Disney World. Day 4. The Happiest Place on Earth.
Magic Kingdom day! We got up and out and to the park by 9:30ish. We picked up avocado toast from Lickety Split in the hotel lobby and ate them on the monorail. We rented a scooter again and headed to Fantasy Land!
But first, coffee.
We had a fastpass for Peter Pan (which always has at least a 45 minute wait) and managed to do Winnie the Pooh, Small World, the Carousel, and the Little Mermaid ride pretty quickly.
At the end of Small World we went through the tunnel with all of the Goodbyes in different languages. One sign said Shalom, and Ofek asked why it said Shalom. “Shalom means hello.”
We said, “but doesn’t ‘shalom’ also mean goodbye"?”
“No. Goodbye is lehitraot..”
Who knew. Apparently no one says shalom for goodbye. That’s what we always learned in school.
Hallie kept her special bun in and wore the Elsa dress again, so we continued to get some use out of that.
By 11:30 it was snack time so we got some popcorn, carrots and apples. Tzvi and my mom went to Splash Mountain (and got pretty wet) and Hallie and I went to meet Rapunzel, Tiana, Elena, and Cinderella. I still don’t know who Elena is.
if anyone knows who this is, please let me know
My father joined us in the park, and Hallie fell asleep in the stroller, so we left her with my parents while Tzvi, Ofek and I did Haunted Mansion. In Disneyland they totally dress up Haunted Mansion for Halloween but here there was nothing. Weird. Then my parents and Ofek went to Big Thunder while Tzvi and I ate lunch. We both had tuna sandwiches and potato chips at the Columbia Harbor House. When I got to the food pickup area the woman serving the food started asking me how I was in Spanish. I answered in Spanish and we proceded to have a short conversation... in Spanish. She was so happy I was talking to her in Spanish that she offered me a free soda! Thanks Spanish lady.
From there we walked toward Tomorrowland and Hallie woke up just as we got to Starlight Café, where we got Hallie kosher chicken nuggets. Probably the healthiest meal of the trip. From there we went to Dumbo and got to ride twice because there was no one on line. I’ve never seen that before - they just said, “If you want to ride again, stay in your elephant.”
We met my parents again and headed back to Tomorrowland, where we first rode the Buzz Lightyear ride and then met Buzz Lightyear. Next we rode the People Mover, where we waited like 15 minutes on line, which is nuts for the People Mover (which is barely even a ride). I think that thing gets more popular every year; Tzvi read online that half of all visitors to Magic Kingdom go on the People Mover.
From there we headed back to Fantasyland. Hallie wanted to do the teacups, so we did that. I had to get a Dole Whip, so we went into Adventure land. Hallie almost had a tantrum over who got to hold the Dole Whip, but Tzvi diffused that. Then we caught the end of a dance party and did some shopping on Main Street. The only thing I really wanted to do but didn’t was Pirates, otherwise I think we did pretty well. The park closed at 6 because there was a Halloween party, and we had to get back to the hotel before Shabbat anyway.
The monorail lines were crazy, so we just go on the shortest line and rode to the first stop, where we got off at the Contemporary hotel and got an Uber back to our hotel. We made it back to the Four Seasons around 6 and started Shabbat at 6:23.
views of the resort from the roof (where we would later watch fireworks)
We all changed and got ready for dinner, made Kiddush and had some yeasty rolls from the lobby bar for motzi, and then went to dinner at Ravello in the hotel at 7:15. We had originally planned on going to dinner at the nicer restaurant on the roof of the hotel, but when we realized that was Tapas my father made a face and said he couldn’t handle more tapas and “I just want one margarita pizza on this trip.” So we switched to Ravello (the same place we had the character breakfast) for Italian food. Dinner was pretty good except that they didn’t serve bread, which I thought was odd for an Italian restaurant. When we asked they said we could order the mozzarella bread, but we didn’t need that. We started by sharing a margarita pizza, a Caesar salad and a burata. For mains Tzvi had snapper and I had spaghetti with broccoli and asparagus. For dessert we had a straciatella cake and an angel food cake with strawberry compote that was kind of like a strawberry shortcake but with angel food instead.
