Cruise Critic, the end-all and be-all of online cruising resources, has fit to grace its hallowed pages with two wonderful pieces on Cruise Confidential. First and foremost, they gave a fantastic review of the book. Every year they list the latest and greatest books about all things cruising. The top book covered, by the editor in chief, Carolyn Spencer Brown, no less, was none other than Cruise Confidential.
To quote from Carolyn, Cruise Confidential "offers a riveting look at his life as a waiter onboard a series of Carnival cruise ships. His experience is clearly not all pretty -- 80-plus hour work weeks; wild crew parties; mental breakdowns; and having to protect his dining room cutlery from packs of waiter-robbers. But the tales are fascinating, his experiences colored by the melting pot world of mega-ships, a multi-cultural mix of crew and officers.
Read the full review here: http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=307
Perhaps an even greater honor was being interviewed for one of their popular features, Q&A. Over a series of phone calls and emails, I was interviewed by Associate Editor Dan Askin for the article. You'll find twenty questions that get to the heart of the experience that prompted me to write the book, as well as how it changed my life. Wonderful stuff by Cruise Critic!
Read the Feature Q&A here: http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=1059
Cruise Critic is a cruise review community website which also has information for cruisers written by editors, news on cruising and a forum. They offer over 225 reviews written by editors and members of the site, and information on cruise ships and over 135 ports of call and includes information on specific cruising niches, including low-carb cruising and gay cruises. Anyone going on a cruise, or even thinking about it, is wise to consult Cruise Critic!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sneak Peak at CityCenter’s Aria
A perk of being a travel writer is getting to see things that the average Joe cannot. One such perk was a two day preview of ARIA, the crown jewel of the biggest, baddist, poshist, mostest mutha-honkin’ casino resort complex in the world: the Las Vegas CityCenter. This $9Billion-plus monstrosity is the largest building project in the Americas and required some 13,000 or so workers to complete. Everything here is superlative in the classic Vegas style, from the condominiums (a cool half a million bucks for 600 square feet), to the shopping (original Luis Vuitton is embarrassed for being ‘the cheap stuff’ here), and the latest and greatest Mandarin Hotel. But what everyone wants to see, the ARIA casino, does not open until tomorrow, Wednesday the 16th of December, 2009.
I was a special guest with a two-day pass to tour and play at ARIA. Given $1000 of ‘play money’ good for table games, food, and drink, I was able to see everything this most impressive casino had to offer. In many ways ARIA is the latest in Las Vegas thinking: everything is larger, grander, and richer than ever before. But new to Las Vegas thinking is that it is garish to neither the eye nor the environment. Natural light, long an anathema to casino floors, shines down in welcoming pools of wholesomeness (a word rarely associated with Las Vegas). In fact, ARIA is the greenest casino ever built, proudly being U.S. Green Building Council LEED Gold Certified.
But there will be many such articles from far more journalistic voices than mine. True to my experience, I am interested in the restaurants. True to my style, I am interested in the quirky stuff, like what I encountered at Café Vettro. This place cracks me up on oh so many levels. It was the ONLY failure in what I consider to be an otherwise exemplary complex. ARIA in all other ways exceeded my expectations. But Café Vettro? Oh my.
Café Vettro labels itself slyly as “Contemporary American Comfort Food.” I thought that was a great angle, but feared it may have only been marketing-talk for a cheeseburger. After spending years touring the earth, I had learned that primarily what people labeled ‘American food’ was almost exclusively burgers and fries, or perhaps a deep-dish pizza loaded with meats and cheeses and not one vegetable. I strode up the architecturally-odd entrance ramp, with step pyramids of river stone encased in plastic to my right and giant cones rising to my left. The restaurant was quite large, capable of holding 800 souls. It was one giant room that curved along floor-to-ceiling windows facing the interior of the CityCenter complex.
Every face was smiling and enthusiastic, though they were unbelievably stressed. This was the first dress-rehearsal day, after all, and whenever something of this magnitude and complexity opens, there are many, many problems. They apologized in advance for anticipated ungainly timing of the service. Perhaps they should have apologized instead for the completely misleading advertising. Allow me to illustrate what ‘American Comfort Food’ means in Café Vettro-land:
1st course: gazpacho or empenadas.
2nd course: cold ratatouille or jalapeno crab cakes.
Sandwich: pork Cuban.
