miami 2

Time to pick up where I left off with our trip to Miami. After two nights at the very stylish and luxurious Mandarin Oriental, we headed to South Beach to stay at the Angler's Resort, a newly restored Art Deco style boutique resort located in the heart of South Beach and only 2 blocks away from the beach. The location was ideal as our base of operations as we set out to explore all that South Beach has to offer: swanky nightclubs and bars, colorful art galleries, fine dining. Not to mention a jaw-dropping combination of fabulous beaches and beautiful people -- people watching is a major pastime in this town. There are scores of cafes along Ocean Ave where you can just sit for hours and watch the playas and hotties pass by, whether on foot or rolling in a Maserati.

I'd be lying if I said we didn't eat well in South Beach. We went to some pretty fantastic spots and ate some pretty expensive food. I'll just try to hit some of the highlights. The Blue Door in the Delano Hotel was very cool; it's a sophisticated and classy place owned by Madonna. I had the Kobe Beef Sliders with White Truffle Fries, and V. had the Cobb Salad. The food was so good, we went back there at the end of our trip and ordered the same meal again.

We also made reservations at Prime 112, one of the popular steakhouses in South Beach. V. had a large glass of ceviche and grilled sea bass, while I had a belly-busting 22-oz. ribeye steak and some massive stalks of asparagus. I swear the asparagus in Florida is HUGE. One thing's for sure though, fabulous eats don't come cheap -- even the sauces for the steak came separately at $2 - $5 each. But I guess you don't order a $48 steak and then skimp on the sauce, do you? No way man, I'm all in!

But perhaps the real highlight of our dining experiences in Miami had to be our visit to Joe's Stonecrabs. Joe's is one of the oldest restaurants in South Beach, and all the locals will say, you gotta try the stone crabs at Joe's. And so we did, and oh was it good. So sweet, so tender. V. also ordered a seafood cioppino that she couldn't stop talking about. And we topped it all off with some tasty Key Lime Pie that just hit the spot.

Good times, good grub. After two days in South Beach it was time to pack our bags and head for the Port of Miami to rendevous with the largest cruise ship in the world, the Liberty of the Seas. Stay tuned for the next installment, where we set sail for the Eastern Caribbean!

disconsolate

I am saddened by the passing of my dear friend and faithful fish Spencer. He was not doing well when we returned from our trip and continued to decline. I came home last night and he swam up to greet me for the last time but didn't seem to be eating at all. A few hours later he was belly up at the bottom of the bowl. I said farewell to him this morning and hope he is in a happy place. I miss you little guy and the house already seems a little emptier without you.

miami

Did you miss me? I've just returned from our two-week vacation to Miami and the Eastern Caribbean. We flew back into SFO last night and boy are my arms tired! (drumroll) It really was a long flight and I thought it would never end, but now I am glad to be back home. We of course took lots of pics and some of them even look ok. So in this installment I'll sum up our first week in Miami.

The first two days in Miami were spent in the northern area of Sunny Isles, and we stayed at the Trump International Sonesta Beach Resort. Yep, owned by Donald Trump. I had to resist a strong urge to walk up to random staff and give them my best "You're fired!". Our first dinner in Miami was at the Noemi's Grill within the resort but it wasn't anything special, just a quiet dinner. We did get a nice suite upgrade to our room because V. told them it was our honeymoon, that usually gets us some nice perks. Our room was way up on the 25th floor and had a great view of the ocean and beach but it was pretty scary looking straight down.

There isn't really much going on in Sunny Isles but they have their own nicely groomed patch of beach and first class service from the pool and beach staff. I managed to botch the sunscreen application and got sunburned the first day on the beach. Nice going. We spent some time shopping at Aventura and Bal Harbor to pass the time. It was remarkable how hot and humid it was, I couldn't spend more than a few minutes outside without breaking into a sweat. But maybe that's just an indication of how out of shape I am. We did discover one gem of a restaurant near Bal Harbor, an Italian restaurant called Cafe Ragazzi. V. raved about the paella she had, and I was content with a glass of Peroni and a plate of spaghetti.

On day 3 we said so long to Trump's resort and moved to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Downtown Miami. The MOH is actually on its own little island called Key Brickell, situated in Biscayne Bay between Downtown and South Beach. Once again, our "honeymoon" gambit scored us a nice room overlooking the water and Downtown. On the suggestion of some coworkers we decided we would drive down to the Floria Keys to enjoy some seafood and take in the sights, so we asked the concierge to book us a rental car. I decided to splurge a little since my birthday was coming up so we rented a Cadillac SRX which was pretty pimp, not as gangsta as the Escalade but very comfy and entertaining to drive.