After dinner Hallie went to bed and Tzvi and I and my parents went to the rooftop restaurant, which have a view of Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and EPCOT, to watch the fireworks. Tzvi got a cocktail with Japanese whiskey and I had something fruity.We were able to see the whole EPCOT fireworks and recognized stuff we had seen when we were there.The Hollywood Studios fireworks are part of a show, so there wasn’t much to see.Then we saw the Magic Kingdom fireworks which were amazing.We sat for a while talking and eventually went back to the room and went to sleep.
Disney World. Day 3. Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.
We were up by 7:30; thanks Hal. We got dressed and got out of the room around 9:30 to go to character breakfast at Ravello in our hotel. The breakfast is Goofy’s breakfast, but Mickey and Minnie are there too. A photographer goes around just with Goofy and you get the photos with breakfast. Breakfast was a great buffet and we ate a lot.
The plan for the day was just to hang out and relax at the hotel, so after breakfast we changed into bathing suits and got seats at the pool. Tzvi ordered a cocktail, I ordered a mocktail, and Hallie had a juice. It was probably around 85 degrees and sunny and so nice out. It was Halloween, so at one point they came around giving out bags of candy. The gummies weren’t kosher so we picked them out and set them aside, but then Hallie decided to play with them and stick them all over her feet (they were sticky and melty because it was so hot out). We sat around for a while, took Hallie in the pool, and then floated on the lazy river.
For lunch we ordered food at the pool. Tzvi had a chirashi bowl with raw tuna and salmon, and I had a chili lime quinoa bowl with tofu. We both really enjoyed. Hallie had a pb&j sandwich with fries. Eventually my parents joined us, and Tzvi and I went to sit and swim for a few minutes at the adult pool. It was really nice.
Around 3:30 we all went in to get ready, and then left for Disney Springs at 4:30. Our driver was named Mustafa but went by Moose. He said he used to own a café in Rockville Center and his wife was from Massapequa. We’re meeting so many people from Long Island.
Hallie had an appointment at the Bibidi Bobidi Boutique where she was going to be made over as a princess. She was adamant about wearing her Rapunzel dress to the appointment. When we walked in they said “You already have a dress, so just hair and makeup?” Well, that would be too easy. She had to get another dress. We all wanted her to get Belle, but she chose Elsa. A woman with a heavy Indian accent was trying to explain all of these options and it was so hard to understand her. Picking out the package and hairstyle was like taking the SATs. Took us a while. Once you choose, you are led into a dressing room to put on the dress and shoes (did I mention she got heels?). You watch a little video with the fairy godmother from Cinderella. Then they lead you into the beauty parlor where you meet your ‘fairy godmother in training.’ Hallie got her hair, makeup, and nails done. It was the cutest thing. She sat there very seriously but turned on a big smile every time we were taking pictures. They finish you off with a sash and glitter and lead you to take some pictures. You can do this until you are 12 or 14 years old I think.
After the boutique the newly coronated queen Hallie walked around and then wanted to ride the carousel. We went twice. We had planned to have dinner just the four of us while Hallie went back to the hotel with Ofek, so we got Hallie a pizza from the Wolfgang Puck Express. It would’ve been nice to keep her out later while she was dressed up, but there was no other night to do dinner without her and no other night to do the boutique, so oh well. After eating we walked around with Hallie for a few minutes, and then Ofek took Hallie back to the hotel.
pizza princess
The four of us walked around and shopped for about an hour, and then went for dinner at 8:30 at The Edison. The Edison is a bar/nightclub in Downtown LA that was build in the basement of an old power station (or something like that). It’s a really cool place and Tzvi and I went there a couple of years ago when we were in LA (see our blog about that here). The Edison in Disney Springs is owned by the same restaurant group that owns the original, and really feels like a Disneyesque version of the real thing. It’s cool, and has the same kind of vibe, but a lot of the character you get in the original place is lost when things are built to look old.
