What can I say about San Diego? Guy and I are totally puzzled -- what do people love about this city? We simply cannot find anything to like about it. It's overpriced; it's architecturally unappealing; there's nothing to do (how many times can you visit the zoo; we have no grandkids to take to Sea World, and I am not taking the granddog; the Gas Lamp District is boring, as are all the other tourist traps like Old Towne); downtown is dreary; did I mention there are too many tourist traps? We only go because our son is there. The city must have sensed our dislike and decided to repay us; our last 3 days were filled with rain and wind.
Hotels: We initially stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Downtown, an old hotel, newly renovated. This hotel gives you a good bang for your buck. A free breakfast that includes eggs, bacon and sausage with all the trimmings is part of the deal and the staff goes out of its way to accommodate your every request. If you want to tour the Gas Lamp District, this hotel is a good choice. You can walk from there, because you're not dealing with highways, just city streets. According to my son, the city has cleaned up the area so it's safe to walk now, but I wouldn't walk it at night. And you had better have really good walking legs to walk from this hotel to the Gas Lamp District, because it's hilly, and it's a good long walk. We stayed at the Holiday 3 nights, then stayed at the Doubletree Club on Hotel Circle for the other two nights. Hotel Circle is a good location because it's near the Zoo, Sea World and the Fashion Valley Mall. The Doubletree Club was built in 2001 and just recently renovated. It's more spacious than the Holiday Inn Express Downtown, and the staff is very nice. Here's the big shock: Almost all the hotels in San Diego charge for parking. So if you're paying $125/night for the hotel and $14 for parking, you're really paying $139/night. I guess this is their sneaky way of upping their prices, because when they separate it like that, psychologically you think you are paying the lower price. And there seems to be some collusion, because they all charge $14/night for parking. They must have had lunch together and jointly decided that $14 was the right price to charge. I hate San Diego.
This time Jim took us to all the places the tourists don't know about. We ate at Phil's Barbecue, a really nice barbecue joint, super clean with good food. Instead of an iceberg lettuce salad, Phil's serves a Spring Mix salad. Still, Phil's prices are twice as high as our best barbecue joint in New Bern.
The Supper Club is the locals' answer to the Strip Joint in the Gaslamp District, where you cook your own steak. (P. S. I thought Rachel Ray ate where the locals eat. She recently did a show on San Diego and she ate at the Strip Joint.) The Supper Club is half the price of the Strip Joint. $15.95 for a filet mignon, garlic bread, and salad. $5.95 more gets you a potato-vegetable kabob for two. You grill everything, not just the steak, on a communal grill where everyone is friendly and polite and the more experienced grillers help the less experienced ones. My ears rang for a good half hour after we left because the noise level was about 300 decibels.
Even though Jim and Trinh have been without heat and have only had partial electric for a month because of a fire in their apartment building, for me, the best meal of all was the night we just got a rotisserie chicken and a bag of Spring mix from Albertson's. We rented a movie (Gosford Park) and watched it at Jim's apartment while we ate. It was most like home. And speaking of home, I'm glad I'm back eating my own cooking and sleeping in my own bed. We really enjoyed being away, seeing our son, meeting his significant other and trying to enjoy a city we very much dislike, but like Dorothy said, "There's no place like home." Happily, the next time we see our son, it will be on our own turf; and we won't have to go back to San Diego for at least another year.
Showing posts with label TRIPS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TRIPS. Show all posts
Monday, February 4, 2008
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
Our Vegas culture shock started at the airport. The zig-zag line for a taxi reminded me of DisneyWorld, but there were no kids waiting; it was hundreds of adults on their way to the Strip. One taxi after another whisked people away to the surreal world of casino gambling and luxurious hotels. As we rode through the crowded streets to the Palazzo Hotel, I told our taxi driver that I always ask for the lowest floor possible when I stay at a large hotel, because I don't want to be trapped on a high floor if a fire breaks out. He must think he was riding with a modern-day prophet, because the very next day the Monte Carlo caught on fire. The entire hotel was evacuated and the Strip was shut down till the fire was controlled. Luckily, the Palazzo (where we were staying) was a half-mile away and there wasn't even any smoke near us. The fire was actually at the back of the Monte Carlo, facing Route 15, not the Strip.
