Hotel Zelos, Dirty Habit, and the Ghost of Kimpton Past in San Francisco
December 18, 2022
Oh the Kimpton of yore, how we miss it. After the IGH acquisition, the properties have gone completely corporate. No brand left at all. No personality. No staff that loves their jobs. So sad. Our last two Kimpton attempts in NY sucked (see https://noplasticshowers.com/2022/10/17/quick-hit-in-nyc-hotel-indigo-is-very-corporate/ and https://noplasticshowers.com/2022/05/08/back-in-new-york-the-muse-hotel-ihg/).
But the good news is that some of the properties have the old magic. Like the Zelos in San Francisco that used to be the Palomar. This was once one of our favorite hotels. And maybe it will be again.
We remember fondly talking to Mike Defrino about adding good bars to the properties (using Bourbon and Branch as one of the examples of what people will pay for a cocktail). Jacques Bezuidenhout was hired, and Dirty Habit was born under the direction of Brian Means.
We remember the battle of the Palomars.
At what os now the Zelos, we were assigned 712 (which is a nicely renovated version of a room we’ve stayed in back in the Palomar days). Great room.
In fact, enough space to conduct a zoom meeting with multiple attendees in the same room. (Don’t ask.)
The bathroom could be bigger. But it works. The shower is over a tub, but the nice glass doors make it all OK.
Though we arrived late, there was time for a slightly adjusted Boulevardier before bed.
And then a Cloudbreak (from Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Philly). This is still a magical cocktail. Make one!
Though it arrived late, a welcome note did arrive (along with a nice bottle of wine that I gave to madou since I was not checking my bag. Thanks for that Ben!
This is not your usual hotel art. Love it.
Breakfast at Cafe de la Presse is always recommended. At the Chinatown gate.
And for fun? How about Wildhawk, followed by ABV, followed by the Good Good Culture Club all with a bunch of great friends? Yes please.
So, a Negroni or a Breakfast Negroni?? Jacques, which should it be?
Maybe Suzu (who has become quite famous, aparently) knows.
While at ABV, tequila (or mezcal).
Thee guys…
Good Good was very good. What a treat to be in San Francisco for 32 seconds! Merry Christmas all.
Five showerheads and a big thumbs up for the hotel zelos. Looking forward to returning.
Do you speak English? Do you fancy (or maybe, like, if you are American, “like”) sitting by the pool when it is 100 Fahrenheit degrees outside? Are you a hipster, or maybe hipster inclined? Perhaps hipster curious? Then this is the place for you!
The fact that this place had rebranded itself to CoolRooms Palacio de Atocha from what was most likely Palacio de Atocha before says a bunch. In English.
The pool rocks. Just come for the pool.
We’re having a grand old time by the pool.
Our room is 40. Maybe it is a “junior suite” or some such. The room is built into the top floor attic. It’s pretty hot in Madrid still, and the A/C is having some issues trying to keep up. It does OK if you close all the windows, shut your eyes, and try to be invisible.
The room is nice. Hipsters dig it. There are USB ports in random locations. There is a bluetooth doohicky for music. Right angles are rare. There are two copies of everything but the toilet and the makeup station in the bathroom.
Two copies! Romey can take a cold shower while I take a hot one. Simultaneously.
There is a note from the GM with some yummy items. This is so hipster that NPS felt instantly at home (but add an email address so we can ping you Señor GM).
We’re just swinging back out of Spain tomorrow and still moving slowly. So time by the pool with too many Negronis is just what the Doctor ordered. Doctor Feelgood, is that you?
Oh it IS doctor feelgood. Yay!
Before we got here there was no graffiti in the furniture pile. We fixed that.
…do dee do deeee do…
Dinner at Los Porfiados was very good indeed. Fernet and Coke for the win. We were the only English speakers in the place. And, frankly, we should have spoken Italian.
Do you know how to make a fernet and coke? There is THE WAITERS WAY (which is wrong) and there is the way they do it in BA. Do it the BA way.
We will deface your napkin. A cute hack.
Honestly, the empanadas here are the best I have ever had anywhere. Just wow. The veal was good too.
On our last day in Madrid, we bought some stuff and we had some drinks by the pool. It was perfect.
Vermut and jewelry pic.twitter.com/UnOMYv8y6Z
— noplasticshower (@noplasticshower) July 28, 2022
Five showerheads and an upgrade to Spanish plus some more powerful A/C units for the CoolRooms BestRooms YouAreNotWorthyOfTheRooms Palacio do Atocha.
Pestana Plaza Mayor: An Unexpected Refuge
July 22, 2022