We were seated downstairs at the first table in front of the stage. “The best seat in the house,” the hostess told us. Also the loudest. There was a band that performed through most of our dinner. They were good, it was just really loud. The band played some modern songs that they turned into jazz/swing, including Call Me Maybe and Toxic. We all ordered drinks, and then started with a platter of chips and humus dips and a Caesar salad. At one point the band took a break and a trio of burlesque dancers came out to dance. There was also a woman on stilts walking through at some point.
Tzvi had salmon again and I had a veggie burger with fries. All good but the fries were really crispy and delicious. Our waiter was very friendly and told us how his son is also allergic to peanuts, but his allergist told him peanut oil is fine because it doesn’t have peanut protein; Sicklick does not agree. There was nothing we wanted for dessert so we just paid and left.
There were a lot of people dressed up in costumes for Halloween, and a lot of people in flapper type outfits in keeping with the theme of the restaurant. At the table behind us were a family of four - parents, a daughter, and another one that had on a mask that we thought was a boy - who were dressed up in some kind of old-timey type outfit that must have been from some movie. One of the kids )(probably in their 20s) had a weird mask that just covered their mouth and had on a hood. It was actually a little scary. My mother was really confused when the two kids went to the bathroom together and shared a stall, but later they took off the mask to eat and it out she was also a girl.
We walked around a bit longer, did some shopping at World of Disney, and then got an Uber back at the hotel. We weren’t satisfied without dessert, so we ordered room service. We had a fantastic chocolate mouse cake with raspberry sauce. The cake was so good. The chocolate ganache was just so moist. The cake itself was even very good. We also had an apple brown betty with butter pecan ice cream that was great.
Good night.
Disney World. Day 2. We Bought Kaftans.
Hallie came in to wake us up around 7:30. We had ordered breakfast for 8:00, but it showed up early at 7:40, so that kind of worked out. For breakfast we all had avocado toast with scrambled eggs, except for Hallie who had a waffle, except she didn’t really eat the waffle.
We had planned on leaving for Hollywood Studios by 8:30, but somehow we didn’t make it out until 9:00. We again took the hotel car (which, if I didn’t mention yesterday, you still have to pay for) and got dropped off right at the entrance to the park. Once inside, we rented a scooter for me. This was my moms idea and it was great.
Tzvi: From there we went directly to the new Star Wars land called Galaxy’s Edge. I wasn’t super impressed by the new land. They did a great job of creating a stunning, immersive land, but it was just too big and spread out. In all of the other lands you can kind of just walk through and see everything - here I felt like it was so sprawling that you had to really look for things, and I never found the milk café or the main store. Steph and Hallie waited on line to take a picture in front of the Millennium Falcon while Lisa, Ofek and I went single rider on the new Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run ride. It was eh. It’s basically just a simulator ride, but everyone gets a job and they make you press a bunch of buttons, which in my opinion really detracted from the simulator part of the ride.
Steph: After we were done in Galaxy’s Edge Tzvi realized he didn’t get the photo of me he wanted with my Star Wars shirt and then got mad that I didn’t want to go back. Cranky Tzvi is what we called him. Then we walked to Toy Story Land, which Hallie was pretty excited about. We first went on the alien flying saucer spin ride, then Toy Story Midway Mania. As always, I was best in car. This means I beat Tzvi, my mom, and four other strangers. [Tzvi: In my defense, I only scored about 20,000 points less than Steph and I had Hallie on my lap and Hallie did the shooting for the first two rounds.] We bought a bunch of stuff at the Toy Story store. Hallie asked the cashier for a sticker, but she didn’t have one, so she instead took one of the little alien toys off of a display and gave it to Hallie.
