Irony and the Onxy Hotel, Boston
October 5, 2011
Boston was crammed to the gills this week. Hotel availability and prices reflected that. In fact, when I was setting this trip up I was shocked by the prices. Kimpton to the rescue. A quick note to the esteemed Linda Chin (GM at the Onyx) helped me reserve a room.
BTW, Linda’s staff is still top notch. Responsive. Nice. Helpful. Quick to solve a problem. The Onyx staff is among the best in the business. Thanks to Lauren Weir for reaching out before I arrived. Sadly, Joe the bartender did not remember me at all on Tuesday, nor has he become a mixologist in his spare time.
My arrival was complicated by showing up way early. The staff very graciously worked with me to get a room set up. After 30 minutes dinking around on the net in the lobby, everything was ready to go. This time, I was in room 909. (I think I was slated for 1007, but engineering was somehow involved…so something must have been busted.)
Not surprisingly, the rooms at the Onyx have not grown any bigger since I was last here—nicely appointed, but a bit cramped. My camera is still AWOL after my Watermellon Park Fest gig, so once again I have to use a canned picture from the hotel website. Maybe I need to buy a new camera.
See how great these pictures are when the hotels take them? The fisheye lens makes things seem bigger than they really are.
After all day in Boston, I returned to the room to find a personal note from Linda and the makings of a vodka beverage (horrors!!). This was all very nice, of course. I guess Lauren did not get the memo about vodka being verboten among those in the know. We’ll just pretend it never happened.
I’ll also have to pretend that the showers at the Onyx are glass and that they have sufficient shower pressure. They’re not and they really don’t. Dang. See the previous entry on the Onyx for some pictures.
In any case, I will keep Onyx at the five showerheads rating level. Excellent staff trumps ignorable showers this week.
Some good news to end the posting. Mixology in Boston is strong and appears to be spreading. I had no time to go to drink (trip to NY intervened and wrecked my big plans). Bravo at the Museum of Fine Arts offered up an acceptable beverage whose name escapes me now. (I am guessing at the ratios here.)
1.5 oz bombay sapphire gin
.5 chartreuse
.5 sweet vermouth (they used gallo almost for sure)
dash bitters (fee brothers generic)
And my favorite Boston restaurant the Blue Room served up a wonderfully complex drink called the smoke monster (I am guessing at ratios again):
1 oz cuervo silver
1 oz chichicapa mezcal
1 oz grapefruit
teaspoon honey syrup
dash bitters (probably angustora)
Almost forgot the irony bit. Guess where I am headed tonight…back to the Eventi in NY. What a ridiculous circumstance. Hey Linda, call ahead for me please!
Eventi NY, NY = non-event
September 15, 2010
The Kimpton chain has a new hotel in New York City called Eventi. The hotel is not quite finished being built—no bar yet, a half-constructed restaurant, and a severely undertrained staff. But somehow they have generated a bit of buzz?! Kimpton’s marketing machine is outstripping their actual operational performance. That’s a bad sign for a growing chain.
I decided to try Eventi to see if I could avoid the Marriottization of 70Park. Nope.
My “executive suite” is over-named and under-sized. Here’s a shot of the non-bed room of the suite (which must me less than ten feet wide). Calling this room a suite is pushing it even by NY standards.
I was not pleased with the room, and the staff didn’t really care. In fact, it’s not clear that they are even paying attention to their Kimpton in-touch data at all. None of my preferences were acknowledged, for example…not even a morning paper.
There is good news about the Eventi on the shower front. My all marble bathroom was of higher quality than the “suite” and is sizable for NY. There’s a little cubicle for the toilet. It’s a mystery why a marble toilet cubicle gets a plastic toilet seat, but it does, and it’s a common enough phenomenon out there in hotel land.
The shower itself is very nice with two showerheads in its design (one a ceiling soaker), but not quite enough water pressure to work properly. Nevertheless, it’s a nice shower with a little bench and an open feeling.
As always it is difficult to capture the bathroom in bits with a camera.
In final analysis, the Eventi will not make my list of top hotels in its current state even if it is around the corner from the corporate apartment. Three showerheads and a non-event for this place.
Onyx Hotel, Boston, MA: A Kimpton gem
September 28, 2010
As you know, I am a fan of the Kimpton Hotel chain even though my experience with them over the last year has been spotty. I’m super pleased to have tried the Onyx Hotel in Boston this time. My plan was to find out whether the Hotel Marlowe should be replaced as my default Boston hotel. Probably.
After 6 hours of weather delays for an hour long flight, I arrived in Boston around 11pm. The front desk staff (Alen and “queen” Darnella) was exceptional at check in, making me feel right at home. True to form, my room was ready and was a match for my Intouch preferences. There was a welcome note from Linda Chin the GM and a smal bottle of Merlot. Very nice.
