Northern California lodging for any taste, any occasion

I had two trips to northern California this fall, one in October and one in November. On both trips, I had some business and on both trips, my wife and I spent some additional time on our own. I’ll be posting information on some of the great restaurants we ate at. But this post is about where we stayed, because we stayed at four very different styles of lodging.

Here’s the list. Read on for my review of each:

• Ritz Carlton, Half Moon Bay
• Inn at Occidental (CA)
• Vintner’s Inn, Santa Rosa
• Prescott Hotel, San Francisco

I was at the Ritz for a meeting. Half Moon Bay is a small, artsy, and intensely organic agricultural town. A long time ago (1975), when my wife and I lived in San Francisco for a year, we drove down to Half Moon Bay (about 45 minutes) not really knowing what it expect. It was late October, and we discovered that they have a pumpkin festival. Well since then, the Half Moon Bay pumpkin festival has become a BIG deal. The cars are backed up for miles making their way into the town. That got to be an issue one day when the group I was meeting with went to Palo Alto for the day for a seminar at Stanford University. Our trip back to the hotel was significantly delayed because of the traffic.

The word ‘pretentious’ has negative connotations. I don’t mean to be negative about the Ritz, but pretentious is the best word I can come up with. It is self-consciously elegant. The location is fabulous. It overlooks a beautiful stretch of the Pacific Ocean. It’s a short and easy walk down to the beach. The golf courses are supposed to be fabulous (I don’t golf). And it has a highly rated spa (I didn’t use any of the spa offerings). It was a great place to have a business meeting. The staff is very accommodating and friendly (in an unpretentious way). But it would not be the kind of place we’d pick for a vacation spot.

After our stay at the Ritz, we drove to Wine Country for a stay in a bed and breakfast in the little town of Occidental. We prefer bed and breakfast accommodations when visiting wine country. It doesn’t matter if the rooms are a little small. We don’t spend much time in the room anyway.

For this particular visit, we had a hard time finding a bed and breakfast in our usual haunts. We knew we wanted the Sonoma Valley. We checked Healdsburg and the town of Sonoma, but the places we’d stayed previously had no availability. We considered staying in Bodega Bay, which is on the coast west of the Sonoma Valley. But as I was looking at the map, I saw Occidental and was pleased to discover that it has a very highly rated B&B – the Inn at Occidental.

It was a great choice for our long weekend in Wine Country. The proprietors were friendly and gave some great suggestions on wineries to visit. The morning breakfasts were delicious. They have an evening wine reception. We like B&Bs that do that. We like meeting people and comparing notes on wineries to visit and things to see or do. One minor quibble – in some B&Bs they offer creative appetizers with the wine. At the Inn at Occidental they offer a plate of cheese and crackers, but nothing particularly creative.

Occidental is a small town. I mean really small. They do have a couple of restaurants in town, including a really wonderful one, Bistro Des Copains, which I will review in a later post. But if you’re looking for a town with lots of dining options, this isn't it. During our three-night stay, we ate once in town, once in Sebastopol (20 minute drive, including getting lost once), and once in Graton (10 minute drive).

One more thing – the Inn’s web site says it’s an hour drive from San Francisco. But driving up out of The City on a Friday afternoon, it was about 3 hours to Occidental.

When we came back to northern California in November, my meeting was being held at the Vintner’s Inn in Santa Rosa. This time the drive on a Wednesday afternoon from San Francisco was mercifully quick. Vintner’s Inn really is a wonderful place to stay. It has an excellent restaurant on the premises and good meeting facilities. But the accommodations are extra special. There are 44 rooms, located in three or four separate lodges. The whole resort sits within a working vineyard, and guests can walk through the vineyard and see some of the work being done.

The rooms themselves are very spacious and nicely decorated. Each room either has a little private patio or a balcony. Ours overlooked the vineyard. When we checked in, there was a small bottle of the wine made from the Inn’s grapes. We uncorked it and sat on our patio and watched the sun set. Wow.

As I mentioned, the resort has an excellent restaurant on premises. But there’s nothing else nearby. So guests would have to drive to Santa Rosa or Healdsburg or Sebastopol (or any of a number of nearby towns) for other dining options.