November 2018 to October 2019, almost exactly one year later
After Toy Story land we walked back through Star Wars land (to get the photo which he then wasn’t even happy with) to the New York area and had lunch at Pizza Rizzo, which I guess is muppet themed? Hallie ate two whole pizzas, but she pulled off the cheese, so basically she just ate a lot of bread and sauce.
At that point it was almost 1, or after 1 actually, so we left and took a boat to EPCOT. It feels like we did nothing, not that I could do much. Anyway, once inside EPCOT we found pretty short lines to meet Mickey and Minnie, and then made our way toward the scooter rental and Spaceship Earth, which I wanted to go on because they recently renovated it. Or at least that’s what I thought. Turns out they’re not renovating it until 2022, so it was the same ride as usual. Still great, but the same. Hallie was a little scared of how dark it was, but she survived.
The EPCOT Food and Wine Festival is happening now, so there was a lot of food that Tzvi wanted to try, except I think he only got like 3 things. The first stop he made was at the Earth Eats pavilion, where he got an Impossible Cottage Pie, which was impossible meat (if you don’t know what that is, it’s a plant-based fake meat that tastes a lot like meat) with veggies and topped with a cauliflower puree. He said it was pretty good. After Spaceship Earth we headed into the countries. Hallie, my mom and I got Mickey ice cream pops and ice cream sandwiches, which Hallie got all over herself and her stroller. Tzvi got corn fritters at the Donut Box, which were okay.
Next we made our way to Norway where we had a fast pass for the Frozen ride. Hallie was really scared of the big snowman, so she kept her head in Tzvi’s lap for most of the ride, although I think she actually enjoyed it. Then we waited about ten minutes to meet Anna and Elsa from Frozen, but Hallie was pretty shy. From there we walked around the countries and looked for more food for Tzvi to try. We got hummus fries from Morocco, which was basically falafel and pretty good. They came with a red sauce that spilled all over my scooter because Tzvi put it in my scooter basket. After that we met my parents and went into Morocco where my mother shopped, for over an hour, for kaftans and fez hats to wear to the henna party before Rachel and Austin’s wedding. At one point Tzvi went to get a bottle of water from the morocco drink stand, and the two guys working there gave Hallie a free strawberry slushy, which she enjoyed, until she spilled half of it on her shorts and needed to be changed.
After Morroco we walked a few feet until my mother stopped at the Cutco knife stand and decided to buy a new knife block. Disney, where ALL of the shopping gets done. The guy who sold us the Cutco knife was named Kadeem Samuels. He’s a wrestler from the Bronx and hopes to be competing in the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020. He was very nice and my mother kept asking him questions so we got basically his whole life story.
After the knives it was time to head to dinner. There was so much we didn’t get to do. Figment. The Land. England. Soarin. But at least my mother got kaftans and a new knife block.
Dinner was at Chefs de France (in the France pavilion in EPCOT). The restaurant is nice and looks like a classic French brasserie. Our waiter was an older French man named Lidio. He asked where we were from and we said New York and then Long Island. He asked where Long Island was and we, like idiots, tried to explain it. When he came back the next time he told us that his wife from Roslyn and he lived there with her for many years before moving to Orlando. He said he misses Long Island because you get better bread and produce, and that the only thing fresh in Orlando is oranges. Then he asked where Ofek was from, and then told us he used to work for Princess Cruises and stopped many times in Haifa and saw a lot of Israel (but hasn’t been there since 5 days before the 6 Day War, though he feels he’s seen it all and doesn’t need to go back).
For our dinner they started by sharing yet another cheese plate, which they said was pretty good, and a tomato and goat cheese bread (which was really just a pizza). They also brought fresh warm bread which was really good; Lidio said the bakers are all French, so the bread there is actually good. We must have gone through like at least 4 loaves. For our mains Tzvi and I shared the vegetable lasagna and the salmon with haricot verts. The veggies in the lasagna were basically ratatouille, so I had the noodles and some of the zucchini. Tzvi ate most of the salmon. My father also got the vegetable lasagna and didn’t like any of the vegetables; when Lidio came back and asked how it was, my father said, “I wasn’t a fan.” For dessert we had a crème brulle and a chocolate tarte, both of which were pretty good.
