Good food and crappy service, does not a meal make! [Chicago Chophouse review]

 2011, 4 - Consulting Lifestyle, 6 - Monday Morning Consultant, Canada  No Responses »
Dec 302011
 

Calgary isn’t the mega food mecca that one can hope for when booking projects. That being said Alberta AAA beef is a very good standard of beef … which makes for excellent steak eating here in Calgary. After a couple weeks in Calgary, I can say that the steaks here are very good, but will not beat Argentina for quality, price and value of phenomenal steaks or even parts of Brazil.

On Stephen Avenue, there is a litany of higher end steak houses, and my goal is that by the end of my project, I would have had the 10 best steaks in Calgary to compare to steak around the world. (Note : I’ve been harangued by my Canadian friends about my lack of love for Canadian Beef)

The list of downtown steakhouses I’ve tried or will try are the following (I’m not going to try Ruth Chris or the Keg, since I am intimately familiar with what their food tastes like and honestly they’re like McDonalds … it all tastes the same regardless of where in Canada you are)

  1. CHARCUT Roast House
  2. Saltlik Steakhouse
  3. Palomino Smokehouse
  4. The Bank Restaurant
  5. The Trib
  6. Quincy’s
  7. Chicago Chophouse
  8. Caesar’s Steak House
  9. Paul’s Pizza & Steak House

The first on the list of reviews will be the Chicago Chophouse (Wednesday 28th, 2011 , 8:45pm)

So we get into the restaurant and the place is almost completely empty … yet I had to wander around waiting for the 3 girls at the desk or the counter to acknowledge my paying presence. She actually asked me if we had a reservation in an empty restaurant – this bitch was dead to me already and we hadn’t even gotten our a drink as yet.

The service started negatively and continued on a horrifically downward trend. At the price point of this place, I would expect a smile with some water to start … but that didn’t happen. When you review the menu, you have to KNOW that the steak is literally JUST a steak. No veggies or sides, no nothing but a 40$+ price point.

Notice the large slab of meat on the far right hand corner … that was a 14oz Cowboy Rib Eye, but the plate is empty aside from that … know why??? Because you have to order your sauce and sides all separately … and even the menu is organized like a Horse’s Ass (not in a good way, mind you!)

That being said …  the atmosphere was nice, even though it felt like an upscale sports bar …

Getting back to the ultra shitty service – it took a while for our server to come after we were served our food, I asked for hot sauce and some water, but we never saw her again until after most the food was gone.

More importantly … the waitress who sat at the counter filing her nails, or scratching the AIDS off her head or whatever she was doing, didn’t even have an inkling of how to serve a god damn dram of scotch.

I asked for a dram of Glenmorangie Port 18, after all this nonsense and this is what followed

  • <Rishi> Can I have a dram of the Glenmorangie 18?
  • <Dumb bitch waitress> Which one is that?
  • <Rishi> The one that says Glenmorangie with the Orange Label (points at it …)
  • <DBW> Are you sure that’s Glenmorangie? Is that Scotch?
  • <Rishi> … holding back rage and spit … yes it is scotch …
    •  (A couple minutes pass)
  • <DBW> Here you go sir …
  • <Rishi> Are you going to bring some water with it?
  • <DBW> Why?
  • <Rishi> Because you don’t serve any single malt scotch by itself, but with water on the side. Have you never served scotch before?
  • <DBW> No most people order Soda and some wines …
  • <Rishi> Well consider yourself educated …
    •  (A couple minutes pass)
  • <DBW> Here is the water sir .. (She brings cold ice water)
  • <Rishi> Well you obviously have no clue … I’d ask for you to bring some room temperature water, but I think you might just fall and piss yourself and the water, if you had to do anything else. Go away and bring the bill and if I have to wait … you can pay for the 300$ meal yourself.

Conclusion:

The food was quite decent and my very well done Rib Eye (I asked for it like that) was quite good. Everyone was happy with their food, but the service was dogshit.

Slow, inattentive and unknowledgeable service. Decent food. Extremely high prices = Completely not worth your time.

Let your loyalty to one hotel chain, give you benefits everywhere else [Hotel Status Matching 101]

 2011, 4 - Consulting Lifestyle, 6 - Monday Morning Consultant  No Responses »
Dec 292011
 

Ever wondered how those people who stay at hotels in “First Class” style manage to do it? You know the people I’m talking about … they always get the upgrade or best room type, they always have free perks like

  • Free Internet
  • Free Local Calls from the room
  • Welcome amenities : Fruit Basket, Complimentary waters, chocolate and candy
  • Free Breakfast (continental or buffet)
  • Executive lounge and gym access
  • AND Most importantly … Super Late (4-7pm) Checkout (which is the 2nd best perk to have, unless you’re hungover, then it is the greatest thing ever)

I’ve only figured out that there are two ways to do this

  1. Have a gazillion dollars and pay for the best room type and pay for everything else listed (which easily can add 50$ a night to your room rate)
  2. Status match these bitches to death!!!