We came to Spain for an in person meeting—our first encounter as a group since COVID struck the planet. High bandwidth. Full of energy. Intense and productive.
The meeting was organized by the best of professionals who discovered an excellent location in the Pestana Plaza Mayor, a refuge in the heart of the tourist zone which manages to avoid most (but not all) of the Disneyfication of Plaza Mayor. The location really couldn’t be better for first timers to Madrid.
The Pestana is squarely in four star category, like right smack in the middle. This kind of hotel is perfectly suited for its demographic.
Our arrival process in Madrid was definitely a let down after all the rumors of long lines at customs, COVID QR codes, and lost luggage. The QR code that took so much effort to secure was not even glanced at in the blue lane. Our plane was first in. Customs took less than 2 minutes. Our luggage arrived within 5 minutes, barely enough time to get our bearings.
About the only challenge at arrival was the absolutely cocaine-addled Serbian taxi driver who insisted on aggressively hauling ass through Madrid, unceremoniously dropping us off at the wrong corner past the hotel and insisting on being paid cash. Anyway, we made it in quick.
So quick, in fact, that we were way way way too early to check in. We were offered a shower in the (common) spa area. Which was OK if you don’t mind other people stopping by while you are in your underwear. The spa was very hot and not properly cleaned and cared for, but the showers work. Management could do with a better solution to offer early arrivals a more civilized welcome. FWIW, this problem happens all over the world.
Somewhat freshened, we crossed paths with a colleague just in from Chicago and sought out some espresso and juice for breakfast.
The irony of having an intensely good tiny espresso and some fresh squeezed orange juice just next door to a generic Starbucks was not lost on us.
We stopped in at the Mercado San Miguel for some tourist-priced street food and made our way through old Madrid. Finally it was time to check in.
We were assigned room 117, a superior room in a classic hamster cage design (nothing like a rectangle with some strategic mirrors). This room is too tight to spend a week in (more about that to come), but it is fine for a day or three.
The superior category rating comes from the balcony which overlooks Plaza Mayor. All of that seems awesome until the fourth or fifth night of listening to the hack “musicians” loop through Hit the Road Jack or the Disney princess medley accompanied by a Casio soundtrack on accordion. Someone should invent a pandemic that wipes out the accordion players in one fell swoop. The most amusing part of the street music problem is the cat and mouse game they play with the police.
The view from the balcony is excellent. It is hot as the Dickens in Madrid this week, with temperatures above 101 Farenheit every day. The breeze through the balcony door is hot. The A/C in our room is almost up to the task. Almost.
The shower in 117 is fantastic. Glass. Lots of hot water. Plenty of room to get clean. 100% NPS approved.
Lunch with the team from the company we’re advising was incredible at Sa Brisa Restaurante en El Retiro. We started at 2:30 and finished at 5. Very Spanish of us!
The rooftop pool at the Pestana is a long skinny rectangle maybe a lane and a half wide. It is unlikely that the Madrid summer olympics will be held here anytime in the future. But the water is refreshing and the beer is, well, beer (don’t tell Markus).
After this excellent start, a major setback in our trip happened on day one. After receiving an email from NH about a positive COVID test among the people I was on stage performing with, I decided to test myself in the morning even though I was pretty much asymptomatic. One positive test result later, it was isolation time and worry for my partner who was also well exposed by that time.
We are still in isolation and recovery mode. By now I am almost fully recovered and plan to retest tomorrow. My partner is still in the heart of it (though she has never tested positive we are treating her as if she did).
Anyway, the pretty much constant view became this as the table was shifted over to the balcony door for a day long zoom meeting. AUGH! Honestly, I know we are all done with zoom by now, but imagine being fully prepared to chair an in person meeting full of great people from all over the world and then being relegated to zoom less than 200 yards away from the actual meeting.
Lets just say we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time trapped in 117, venturing out to walk the city in the evening once or twice, remaining masked and socially distanced. Eating room service food, take away pizza, and breakfasts fetched by whichever one of us was the most healthy. Masking even in our room together.