After dinner we made a quick stop in Mexico where we rode the Donald Duck ride. Hallie was scared to go in, but then when she saw it was all bright and Donald Duck she loved it. Around 9:00 the fireworks started. It was a new show - EPCOT Forever - which replaced the old Illuminations. It was a pretty good show and Hallie loved it but thought it was too loud. It’s called Epcot Forever because it brings in favorite songs of Epcot over the years, Walt Disney speaks a bit, there’s even a song from the Disneyland Fun video. Once it was over we made the long trip out of the park (best part of having a scooter was right now), got an Uber and went back to the hotel.
When we got back to the hotel we found they had left a really nice plate of cut up fruit in Hallie’s room (but not ours). She enjoyed that. Then Hallie went to sleep and Tzvi and I watched the Nationals win the World Series. I took a bath and was able to watch the game in the bathroom in the TV mirror. Tzvi fell asleep and then was upset that he didn’t get to take a bath.
Good day.
Disney World. Day 1. This plane doesn’t even have a phalange!
Tzvi’s alarm went off at 6:20. Too early.
We quickly got up, got Hallie ready, called an Uber, and the four of us were headed to the airport.
[For those who don’t know, the fourth member of our party is Ofek, our au pair from Israel. Coincidentally her last name is Kaplan also, so she fits in well.]
We flew out of LaGuardia because the flight times worked better. There was a lot of traffic and it took us 45 minutes to get there. I know they’re redoing LaGuardia, but I think JetBlue was moved into the old Delta terminal, so it’s pretty dumpy. We all had pre-check, but we still had to wait on regular lines since there was only one TSA agent stamping tickets (at least we didn’t have to take our shoes off and we went through metal detectors only). As we were going through, we took Hallie’s water cup out of her bag and asked if it needed to be in a bin. The TSA agent said yes. Then when we got through the metal detector, a different agent said Hallie was too old to carry water on the plane and we needed to go back outside of security to spill it out. That’s right, we couldn’t spill out the water on this side of the metal detector. The agent took Tzvi through a door and said when he was ready he could come back. What she didn’t say was that in order to come back he needed to go back outside the terminal and then go through security all over again. Apparently Tzvi ran through the terminal cursing loudly, but there wasn’t actually anyone around to hear him.
Past security was pretty schvach. There was a Dunkin Donuts, a restaurant, and a newsstand that only sold seven different magazines. Boarding time (9:03 AM) came and went without an announcement, and finally at 9:15 they announced that the plane want ready and they would update us in 20 to 30 minutes. Twenty minutes later they announced that they were “missing a part” for the plane, but that they were bringing another one from JFK and it would be there in 45 minutes. I don’t understand how they don’t have parts in their own airport, and have to bring one in from elsewhere.
I think we boarded around 11 and then sat on the runway for what felt like forever, and then finally took off a little before 12. Pretty terrible. I entertained Hallie during the entire ordeal and then at least half of the flight while Tzvi worked and watched an episode of The Spy.
The flight was actually pretty good though. Hallie did pretty well and watched her tablet a lot. We landed around 2, then sat on the runway some more waiting for a gate. Then we parked and sat for five minutes waiting for them to open the door.
Oy.
Our luck picked up when our bags were among the first to come down at baggage claim, and our Uber showed up earlier than what the app said. We drove about 40 minutes to the hotel and thankfully Hallie got in a little nap.
For this trip we’re staying at the Four Seasons, which is on Disney property, but feels pretty remote. The hotel is beautiful. We checked in and then took a walk around and met up with my parents who got here yesterday and spent today at the pool (which we would’ve done had we arrived on time). There are multiple pools, including two gorgeous infinity pools overlooking a lake (although it looks a little like a swamp), water slides, a kids club, and an adult pool. I’m really looking forward to spending the day here on Thursday.