Since I don’t have a gazillion dollars … I always use the Status Match to stop the hotel raping of my wallet. Your next question is:

What the hell is a Status Match?

Think about how loyalty programs are designed. Theoretically, they are there to remove a barrier from staying at a hotel.  I’ll pose these questions …

  • Why would you stay at a hotel that doesn’t give you the shit I listed for FREE?
  • Why would you want to pay out of your pocket for that stuff?
  • Even if you company is paying your rate … why would you give an extra red cent to the hotel and not keep the perk for yourself?

To answer these questions, the hotel/airline guys came up with “status matching”. It’s a courtesy that many airline and hotel loyalty programs will extend to customers that want to switch some business to them. Basically, it’s when a loyalty program “matches” your elite status in another program to a similar tier in their program. The idea is that they want to win over your business, and the way to do that is to treat you right from day one, assuming you have a history as a frequent traveler.

Here are a couple basics

  1. Status matches are typically once in a lifetime for any given program. Typically, you can use any given status to match to more than one program, it’s just that each individual program can typically only be matched to once.
  2. There’s typically no status matching within alliances – but this only applies to airlines. Hotels don’t give a shit, and will status match once they know you’re going to stay with them.
    • BTW … I’ve tried matching my Air Canada “Super Elite” to United’s 1K level - they didn’t even attempt to match or make me feel better!
  3. Enjoy status for longer by matching in the second half of the year.  If you match in the first half of a year, the status is typically good for the remainder of the year, while if you match in the second half of a year, status is typically good for the remainder of that year and the entire following year.
  4. Status matching only appplies to the big boys with the five leading loyalty programs,
    • Hilton
    • Hyatt
    • Marriott
    • Priority Club
    • Starwood.
    • Until recently Hyatt was very aggressive about status matching, offering anyone with a dozen or so stays with a competitor a status match to Diamond, their top tier status, though as of earlier in the month they have apparently stopped status matching altogether. Hilton and Marriott typically don’t offer status matches, though will sometimes offer a “challenge” if you can show enough nights. There’s no hard or fast rule, as far as I know, about how many nights are required to qualify for a challenge, as it seems to very much be on a case-by-case basis.
  5. Check through the Status Matching threads on Flyertalk … they will give you all the information you need on the individual programs
    1. Starwood : Status Matching 2011
    2. Hilton : Status Matching, Comps, etc 2011
    3. Marriott : 2011 Status Match
    4. Priority Club : 2011 Status Match

As an example … you can status match SPG Platinum to Hilton Diamond … without even staying a night there … I faxed over my information to the Hilton desk …. I used the template below … and yes I know my numbers are below … :)

Times Square @ Night … as much as I hate it, I do love it …

 2011, 6 - Monday Morning Consultant, U.S.  No Responses »
Dec 272011
 

Times Square, also known as the Crossroads of the World, is a small area in New York City bound by 42nd Street to the south, 50th Street to the north, Sixth Avenue to the east and Ninth Avenue to the west.

I’ll set the record straight, no self respecting New Yorker loves Times Square … it is touristy, overpriced, tacky and generally a clusterfuck to wander around. Like it or not, Times Square continues to be as mindblowingly WTF-worthy as ever – with the Naked Cowboy and Stripper, Dingy Elmo and Fake Spongebob.  It’s like being in Toronto but not really, since no one I know in Toronto actually goes to Niagara Falls or the CN Tower or wants to see crazy stuff, unless they are showing visitors around … then it is a mandatory stop.

Personally, I love the tackiness of Times Square, the hawkers trying to sell you overpriced comedy club tickets, all the tacky stores like the Toys R US store, Hershey’s World, M&M’s World!!! Even the restaurants in Times Square with the overpriced menus add to the atmosphere.

I also really like the billboards and video boards at night. It is a photographer’s night dream, in that it’s so easy to shoot everything, since there is so much ambient light. I do apologize about the advertising, but they do make for great photos.

Making that intersection a pedestrian only zone was a very good but slightly insane thing, since I remember being in Times Square in the early 2003 and this is what Times Square looked 8 years ago. Notice all the traffic and the pedestrian foot traffic weaving in and out.

Notice the difference in 2008, with the pedestrian foot traffic …

Times Square (and in fact most of midtown Broadway) is now permanently closed to traffic. The idea was to make it into an outdoor pedestrian mall because it was a great success in Copenhagen. (Have you met Danish people … they are droll and boring, but very polite … doing this in NYC could only result in craziness).