After our wonderful stay at the Vintner’s Inn, we finished our northern California sojourns in San Francisco. There are two small chains of boutique hotels that we like to stay in when we’re in The City. This time we stayed at the Prescott Hotel, which is a Kimpton Hotel. The Kimpton business model is to take older hotels, renovate them and run them as boutique hotels. We have always found them to be friendly and fun, though often the rooms can be small and/or quirky.

We liked the Prescott very much. The location is ideal, just two blocks to Union Square. We had countless restaurant options all within walking distance. Like all Kimptons, it has an evening wine reception. Several years ago at another Kimpton in San Francisco (the Serrano), we met a young Irish couple and struck up a friendship. My wife still exchanges e-mails with the young woman.

There are a couple of other Kimptons in San Francisco that I like better than the Prescott. But we had a great time.

Of these four lodgings in northern California, my wife’s favorite was definitely the Vintner’s Inn. For me, I think I liked the Inn at Occidental the best. We definitely would look for a Kimpton hotel for our next stay in San Francisco. And we’re not likely to stay at the Ritz Carlson in Half Moon Bay in the future.

Friendly comfort at Solamar San Diego

I’ve written before how much we like Kimpton hotels. When we plan a vacation, we always check to see if the city we’re traveling to has a Kimpton, and if it does, we always check the rates. (They’re usually very affordable.)

So that’s what we did when we started planning our short trip to San Diego. San Diego was our destination because I would be attending a dairy conference there. But we decided to go a few days early for some relaxation. The conference was at a resort in Mission Valley. We also looked into La Jolla, but we were there a year ago for a wedding. We usually prefer staying downtown where there’s good choices of restaurants, preferably in walking distance, and options for nightlife. The fact that there was a Kimpton right in the Gaslamp Quarter, and they offered a special rate, clinched it for us. So we made a reservation for three nights at the Solamar.

The first pleasant surprise was when we checked in, the desk clerk wished me a happy birthday. I can’t figure out how he knew. Maybe it’s on my profile for the Kimpton In Touch (frequent stayer) program. As I noted in my next post, our room wasn’t ready when we arrived, so we wandered into the Gaslamp Quarter to have some lunch. When we returned and got checked in, while were were unpacking in our room, there was a knock at the door. The manager sent up a bottle of wine and a birthday cupcake, along with a nice note. Really cool!

One of the things we like about Kimptons is that most (maybe all) have a nightly wine reception in the lobby. We enjoy having a glass of wine before our evening activities and chatting with the other guests. It’s very cordial and relaxing.

It turns out that the special rate that we reserved also included two coupons for a free cocktail for each night of our stay. I had totally forgotten that detail. The Solamar has a really cool rooftop pool and lounge. So we enjoyed a couple of cocktails up there during our stay.

Kimpton prides itself on having staff who can help guests find fun and unusual things to do. We got a lot of good advice from the staff when we asked. We did have rain on one day during our visit. That spoiled our planned activities for the evening. However, the desk clerk gave us a recommendation for dinner (Asti Ristorante), got us a reservation, and also got us complementary admission to Jim Croce’s Jazz Bar a block away from the restaurant. It was a fun evening.

Needless to say, Kimpton hotels remain on our list of places to stay when we’re traveling.

Bahamian Beer: Sands or Kalik?

I spent two nights in the Bahamas last week. Believe it or not, it was a business trip. Why I only spent two nights is a long story. But the consequence was, I don’t have anything to post on Krik’s Picks about Bahamian food. All of the meals I had during my stay were buffets for the large group I was with. The food was good, but certainly not a memorable dining experience.

But I can comment on Bahamian beer. They served Sands beer during the receptions and dinners at the meeting I attended. I thought it was pretty good, and it went well with the food on the buffet.

I also had a Kalik Gold beer at the airport while waiting for the plane to board. I liked the Kalik better than the Sands. It had more body and was more like an amber, which I tend to prefer.

The label on the Kalik was kind of intriguing. (You probably have to click on the photo and enlarge it to see what I’m referring to.) It has a picture of a very colorful Caribbean costume and it says “Junkanoo 2010” on the bottom. I didn’t know what Junkanoo was. The co-workers I was with speculated that maybe it was a kind of carnival celebration, like Mardi Gras.

While I was researching this blog post, I learned that ‘Kalik’ beer got its name from the clanging of the cowbells that are rung during Junkanoo. Junkanoo (I learned from Wikipedia) is observed with costume parades around Christmas and New Years. It has its origins as a slave festival that celebrates freedom from slavery.