I joined Joe the bartender for a night cap and we discussed mixology. Joe was interested, but not very knowledgeable. One day maybe all good hotels will have real mixologists?!
On to the room. The Onyx has fairly small rooms, nicely appointed but a bit cluttered. My room (808) appears to be a standard layout. Here’s what the bathroom looks like.
Unfortunately the plumbing was suffering some problems when I arrived and it was too late to get things fixed. But when alerted in the morning, the staff was very responsive.
Now to the shower, featuring the kind of shower curtain that gives me the heeby-jeebies, over a plastic tub. Horrors.
The water pressure was acceptable, but nothing to write home about. And the tiles are real tiles even though they are shiny enough that they look plastic. It’s a close call on this website’s criteria.
Here is a picture of the controls.
A real surprise are the containers of shampoo and conditioner. As one of my friends says, this is a design just waiting for unscrupulous use of Nair. Amazing that some of us get paid to think like that, huh?
The Onxy comes out on top of Hotel Marlowe because of its staff, which is the best trained staff I have come across in the last handful of Kimpton visits. The Eventi hotel in NY pales in comparison to this hotel. Real management is the key.
When I sent the Eventi GM Thomas Mathes a critical but fair note suggesting some improvements, he ignored my feedback. In one fell swoop, Eventi is permanently off the list. Too bad more Kimpton GM’s are not like Linda Chin.
On the strength of its staff, the Onyx earns four of five showerheads and a place on the list of hotels I will return to.
70Park NY, NY Back on Track
October 6, 2010
After my unsatisfying stay at Eventi, I decided it was back to 70Park on my most recent trip to NY. 70Park has a checkered past with me…sometimes just fine and other times not so much.
My trip up this time was wild. It was a rainy day, and there were ATC delays into NY. I got on my already late plane (at least I was upgraded) and was joined in first class by a very huge guy who sat across the aisle from me. Turns out he was a Washington Redskin named Jamal Brown (traded from the Saints). Did I mention that Jamal was huge?
We sat on the tarmac with a ground hold. During that time (maybe 15 minutes), one of the passengers who was also a Washington Redskin…first round draft pick Sean Taylor declared to the crew he had a “family emergency” and had to get off the plane. He seemed amused by the entire thing and was smirking when the pilot announced that we were returning to the gate so a passenger could disembark. The pilot informed the rest of us that we would have a major delay since we lost our slot. Up to three hours. Much groaning ensued.
Sean Taylor left the plane and was met by the police, airport executives, and airline operations types. Hope he wasn’t just yanking everyone’s chain because he thought he could!
Then the weird thing happened. Because the crew had observed Sean and Jamal talking, they asked Jamal to leave the plan as well. He calmly questioned why and was told he had to leave the plane or the police would come and remove him. Now this huge man (did I mention that Jamal is huge?), very calmly and rationally explained that he was talking to his teammate only because they were both Redskins. He pointed out that like the rest of us he was inconvenienced. The police did come (a tiny guy with a badge and a gun) and Jamal stepped off the plane. Ten minutes later, he was back on.
I salute Jamal on his calmness. As for Sean Taylor…it seems he needs to grow up.
Anyway, back to the hotel. We got in to NY 4 hours late and I checked into 70Park where I was greeted with a personal note and a very nice room (915). Here is a shot of the bathroom.
Probably the strangest part of the bathroom was the tub/shower combo. The tub was a huge whirpool thing. Even with an oversized shower head there was enough room for lots of people in the shower. I do like interesting bathrooms, and this one is by far the most interesting one in 70Park that I have found so far.
The 70Park glass-tile design was a standard feature in this bathroom. No plastic.
I felt so good about my visit that I will promote 70Park back up to a five showerheads rating.
Now for another tasty drink morsel. I went down to the Flatiron district with a work friend and we visited theFlatiron Lounge for some world class mixology. Though they had no Amer Picon, they did have a tasty selection of beverages for us to sample. We slipped next door to a Tapas place for dinner and then came back for a nightcap. We called for Seelbach’s and they made us some with no delay.
Seelbach Cocktail
In the bottom of a champagne flute mix
1 oz bourbon (woodford reserve or something cask strength)
0.5 oz Cointreau
7 dashes (!) Peychauds
7 dashes (!) Angustora
mix with a silver spoon and top with Veuve Cliquot
After a Seelbach we were sidetracked on our way back uptown with a quick trip to the equally delightful Raines Law Room for a Lion’s Tail. Real mixology in the city. Life is good.
