Eat, Think, Drink
February 26, 2017
The time has come to turn 51. And so celebration ensues—in the city, with friends.
Last minute plan refactoring required use of a federal style rental vehicle. You see, nobody has any kids left at home, and so cars no longer fit six in one go! (Unless you count the one Eli “borrowed” and took to Wisconsin.)
Das Rental Beast
Special last licks at Le Dip while Baker Bob remains in power (a one week reprise before retirement really kicks in).
Amy strikes her best Vanna pose by the bread at Le Diplomate
Larry Kilbourne is a master (and a philosopher to boot)
Fois gras parfait (huckleberry)
Then a play at Studio Theater. The Hard Problem is written by my friend Tom about the philosophy of my friend Dave. The play is very good if you can ignore the god coincidence nonsense.
Stage set at Studio Theatre for The Hard Problem
And then the crowning glory of the evening, drinks at the venerable Columbia Room in the secret booth. Thanks Dante!
Cocktail time!
Woman themed drink menu
Inspired by many of these incredibly great bartenders
Is that you Audrey?
A cocktail inspired by Becky Harris from Catoctin Creek
Yo! Forty Year Old Calvados
Last delicious licks
A perfect evening.
Hotel Monaco in Old Town Alexandria
September 10, 2014
Trouble in paradise this visit which started out about as chunky as possible—no reservation. I always rely on my travel people to get things squared away (thanks edie!) and they are great. This time I let an outside firm work travel. Yes, I did already know not to do that! When I tried to tack a day on to this trip, everything went south fast.
Having arrived in the nick of time to drop stuff off and head to DC for a business dinner, I was confronted with a problem. No reservation and no available rooms in the hotel. While very courteous, the front desk clerk Damien was ultimately not very helpful at all, and he did not escalate to more senior management. My inner circle Kimpton status did not seem to make much difference either. I was in a bind.
Fortunately, Stephan Vogel (GM at the George) had my back and started an email thread to find me a room on DC including the new GM of the DC Palomar Josh Lustig. (FWIW, Josh just took over from Abe Liao.) While they were solving the problem, I finally got a message back from the people who had messed up the reservation in the first place. They convinced the Monaco to give me a room. So that’s good…
But it was room 315, which if I were you I would avoid. It faces the street and is very noisy in the morning starting around 6:30am. It is also a handicap accessible room with a shower over tub design. Not my style.
Of course, not knowing I was staying the night made it hard for the Monaco to do anything to greet me or personalize my stay. Apparently they don’t monitor the twitter feed very closely. If they did, the problem would have been discovered way before my arrival.
I was told that I can get a different (better) room for the second night. Hopefully that is the case.
Room 315
Bathroom in 315
Shower over tub full of handrails. The curtain blows in the wind.
I rushed off to a fantastic business dinner at Le Diplomate (highly recommended, especially the world class bread). Larry secured us a VIP table. After dinner it was off on a bourbon search, first to bourbon (booked for a private event) and then to Jack Rose (also booked for a private event, but by friends as it turned out). Jack Rose has a fantastic bourbon selection that included Pappy 23, Pappy 20, and two varieties (US and Japanese) of Hirsch 16.
Two kinds of Hirsch 16
When I returned to 315 at midnight, I was greeted with a belated welcome note and a shot or two of bourbon (!!) from Pete and Jess, who turned out to be people from the organization hosting the meeting. Somebody is paying attention, but are any Kimpton people paying attention?! For the record I did have to go find a paper in the morning.
Welcome back to 315 after midnight
After a long day of meetings and presentations I returned briefly to the Monaco and switched to room 503. 503 is an excellent room and I appreciate the move, but strangely nobody mentioned the mixup, the bind, the switch. It’s as if “these are not the droids you’re looking for” applies.
There’s nothing to see here. All is well.
Cheese plate and San Pellegrino. So they do know I am here! Awesome. But no note, so “they” remain unknown.
Welcome to 503. Kimpton Karma.
503 suite is sweet
Lots of light and no noise in the living room
The shower in 503 is fantastic. Great water pressure and plenty of glass-defined space. As usual, there is a huge (unused) tub in this room as well.
No plastic shower in 503
More data from Alexandria, the Landini Brothers restaurant has workaday Italian with a weird but decent wine list and food served by Spanish-speaking waiters. The PX Lounge is so full of itself that though they might make a decent cocktail, it is ultimately skippable. The greeter/waitress/busybody calls herself a “den mother” which pretty much says it all. If you’re not a cub scout, ignore the reviews by foodies with no cocktail clue (sietsema) and go somewhere else. Yes, PX some of us know more about mixing drinks than you do.
Hotel Monaco is a great place to stay. Some more attention to personal service seems to be warranted. A low four showerheads for this visit. I’m sure I will be back and I will make sure to make my own reservation!
They Said There Would be Cupcakes: Palomar Washington DC
February 15, 2014
First things first. We left this:
Snow, dogs, cats, and the chicken palace
For this:
No snow, no dogs, no cats, and no chicken palace
So that was good.
Getting in to DC was going swimmingly until Pennsylvania Avenue was blocked by police just at the wrong time (Whitehurst Freeway doom). Must be a White House thing going on. That debacle cost us 30 minutes and an excruciating crawl through Georgetown. Traffic thereby ate most of the allocated Phillips time.
A quick dash through the Phillips. Bees and Picasso.
Picasso
Beekeeper in the bee room
Then time for a tea at Soho Cafe just across the street from the DC Palomar. (The Soho is a great find, way better than the Starbucks next door.) There was even time for the tail end of a particularly crowded Kimpton wine hour. 30-year-olds everywhere.
Checkin was chaotic. I do believe the Palomar is full to the gills for the dregs of Valentines Day. At checkin, the computer had a hell of a time time finding us, mostly since newly minted GM Abe Liao had plussed us up to avoid plastic shower despair. Thanks Abe! You rock. (Steph Vogel has moved on to become GM of George. Time for a visit to the George it seems!)
Because of Abe, we’re back in the Presidential Suite at the DC Palomar. Sweet.
But due to a massive shortage of cheese, the amenity we were told about at checkin (as Kristen spoofed Abe to deliver a “personal” message) was not in the room when we walked in. Eventually it arrived, cheese included, and all was well with the universe. Great hotel on valentines weekend? Chaos! Chaos I say!
Chaos tilted our way. Cheese, sparkling water, and cupcakes. Awesome.
The cheese did it
Plus the Presidential Suite?! Yay. You should know that we’re here reaping the benefit of staying many nights at various Kimptons all over creation. The Kimpton InTouch program free night thing? Superb. No other hotel chain does it like this. And an quadruple upgrade to boot. As predicted, Kimpton is rocking our little world.
The no-amenity-yet table in 1024. (Yes, 1024.)
NY bag by the bed.
This shower is NOT plastic. Glass cube goodness.
Dinner tonight was arranged by Larry Kilbourne aka “baker Bob,” executive baker at Le Diplomate. So fun to have friends who include the best baker in North America.
Bread and oysters: le diplomate.
Le Diplomate is excellent. And Baker Bob’s bread is truly out of this world. The only thing we took home in a “doggy bag” was some slices of the gorgeous walnut/cranberry bread.
BTW, their bar is top notch too, though way overcrowded.
A negroni and a tete a tete: le diplomate
Let there be cupcakes!
Cupcakes from Jerry Chou
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