We thought the Palazzo hotel room was beautifully appointed, until we met a couple in the airport who said they much preferred the Venetian because it was brighter, more cheerful, and more elegantly appointed. They felt the Palazzo was stiff and dark and the rooms were somewhat bare. Since we didn't see the Venetian rooms, we can't say. We liked our room a lot. The bath had a glass-enclosed oversized shower with an adjacent soaking tub (complete with loofah and lemon-verbena scented bath salts); a double-sink vanity and a separate toilet room. The lighting in the bath was not the brightest, but that's the worst I can say. It's almost a joke that our suite had 3 TV's (1 in the bathroom, 1 in the bedroom and 1 in the living room). Who stays in the room? C'mon, now, does anyone go to Las Vegas to watch TV in their room? The rooms are not cheap, but we thought we got a good deal at $249/night, since the usual rate is closer to $400.
Guy was disappointed in the casinos. He expected to see well-dressed clientele. Instead, people were dressed in jeans -- not even always nice jeans. There aren't as many high rollers as there used to be in days gone by. It's a lot of people like Guy and me with a couple hundred for entertainment. When it's gone, it's gone, and the gambling ends. So Vegas is changing its image. Now they're not just a family vacation spot, they're also trying to be the culinary capital of the world. Famous Chef restaurants are popping up all over the place. And they're not cheap. Not wanting to drop a couple hundred on a meal, we ate in the Palazzo Grand Lux (run by the Cheesecake Factory) one night, and Canaletto (in the Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes) the next night. The Grand Canal Shoppes are upstairs on the retail level, and I was surprised at how pleasant the place is. First of all, they have a pseudo-canal running through the entire area, complete with Gondolas and singing Gondoliers. People were lined up to take their $30 rides. In the section that is supposed to be a replica of St. Mark's Square in Rome (who would know, I've never been there), 3 restaurants with patio dining empty onto the square. Canalleto is one of them, and we asked for and got a patio table. In the middle of the square, shows are performed on the hour. Costumed singers give authentic Renaissance-period performances and then mingle with the crowds. It's quite charming, and creates a festive mood. It doesn't hurt to see the bright painted sky above, either.
We had tickets to LeReve (a very visually stimulating show) and I had visions of walking forever to get to the Wynn Hotel for the show. Instead, an escalator in the Palazzo took us to a walkway that led right to the Wynn and the theatre was a short walk inside the hotel. I noticed that other hotels were joined together by walkways also. Since we were only there for 2 days, we didn't get to see as much as we wanted. On our second day, we took a taxi to the Silverton Casino across town to meet some old friends that we knew from St. Lucia. It was so good to see them and get caught up on the last 15 years.
Will we go back? Yes, when we can get together another couple hundred that we can lose and when we can find a cheap hotel/air package. For now, we're pretty broke.
We thought the Palazzo hotel room was beautifully appointed, until we met a couple in the airport who said they much preferred the Venetian because it was brighter, more cheerful, and more elegantly appointed. They felt the Palazzo was stiff and dark and the rooms were somewhat bare. Since we didn't see the Venetian rooms, we can't say. We liked our room a lot. The bath had a glass-enclosed oversized shower with an adjacent soaking tub (complete with loofah and lemon-verbena scented bath salts); a double-sink vanity and a separate toilet room. The lighting in the bath was not the brightest, but that's the worst I can say. It's almost a joke that our suite had 3 TV's (1 in the bathroom, 1 in the bedroom and 1 in the living room). Who stays in the room? C'mon, now, does anyone go to Las Vegas to watch TV in their room? The rooms are not cheap, but we thought we got a good deal at $249/night, since the usual rate is closer to $400.
Guy was disappointed in the casinos. He expected to see well-dressed clientele. Instead, people were dressed in jeans -- not even always nice jeans. There aren't as many high rollers as there used to be in days gone by. It's a lot of people like Guy and me with a couple hundred for entertainment. When it's gone, it's gone, and the gambling ends. So Vegas is changing its image. Now they're not just a family vacation spot, they're also trying to be the culinary capital of the world. Famous Chef restaurants are popping up all over the place. And they're not cheap. Not wanting to drop a couple hundred on a meal, we ate in the Palazzo Grand Lux (run by the Cheesecake Factory) one night, and Canaletto (in the Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes) the next night. The Grand Canal Shoppes are upstairs on the retail level, and I was surprised at how pleasant the place is. First of all, they have a pseudo-canal running through the entire area, complete with Gondolas and singing Gondoliers. People were lined up to take their $30 rides. In the section that is supposed to be a replica of St. Mark's Square in Rome (who would know, I've never been there), 3 restaurants with patio dining empty onto the square. Canalleto is one of them, and we asked for and got a patio table. In the middle of the square, shows are performed on the hour. Costumed singers give authentic Renaissance-period performances and then mingle with the crowds. It's quite charming, and creates a festive mood. It doesn't hurt to see the bright painted sky above, either.
