Traveling From Seattle to San Antonio

Traveling is great and I'm usually the first to say yes to any proposition to leave town but I'm starting to feel like everything is the same everywhere you go. This week I went to Seattle and then to San Antonio, two places that couldn't be more different, and yet, as soon as I stepped into my room at the Hotel Contessa in San Antonio I had the feeling that I was in my room at the Hotel Vintage Park in Seattle that I had just checked out of that morning. At first it was little things, like the rings that hold up the shower curtain, and the lamp shades, all the same. And then as I explored some more I found even more obviously similar things.

I photographed this phone in the lobby of the Hotel Vintage Park in Seattle:
And I photographed this phone by the elevator bank at the Hotel Contessa in San Antonio:
Same phone, different color. The brand is even the same. And this got me wondering, is there one store where hotel decorators buy this stuff? I mean, one chain of stores that service hotels all over the country? Whatever the answer is, I'm still gonna keep searching out new places. And I'll keep writing about them.

Tulio at the Hotel Vintage Park

I just sat down at the restaurant in the Hotel Vintage Park, Tulio. My first impression of it: civilized, cozy, feminine, not modern (just like the hotel it is in). I was drawn here because I took a quick look at the room service menu and saw a single word that immediately caught my attention and with that, I decided that I would have to try the restaurant here before I checked out today. That word was burrata.

I have written about this sacred word before. Burrata is a traditional type of Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. Burrata is maybe the reason why I love Keste Pizza & Vino so much.

Here at Tulio, the menu offered a Beet Salad served with burrata, plums, frisse, and beet vinaigrette. I sat down, read the entire menu just to be thurough, and ordered the promising burrata salad.
What happened once the salad came, and I finished photographing it, can only be described with happy, mumbling, chewing sounds. So I'll leave it at that. And a strong recommendation to visit Tulio if you ever find yourself hungry in downtown Seattle.

The Night I Ordered Five Desserts

Okay, okay, so it was tapas style and I was sharing with a friend so I didn't actually get five regular size desserts. The menu actually instructed that you order at least two desserts per person so I figured five for two people would be a generous portion for each of us. But I did feel like I may have gone a little overboard as soon as the waitress walked away and then when she came back ten minutes later, five not so tiny desserts in hand, I knew I had gone way overboard.

Here's what I ordered for the two of us:

1. Carrot cake with sour cream mouse and apricot carrot compote. This was good but tasted too healthy, and by that I mean it was not sweet or rich the way good carrot cake is.
2. Mango cheesecake with kiwi coulis, mango gelee, and toasted coconut. The kiwi coulis on the bottom was the highlight of this one.
3. Red velvet cake with lavender cream cheese icing. This one was my favorite. The icing was, in my opinion, to die for. And the rich dark cake was the perfect compliment to it. Just right.
4. Sea salt caramels. You can't go wrong.
5. And banana cream bonbons. On the other hand, we could have done without these.
All in all, knocking off the first and the fifth dessert and just having the best three would have been ideal. But, instead, I have a bag of treats for tomorrow.

PS, this was at Purple in downtown Seattle, a beautiful restaurant with a large menu - tapas and otherwise - and food that almost lives up to the compelling setting.

PSS, my apoligies again for the crappy iPhone photos as I am still without my regular camera.

Seattle So Far

So far Seattle has been great.

(But before I get into that, I have to preface this post with some bad news. I left my fancy new touch screen snap on smile camera at home. Boo-hoo! So instead of forgoing all photographic documentation of this lovely place I am making due with what I have: my iPhone camera. And as Jimmy has recently reminded me, the best camera is the one you have on you.)

Now, on to the Seattle part of the post. Tonight I went for a walk to find a treat to eat. I do this every time I come to Seattle and every time the result is the same: failure. But still I try. The problem is that everything closes here - at least in downtown Seattle where I'm staying - at eight or nine pm. I know, crazy. Makes no sense. I do most of my spending after dark, doesn't everyone? Well apparently not here. Anyway, while I was out I took in some of the sights and a bit of window shopping too.

Betsey Johnson on 5th Avenue stands out a bit between the Louis Vuitton monogram tennis shoes and the empty Hermes jewelry display, but in a good way.
Here's where the nice camera would have really made a difference. Look at this photo, but pretend that you can see every color between fuchsia and cerulean in the sky, that's what it really looked like.

Yes, I consider the flowers outside the Four Seasons Hotel a "sight."

And of course hand-made chocolate also falls under that category.

And this last one is of a decoration - I assume - in the lobby of my hotel, the Hotel Vintage Park. Good looking phone, right? Makes me wonder why we ever stopped using them. But then again, it can't double as a camera.

Oh, and I solved the sweet-tooth problem. Room service. Two very plain words that transform into one of the most fantastic terms in the English language. Room service. I will never tire of saying it or of partaking in it.

Seattle Bound

Tomorrow I am going back to Seattle - for the fifth time! There is just something about this cloudy, rainy place that I can't get enough of. I am having trouble putting my finger on it.
Maybe it's more then one thing.

These are the things about Seattle that I love: the climate, the grungy past, the coffee, the mountain when it comes out, the Puget Sound and Lake Washington, the people, the sushi, the lobby of the W Hotel, the "eternal night" graffiti, Safeco Field, the Pink Door restaurant on Post Alley, and the time zone because waking up at 7am feels like sleeping in.

Will be expanding this list starting tomorrow!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

The weather is so terrible in New York in February.

Right not its 38 degrees outside but it “feels like” 29 degrees. What does that even mean? Isn’t the temperature a measurement of something that is felt? How is it that the measured temperature is nine degrees higher that what everyone is actually experiencing?

Anyway its currently cloudy and later on we have drizzle, rain, and a blizzard to look forward to. I want to ride my bike. No, I want to ride my bike without having numb toes and a wet rear end. I miss riding my bike.

Here are some bike photos that I hope will dry this soggy mood I’m in:

Makino in Seattle

Outside a party in Bushwick this past summer

The Japanese invasion of Loisada

Me and my man on St. Marks Place

Seattle

There is something about being lonely that is very beautiful. The same goes for being alone. Maybe this is why rainy Seattle is so enchanting. Surrounded by lakes and one sound, divided by rivers, Seattle is most certainly the lone wolf of the north-west. The effect that the near constant precipitation has on the foliage and man-made structures is the same: to turn them a deeper and deeper shade of pensive green. Having spent my whole life on the East Coast my eyes are dazzled by the range of greens found between Everett and Tacoma.

Last fall I rode a city bus from downtown Seattle up a few steep hills to a sleepy suburb. At the summit of the bus route, perched high on my seat, I could see Lake Washington on my right and the Puget Sound on my left. I was on the bus with the driver but I was alone. I contemplated the great bodies of water on either side of me. They were just there calmly lapping the shores as they had always done. They were no different now that I had caught a lucky glimpse of the sisters together then they had always been. They just proceeded on with their shore lapping, living forever.