Our February “City Flavor” writing contest with Trazzler and the SFCVB is off to a yummy start with “Foodie Temples” as the first of five themes to inspire. We’re giving away 10 trips to San Francisco – so check out the details and get typing!
In honor of this week’s foodie theme, we ventured to the land of San Francisco club kids, SOMA, in search of flavor and not just the amber, pilsner and stout varietals. First up, Basil Canteen a warm, big windowed space serving casual modern Thai snacks, noodles, rice dishes, and drinks. We gobbled ghae yang (two cute little lamb chops!), moved on to kao soi nuer (grilled skirt steak with wide yellow noodles in lime coconut curry), then scarfed down a spicy and sweet duck and lychee dish – pik-khing bpet. A couple Soma Slings and the night was on.
Another new fave is tucked just off the sidewalk on 11th Street between Folsom and Harrison. To the Buttery beat from next door, Crepes a Go Go serves up sweet and savory crepes with crispy edges with well-seasoned eggs. Club kids know about the spot and the friendly French folks running it keep the tipsiest among them happy with their cuisine rapide.
Big juicy delicious five-day Mardi Gras party at Miss Pearl’s Jam House in Oakland. Miss Pearl’s new chef, Peter Jackson, trained with the likes of John Besh in NOLA, so you can trust this will be quite a celebration of Mardi Gras fare, complete with King’s Cake, beignets, $5 Hurricanes, $4 Jello shots and, oh yeah, Gumbostravaganza, a gumbo cookoff with some of the East Bay’s finest Southern-inspired chefs. If you’re in the city and feeling Creole cravings, consider hop skipping over to Jack London Square on the ferry. If you live in the East Bay, all the better. The festival kicks off Feb. 12 at 8:30 with Joey Altman’s Back Burner Blues Band, with Gumbostravaganza on Saturday and a Fat Tuesday fete to end all on the 16th. Beads encouraged but not required. For more information, visit Miss Pearl’s website (or sidle up to her on Facebook!).
Our favorite funny Valentine this year goes to The Citizen Hotel, which always brings a special, more than slightly wicked (and always humorous) je ne sais quoi to everything they do. Their “Naughty or Nice” list in December brought a bracing dose of spice to the holidays, and now they are back (To: Arnold From: Maria: “Leave a message”) with a Valentine’s Day window display that gives a new, decidedly less cloying meaning to the phrase “conversation hearts.” Have a spoonful of snark with your sugar, Sugar.
We’re pretty excited today about being named 2009 eMarketer of the Year at last night’s Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Adrian Awards Gala in New York. The honors (elegantly double fisted by our own Linda Palermo) were given by TRAVELCLICK® and HSMAI in recognition of best online marketing practices for the hospitality industry. Joie de Vivre is the first company to win this prestigious award twice (first in 2006). We hope it’s not boasting to share our very genuine excitement for this honor, particularly because it speaks to the importance we place on engaging with our guests (and would-be-guests) in ways that matter to them. From Facebook Fridays and Twitter Tuesdays offering fans great last minute hotel deals to micro-essay contests like “Five Little Words,” we’re dedicated to our mission of creating opportunities to celebrate the joy of life and grateful to everyone who’s stayed on the ride with us. To more joie in 2010!
Sunset magazine’s fantastic travel blog featured Joie de Vivre’s Ventana Inn & Spa today. Travel editor Lisa Trottier enumerated “5 Things I Love About Big Sur’s Ventana Inn.” It would be really hard not to love Big Sur. I mean, it doesn’t get more California iconic than the rugged Highway 1 coastline, and Ventana’s perch 1,200 feet above the clouds (and on a clear day, the Pacific Ocean!), combined with its understated luxury and the warmth of its staff, make it a true Zen oasis. Read the rest of this entry »
Conde Nast Traveler recently ran a great Q&A with Whole Foods founder and CEO John Mackey. In recent years, Mackey has been a bit of a controversy magnet, but agree or disagree with his interesting stances, he always seems to speak his mind, and Whole Foods’ contribution in creating a market for healthier, more sustainable food is hard to deny.
He gives Joie de Vivre a nice shout out in the piece, along with some other travel companies we admire for their service ethic. His explanation of “conscious capitalism” and serving people’s deeper needs for fulfillment resonates with Joie de Vivre’s own mission: to create opportunities for our guests to celebrate the joy of life at our hotels, restaurants, and spas.
Celebrating the joy of life is something we actually do talk about (a lot, actually) in the course of our days at Joie de Vivre in trying to determine how to bring a little “joie” to the guest experience. Our Joie of Life campaign launched in the fall talks about the idea and gives people ways to create (and share) their own joy (it has some great hotel deals, too).
Not surprisingly, Joie de Vivre’s founder and CEO Chip Conley writes about the pursuit of joy and happiness a lot (and he’ll be speaking about them at the TED Conference next month), and posits that perhaps the elusive “happiness” rests in the intangibles: more of contentment and being grateful for what we have; less of seeking the elusive “more” from things that in the end may not actually meet our needs. Or via Chip’s “emotional equation”:
Happiness = Wanting What You Have divided by Having What You Want
As we move into a new year, and for us here in San Francisco, the sloshy, rainy season, we’re thinking about how we can create our own joy this year, and as always how we can find new ways to share it.
Your birthday is coming up, and we’ve been thinking about what to get you. We know last year had lots of highs and lows, and we really admire how you always seem to kick the dust off and embrace a whole new year with optimism and joie. You inspire us every day. We thought about baking you a ginormous Red Velvet cake…or maybe getting you a new pair of Tony Lama’s, but we think what we came up with will suit your mood better than those things. We decided to give you $100 off your stay at any of our hotels in California. It’s your year to expand your horizons as you see fit, to jump on the bed of life a bit more, and this lets you decide where you want to go and what you’d like to do. Bon Anniversaire!
We love Rick Steves. What’s not to love, honestly. His way of looking at travel is about pushing your own edge and seeing the world through a curious, adventurous lens. Travel website WorldHum just published Rick’s list of travel resolutions for 2010. In characteristic style, it presents a way of being in the world that is about so much more than taking a trip.
Bubbles (the tiny effervescent ones, in a Champagne flute) are as synonymous with New Year’s Eve as the 11,875-pound Waterford crystal ball that drops in Time’s Square at the stroke of midnight. Whether the wine in your glass is true Champagne, sparkling, or Prosecco, there are few elixirs that bring more joie (until the next morning anyway, when Mimosas, coffee, and eggs banish the vapors!). Read the rest of this entry »
This year at The Citizen Hotel in Sacramento, Santa has put in an extra special appearance, bringing with him a list of who has been naughty and who has been nice in 2009. California’s First Lady Maria Shriver caught on camera with the steering wheel in one hand and a cell phone in the other? Not so nice. Bay Area pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger saving the lives of 155 people while gingerly landing his US Airways flight on the Hudson River? An extra cup of holiday cheer, Sully, you are our hero and very nice indeed!
Kristina Hjelsand
Lori Lincoln
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Sarah Essary
McKenzie Ward
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Linda Palermo
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Ann Nadeau