Freedom from slavery – that’s a sentiment that I’ll drink to.

Winterhaven Hotel, South Beach, Miami, Florida: New Year’s Eve

It was a busy year, 2007. So, we decided to spend New Year’s Eve in a sunny, warm locale. After checking several possibilities, we decided on Miami, specifically South Beach.

We’ve been to South Beach before. In fact, this was our third vacation there in six years. The first time, we stayed at the Avalon. Two years later, we stayed at the Chelsea Hotel. After considering several possibilities, for this trip we decided to stay at the Winterhaven.

Since we were going to be there for New Year’s Eve, we didn’t expect a bargain rate. And there were many things that we liked about the hotel. First of all, there’s location. You walk out the front door, cross Ocean Drive, and you’re in Lummus Park and the beach. It’s also only four or five blocks to the shopping on Lincoln Road and Espanola Way. The hotel offers some nice amenities – beach chairs and towels for guests to use on the beach, a daily breakfast in the lobby, newspapers delivered to your room. For a modest ‘resort fee’ you also can get a free drink in a nightly happy hour.

Our daily routine involved getting up in time to have breakfast, read the paper, and sip some coffee. Then we would take a long walk on the beach. The weather was beautiful, hot, and humid, so after our walk, we’d change into our swim suits, grab our beach chairs and towels and relax for a couple of hours on the beach. After baking in the sun, we’d go back to the hotel, take a shower, then head out for shopping and lunch. We’d get back to the hotel in time for the happy hour, have a drink and relax. Then change clothes and head out for dinner. The Winterhaven was a comfortable home base for this schedule.

But, with just a few tweaks, I think the Winterhaven could be a fabulous place to stay. I think about the great time we had at the Serrano Hotel in San Francisco. It was pretty much the same concept – take a funky old hotel, fix it up and update the rooms and it becomes a unique vacation spot. But the management of the Kimpton Hotels (which runs the Serrano), has a knack for adding just a little extra pizzazz which makes staying there memorable. All the ingredients are there for the Winterhaven to do the same, but they can’t seem to make it work.

I honestly can’t say what what’s the difference. The staff is friendly enough. The lobby and front porch are attractive places to hang out. But somehow, it just isn’t conducive to encouraging the guests to socialize. We did meet some very interesting people at the Winterhaven – a couple, he’s from England now working in Wilmington, Del., she’s from Düsseldorf; another couple from England. But there wasn’t the same kind of social atmosphere we experienced at the Serrano.

Now, before I get to my restaurant reviews, I have just a few miscellaneous observations about our vacation on South Beach.

It’s really a great international gathering place. Miami is sort of a hub that attracts visitors and business travelers from Central and South America. There also are a lot of European tourists. We encountered people from Spain, England, Germany, Italy, France, and Israel. Since the current exchange rates favor the Euro, I imagine a trip to Miami is very affordable for a lot of foreign travelers.

We thought that there was less glamour than our previous vacations. You still see the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and other exotic cars cruising Ocean Drive. But the drivers are dressed in grunge. On our previous visits, we saw more high fashion in the hotels, at the restaurants, and on the street.

We also thought the music was different from our previous visits. Techno is the universal sound of the South Beach night clubs. But in the past, we also heard lots of salsa music. This time, it was almost all techno. They also have a weird definition of ‘live music.’ A lot of clubs advertise ‘live music.’ They must consider a DJ to be live music. (I wonder, can techno even be performed live?)

The restaurant scene is fantastic. I’m really kind of amazed at the generally high level of quality at really reasonable prices. As you walk along Ocean Drive, the restaurants have people on the sidewalk trying to tempt you to eat there, and they always have a pitch. Either it’s happy hour, or dinner hour, or late night happy hour, two-for-one drinks or evening specials. (I saw one young woman wrap her arms around a man and promise her undying love if he’d eat at there.) All the hucksters make you wonder about the quality of the food. But we found that the quality of the food and the overall value was always pretty good.

Most of the restaurants automatically add a tip to the bill. For our meals, it ranged from 15% (for lunch one day) to 18% (most places for dinner). I assume it’s because so many Europeans travelers are used to ‘service compris’ at their restaurants. I think it’s handled very effectively. When you look at your bill, the gratuity is clearly marked, and there’s an additional line for any extra you might want to give your server.

