hotels – Page 6 – thosecoolkims

Orbiting In to Palm Springs!

It’s pretty much an accepted fact that Palm Springs is now our annual retreat. This is now our third time here in four years, and we intend to keep comin’ back. We have literally just arrived at The Hideaway, a sister property of the Orbit In. Like the last two places we stayed at, it’s Mid-Century Modern loveliness.

This place is perfect for what we plan to do this trip – which is just chill out! The last two times at Palm Springs were spent doing a lot of architecture touring and checking out the vintage furniture shops and galleries, but this time our goal is to just CHILL. Carrie’s been super busy at work, and though Ed’s new job is about half as stressful as the last, he literally had no break between jobs…he ended his old job on Wednesday and started the new one on Thursday.

So this place is perfect for unwinding….there’s a pool, a firepit, and bikes. Each room has a different theme – ours is the Breuer Studio, and fittingly there are two Wassily chairs in here (just like at home!). Pretty sweet authentic mid-century modern furnishings in here.

Valentine’s Day and Carrie’s birthday are why we’re here, but we never actually need a reason to be here. :)

So we’ll keep you all updated, but till then, HI from Palm Springs! We’re goin’ to the pool!

Miami in Food

Miami sure did not disappoint when it came to food either. We we lucky enough to catch some really great restaurants while we were there, and we definitely enjoyed all of the dining experiences! This time around, we hit up some real fancy stuff, but as they say – When in Rome, do as the Romans do. After all, Miami is one of the most hedonistic places we’ve ever been to…unlike Southern California where many people are low key about how much they’ve got, in Miami they flaunt it loud and proud and make no apologies.

First stop was the Blue Door at The Delano Hotel. Going to this restaurant really piqued our interest because The Delano Hotel was designed by Phillippe Starck (we’re both big fans). When we visted another Starck-designed hotel, The Clift, when we were in San Francisco last May, we were thouroughly impressed, so we had to see what The Delano was all about. It turns out Madonna used to own the restaurant until recently – which totally made sense when we saw how glamorous the joint was. Anyway, we both agreed that the atmosphere was a 10, the presentation of the food was real fancy and deserved at least an 8, but overall, it was a little over the top, even for us foodies. We were glad we went, but we enjoyed seeing the hotel more than our meal.

Fancy dining room details.

Pretty appetizer. In laymen’s terms: Crab, Guacamole, something spicy, with a shrimp on top.

Because the hotel is so amazing, and we wanted to gush over Phillippe Starck, here are some pro pics we grabbed from the website, as our pics didn’t do the place justice!

Lobby.

Restaurant.

The next day, we had to bring it back down to earth and enjoy the fine Cuban food we’d been so excited about ever since booking the trip. We were directed to La Carreta by a friend of Ed’s, and this was it. One of the best and most favorite meals of the trip! The kitsch factor of the building itself only added to the experience, complete with wagon wheel decor and old cuban men drinking cuban coffee outside, debating politics. This branch of La Carreta was in the heart of Calle Ocho, the heart of Cuban Miami. Showing that price has nothing to do with goodness, this was also the cheapest meal of the trip at about $25 for the both of us, including a beer for Ed. Ed had the best ropa vieja he’d ever tasted (the flavor was indescribable), while Carrie had the tastiest mahi mahi she’d ever eaten. Apparently everyone eats at Versailles, but many locals and those in the know swear by La Carreta.

As with all of our vacations, we always visit a classy place that we can enjoy a fine steak dinner. Prime 112 was the perfect place for us, as it’s a self-proclaimed “Modern Steakhouse”.

This was a pretty landmark meal for both of us as we got an appetizer that wasn’t exactly what we expected…it contained ingredients that each of us considered verboten…it had raw yellowtail (Carrie won’t do raw fish) and raw onions and tomatoes (no friggin way for Ed). But you know what? It was friggin delicious. All these ingredients, as a composition, made for amazingly bright, summery, yet savory flavors that truly got our palates ready for the perfectly cooked steak to come. Goes to show what being flexible will get you!

Our steaks were perfect, and the sauteed spinach was the best ever!

YUM.

And finally, we splurged once more and hit up Yuca on Lincoln Boulevard. This was a very upscale place, specializing in Latin Food. They had THE BEST mojitos we have ever tasted. EVER.

