My wife, brother and I headed down to the northern part of Ft Lauderdale last weekend for a comic book convention I was attending. Since we know little about the area and had free Wi-Fi at the hotel we were staying at, we poked around Google to find a half-way decent place to find dinner. We were surprised to find that Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine, the Cuban restaurant we so frequented in our youth (my brother and I were born and raised in Hollywood, FL, south of Ft. Lauderdale) had an outpost a few miles nearby on Oakland Park Blvd.
We walked into the restaurant pretty late (the convention exhibition hall closed around 8 at night), and were greeted by a near empty restaurant. Normally in that situation my wife and I would tuck tail and run, because usually an empty restaurant means a crappy restaurant. But since we had prior experience with it’s sister restaurant near our old house, and since there was a brand spanking new Bentley parked out front we approached the host stand expecting a decent meal.
The restaurant itself was nicely furnished, nothing too amazing, with roughly 20 tables. The tables themselves were sort of diner style, with the “Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine” logo prominently lacquered to each table top. After seating, we were quickly approached by a waitress who eerily reminded me of my mother. We ordered drinks and a couple appetizers and while patiently waiting for our drinks we perused the menu.
Continue reading ‘There should be a Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine in every town’
After years of stagnation, two nearby Indiana hotels, French Lick Springs Hotel and West Baden Springs Hotel who were the grand belles in the 1920’s, are undergoing a $382 million renovation to restore their former glory.
At its zenith, the hotel was such an architectural marvel, and so exclusive, that tour guides from the Indiana Historical Society say it commanded twice the nightly rate of the Waldorf-Astoria. The cream of Victorian society came for the healing properties of its mineral springs—and stayed for the illegal gambling that was an open secret in the town—until the Great Depression put an end to the good times. By the 1990s, the former wonder had become an abandoned shell mired in red tape.
Amazing space [Chicago Tribune]
The first major chocolate show on the West Coast in two decades takes place this summer at the San Francisco International CHOCOLATE SALON on Bastille Day Weekend, July 14 and 15, 2007 at the Fort Mason Conference Center in San Francisco. Chocolate aficionados, fanatics, buyers and journalists can experience the finest in artisan, gourmet & premium chocolate in one of the world’s great culinary metropolitan areas.Salon highlights feature chocolate tasting, demonstrations, chef & author talks, wine pairings, chocolate painting, a chocolate spa and makeovers, and ongoing interviews by TasteTV’s Chocolate Television program. The Salon will also include an evening charity fund-raiser featuring a Chocolate Fashion Show.
For some reason when I saw the words “Chocolate Television”, the image of Mike Teevee getting zapped by Willy Wonka’s ray that would send chocolate by television popped into my head.
San Francisco chocolate fest [LA Times]
A jaw-droppingly grand spa in the heart of the lavender-scented Provencal countryside, a 45-minute drive from Nice airport. It’s the new addition to the all-suite resort with its two championship golf courses and stunning infinity pool with views of medieval hilltop towns. Expect the characteristic Four Seasons double whammy of superb service and top of the range kit, presented in such a friendly, unsnooty way that even spa virgins wouldn’t feel intimidated. But what it also delivers are those very modern luxuries – space and calm.The Spa Discovery Package starts from euros 695 (£473) per night b&b in a suite, plus a 55 minute treatment per day, based on two sharing. Spa day packages start at euros 295 (£201) including 165 minutes of treatments.
For those of you not up on your currency conversions that comes in at around $935 American per night. But of course if you’re the type who’s used to staying at the Four Seasons that really doesn’t matter.
The Four Seasons Spa, Provence [Times Online]
(Link courtesy of Luxist)
Boyd Gaming officially began construction of it’s $4.8 billion Echelon resort project, taking up the spot where the recently imploded Stardust stood. The project will contain 5 hotels surrounding a vast entertainment and casino complex.
Echelon’s five hotels will all have separate entrances and lobbies. But the entire development, including the 140,000-square-foot casino, the meeting space and retail promenade, will be interconnected. A guest, conceivably, could walk the entire facility without ever venturing outside.
“The idea was to create different experiences and environments for the guest,” said Echelon President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Boughner, who is overseeing the project. Boughner, a longtime Boyd Gaming executive, headed construction and development of Borgata before heading back to Las Vegas last year.
STRIP DEVELOPMENT: Echelon gets off to cool start [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
(Title quote from the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem.)
A new hotel near Lake Tahoe promises a mix of adventure and relaxation in the middle of the Sierra Nevadas, all with green building standards in mind. (And its dog friendly!)
The Cedar House Sport Hotel is a new hotel in Truckee, California near Lake Tahoe. The hotel has 42 room and suites and has a green roof and was built with green materials. The interior design is both sleek and contemporary and warm with steel beams, massive cedar logs, rusting corrugated steel, cedar siding, and concrete floors.