Two days before New Year’s Eve, they closed off most of Ocean Drive to traffic. The restaurants, which all have sidewalk tables anyway, set up additional tables and expanded into the middle of the street. So for two days, Ocean Drive became a pedestrian way.

New Year’s Eve was lots of fun. We had a late dinner. After dinner, we walked on the boardwalk along the beach, past hotels with sounds of uninhibited partying. At midnight, there were fireworks on the beach (though it was a pretty short display). Then the partying continued on Ocean Drive with music and dancing and celebration.

So all in all, it was a great vacation. Hot, wonderful weather. Fun, funky hotel. Great food and restaurants. Relaxing atmosphere (I left my BlackBerry at the office). Wild partying. But I didn’t expect to see signs of poverty on the beach. There were many young women who apparently couldn’t afford tops for their bikinis. (So sad.)

The New York Times Dining & Wine Section

I’ve added a new link in the left-hand panel of Krik’s Picks, below the archive. It’s the New York Times Dining & Wine section. It is probably my favorite on-line newspaper food section. I always make a point of reading it every Wednesday. I don’t spend a lot of time with the restaurant reviews because I seldom travel to New York City. On the other hand, I get a lot of recipes from the site, and I have found the recipes that I try to be consistently good and deliver tasty results. They also have articles by and about major chefs and cookbook authors.

I’ve got a couple of columnists that I read regularly. One of the other links on Krik’s Picks is The Pour by the Times’ wine columnist, Eric Asimov. Another columnist is The Minimalist by Mark Bittman. So far, I haven’t read an explanation as to why Bittman calls his column The Minimalist. It may be because his recipes generally are simple and quick to prepare.

The other thing I love about Bittman’s column is that he usually has a video with it. In the video, he demonstrates a cooking technique, how to use a specific ingredient in a recipe, or simply makes a point about cooking. He has a really quirky sense of humor and the videos often include some funny production techniques.

I searched ‘cooking’ on YouTube and looked at a few of the cooking videos there. Some of the clips were straight from the Food Network. Some were entertaining, but not instructive. I didn’t see anything that combined practical cooking advice with an entertaining on-screen presence as well as The Minimalist.

The Minimalist has an archive of his clips on the NYTimes Food & Wine web site. So one day, I decided to review some of the columns that I missed or that appeared before I started reading him. I found a great one that brought back wonderful memories for me.

Apparently as part of a series on food around the world, Bittman traveled to Spain and did a video on preparing classic Spanish paella. During the video, he visits the central market in Valencia. His reaction on the video was the same as mine when my wife and I visited Spain in 2001.

Our daughter enrolled for a summer term in Spain following her junior year at Florida State. That created an opportunity for us to visit Spain. We spent a couple of days in Madrid and then traveled to Barcelona by train. Our daughter met us there, and we spent a week enjoying the Catalan culture and food and the remarkable architecture of Barcelona. Then we went by train to Valencia where our daughter was going to study.

After getting her settled in her dormitory (which was far more modern than her dorm at FSU), she turned to us and told us, politely but firmly, that we could go now. Somewhat crestfallen, we went back to the central city where we were staying. (Her school was on the outskirts of town, about six blocks from the beach.)

We had a couple of days to explore Valencia before we returned to the USA. One of those days, we wandered into the Central Market. It was fabulous. Row upon row of vendors selling everything imaginable for Spanish cooking. There were beautiful displays of cheese. I was especially impressed by the fresh mozzarella. There were meat vendors and fish mongers. Lots of fresh vegetables. Lots of local olive oil and vinegar vendors. And then, there were the spices – huge mounds of paprika, precious packets of saffron, pepper corns, sea salt, you name it and it was there.

Like Bittman in his video, it was an almost irresistible temptation to buy stuff and bring it along home. As it was, I limited myself to a container of olive oil and a small amount of Spanish saffron.

Valencia is Spain’s third largest city. It has an interesting history and a charming central city including a bull ring. We had a great visit. On the evening before we left for home, Valencia celebrated the festival of the “Virgen de los Desamparados” in the square near the cathedral. We listened to music and watched dancers until late into the evening.

