Lorna invited me to Success Women Richmond Mother’s Day Celebration 2017.
This year, the Success Women Richmond held the celebration at Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel instead of the usual venue in a Chinese restaurant.
It’s a buffet setting.
The cream of mushroom soup. (more…)
Lorna invited me to Success Women Richmond Mother’s Day Celebration 2017.
This year, the Success Women Richmond held the celebration at Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel instead of the usual venue in a Chinese restaurant.
It’s a buffet setting.
The cream of mushroom soup. (more…)
We started day 4 in Washington DC with breakfast at Johnny Rockets. This is going to be a day we’re going to venture outside of Washington DC. After three days in the DC area, I guess we had seen enough.
At this particular morning, we at least have more choices having just discovered the Food Court at the Union Station the day before. The food court is kind of quiet in the morning compared to dinner time but at least this food court is opened early.
Johnny Rockets is actually a burger joint. Their tag line is The Original Hamburger. Anyone know why they call themselves the original hamburger? I am quite certain they did not invent the hamburger.
Their intention is to create an atmosphere of the good old fashioned American diner in the 1960s or something. They have a mini jukebox at the table. It was just 5 cents. I popped a nickel into it, selected the song “Donna” but it did not work. Oh well, it was just 5 cents.
Got ourselves a cup of coffee each. It was pretty good … and free refill some more. All coffees should be of free refill like this — especially when they come by asking if we wanted more without us asking for it. Little things like this makes me happy.
I am not sure where Suanne got the appetite from but she ordered ‘The Works’. (more…)
Day Four. Today is the last full day we have in Seattle. Sightseeing wise, we only have a couple more places to cover but as far as food is concerned, we still have a long list we wanted to check out.
We started the day with breakfast in Shari’s. For some reason, we had always enjoyed Shari’s when we are in the Washington State. Given a choice of Shari’s, IHOP and Denny’s, we prefer Shari’s. We like the way the restaurant is laid out — it is always housed in a hexagonal building which maximizes use of windows. Breakfasts are to be eaten in bright places — that’s the only way to start the day … bright, sunny and cheery.
We like their menu too. Lots of tantalizingly delicious pictures. We always had a hard time deciding what to order. We wanted everything!
We like their coffee too. I am not sure the background of the Arosta coffee but they are pretty good. I like the consistency of the quality … i.e. they always taste great, always. Some places, we find that the coffee is iffy, sometimes they are great, sometimes not.
Normally, we would order three items to share between the four of us. The first item we had was the Flat Iron Steak and Stuffed Hashbrown Platter. (more…)
We had a dinch at Famous Dave’s. Dinch is the meal in between Dinner and Lunch. Sometime, one can refer to this meal as Dunch or even Lunchner.
Lee Ping of Hip Food recommended Famous Dave’s to us. At that point of our trip, we were craving for meat, real meat. We had planned to go to one BBQ place. It was either going to be Famous Dave’s or Dixie’s BBQ. Since we were south of Seattle and Dixie’s is in Bellevue, we opted to go to the nearer place. It was a great choice.
Famous Dave’s is a chain restaurant specializing in Southern Style BBQ. The exterior and interior is all western with stone and pine wood panelings. It has a very bright and upbeat atmosphere. Since it was Dinch time, there were no one there but us. The restaurant we were in were quite big with, oh, something like 30-40 tables or so.
On every table is Famous Dave’s very own sauces. We tried everyone of them. The hottest of them all is the Devil’s Spit … which they warned are for adults only. It’s funny the way they describe this … “A generous slathering will make girls prettier and boys stronger, taller and more handsome-or vice versa.”
I like it too the fact they have a roll of paper towels on the table. Real BBQ is meant to be eaten by hands and is supposed to be messy.
We love the atmosphere and the service was great. We ordered some drinks. It happened many time before … (more…)
Day Three. The highlight of the day is the Museum of Flight. Since we are traveling southward that day, we decided to go for breakfast at one of the recommended places.
