.

In case this kind of analytical numbers stuff interests you as it does me, here’s a breakdown of stats for the Year Three visits:

Number of places visited in Year Three: 66

Number of cities visited: 23

Breakdown by county: Macomb: 12; Oakland: 27; Wayne: 27

Breakdown by city:

Detroit: 19

Plymouth: 8

Royal Oak: 5

Clinton Township: 3

Pontiac: 3

Rochester: 3

Saint Clair Shores: 3

Clarkston: 2

Ferndale: 2

Madison Heights: 2

Rochester Hills: 2

Shelby Township: 2

Warren: 2

Auburn Hills: 1

Berkley: 1

Bloomfield Township: 1

Bloomfield Hills: 1

Harrison Township: 1

Hazel Park: 1

Mount Clemens: 1

Northville: 1

Oakland Township: 1

Troy: 1

And to recap, my goals for Year Four (February 8, 2017 through February 7, 2018) are:

-Visit 71 new places.

-Visit places in at least 12 new-to-the-blog cities.

-Visit at least 20 new places in Detroit.

Thanks for nerding out with me on this post and for following The 100 Places journey. Here’s to Year Four and to your own exploring this year!