The hotel has been a very good base of operations, the staff accommodating to the highest degree (we are being very careful and mindful of them), and the interstitial time long and full of nothing. We even streamed 21 grams one night.
Speaking of which, the room TV/Internet tech all needs to be replaced here. It is old and it does not work with modern gear. Good luck making it stream anything.
We are existing on Spanish time, getting up late, lunching well into the 4pm hour, and eating after 10pm. Can’t wait until we can do that with other humans.
A special breakfast salad brought up for consumption.
A socially distanced Negroni. This plaza (Plaza de Santa Ana) was filled with packed restaurants at 9:30pm. We asked for a table far from everyone, and had our first proper Negroni of the trip. We were hoping that would cure us.
That night it was ice cream and potato chips for dinner.
Incidentally, our room is on the first floor above the plaza the bottom right of the lighted doorway square.
Great take out pizza can be found at Pizzamascalzone.
Have an Aperol Spritz…if you can find one.
Be a human.
Walk madrid.
Finally, a word about the common areas of the hotel. The grand stairway leading to the Plaza Mayor (and to the breakfast room).
Breakfast is excellent. Having it in the breakfast room and hotel restaurant would be nice. But so far, no dice. Fortunately there is Paula. Paula helped arrange for special treatment for my partner during a number of breakfasts this week. She was the most helpful and friendly person we encountered. Be like Paula.
We did finally venture out (carefully, slowly, and fully masked) to do some shopping at Paloma del Pozo and to see some art at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. See our blog entry here.
And we greatly enjoyed an in house Aperol Spritz conjured up by Paula. (See Aaron? We fiigured it all out.)
There is obviously much more of Madrid to see. Until our next visit!
All told, four showerheads and escape from the global pandemic woes for the Pestana Plaza Mayor. Can’t wait to experience Madrid properly.
There was that pandemic thing that put a kibosh on business travel. Some hotels and hotel chains (looking at you Kimpton) slumped, starting with their customer experience department. I mean, no customers so no customer service? Or something wrong like that. Others rose to the occasion. The Umstead Hotel in Cary, NC rose to the occasion. Well done Umstead!
First off, the hotel remembered that we have stayed on their property before. They left a note. They provided an excellent room. The only problem was not a problem at all…that was that arrival was rushed due to late aircraft arrival and there was no time to appreciate the calm ritual of the umstead. In the end, it all worked out.
After delivering a 6:30pm lecture, it was back to the Umstead and its world class restaurant, Herons, for dinner. Just wow. Excellent food. Impeccable service. Great company. Dinner could not have been better executed.
The Prix Fixe dinner menu is world class, and fun too. Elk, caviar, fois gras, and a cheese desert that was a blast.
Then it was up to 512 (a garden view balcony room) for some sleep on birthday eve.
NPS was greeted with presents hidden away in our luggage. Yay! Birthday. (NPS is 38 for those of you wondering.)
What else is there to do around Cary on your birthday? Well there is Krispy Kreme.
And a visit to the NCSU lab.
A little too secure if you don’t have an ID card.
Then a VERY early dinner with Michael Rappa, who once again is always right about restaurant choice. Stanbury is fantastic.
After dinner it was back to Cary for a nightcap at Mayton Inn‘s bar. Fernet was available. The waitress was a newb.
Birthday fernet shot with a server in three pictures (her first) pic.twitter.com/rRhkMv1ySU
— noplasticshower (@noplasticshower) February 26, 2022
All in all, a great celebratory day with three renditions of the happy birthday song…all terrible.
A walk in the park was in order before flying back home. Umstead State Park is built around an old Mill complex. A nice warm day for a walk.
Hurray for a visit with bright young grad students!
Five showerheads and a fervent wish for an early return (or maybe often…or maybe both).
Last Licks in Tokyo
November 30, 2019
One more day in Tokyo before flying home. NPS is back in the very same room at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo with the progeny for another night. After taking the Shinkansen back from Kyoto it was time for sushi with Rio.
Lots of sushi pictures and videos on apothecaryshed.
Then it was off to “the local” for a pre-game negroni (that is, the Tippler’s Arms).

