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My fiance took me to the Fairmont Princess Resort in Scottsdale for my birthday. When we first arrived, the place looked huge! I was very impressed on how big the vicinity was! Right when we...
My fiance took me to the Fairmont Princess Resort in Scottsdale for my birthday. When we first arrived, the place looked huge! I was very impressed on how big the vicinity was! Right when we arrived, we were greeted by the door guy, and pretty much any where we went around the resort. They guys driving golf carts to take us to our rooms. They have tennis courts, golf courses and a really nice spa. This is where they hold the PGA golf open and the ATP tennis tournaments! I was so excited since I was going to play tennis at the actual courts!
My fiance booked the casitas, which is one level above the normal hotels room and one level below a suite. Our room was huge, and the bathroom was very room. It had double sinks, a sectioned off toilet, a soaking tub, a WALK IN closet, and an open shower! The decorations is very southwestern with a hint of Spanish influence. We had our own swimming pool in our area. We actually went out and try to soak in some sun but was disappointed because our pool was pretty dirty!
After soaking in the sun we headed to the spa, this was so heavenly! I think it's the best spa facility I've ever been too! Well worth the money spent on it!
The next day we had breakfast near the main swimming pool and it was a much nicer pool. We decided to go there to swim instead of our own private pool. We were also pretty disappointed that they didn't take care of our pool, considering we paid so much more for it!
Overall, everything was good, the food, the service, the courts, and my favorite the spa. However, I really didn't like the fact that we spent so much more money for the casitas and our pool was pretty crappy! They really need to do something about that. I would come again, but I don't think I would pay for the casitas. www.fairmont.com/scottsdale.
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I was in Scottsdale this past weekend and I must say, the dining experience has been very good. One of my favorite place was Tapino, this is a tapas and wine restaurant. The place is huge, nicely...
I was in Scottsdale this past weekend and I must say, the dining experience has been very good. One of my favorite place was Tapino, this is a tapas and wine restaurant. The place is huge, nicely decorated and very open. The crowd is a good mix and the service was exceptional!
Their menu was so huge, we literally ordered 8 dishes just for the two of us! We ordered, the crab/lobster corn dog (very cute and unusual but tasty), snapper fish tacos (my ultimate favorite from all the dishes!), watermelon and tomatoes salad(interesting, very refreshing), Yucca fries (very flavorful), Foie Gras (my second favorite dish!), scallops with curry sauce (very tender and flavorful), pork tenderloins (I was less enthused with this, but still good), coconut prawns (very good, lightly breaded and not too sweet).
We were overly stuffed when we left the place and our waitress was so nice to us! Our food came out quickly and we hardly waited for a table considering we were actually 20 minutes late for our reservations! I highly recommend this place if you're ever in Scottsdale! Overall the food was good and the service was great. Check out their website at www.tapino.com.
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One of my regular restaurant I go to for lunch is Fuji Sushi. They recently remodeled it and the place is very clean looking with a nice atmosphere. The service is always good when I go here, but...
One of my regular restaurant I go to for lunch is Fuji Sushi. They recently remodeled it and the place is very clean looking with a nice atmosphere. The service is always good when I go here, but the wait can be a pain. I generally go there by 11:30 to avoid the lunch rush.
I don't usually go there for sushi, since I don't think their sushi is that great. However, their bento boxes are a great deal! You get a choice of two dishes with your bento. I normally get the teriyaki salmon, saba, or chicken teriyaki. The meal is also accompanied with a bowl of miso, rice, salad, and two pieces of California rolls, all for only $7.95!
I highly recommend this place if you're ever in the Internatioanl District and is craving for bento box for lunch! www.fujisushi.net.
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I love green tea so any time I see any green tea products I will try it out. If you're a tea drinker and you love the coffee atmosphere minus the dim lights, you must check out Koot in Lincoln...
I love green tea so any time I see any green tea products I will try it out. If you're a tea drinker and you love the coffee atmosphere minus the dim lights, you must check out Koot in Lincoln Square, Bellevue. The place is brightly decorated (perfect for studying or doing work!) and the background music is very subtle, not like other coffee shops where the music is a bit loud and you can't concentrate on reading or doing your work!
I had their Ice Green Tea Latte and it was awesome! You can taste the tea and the light flavored milk with an added touch of tapioca (those of you who drink bubble tea will know what this is). The drink was not overwhelmingly sweet, just perfect (much better then Starbuck's green tea latte)! Their white chocolate green tea muffin is to die for! It was really good, again, I love how it's not too sweet and you can taste the green tea flavor in the muffin. It was very good!