We had tickets to LeReve (a very visually stimulating show) and I had visions of walking forever to get to the Wynn Hotel for the show. Instead, an escalator in the Palazzo took us to a walkway that led right to the Wynn and the theatre was a short walk inside the hotel. I noticed that other hotels were joined together by walkways also. Since we were only there for 2 days, we didn't get to see as much as we wanted. On our second day, we took a taxi to the Silverton Casino across town to meet some old friends that we knew from St. Lucia. It was so good to see them and get caught up on the last 15 years.
Will we go back? Yes, when we can get together another couple hundred that we can lose and when we can find a cheap hotel/air package. For now, we're pretty broke.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
OUR TRIP TO KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE
Guy and I visited my sister and brother-in-law in Knoxville after first stopping in Greensboro to celebrate our son's birthday. We had dinner at Leblon Currascaria, a Brazilian Steakhouse. This is a new fixed-price-concept restaurant that is sweeping the country. One price gets you the exotic salad bar, then you are given a coaster-like piece of cardboard that is green on one side and red on the other. When you turn it over so the green side shows, the gauchos (carvers) come to your table with meats that have been grilled over an open flame and slowly spin-roasted. No less than 10 selections of beef, chicken, lamb, pork and sausage come to your table, so that you can taste test them all. The salad bar was to die for. That's where my raves end. I was sorely disappointed in the meats, especially the pork which tasted spoiled to me. The filet mignon was overcooked and wasn't that tender, and the bacon wrap tasted spoiled also. I thought it was overpriced and overrated.
Knoxville is an interesting city. Guy calls it a big little town. The population of the city was 173,890 in 2000. The county's population was 411,967 in 2006. It's an easy city to get around in because of the highway systems that have been designed to transport you easily from one part to the other, and the surrounding Great Smoky Mountains make for beautiful scenery. Knoxville is hilly, which is a stark contrast to the flat land of East Carolina. The abundance of hardwoods in red, gold and yellow foliage also made the town pretty. (East Carolina has an abundance of pine trees which just stay green all year.)
We arrived just in time for the big game: University of South Carolina (Gamecocks) were playing University of Tennessee (Volunteers). The University of Tennessee sports teams are called "Volunteers" or "Vols" and are extremely popular in the surrounding area -- so much so that the telephone area code for Knox County and 8 adjacent counties is 865 (VOL), and orange and white is everywhere, reminding me of a giant creamsicle. Our niece, Corey, is a junior at UT and hosted a pre-game party on Saturday night which we visited briefly. We had a great time -- everyone was on supercharge because of the game. I also had a full day shopping with my sister and we found some great bargains. It was like being let out of a cage since New Bern has zero shopping. Williams Sonoma, Bed Bath & Beyond, World Market and Cooks Corner were some of my favorite places. I got some pretty placemats and napkins, Nielsen Massey vanilla paste, saffron threads, celtic sea salt and even some 550 Levis, but then time ran out and we had to quit. There were so many more stores to cover, but no more time. I would move to Knoxville just for the shopping. I'll be posting some recipes once we're back home.
On the way back home, we visited Asheville, NC, another beautiful mountain town which reminded us of a Colorado resort town. Because Asheville sits up higher, the mountains are very visible just about all the time. So every where you go, you see these gorgeous mountains and the blue sky -- breathtaking. Downtown Asheville is a cross-section of Asheville life and the main drags (Broadway and Biltmore) are filled with bistros, sushi bars, assorted restaurants, art stores, and of course, the Mast General Store which has 5 or 6 locations in NC and even one in Knoxville at the Old Brewery. The Mast General Store is worth a visit. They have the old candy barrels filled with candy, and lots of interesting gadgets, memorabilia, kitchen items, and even clothing and shoes. We ate at the 1896 Restaurant, for lunch and dinner, and both meals were great! Very upscale food, well prepared with excellent service. Prices were fair. For lunch I had a tuna wrap that I don't think had a drop of mayo in it, but did have mango, avocado, sprouts, dried cherries and a sauce that had nice kick to it. It came with cream of vegetable soup that was really good. I heartily recommend this restaurant. We snuck a look at Biltmore Village, which was mostly closed (Sunday), but looked interesting. They are adding to it, and more construction is underway, even a new hotel. We'll try to go back there next time we hit Knoxville so we can finish touring this fascinating city.