The Tippler’s Arms will make you a cocktail
Then a local train to Kitazaswa to see the Dead Bambis. First a fuel stop before the show.
The Dead Bambis are very loud and very good. (Earplugs are a necessity at these shows!). See more pictures and videos of the show on apothecaryshed.
Then a visit to a new bar in Shinjuku bound to become a classic—Jeremiah. We met the owner K in Kyoto at Bees Knees and he told us about his new project in Tokyo. K then met us in Tokyo. Awesome.
Blue blazers, corpse revivers, extra fun shots. Just go!
Finally it was across the street to the LGBTQ neighborhood Hanazono Nishi for some people watching and dog patting.
Short, but fun last day in Tokyo!
A Jaunt Through Wilmington: Courtyard by Marriott (not so much)
November 12, 2019

New shiny bits for the Stick
A quick but essential trip down to Wilmington to upgrade the Stick internet to fiber. Hopefully NPS will be spending more time here in 2020.

The Stick in November

Atlantic facing south
Sadly the best bet for staying in Wilmington is the Courtyard by Marriott. I know. Downtown. It is new, but somehow dated and frivolous at the same time. We were assigned hamster cage 317 (see the red dot).

Dot r you.

generic

generic

generic
Plastic with a glass door?! It’s the new plastic.

Looks OK from here

Molded plastic for all
Dinner and a Negroni at Caprice Bistrot was quite good. Best yet in Wilmington.
Two showerheads and a yawn for the Courtyard Marriott in Wilmington. We’re glad it’s here. We think.
R2 Wine Luncheon Number 5
October 12, 2019
As always, the wine luncheon in LA was excellent. Great food, great company, and great wine. Our host Donnie did it again.
We dined at Lucques, and though we did not have a private room, we were well cared for and had plenty of room.
Donnie and I arrived in time for a cocktail before lunch got rolling.

House made Negroni at Lucques

Negroni components
The house made Negroni was, um, interesting. Infused vodka?! Overly sweet home made Campari. Sweet vermouth that was pretty sweet.

R2 menu
The food was excellent. Sadly, no pictures were snapped. The wine was plentiful as always.

The wine supply

Wine

Wine
As it turned out, a number of small French wineries were in the house looking for US distributors. After lunch, we joined them for a taste.

Vive la France
After an excellent Indian dinner, we decamped to Edison for a night cap. Good times.

Greenpoint
Grande Colonial Inn La Jolla Gets a Facelift
May 15, 2019
What a difference a year makes. Last year the Grande Colonial seemed a bit tired and long in the tooth. It has had a facelift.

View from 102
Though the architecture of the building has not changed, the room layout is much cleaner and more spacious. Even the long skinny bathroom (which remains long and skinny) is better.

Looking in the long skinny bathroom. Hey, the shower is not plastic!
This trend to delete bath tubs and replace them with modern shower spaces is a great trend. Much better use of space, and much more reasonable approach to morning cleanliness.

The best part of this design is that the controls are situated logically. No reason to get wet while you turn on the shower.
The rest of the room has been opened up, repainted, and re-imagined. Nice work.