I highly recommend this place, it's very Zen! A little pricey, but I think it's totally worth it!
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I just recently discovered this little cafe in Pioneer Square. It really reminds me of Italy when I go here to get my coffee or a prosciutto sandwich for lunch. The coffee bar totally reminds me...
I just recently discovered this little cafe in Pioneer Square. It really reminds me of Italy when I go here to get my coffee or a prosciutto sandwich for lunch. The coffee bar totally reminds me of Italy. The bar counter is long and there's a foot rest for you to take your espresso shots. This cafe also serves different flavors and a pretty decent pastry selection. I've been going there for the past couple of days and I absolutely love it. I love the atmosphere, the coffee and the service here. The panini sandwiches are delish and it costs around $5.95, which is cheaper than
Soup Daddy's or other sandwich places around pioneer Square.
I highly recommend this place if you want a short escape to Italy.
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If you like buffet style meal that is actually good and fun you should definitely check out Samba in the Mirage hotel. It's a Brazilian grill style.
If you love meat, this is the place. I...
If you like buffet style meal that is actually good and fun you should definitely check out Samba in the Mirage hotel. It's a Brazilian grill style.
If you love meat, this is the place. I believe it's about $30 per person and you can unlimited steaks (in different cuts and prepared differently), ribs, sausages, fried bananas, rice, beans, lots of different dipping sauce, and my favorite, sweet plantains!
They will give you a toy that looks like a salt and pepper shaker with knobs on each end. One knob will be a red color and the other is a green color. If your table shows green, they will continue bringing you food if you switch it to red, then they will stop bringing you food. you get to sit there and enjoy and tell them when to bring you food. You don't have to line up for the buffet line you just sit and wait for them to serve you at your command! They also have great mixed drinks too!
Try to make reservations though the place gets pretty crowded for dinner.
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I've heard great things about Palisades and decided to go there with my fiance to try it out two weeks ago. We had reservation at 8pm and was there 20 minutes early. We sat in the bar and waited...
I've heard great things about Palisades and decided to go there with my fiance to try it out two weeks ago. We had reservation at 8pm and was there 20 minutes early. We sat in the bar and waited to be seated. We ordered a couple of drinks there and it was good. The atmosphere was great and I love the little creek/bridge waterfall near the entry way. It was definitely very romantic and dimly lit. We were seated rapidly in a booth facing the window.
After sitting down our waiter came with water and bread promptly. We were starving by this time and the warm bread was such a good treat! We ordered quickly when he came back. We had mussels for appetizers. For our entrée I ordered the salmon and my fiance ordered tiger prawns with Crab Eggrollls.
We were pretty famished by the time our appetizers came out. I can't wait to taste the food. Of course, I was disappointed. Our mussels were cooked in garlic, white wine, parsley, tuna and small baby clams. The combination was so complicated that we didn't really taste the mussels. There were too many flavors going on all at once.
Finally, our entrée came and we were hoping that it would taste a lot better than the mussels. My salmon was simply grilled and topped over mashed potatoes. The salmon was over-cooked and dry. It was also very salty!! The mashed potato was not creamy at all and it too was salty. I only ate a quarter of it and left the rest. My fiance's tiger prawns looked good when it came out but it too was very dry. His crab eggrolls were tasteless and bland. He only had about 2 prawns and decided to stop trying. We were very disappointed with the meal! Considering we paid about $150 for the meal, it was a very unsatisfying dinner! The food was just not good we didn't even want to look at their dessert menu.
Of course we had to wrap it up and take it home! We can't justify not taking it home since we spent so much money on it! We also figured if we took it home we can make some sort of stuff fry the next day! :)
Overall, the restaurant is definitely pretty and romantic for special events (hence the two stars rating). But, if you're looking for great food, I don't suggest going to Palisades. Perhaps I just had a really bad experience, but it was bad enough to make me not want to try it again. For looks and ambiance, I give the restaurant a 4* for food it's a 1*!
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Why should any Chinese restaurant get away with lesser than decent service compared to other restaurants? I expect good service regardless where I go and was thoroughly disappointed when I went to...
Why should any Chinese restaurant get away with lesser than decent service compared to other restaurants? I expect good service regardless where I go and was thoroughly disappointed when I went to Top Gun.