In light of creating this mega tacky strip mall in the middle of NYC, here is a picture of the chairs on the side in front of Toys R Us were graciously donated by dead people from the 60′s – you have to look on the right side… far off into the pic :D

You know what I also love in Times Square … Dingy Elmo!! The dingy life-sized Elmo that stands on the corner of 45th and Broadway, luring innocent tourist children and their parents into paying for photos with him.

Here are some telltale signs that it might not be the real Elmo … wholesale borrowing from Dear Time Square

  1. The bizarre beaded Canal Street purse he is carrying? Elmo doesn’t need a purse. And if he did, you best believe it would be some high-end leather messenger from Barney’s, maybe Henri Bendel. Elmo is loaded.
  2. Elmo lives in one of the ritziest neighborhood in all of New York, where even the garbage cans have more spacious accommodations than most East Village studio apartments. He does not need to whore himself out to make a couple of bucks.
  3. Those digs, that Elmo’s got going on? There’s at least 3.5 bathrooms happening in that shit. And a personal groomer… on staff. Elmo would not be caught dead with anything other than pristine, shiny fur.

My 2012 Travel Resolutions

 2012, 6 - Monday Morning Consultant  1 Response »
Dec 262011
 

Every year, we make resolutions for the New Year. It is the typical procrastinators excuse … “I’ll wait till the New Year to start the gym/diet/travelling etc”

For me, after I’ve made out my mental New Year’s resolution check list to lose weight, be nicer to people, organize my life, get married; I always go back to the top of that New Year’s check list and add ‘travel more!’. Travel keeps my sanity in check during a busy year of work schedules, project plans, and all the hectic personal and social events that life presents us with on a hourly and daily basis … that being said I’ve really stopped making resolutions and I just make plans!

Here are my 5 travel resolutions in no particular order …

  1. Antarctica:
    • This is on many people’s bucket list, but I’ve resolved that I will step foot on the last continent for Christmas 2012. Antarctica’s tour season covers about five months, mostly over the Southern Hemisphere summer (November to March). All other times of the year are extremely cold, dark, and the pack ice freezes out a long way.
    • I don’t care what the hole in my budget is … this is the ONE travel destination where budget travel is not much of an option unless I’m going to work hard on some boat – This will not happen!! I’m expecting at least US$5,000 and this is using airline points and hotel points  and this will only cover the bare necessities -  but who cares how you got there … as long you get there!!
  2. Get my country count to 80+
    • I’ve hit my goal of 70 countries before 35, so the upcoming year I’m aiming to get to 10 new countries. Antarctica doesn’t count as a new country, so I will have to figure out how to spread the love. The tentative country plan will be the following
      • Dominica in February … Hopefully, I’ll recreate the blog post listed.
      • Ecuador and Galapagos Islands in March
      • Peru and Machu Picchu in April
      • El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua in June
      • Turkey, Greece, Hungary and Poland in
      • St. Lucia and Martinique in May
      • Antarctica in December
  3. Get to Carnival 2012 in the best shape possible
    • This won’t happen. But I’m going to try my best … 3 months of working out and I’ve only dropped 20lbs, but at least I won’t embarass myself in my costume.
  4. Revisit an old favorite
    • There are spots that are meaningful to us all, whether it be somewhere in your own town, a honeymoon spot, or somewhere you went as a child. I think that I would like do somewhere old that’s new for someone else :P
    • I’m thinking Paris again. It’s been 7 years since I was in France … why not??
  5. Challenge yourself
    • I would like to do something that would be outside of the typical travel routine, I’ve developed. Maybe hiking Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail.

Here are my 5 travel behaviour resolutions in no particular order …

  1. I will make every effort in the year ahead to be courteous and respectful to airport and airline personnel and members of the TSA; they work under unusually stressful conditions, fielding enormous pressures, and they deserve our smiles and understanding.
  2. I will constantly remind myself of the moral obligation to leave a generous tip to the chambermaids who have made up my hotel room — theirs’ is an underpaid profession and I should supplement the measly wages of the hotel chains.
  3. I will avoid traveling on airlines that delight in public-be-damned attitudes, the companies that exult in an openly-expressed disdain for the traveler, making a virtual point of their arrogant references to the passenger. Screw you Spirit Airlines … forever!
  4. I will give some thought (I’m not sure I have the courage to do so) to changing into pajamas on an overnight flight across the Atlantic. First class passengers are currently encouraged to do so (and sometimes supplied with pajamas and robe by the airline); why shouldn’t economy passengers wear the same?
  5. I will continue to regard travel not as a mere recreation, but as a serious learning activity, a way of understanding the world, an essential element of a civilized life.
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