102 bed

Seating area 102

Look how comfortable

Sadly, the parking lot has not been deleted. The ocean is over there somewhere.
Dinner at Catania was very good for a restaurant group property. Modern italian with a negroni to boot. Recommended.
Sadly, the bar at Nine Ten (which is a very good restaurant in the hotel) is still sub-par. Gotta hire some hipsters who know what they are doing. The current bar suits the old, monied, and boring demographic of the hotel. Nuff said.
George’s at the Cove, a La Jolla establishment of many years still deserving its reputation, still has the best cocktail program in town.
Joree Weatherly was a top notch barman who served us this cocktail. It has a name, but Joree did not write it down on the recipe I asked for. Lets just call it Trentino Tincture. Actually, it turns out to be named Shiso Piney
1.5 Amaro Junipero gin
.5 Pasubio amaro (from Trentino where I spent a year in 1993)
1 lemon
.75 shiso syrup
2 dashes of pine tincture
top with soda. serve on rocks in a collins glass.
When we returned the next night with a cast of hundreds, Joree made use these great cocktails:
Mezcal Manhattan
1.5 Mezcal
.75 montenegro
.75 Averna
2 dashes mexican spiced bitters
Stir down, serve on a large cube
Negroni Amarillo
1.5 Mezcal
1 pamplemousse
1 suze
2 dashes sage tincture
Stir down, serve up with sage leaf
United upgraded us on the way out. Lets hope that works for the way back too. Global services rock on! Um, nope. No upgrade, and we’re here to tell you, economy sucks!
NPS is impressed. Nice work updating the property! Four showerheads for the Grande Colonial.
Amigo Hotel in Brussels: Elegant But Old School Luxury
February 7, 2019
Located in the heart of Brussels, very close indeed to the Grand Place, the Amigo Hotel is nicely tucked into an old school building. This is a formidable hotel where the demographic is not the hip and young but rather the old and moneyed.
The staff at the front desk is old school too, a bit stuffy and with varying levels of obsequiousness that don’t quite ring true. This is not your California front desk staff of happy kids. OK then.
Overnight, the staff swap led to some people who knew how to relax a notch, and that was nice.
The lobby is beige and marble. Come to think of it, there is lots of beige here in this room as well. I think the olds like beige.
We were upgraded from an expensive junior suite to an even more expensive classic suite. They did email and attempt to upsell the bigger suite, and we just responded that a complementary upgrade would be great. That seems to have worked. So thanks for the free upgrade!
We were assigned suite 237. This looks like the example room from this suite category. Plenty of room to hang out, a great bathroom, etc. “Pretty not bad” as my friend Sammy would say.

237 couch and desk room

The desk has a bluetooth speaker (bonus points)
The extra touches make all of the difference. Like a bluetooth speaker that you can pair a streaming phone with, and water by the bedside that is free (as it should be), and hangers that are real and solid.

Bedroom (mostly bed)

Through the French doors

Of course you should always get water (sparkling)
The room overlooks a classic Brussels street and into a set of offices.

Example view
The hall has lots of closet space, but it is not very well designed.

Closets could use some modernization
The bathroom is palatial. And there is a separate glass shower. “One of the better showers ever,” says ms NPS. Lots of marble.

Bathtub, toilet and bidet

Chair in the bathroom

Sink

Glass shower cube
The art is very nice and Tin Tin oriented.
An amenity with a personal note arrived while we were orienting. Belgian chocolates. Of course.

Amenity.
The bar downstairs is very good, with professional and knowledgeable bartenders who make a mean Negroni with Napue gin (from Helsinki).

A proper Negroni (up)

Napue gin from Helsinki

Local Belgian gins

Look who else has been here
Dinner at Comme Chez Soi was, like the hotel, on the old school side. Excellent food, especially if you like cream, butter, butter, and some caviar. Very heavy but outstanding. Plan to be full for two days.

Some Pomerol

Sauce! There is a cod under there somewhere.

Incredible tartine

Chocolates, because Belgium

With extra dipping sauce (lol)
The walk home helped to make up for the butter and the butter and the sauce and the cream. Kinda.

When in Brussels
Breakfast included a Belgian waffle (this was a mandatory item before we would be allowed to leave the country).
Bottom line: the Amigo is a five showerhead location, but is a bit old school for NPS. So four showerheads and an appointment to update the decor a notch for the Amigo. I imagine we will be back.