Traveler's Tips: Knoxville's Best restaurant: Puleo's Grille -- 3 locations. Great prices, fantastic food. Puleo's is a traditional steak and seafood restaurant that has been blended with southern comfort and traditional Italian offerings. I could have ordered everything off the extensive menu -- it all sounded delicious. Each of us ordered something different and none of us was disappointed. Their Caesar salad is wonderful. We didn't get to try the Chocolate Lasagne because we were too stuffed, but it sure sounded great. I would love to move this restaurant to New Bern -- I'd be eating there every night.
Knoxville is an interesting city. Guy calls it a big little town. The population of the city was 173,890 in 2000. The county's population was 411,967 in 2006. It's an easy city to get around in because of the highway systems that have been designed to transport you easily from one part to the other, and the surrounding Great Smoky Mountains make for beautiful scenery. Knoxville is hilly, which is a stark contrast to the flat land of East Carolina. The abundance of hardwoods in red, gold and yellow foliage also made the town pretty. (East Carolina has an abundance of pine trees which just stay green all year.)
We arrived just in time for the big game: University of South Carolina (Gamecocks) were playing University of Tennessee (Volunteers). The University of Tennessee sports teams are called "Volunteers" or "Vols" and are extremely popular in the surrounding area -- so much so that the telephone area code for Knox County and 8 adjacent counties is 865 (VOL), and orange and white is everywhere, reminding me of a giant creamsicle. Our niece, Corey, is a junior at UT and hosted a pre-game party on Saturday night which we visited briefly. We had a great time -- everyone was on supercharge because of the game. I also had a full day shopping with my sister and we found some great bargains. It was like being let out of a cage since New Bern has zero shopping. Williams Sonoma, Bed Bath & Beyond, World Market and Cooks Corner were some of my favorite places. I got some pretty placemats and napkins, Nielsen Massey vanilla paste, saffron threads, celtic sea salt and even some 550 Levis, but then time ran out and we had to quit. There were so many more stores to cover, but no more time. I would move to Knoxville just for the shopping. I'll be posting some recipes once we're back home.
On the way back home, we visited Asheville, NC, another beautiful mountain town which reminded us of a Colorado resort town. Because Asheville sits up higher, the mountains are very visible just about all the time. So every where you go, you see these gorgeous mountains and the blue sky -- breathtaking. Downtown Asheville is a cross-section of Asheville life and the main drags (Broadway and Biltmore) are filled with bistros, sushi bars, assorted restaurants, art stores, and of course, the Mast General Store which has 5 or 6 locations in NC and even one in Knoxville at the Old Brewery. The Mast General Store is worth a visit. They have the old candy barrels filled with candy, and lots of interesting gadgets, memorabilia, kitchen items, and even clothing and shoes. We ate at the 1896 Restaurant, for lunch and dinner, and both meals were great! Very upscale food, well prepared with excellent service. Prices were fair. For lunch I had a tuna wrap that I don't think had a drop of mayo in it, but did have mango, avocado, sprouts, dried cherries and a sauce that had nice kick to it. It came with cream of vegetable soup that was really good. I heartily recommend this restaurant. We snuck a look at Biltmore Village, which was mostly closed (Sunday), but looked interesting. They are adding to it, and more construction is underway, even a new hotel. We'll try to go back there next time we hit Knoxville so we can finish touring this fascinating city.
Traveler's Tips: Knoxville's Best restaurant: Puleo's Grille -- 3 locations. Great prices, fantastic food. Puleo's is a traditional steak and seafood restaurant that has been blended with southern comfort and traditional Italian offerings. I could have ordered everything off the extensive menu -- it all sounded delicious. Each of us ordered something different and none of us was disappointed. Their Caesar salad is wonderful. We didn't get to try the Chocolate Lasagne because we were too stuffed, but it sure sounded great. I would love to move this restaurant to New Bern -- I'd be eating there every night.
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