After that we showered and changed. They brought Hallie a kiddie bathrobe, which came with a tutu, wand and tiara. Then we took the house car, which I think was a Cadillac Escalade, and headed to Disney Springs where we walked around a little and then had dinner at Jaleo, a new Jose Andres tapas restaurant.
Dinner was fine. I think I ate bread and some potatoes and some frittata. I don’t need to go back there.
Tzvi: Dinner was interesting, but great. I just ordered everything for the table:
Pan de cristal con tomate: Toasted slices of uniquely crispy and ethereal bread brushed with fresh tomato
Cheese platter with five different cheese and lots of interesting accompaniments like quince paste and fig jam and compressed pears
Cono De Queso De Cabra Con Mermelada De Tomate: Tomato Marmalade and Goat Cheese Cone
Cono De Salmon Crudo Con Huevas De Trucha: Salmon Tartare and Trout Roe Cone
Ensalada verde: Mixed greens with cherry tomatoes, onions and olives with a sherry dressing
Ensaladilla rusa: The ultimate Spanish tapa: potato salad with imported conserved tuna, carrots, peas and mayonnaise
Tortilla de patatas clásica: Spanish omelette with potatoes and onions
Pisto manchego con huevo frito: Stewed vegetables with fried egg
Buñuelos de bacalao: Fried cod and potato fritters with honey alioli
Patatas bravas: A Jaleo favorite: fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce and alioli
Salmon con pisto: Seared Atlantic salmon with traditional stewed vegetables
Here are all of the dishes (click a photo to enlarge):
All was delicious. Some things were weird, but all was delicious.
Steph: Dinner took about an hour. Hallie was jumping around a lot, but Ofek took Hallie outside to play toward the end so we had some respite. After dinner we walked to the other side of Disney Springs for dessert. As we walked Hallie saw a man selling balloons and said she wanted it. We asked her which color she wanted and she said, “No, i want all of them!” She got one. It was very expensive for a balloon.
We went to Ghiradelli, where we ordered one salted caramel brownie sundae with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, chocolate brownies, caramel sauce, sea salt and hot fudge topped with whipped cream, caramel sauce and chocolate sauce, and one cookie bits sundae with three scoops of ice cream (cookies 'n cream, cookie dough and coffee), hot fudge, whipped cream, chocolate chip cookie crumbles and Ghirardelli milk chocolate caramel minis. Hallie had her own cup of chocolate and strawberry ice cream with hot fudge, “but no whipped cream!” I think she just wanted strawberry ice cream because it’s pink. She ate a little bit of it. Needless to say the sundaes left nothing to complain about.
After that it was late so we Ubered back to the hotel and put Hallie to bed. For 10 extra dollars we had the Uber with a car seat. Hallie is sharing a room with Ofek. We’ll see how that goes.
Tomorrow we go to the parks.
LA. Day 9. I need a vacation.
Mark started calling Tzvi at 7:40 AM.
“I’m sleeping.”
“You need to get up.”
Just like he was back in high school.
Sherry and Mark came to join us for a last breakfast at the SLS. Instead of the buffet we ordered a la carte this time, which was a wise choice because everything was delicious. Hallie had pancakes again, and got so excited when they arrived that she started singing Happy Birthday to herself. The waiter said he had four daughters and must have found it cute because he brought her a muffin with a candle in it “for her pretend birthday.”
After that we said goodbye to Mark who Ubered home, and Sherry took us to the airport. Thanks again for that – saved us an $80 Uber to Burbank.
We flew out of Burbank because the times worked better and its often easier to fly out of a smaller airport. We got to walk on the runway and up a flight of stairs to the plane.
Thankfully the flight was much better than our flight to LA and Hallie even slept a little bit.
Good trip. Now I need a vacation.
LA. Day 8. All we do is eat eat eat no matter what.