Cedar House Sport Hotel [Luxist]
“Hotels are trending toward having more suites,” says Bjorn Hanson, a principal in the Hospitality and Leisure Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “The economy is strong, corporate travel budgets aren’t in a period of restriction, and it adds more sexiness to a hotel to have an extravagant room.”
From a 9,000 square foot two story suite in The Palms that includes access to a cantilevered Jacuzzi with clear views of the Strip, a butler, poker table, private gym and media room (for a mere $25,000 a night!) to a $13,000 a night Royal Suite in the Burj Al Arab, hotels love adding the glamour. And the funny thing, is that most of these expensive suites are usually complementary, but they aren’t given to regular schmoes. Usually those on the receiving end of those free suites are dignitaties, stars, and the most important, folks who plan on spending a ton of money at the hotel they’re staying at (casinos most times).
Sweet suites - world’s ritziest rooms [MSNBC]
As I grew older, I began to tire of those packed, loud bars me and my friends would hit up late at night. Who hasn’t had this happen to them: fight for the bartender at a bar, order drinks (which is normally way too expensive for the experience), and have to truck back to the hidden alcove where the rest of your group has gathered to enjoy the drinks? Then you have to lather, rinse and repeat.
No I’ve learned to enjoy nice quiet hotel bars, not ghost towns mind you, but places where you can sit down and truly enjoy that $15 martini that goes down way too quickly. The Ritz Carlton Laguna Nigel just opened ENO, which is described at ENO’s official website as “a luxurious alternative to traditional Southern California wine clubs and bars”.
Long after “ritzy” became a synonym for luxury, the hotel chain that inspired the word has come up with a new idea of indulgence. Wine, cheese and chocolate come together on one menu in Eno, a new 36-seat tasting bar just off the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Nigel.
Ritz-Carlton’s Eno serves up indulgence [LA Times]
Vegas has gone back to its beginnings. Not the Bugsy Siegel ones, but the Stone Age ones.On June 8, the city opened the most unlikely of attractions: the Las Vegas Springs Preserve.
The 180-acre tract about four miles northwest of the Strip marks the spot where a natural spring helped give the city its name (”the meadows,” in Spanish). Though the spring all but dried up half a century ago, it’s now the heart of a new non-gaming attraction that aspires to be the Central Park of Las Vegas.
I’m going to be heading over to Vegas in November and me and the wife love hitting new places in Vegas. This should be a great place to check out away from all the hustle of the strip.
Moscow welcomes a brand new $350 million dollar Ritz-Carlton, opening July 1st. The hotel will offer a $700 per person breakfast on the menu of it’s restaurant Jeroboam (will you also be able to order the breakfast through room service?).
The hotel includes Jeroboam the restaurant of three star Michelin chef Heinz Winkler. A separate wine room, Petrus, will be available for small groups to choose from the expansive wine and rare spirits collection such as a shot of Macallan Fine and Rare Collection vintage 1969 whisky for $400. The restaurant will serve the Tsar’s Breakfast which costs $700 per person and includes a bottle of Crystal champagne, an omelet with Kobe beef steak, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and truffles, foie gras with caramelized apple and pain brioche, 56 grams of Beluga caviar with blinis, sour cream and quail eggs and more.
Moscow’s Luxurious Ritz-Carlton Offers $700 Breakfast [Luxist]
Interesting article on the history of Wynn (prior and new hotels) design philosophy, as well as a breakdown of the opulence of the Wynn’s (hotel) Villas.
“I never looked at the price tag of anything when I was designing the villas,” maintains Thomas. “We looked at it in terms of what was going to make the experience more phenomenal. If we can make our guests feel a heightened sense of romance and drama and comfort, along with every convenience within fingertip reach, that’s what it’s all about.” God is in the details. Barrel vaulted, domed and coffered ceilings, for instance, that are 12 feet high—“like the great private spaces in Paris or Rome.” Floors that are clad in handpicked onyx and handwoven carpets. Walls upholstered in hand-embroidered fabric. Showers with heated mirrors set in slabs of marble, closets lined in macassar ebony and silk. The touch of a button summons the butler, adjusts the room temperature (or lighting), closes the draperies, activates the spa jets or makes the flat screen TV pop up in the bar or at the foot of the bed.
Villas at Wynn Las Vegas with Roger Thomas [Architectural Digest]
(Link courtesy of Two Way Hard Three)
The largest casino downtown, along with a sister Golden Nugget in Laughlin, is managing to turn a profit for its corporate owners.