Entre: chicken schnitzel or mac and cheese.
Please notice that one of these things is not like the other. My waitress, Yvonne, is a sweetheart, but was completely overtaxed by the requisite disasters that come with ironing out bugs. The empanadas took 45 minutes to arrive and my crab cakes, ordered at the same time, took an astounding 95 minutes. The irony is that not less than six tables nearby came after I did and received their crab cakes first. Far more amusing was the bread mistake: the busboy brought mayonnaise with the bread thinking it was butter. That can’t be good.
But none of these things will be a factor for the public. My only complaint about the extraordinarily long wait was the décor and view that CityCenter was so proud of. Through those gargantuan windows I could only see the valet drop-off near the front desk, which was the size and style of an airport. In fact, the hangar-like ceiling, clean lines, and antiseptic design of the entire restaurant, combined with the interminable waiting, evoked the impatience during a layover in a long flight.
All that said, ARIA was magnificent. There will surely be a million words waxing poetic about the place, and I will agree with all of them that do not involve the Café Vettro. Surely half of my observations will be rendered moot when then place opens to the public tomorrow but, being a restaurateur, how could I resist sharing?
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
I was a special guest with a two-day pass to tour and play at ARIA. Given $1000 of ‘play money’ good for table games, food, and drink, I was able to see everything this most impressive casino had to offer. In many ways ARIA is the latest in Las Vegas thinking: everything is larger, grander, and richer than ever before. But new to Las Vegas thinking is that it is garish to neither the eye nor the environment. Natural light, long an anathema to casino floors, shines down in welcoming pools of wholesomeness (a word rarely associated with Las Vegas). In fact, ARIA is the greenest casino ever built, proudly being U.S. Green Building Council LEED Gold Certified.
But there will be many such articles from far more journalistic voices than mine. True to my experience, I am interested in the restaurants. True to my style, I am interested in the quirky stuff, like what I encountered at Café Vettro. This place cracks me up on oh so many levels. It was the ONLY failure in what I consider to be an otherwise exemplary complex. ARIA in all other ways exceeded my expectations. But Café Vettro? Oh my.
Café Vettro labels itself slyly as “Contemporary American Comfort Food.” I thought that was a great angle, but feared it may have only been marketing-talk for a cheeseburger. After spending years touring the earth, I had learned that primarily what people labeled ‘American food’ was almost exclusively burgers and fries, or perhaps a deep-dish pizza loaded with meats and cheeses and not one vegetable. I strode up the architecturally-odd entrance ramp, with step pyramids of river stone encased in plastic to my right and giant cones rising to my left. The restaurant was quite large, capable of holding 800 souls. It was one giant room that curved along floor-to-ceiling windows facing the interior of the CityCenter complex.
Every face was smiling and enthusiastic, though they were unbelievably stressed. This was the first dress-rehearsal day, after all, and whenever something of this magnitude and complexity opens, there are many, many problems. They apologized in advance for anticipated ungainly timing of the service. Perhaps they should have apologized instead for the completely misleading advertising. Allow me to illustrate what ‘American Comfort Food’ means in Café Vettro-land:
1st course: gazpacho or empenadas.
2nd course: cold ratatouille or jalapeno crab cakes.
Sandwich: pork Cuban.
Entre: chicken schnitzel or mac and cheese.
Please notice that one of these things is not like the other. My waitress, Yvonne, is a sweetheart, but was completely overtaxed by the requisite disasters that come with ironing out bugs. The empanadas took 45 minutes to arrive and my crab cakes, ordered at the same time, took an astounding 95 minutes. The irony is that not less than six tables nearby came after I did and received their crab cakes first. Far more amusing was the bread mistake: the busboy brought mayonnaise with the bread thinking it was butter. That can’t be good.
But none of these things will be a factor for the public. My only complaint about the extraordinarily long wait was the décor and view that CityCenter was so proud of. Through those gargantuan windows I could only see the valet drop-off near the front desk, which was the size and style of an airport. In fact, the hangar-like ceiling, clean lines, and antiseptic design of the entire restaurant, combined with the interminable waiting, evoked the impatience during a layover in a long flight.
All that said, ARIA was magnificent. There will surely be a million words waxing poetic about the place, and I will agree with all of them that do not involve the Café Vettro. Surely half of my observations will be rendered moot when then place opens to the public tomorrow but, being a restaurateur, how could I resist sharing?
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