Our initial plan was to drive only midway through the Keys, have dinner somewhere and turn back, but our early progress was encouraging and I suggested that we make the drive all the way down to Key West -- the southernmost part of the United States. Might as well, right? A quick stop for lunch at a Wendy's of all places, and then it was a race to beat the clock -- trying to make it to Key West in time to see the sunset from its world-famous vista point. We made it, and I have the photos and souvenirs to prove it. After a fantastic sunset we had dinner at the A&B Lobster House and the requisite Key Lime Pie.


Then V. took the wheel of the Caddy for the long, dark drive back up to Miami. We thought we'd never make it but we did get back to the hotel around 1AM. Dead tired and ready to collapse into bed, we came back to our room and found the staff had decorated our honeymoon suite and bed with rose petals. Very nice!

The following day was my birthday, and we spent it at the Mandarin Oriental as a lazy day. We had lunch at the hotel's Cafe Sambal which served Asian fusion which of course V. enjoyed. We passed the afternoon just hanging around the pool, and got dandied up for dinner at Azul, the hotel's premier dinner spot. But first we hit up the M-Bar, which featured several hundred different martinis. Since we were at the Mandarin I ordered the Absolute Mandarin Martini, and V. had a Lychee Martini. Dinner at Azul was pretty nice, V. had a massive chilled seafood platter and I had some great clam chowder and a study in lamb.

After dinner I tried my hand at taking some night shots with my mini tripod. They didn't come out too well but this one looks ok in an impressionist sort of way.


Well that only covers the first 4 days, and I haven't even gotten to South Beach! I will have to cover that in the next installment.

upscale

Loyal readers may recall the saga involving my Koss home theater system. So I finally got tired of dealing with the finicky stereo unit and ordered a new Denon receiver. But as luck would have it, the launch date got pushed back by a few months (it was supposed to be available as of August 2007). But the wait is now over, my long-anticipated Denon AVR-2808 came in yesterday. Woot!

I of course spent a good chunk of the late evening and early morning setting it up and plugging stuff into it, which involved a fair amount of crawling behind the TV and the use of my super handy LED flashlight. Fortunately I had a few spare HDMI and optical cables ready to go, purchased from MonoPrice.com a few months ago in preparation for this glorious day. Thanks to the 2808's HDMI switching and scaling functions I was able to reduce the number of cables running around behind the TV. Now my cable box and my Playstations (2 and 3) can go to the receiver and from there one HDMI cable to the TV.

So the old Koss HTiB is out and the Denon is in, but the old Koss speakers are still in place. These are some pretty small 4 ohm speakers and I'm now convinced they're not going to cut it. In fact my very first impression after I powered up the system is that I need better speakers. I found that I had to crank the master volume pretty far up in order to get any decent sound from the speakers. The system is really designed for 6-8 ohm speakers. But the worst part is, the unpowered subwoofer that I have from the Koss system is not compatible with the 2808. It's set up for a self-powered subwoofer, so it only has a pre-amp output. So for the moment I have very little bass response, and my next upgrade is probably going to be a new powered subwoofer. But maybe a whole new set of speakers soon after that. Oh yeah, just what I needed, another expensive hobby. Stay tuned as I continue to pimp my home theater.

chronological

V. threw me a surprise birthday party over the weekend, a little early due to our Miami trip coming up. It was nice to see friends and family but I was a little shocked to see so many little kids running around the house. I'm sure V. had to practice unprecedented levels of self-control, as the place was practically a zoo for a while there. The birthday cake theme was -- predictably -- Cars! Ka-chow!

As an early birthday gift V. surprised me with a new watch. It's a Tag Heuer Carrera Automatic Chronograph Tachymetre which is quite the mouthful. Basically the wristwatch equivalent of a Subaru Impreza WRX STI, or a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX MR -- the more words the better, you get the picture. Pretty sweet.

I also got a boatload of gift cards for Best Buy and some spending cash. I'm very tempted to go out and buy a X360 and Halo3 right now. But I'll probably refrain and think about it some more during my 2 week vacation in Miami and the Carribbean. I've already made a few other purchases lately, a NordicTrack elliptical workout machine and a Logitech GT Driving Force Pro steering wheel for the PS3. Maybe by the time I come back my new Denon receiver will have arrived and I can start thinking about speakers or other home theater upgrades.

If it seems like I have been doing a lot of conspicuous consuming lately, it's probably because I'm trying to forget how old I'm getting.