Following last night’s food fest we decided to spend Sunday eating.
We woke up, took the house car to Tzvi’s parents, picked up Hallie and then walked over to the Grove. Our first stop was the Dominique Ansel Bakery, where we got a cronut, a DKA and a canele. It was our first time trying the cronut. It was good – very good flavors – but I wouldn’t stand in line to wait for it. After that Tzvi went into J Crew and I stayed with Hallie to watch the fountain. Then she had to pee so we went to the bathroom, but I didn’t realize that Tzvi had left his phone in the stroller. I kept calling and calling but he didn’t answer. Meanwhile, Tzvi ran all over the entire Grove until finally he thought to go to Guest Services and use a phone to find me.
We then met Tzvi’s parents at Toast. Toast is our favorite LA restaurant and I cant believe it took a whole week to get there. It was delicious as always, especially the coffee cake crusted French toast. Hallie spent the meal putting stickers on the table, which freaked out the Israeli manager, but we pulled all of them off before leaving.
After lunch we did some shopping at Kitson, which is a great store of overpriced stuff no one needs but LA people buy. We bought a bunch of things. We then went to Century City to walk around a bit and got macarons at Lette, which I think is the first good kosher macarons I’ve ever had. Next we drove to West Hollywood for our ice cream fix at Salt and Straw, which we think is the best ice cream in LA. It didn’t disappoint. Then we drove back to Pico Robertson and picked up hamburgers and chicken fingers from Jeffs for dinner and brought it back to the Kaplans. So yes, basically we spent our last day eating our way through the city.
Good last day. I think we’re finally full.
LA. Day 7. Sweet like sweets.
We woke up around 8 and took our time getting ready. We went down to breakfast at Tres. All of the restaurants here are by Jose Andres, so there’s interesting food everywhere. The breakfast option was either a cold buffet or a hot a la carte menu. We did the cold buffet and Hallie had pancakes. It was fine. We had thought about going to shul, but that wasn’t happening. Hallie and Tzvi went to sit at the pool for a half hour or so.
A little before 12 we left to hotel to go to Daniel and Deborah for Shabbat lunch (same JNF Daniel as before). He told us to “yell up” when we got there but that didn’t work because he didn’t tell us to yell up in the alley behind the building, so we were just standing in the front of the building yelling for a while. Finally some young guy let us in. Their apt is so neat (like clean, not like neato!) and has a lot of cool art (which actually was neat like neato!). We had tacos for lunch! Deborah made brisket in a crock pot and served tortillas and salad and dips to make the tacos. They were so good and Hallie even ate some of the meat. She also ate all of their corn up. Like all of the corn they had in their apartment. (We owe you guys a can of corn.)
We left there around 5. Hallie fell asleep on the walk home so we got back to the hotel, packed things up for her, and walked to the Kaplans where she was going to stay the night. We made it back to the hotel with about a half hour until Shabbat ended. We changed and got ready for dinner.
Dinner was at the Bazaar by Jose Andres, the main restaurant in the hotel. The restaurant is certainly bazaar, decorated with lots of interesting stuff, very dark, lots of mirrors. The Bazaar is a tapas restaurant, so we had lots of small plates. But first we started with cocktails. I had a caipharina, which was basically a lemon slushy with tequila that was made tableside with liquid nitrogen. Tzvi had a negroni that was made with none of the ingredients that are normally in a negroni, but somehow still tasted like one.
I think it makes sense to just list out all of the dishes we ate now (with all of the crazy names from the menu):
- Jicama wrapped guacamole
- Organized Caesar salad
- Cheese plate with house preserves, marcona almonds and toasted bread with tomato jam
- Tortilla de Patatas “New Way” (potato foam, souvied egg, carmelized onions)
- Mushroom ramen with quail egg, nori and fried garlic
- “Hilly Cheesesteak” (air bread, cheddar, mushrooms)
- Brussels Sprouts with lemon pure, apricots, grapes and lemon air
- Eggplant tempura with honey foam
So that was dinner. They were all small plates but we were really full. Also, the hotel sent us the guacamole, cheese plate, and cheese steak as part of the sorry-for-the-inconvenience package.
