“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – Miami Beach edition”
We started this week with a short trip to Miami Beach. Our work executive committee and spouses were invited to visit our majority shareholder for a few days of “strategic planning.”
Monday night dinner was at The Patio restaurant at the Continuum resort where Phil lives. A wonderful meal, with a nice sunset watching detour, from the top floor of Phil’s condo. And then back to the condo for a late night dance party with DJ Nick.
The tomahawk steaks were delicious.
Diana enjoyed meeting everyone at dinner – here she is in deep strategic discussion with Blair and Phil:
Tuesday started a bit late, but we did get in a solid two hours of strategy discussion prior to a 3 hour lunch at Cipriani in downtown Miami. What a fancy and amazing restaurant. The lobster and ice cream were my two favourite dishes.
Meanwhile Diana, Lisa and BP were enjoying a day on the beach, with tacos and margaritas.
Before the beach, McD did go for a run and captured some South Beach views. All the art deco hotels are very interesting and unique.
We suggested a very well reviewed Greek restaurant for dinner, but the sunbathing beauties quickly nixed that – “We want Cuban food!” We followed Nick’s recommendation and tried Café La Trova. This turned out to be a great choice – excellent empanadas, foie gras, octopus, and live music.
After a walk along the boardwalk on Wednesday morning, we made our way to the airport to fly back to New Orleans, and get prepared for Brad and Jocelyn arriving on Friday evening.
Denny and Kenny invited me to join them at Martin’s Wine Cellar for Friday lunch. I walked over from the condo and enjoyed a yummy salad – as D says, “It’s good to mix in something green sometimes.” We passed some time listening to music on Kenny’s porch and then made our way back to the condo to welcome our guests. We dragged them down the street to Juan’s Flying Burrito and they really enjoyed the hearty Mexican food and margaritas after the long drive. Some pool across the street at St. Joe’s Pub and it was time for bed.
Brennan’s tops most best brunch in New Orleans lists, and so I had made a reservation for the four of us to give it a try. Diana was quite happy with the fancy limited edition champagne bottle presented. And also quite happy with her steak tartare – specially prepared without the beets as arranged by our wonderful waiter Didier – even after the more experienced waiter, Antoine, said it couldn’t be done.
Bananas foster was invented at Brennan’s and so we obviously had to give that a try. Here’s Antoine preparing it table side.
After that amazing brunch, we met Denny and Anne on the patio at Will and The Way around the corner. Then we had a ramble down bourbon street, before making our way home to prepare for dinner.
Dinner was at Costera – the wonderful Spanish restaurant where we celebrated New Year’s Eve. We had the chef’s tasting menu and were all stuffed, with lots of paella left overs. A really fun night with Denny, Anne, Kenny and Kara joining us.
The Klines left to drive back to Austin on Sunday morning. I think we showed them some great New Orleans highlights in their limited time with us.
Whew- time to relax for a while – that was a busy week! Didn’t have much time to make progress on my reading – so no update on that front this week.
I really enjoyed this cover of a Paul Simon song by the excellent Brad Mehldau:
The harmonies on this South Austin Moonlighters (Saxon Pub regulars) song are very well done – produced by Anders Osborne.
Be safe and kind to everyone!