After it was over, as we made our way back to our hotel, we suddenly heard someone call out, “Mom! Dad!” It was our darling daughter, sitting with a large group of new friends around tables outside a café on the square. She came over and gave us a hug and a kiss good-bye.

The next day, when we left for home, we felt assured that she would be all right and she was and she had a wonderful time and a great experience.

Serrano Hotel, San Francisco

When I started Krik’s Picks, I said it would be mostly about food – restaurants, recipes, general food info. Lately, all I’ve written about is restaurants, and I’ve got a bunch of ideas about other posts that I’d like to write. This post is in conjunction with reviews of several restaurants that my wife and I went to in San Francisco. During our trip in early March, we stayed at the Serrano Hotel. We had such a fantastic experience, that I felt compelled to include it in my blog.

The Serrano is part of a small chain of ‘boutique hotels’ called the Kimpton Hotels. I’ve stayed at a couple of them in Washington, DC. When we started planning our trip to San Francisco, I checked the rates at the Kimpton Hotels there. I was pleasantly surprised to see that several fit into our budget. We were tempted by the Sir Francis Drake. We’d previously been to the Starlight Room at the top of the hotel for dancing and cocktails. We’d also eaten at Scala’s Bistro on another visit a couple of years ago. So the Sir Francis Drake had familiarity going for it.

(Brief side notes: One night during our stay we went up to the Starlight Room, and we were very disappointed. Rather than a jazz combo with dancing, it was a loud rock band, and they were charging an outrageous minimum to get in. On the other hand, if we had stayed at the Sir Francis Drake, and if we had gotten a room that overlooked Powell Street, we would have had a wonderful view of the Chinese New Year parade that took place while we were in SF.)

But the Serrano looked interesting on the web site. It was in the same general vicinity (the theater district, only three blocks to Union Square), so we decided to give it a try. Absolutely no regrets.

We loved the staff at the Serrano. From the moment we walked in the door, they were upbeat, friendly, and very accommodating. At the registration desk, the clerk informed us that the theme of the Serrano is ‘fun and games.’ After receiving our room keys, we were presented with a basket of novelty items and invited to pick one each.

“If nothing else, you’re already done with your souvenir shopping,” we were told. I picked an Alcatraz shot glass. My wife picked a large fuzzy dice.

The fun continued upon entering our room. In the closet hung guest bathrobes – one zebra stripe, the other leopard spots. In the armoire, combination entertainment center and dresser, besides the TV and honor bar, there were a deck of playing cards and an Etch-A-Sketch.

As we were unpacking, there was a knock at the door. It was housekeeping, delivering to us a box of truffles and a chilled bottle of organic ale.

The Serrano was ideally located for us as inveterate walkers. We walked everywhere in San Francisco, up hills and down. But no matter where we walked, we were never far from our friendly ‘home’ in the City.

Every afternoon for an hour, the Serrano holds a complimentary reception with wine, beer, and salty snacks. Back to the ‘fun and games’ theme – the lobby is full of fun, old board games like we used to play as kids, and like we played with our kids. So each night, we grabbed a glass of wine, introduced ourselves to different people, and played a game. One night it was Yahtzee. The other two nights it was Sorry.

Everyone who we met at the Serrano had the same delighted reaction that we did. And we met such an interesting array of people. Probably our favorite were a young Irish couple. We actually have stayed in touch with them by e-mail. Twice we played Sorry with another young couple from Miami. They were so excited about the hotel that they decided that they would make a point of staying in a different Kimpton Hotel once a month until they’d stayed at them all!

Who knows what those youngsters (not much older than our own kids) thought of two old grandparents playing kid’s games and drinking wine in a faux Spanish hotel lobby. But we didn’t care. We’re young at heart, and the Serrano brought out our playful spirits. It’s a hotel we’ll always remember.

Clear Lake postscript

If you’re driving by Clear Lake around lunch time, skip the fast food joints at the I-35 intersections. Drive into town; it’ll only take you an extra five minutes. You’ll find a local café or a deli where you can get a sandwich and a cup of soup and a slice of homemade pie.

I grew up in southern Minnesota, about 40 miles from Clear Lake. When my mom and dad were young, they used to go to dances at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” died when their plane crashed while trying to take off in a snow storm after playing a show at the Surf.

That was early in the morning of February 3, 1959. I was 7 years old.