When we were done with dinner we were led to the “Dessert Room” which was just the other side of the restaurant. First we got to see almost all of the dessert on the menu on display on the dessert table. Everything looked amazing, but the pastry chef explained that a lot of things either had nuts or gelatin. We still managed to find a bunch of great desserts. We shared a Café de Olla (coffee cinnamon ganache and some kind of whipped coffee cream), mille-feuille (with caramel cream and salted caramel), a chocolate chip cookie, and a cookies and cream white chocolate tablet. All were delicious. We also shared a latte. I took some of the fancy not-nut-free chocolates to go and ate them later in the room. They were good.
When we were done eating we walked around and saw all of the strange things on display, including a haggadah. Then we stood around near the bar for a few minutes watching people dancing and making fools of themselves. The bar turned into a total club scene with a DJ. It was fun.
Then we went back to our room, took a bath and went to bed.
LA. Day 6. There's a pig in the pool.
We woke up to a sunny Friday morning. Perfect weather just in time for us to leave. We had one more great breakfast buffet and then spent an hour at the pool enjoying the hot tub one last time.
Around 12:30 we packed up the car and started the drive back to LA. We made a stop at the outlets in Oxnard so I could shop at the Ted Baker outlet. It cost us a bit of time as the holiday weekend traffic was piling up during our stop, but it was totally worth it. We finally made it to LA around 3:45 and checked into the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Tzvi had booked a room with a terrace (most rooms do not have terraces – there are only about a dozen rooms that do). When we got to our room we found a very nice terrace, but no bathtub. Tzvi had actually called to confirm that the terrace rooms with two beds have bathtubs, so we were confused. We really needed the bath because (1) Hallie still cries when you put her in the shower, and (2) the bathtubs at the SLS are awesome and massive and we weren’t missing out on that. So Tzvi went back to the front desk to be told that there were no terrace rooms left with bathtubs, but he could take a lower category room and a $150 food and beverage credit and move to a terrace room on Saturday. So we did that. We got a fine room with a bathtub (room 317), unpacked a little bit, then repacked completely on Saturday and had a bellman load our luggage onto a cart and take it to the second floor where the terrace rooms were. Except when we got to our new terrace room, while there was a bathtub, the room stunk of smoke. The SLS charges $750 if you smoke in a room, so it’s surprising someone would do it. The hotel apologized and said they would put air purifiers in the room and see if the smell went away in three hours. Meanwhile, we offloaded our luggage back into room 317. Three hours later we came back, checked the terrace room, it smelled great! Tzvi went back to the room and had a bellman reload the luggage onto the cart. While they did that, I went back to the terrace room and found that as soon as they took out the purifiers and closed the terrace door the smoke smell came back. Back to 317! We just spent the rest of the stay in 317 and got compensated with some cash off the bill and some free food at the restaurant. The room was fine, but all the time we lost with packing and unpacking and moving and waiting was really annoying.
Anyway, Friday afternoon we spent at the rooftop pool. We ordered some food and drinks and Hallie splashed in the pool. Unfortunately there was no hot tub. They have two pools, but only one is heated – the other is shallow, freezing, and has a pig in it. The SLS pool is a total scene with lots of girls in skimpy bikinis, and guys making out on pool chairs.
After the pool we changed and drove over to the Kaplans apartment for Shabbos dinner. Mark’s brother Larry was there and it was nice to see him. For dinner Sherry and Mark had brought in Chinese food because we wanted meat and it was the easiest thing for them. Unfortunately, Sherry forgot to ask about nut allergies… We didn’t order anything with nuts, but we were nervous. Tzvi ate everything, but Hallie basically just had the chicken soup and a lot of challah. After dinner we walked back a mile and a half to our hotel. It felt like a very long walk.