For some reasons, my friends all seem to want to celebrate their birthdays at the Maritime Hotel Bar. I'm not really a hotel bar type of person, but I do enjoy going to the Maritime. The bar is french bistro meets Hollywood, the lights are just the right level and there is plenty of eye candy. The servers are all a bit on the snooty side at first but then gradually thaw into smiles, the hosts are always amusingly tipsy, and the bartenders make a killer mojito. As I'm not a connoisseur of hotel bars, I can't really say if the Maritime holds its own, but I have fun every time. There is a relatively high atmosphere of pretention and possibility, but at a place like this that's to be expected. There is usually at least one celebrity on the premises or high profile party going on in another part of the hotel, which creates a certain amount of buzz. I dunno, for me, it's a novelty night out in an atmosphere that I don't usually frequent. Oh, and they have an incredible white pizza.
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