NYE in high style (Palomar Philadelphia)
January 1, 2011
Somehow noplasticshowers has taken on an unanticipated minor life of its own. As you know, the mission here is to provide candid reviews of hotels (focused on showers) from the point of view of a spoiled world traveller. I like nothing more than a nice boutique hotel and I have done what I can to develop a list of places I like over the last ten years. One of my favorite chains of boutiques is the Kimpton Group. I think I started going to Kimptons in 1996 or so and I have stayed at 13 Kimpton hotels in the years since.
Even with a preferred chain, things are never perfect. Some of my Kimpton-faced reviews do have a snarky flavor to them, but I also do my share of positive reinforcement when things are done right. As it turns out, positive reinforcement may be so rare among hotel guests that it can result in very nice side effects! Here’s a story about that.
After a disappointing stay ay a Kimpton in NY this September, I had a superb time in Boston at the Onyx (likewise a Kimpton). It seems, not surprisingly that hotels with strong GMs (Linda Chin at the Onyx) have motivated and well-trained staffs, while weaker GMs are so busy putting out fires (Thomas Mathes at the non-Eventi) they never develop any real rapport with their guests. So what better way to give kudos to a very good GM than to email their superiors?!
I sent some email to Mike DeFrino (Senior Vice President Hotel Operations) and Rick Colangelo (Regional Vice President Operations, East Coast) complimenting Linda, and lo and behold, Mike and Rick read their email like everyone else! Here’s a snippet of our ensuing conversation:
I would like to see the Kimpton properties share information about guests and guests preferences. Perhaps you guys could use the InTouch network for that? For example, knowing the kind of room I like at the Palomar in SF should inform your computers all over the country about the kind of room I am likely to be satisfied with elsewhere.
Things all seem very ad hoc as it is now, and as a guest I find it inefficient to “train” 13 hotels one at a time! Some properties keep track of these things, and some (including 70Park and the Hotel Marlowe) do not. Some properties run a very tight ship with well-trained staff (like the Onyx in Boston) and some need some work (like the Eventi in NY which is still experiencing serious birthing pains). Seems to me that centralizing and “personalizing” things even more than is done with the too vague to matter preferences in my folio would encourage chain loyalty.
Mike responded in a very positive manner and went on to introduce me to the “Queen of Loyalty” Natalie White. Natalie and I have been in touch since, and I developed some detailed feedback for Natalie and Shirley King to use in their forward planning. Natalie and Shirley have both been incredibly open to suggestion and are also genuinely pleased to get it.
Here’s the kicker. Echoes of my feedback resulted in direct contact from the new GM at the Hotel Marlowe, Joe Capalbo, who is looking forward to winning my business back. He sent me a nice note and a completely unnecessary holiday gift. (It worked—I’ll be going back to the Marlowe in early January.) Natalie sent a nice gift as well and a personal note thanking me for my help. It is gratifying enough to have your ideas taken seriously, but a little unexpected gift is nice too.
Natalie and Shirley also helped make my visit to Philly for NYE special. I’m celebrating with my companion of many years and some of our best friends. We checked in to the Palomar in Philly and were warmly welcomed by the entire staff, including Sean Flanigan. When we arrived in our beautiful corner suite we were greeted with a bottle of wine, snacks, and a note.
Without further ado, on to the shower situation. The bathroom in the suite includes a walk in glass shower and a huge tub. Room enough for 6 people in the tub we figure. As usual, the tub remains untouched after a brief stay. One NYE-related glitch to report: when we got up to shower around 11 there was no hot water in our shower or our friends’. I would say this was mostly our fault for staying up too late drinking champagne.
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| A nicely appointed Kimpton sink graces the bathroom as well.
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Our friends did not have a huge bathroom in their portion of the suite, but theirs was nice anyway. We figure they can use our tub if necessary (sadly, no).
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All in all, the Palomar is a great location for NYE in the heart of Philadelphia, close to cool thrift shops (not to mention shoe shops), great restaurants, and top shelf mixology locations. Philadelphia is a great city. Of course, the best part of all from this trip was ringing in the new year with dear friends.
The Palomar would deserve a five showerhead rating if the hot water glitch had not occurred. Great staff, very friendly and responsive. The doormen were having a blast when we got back from dinner shortly after midnight. The property is beautifully put together. Maybe next time we won’t get up so late.
For NYE dinner, we had an excellent meal at Tinto. Excellent tapas featuring wine pairing with squab over duck confit as one of the meals. Yum. Before dinner we stopped in for a drink next door at Village Whiskey where Keith concocted some gorgeous beverages. I called for a Picon Punch:
Prepare a highball with ice
Drizzle 1 teaspoon of Grenadine (make it yourself please) over the ice
Slowly Pour 2.5 oz of Amer Picon (Torani Amer) over the ice
Add 2 oz of sparkling water
Float 1 oz of Brandy on the top
Do not stir or mix. Sip slowly and experience the flavor change as the beverage level drops in your glass.
Let the new year begin: 1/1/11!
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