The food was delicious – (look at all those colors!) this is what our langostinos with plantains looked like:

Our very last meal was lunch at the 11th Street Diner in South Beach. Yep, all good things must come to an end, and nothing sounded better before hopping on a plane for a long ride home than a good solid burger. The 11th Street Diner is an interesting piece of history. It was actually a pre-fab aluminum diner that was in Pennsylvania for 48 years, then dismantled and brought to South Beach back in the early 90s. Very deco in form and detail, it looks for all the world like it was made to be in SoBe (as the locals call it). Anyways, it was a good, solid greasy diner – Carrie had a regular burger with her favorite crinkle fries while Ed had a disgusting sounding (but delicious) variation of the same – the Pizza Burger!

When you think about it, it’s no wonder Miami is the foodie paradise that it is. Combine a vibrant, tropical, celebratory attitude with a lust for decadence and opulence, and you’re gonna end up with some pretty amazing food. It’s yet another reason why we’re committed to going back to Miami!

Day One, part I

It’s tough to try and explain Miami, so we’ll just save that for another entry! All we know is we definitely haven’t ever experienced a city like this before! Everything here is beautiful – whether it’s a poolside view, a person serving you a drink, or a building in general, it’s got style. We are very impressed.

On Day One, we are holding fast to our goal, and that is chillin’. At a place like The Standard, they make it pretty easy! There are places to chill all over the place! We liked the little wicker beds you could lie out on in the green grass:

And the hanging chairs you can relax in:

But our favorite part was just being out at the most gorgeous pool we’ve ever seen!

The pool is awesome! When you look out on it, the line between where the pool stops and the bay begins is nearly impossible to discern. And, you look up above you and there are the hugest clouds all around you, just like this:

It truly is an adult playground.

Of course, this wonderful setting called for a cocktail! We headed on over to the cafe and took a seat bayside to enjoy more of the view:

Pink Chairs!

After the cocktails, we snuck in a little more time by the pool:

And tried to be as cool as everyone else in Miami:

Now we have to go get pretty for a very swanky Dinner at Blue Door – more later on that one for sure!

We made it!

We have finally arrived at The Standard Miami, and we’re in the process of just trying to keep our mouths from gaping wide open. This place is so cool and it’s gonna be an awesome week! A few mishaps along the way – Carrie barfed all over the Enterprise Rental Car shuttle thanks to some bad guacamole and tacos. Everyone was really nice about it, but Carrie is still feeling a little queasy. Nothing a soak in the pool can’t cure, we suppose.

Also, being the sweet husband that Ed is, he arranged to have red roses and champagne in our room when we arrived! He thinks of everything!

Now we’re in our suits and lookin’ to explore. Much more to come!!!

Destination: Miami

We can hardly believe it, but our 1-year wedding anniversary is approaching! We’ve been long considering where we’ll go to celebrate. We’ve talked a lot about exploring the good ol’ USA a bit before we go international again. Afterall, Ed flies to Korea every month, so he’s over the plane rides. Carrie just started a new job in May, so she hasn’t got much vacation time. And we both agreed that there’s a lot of this country we haven’t seen yet. So, we’re tryin’ to hit up all the major U.S. cities (we consider ourselves city folk – sure, we like the outdoors and all, but after about 2 hours we start gettin’ fidgety). The quandary is that we both have pretty high-octane jobs these days, so we wanna be able to relax on our vacation too. So we came up with a different, yet interesting destination: Miami.

Miami is a pretty major U.S. city – it’s tropical, but it’s got city life to it as well. But the real clincher was that there is a Standard Hotel location there, and that pretty much sealed the deal. We can relax and chill in modernity during the day, and enjoy some delicious cuban food and mojitos at night. There’s a lot of mid-century modern architecture in Miami too…and even a modern museum. Sounds like just the right place for the two of us.

Back to The Standard though…this is what we have to look forward to:

Can you believe that pool? Yep, that would be the ocean right in front!

The rooms and restaurant don’t look so bad either!

Check it out! The Standard

We just booked our tickets this week, and we can’t wait! October can’t come soon enough. You better believe we’ll be journalling all along during our trip! Stay tuned…