The Portage Bay Cafe is located in the University District. This is supposed to be one of the most popular breakfast places. Parking is a bit of a problem because their parking lot is so puny. We ended up having to do pay parking along the street.
It was quite early in the morning when we got there. Moreover, it was a weekday and so we were seated very quickly. We were quite worried of the reported long waits (over 1 hour) that we had read. Customer service sucks really or maybe we just got a grumpy impatient waitress — she does not seem too happy with us asking about the all-you-can-eat breakfast bar. *shrugs*
Anyway, they serve all-day breakfast here. They prepare the food in an open kitchen and behind the breakfast bar of fruits, whipped cream, maple syrup and what-nots. Because of the hype and prices of this place, we expected that fruits in particular should be fresh, like being prepared just a hour or so ago — some of them looked sadly soggy and decidedly yesterday’s fruits that’s just taken out from a freezer.
Started with the coffee, the litmus test of a good breakfast. (more…)
The Atlanta Airport (or rightfully, the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport) is, believe it or not, the world’s busiest airport in terms of passenger volume and landing and take-offs. I believe the reason it is the biggest is because of one big factor — Delta Air Lines. Without Delta, this airport will not be what it is today.
As famous and busy as it is, it is one of the unpretentious airport I had been to … well, Heathrow is worse I think. There is nothing to see and do although there are lots of shops and restaurants. But then after a few trips all the shops and restaurants practically sells the same stuff. I must however give credit to the airport … it is the simplest to navigate despite its size. There is absolutely no way one could get lost. In terms of efficiency, it is simply the best. I would describe this as function over form at its best.
One thing I do notice is the presence of men in uniforms at the airport. I think these soldiers are either going to or returning from Iraq. They are always there with their grey-green uniforms. And the strange thing to me is that every now and then, the airport will break out in cheers and claps when some of these soldiers marches through. The Americans sure are appreciative of the sacrifices of their men in uniform despite most are opposed to the war in Iraq. I must admit I do gawk at their uniforms and gears … and do think … oh man … these men are the best trained in the world in warfare. They know how to kill despite their man in the street look.
See the lines from the Atrium at the ATL airport? Well, it could get that busy. That FIVE line winds its way across the Atrium and into one of the longest snaking queues I had ever seen. Here is a tip: there is a shorter and lesser know security checkpoint at the far end of the North Terminal. I normally take that because it takes only about 5 minutes to clear it.
There are a total of SIX(!) concourses in ATL. The concourses are linked by high-speed train. When I have time to kill, I would normally walk to my gate through underground walkways. Of late, they have put in a lot of interesting African art sculptures. It is great to kill time.
On the recent trip I had my dinner at Chili’s at the airport. It was a very busy restaurant, as in all restaurants in ATL. I had to wait in queue for about 10 minutes for a table which was quite OK. I had a magazine at hand and am not going anywhere for the next hour and a half anyway. (more…)
I almost always stay in the same hotel when I travel to Atlanta. It’s at a Marriott hotel and is located just across from our office block in Atlanta. I like that hotel. It’s clean, comfortable, have free high-speed internet and almost everything you will ever need while on business trips. Almost all their guests are business travelers.
Breakfast for me is almost always at the Courtyard Cafe. I wished I had the chance to go further out for breakfasts but it’s hard for me because of the 3-hr time zone difference between Atlanta and Vancouver. Breakfast in Atlanta’s 8AM is 5AM in Vancouver!
The buffet breakfast in Marriott’s is the same everyday. It costs about ten bucks.
I always start off with coffee with cream and sugar. I like their coffee.
What I like best about having breakfast here is that the people knows me already after two years of frequent stays here. Recently, they even remember that I wanted two sunny side up eggs before I asked them for it. Only scrambled eggs are on the buffet table but you can order eggs done other ways from the kitchen.