In a limited statement to investors Thursday, Houston-based Landry’s, the Golden Nugget’s corporate parent, reported the casinos made $21 million in profit in the first quarter of 2007 that ended March 31, compared to $16.3 million in the same period last year. Revenue was $70.7 million, up from $63.4 million in the first quarter of 2006.
I’ve only visited the Fremont (Downtown/old Vegas) area once in our many trips to Vegas. It’s area is filled with fried oreos, $0.50 roulette, lots of overhead blinking lights and all the touristy crap you would imagine, so it’s great to hear that one of the older Vegas casinos is doing so well.
A glimmer of gold for downtown [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
After nearly 10 years and $70 million dollars in upgrades and renovations Disneyland’s Submarines is reincarnated as the “Finding Nemo: Submarine Voyage”. The submarines for us folks in Orlando, gets paved over and replaced with a Winnie the Pooh play land, whereas the Anaheim folks gets new subs and a new storyline. Oh well…
Reinvented as the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, the long-dormant and eagerly awaited attraction immerses riders in a 12-minute journey through a coral reef, exploding volcano and shark-infested wreck as they search for Nemo, the orange-and-white clown fish of movie fame. With the impressive animation and spotlessly reconditioned bright-yellow submersibles, park-goers might just forget that the area of the theme park containing the ride — which Walt Disney himself helped conceive — was nearly paved over.
Here’s some in ride video someone posted on Youtube - Part 1 Part 2
Disneyland subs resurface [Orlando Sentinel]
Opened in November, Caesars Palace’s Qua Baths and Spa has treatments for all your ailments, including if you so desire, a room where it snows year round.
Qua’s ice room, the only one of its kind in the United States, comes from the millennia-old European bathing tradition of using snow to cleanse the body, said Don Genders, a partner of Eurospa Technologies LLC, the room’s creator. Ice is available in the room for those who want to rub it on steaming skin.
I guess the idea is going from a hot sauna to a cold room is invigorating, and might also provide “healthful” benefits. I like to “spa” as much as the next person, but the idea of standing in my skivvies while being snowed on isn’t all that appealing to me.
Year-round snow in Las Vegas? [MSNBC]
The godfather of boutique hotels, Ian Schrager and Marriott announced a deal last Thursday of the creation of a new hotel brand in the ilk of Schrager’s other boutique hotels. The first of five hotels will begin this year, with the deal calling for the building of ninety five other hotels worldwide. Sadly the announcement brings to the world another group of hotels I’d love to stay at, but are out of my price range and way too hip for me.
Marriott teams up to launch boutique brand [mad.co.uk]
Rumor is that the narration on the popular Animal Kingdom ride has been changed slightly to remove bits from the fictional warden and British doctor’s chatter. Now it seems the “drivers” will be allowed to flex their acting muscle a bit more. Which personally I don’t mind, I always thought the “plot” for the Kilimanjaro Safari’s weren’t really needed. We’re driving around looking at animals for god sake, why do we need a faux adventure/rescue plot?
Disney safari tale alters a tad [Orlando Sentinel]
Todd English (of Olives fame) and Eva Longoria (of banging Tony Parker fame) has announced (is it really an announcement when the non-chef part of the celebrity restaurant tells Martha Stewart about it?) a Tex-Mex restaurant to be opened in Hollywood, California. I truly wish there was more to this “announcement” but that’s all we’ve got.
BREAKING: Eva Longoria and Todd English Together! [Eater LA]
If your one of those campers that hate the peskiness of having no electricity while spending your springtime tucked into the gorgeousness of Yosemite, then the folks at Eureka have a tent for you.
The 3 tents they are offering (with the Eureka Power Pack - sold separately) includes 3 12 volt power outlets for all your energy consumption needs. The Power Pack should have enough power to drive my fridge, oven, and computer right?
A Tent with Power Outlets to Keep Your Gadgets Going [Luxist]
The Seminole controlled Hard Rock in Tampa, Florida has announced a $120-million expansion to include a larger gaming floor, VIP area, steak house and a parking garage.
…the expansion isn’t just about more space for cars, people and video bingo games. The casino needs new amenities to compete with high-end restaurants and other entertainment options, says Fontana.
Steak knives used by celebrity guests will hang on the walls of the Council Oak Steaks & Seafood Restaurant. Through windows, customers will view the butcher shop and chefs in the kitchen.
A new floor above the casino will include a VIP lounge, a living room setting for Hard Rock’s biggest gamblers. The chef will prepare menu selections or take special requests.
A 390-seat buffet-style restaurant on the same level will feature cooks at free-standing stations preparing baked goods, sushi and Mongolian barbecue.
The casino’s centerpiece will be a $2-million Plexiglas “WonderWall” illuminated with music videos and images from eight projectors.
The Seminole Hard Rock undergoes a $120-million expansion. [St. Petersburg Times]