It's been a while since I revisit Top Gun for dim sum until last weekend. I was there around 1pm and there was still a line waiting to be seated. We put our names on the list and waited well over 30 minutes. As we waited, we noticed that there several couples that got seated before us. I don't usually mind if the number of party were different. However, other couples were getting seated before we were even when we were there first. I didn't approach the hostess, after 10 minutes of noticing that we totally got pushed off the list, the hostess finally looks at us. I know that she acknowledged that they seated others before us! But she didn't even approached us or apologized. There are two hostesses at the front desk, as we waited finally one of the hostess called a different party, but the other hostess spoke up and called our name instead.
As we walked by the wait list we saw that four names were crossed under us! By the time we were seated we were very unhappy and really, didn't have the appetite to order anymore! We ordered or regular, shu mai, sticky rice, bbq pork hum bao, and bean curd. The food was less then satisfying, this is probably due to the fact that we were completely unhappy with the service. Our sticky rice was a bit burnt, I think they burnt the banana leaves when cooking the sticky rice which left a smokey after taste. The shu mai was a bit cold and frankly, unappetizing. If i had to compare the dim sum, I would say, Jade Garden in Chinatown has better dim sum.
I think the experience I had with Top Gun was so bad that I would not return. I've never felt so shafted in my life! The thing that really irked me was when I paid I left a JB card on the table and the waiter just cleaned it up and tossed it away! I can't believe it. Then again, I was kind of expecting it, I don't think they even know or realized what the business card was for.
In short, never again will I come back to this place because the service was just horrible. Even if the food was decent, the service really brought down our dining experience!
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Last weekend was my fiance's birthday and I decided to take him to Chez Shea. I've heard raved reviews about it from my coworkers and friends so I decided to dine there. I got reservations at 5:30...
Last weekend was my fiance's birthday and I decided to take him to Chez Shea. I've heard raved reviews about it from my coworkers and friends so I decided to dine there. I got reservations at 5:30 since we had to get to the Mariner's game by 7. When we arrived, we were the first to dine at the restaurant that day so the atmosphere is very quite.
The view, nice, but not as exquisite as I imainged it. It's high enough where I can see the water and the market.
The service was excellent! That's probably because we were the fist couple to dine there therefore they had a lot of time to pay extra attention to us.
As for the food, we couldn't try their tasting menu because we were on a time crunch. My fiance decided to order oysters on a shell and seared foie gra for appetizers and I ordered a chilled melon soup. The oysters were a bit big, I generally prefer the kumomotos and smaller oysters, but it's not bad. As for the chilled soup, it was good, but I preferred the melon soup much more if it was made out of honey dew. The foie gra was pretty good, but I've had better. The cantaloupe just didn't cut it for me. It was served with some cold shrimps. For our entrée, I got the king salmon topped with a tomato salsa served over a cornbread, as for my fiance he got the duck confit. The salmon was good, made just right. It was moist and it wasn't as salty. My fiance's duck was pretty good too, not too dry and the seasoning was just right.
Overall the food was good and the service was great but it's just not exceptional. I guess it was over hyped and I had such high expectations for it, I was a bit disappointed. This is not to say that it wasn't good, because the food was good, just not perfect! The pricing was decent, and I would probably return again.
I wish I can give a 3.5 stars, because it's definitely better then a 3 stars, hence the 4 star rating. :)
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I rarely dine out in Renton and Armondos is the fist place that I've actually dined at in Renton! It's located in downtown Renton; the area is looking a lot nicer and much more chic now! The...
I rarely dine out in Renton and Armondos is the fist place that I've actually dined at in Renton! It's located in downtown Renton; the area is looking a lot nicer and much more chic now! The restaurant is very casual and the wait staff is pretty good. Our waitress sat us down quickly but it took her a while to get us water and the menu.
Once we got out menus, it took her about 10 minutes to take our order. We ordered Eggplant Parmesan, Steamed Mussels,Spinach Ravioli, and tiramisu for dessert. Our mussels came out and it was perfect! Not too salty, very light, and great tasting. The mussels were huge and very juicy!
After tasting it, I was thinking the rest of the food would be great! Our pasta dishes were just ok, my ravioli was a bit dry. As for the tiramisu, it was lacking rum and had more than enough cream! It was just very rich and we felt pretty sick after the tiramisu. Aside from the mussels, the rest of our meal was just mediocre.
But I must say, for the mussels, it's great!
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