Palm Springs, California - Day 3

[figarofigaro1]

This morning the gent who had been talking about the Coachella stuff overheard us mentioning that we were from Vermont. He came over and started chatting with us. (He was quite the talker.) It turned out that he went to college in Middlebury and then he set up a recording studio and lived in Vergennes in the 1970's. He had a lot of stories to tell. I found it fascinating to encounter this bit of Vermont history by the pool in Palm Springs.

We decided to walk down to the place we like that's south on Palm Canyon, El Mirasol. We just sat down when we read about the Boston Marathon bombings on our phones. So we followed the stories as best we could while we ate our guacamole and chicken mole. This is a good reliable spot and has a crowd of local regulars. They make good margaritas as well. But we were somber about the events in Boston.

We walked back up toward the hotel and walked through the dry riverbed and on a rec path back to the hotel. The flowers in people's yards were incredible. Beautiful roses! Cacti! We also saw lots of birds, including a roadrunner running on the road!

We turned on the news when we got back and caught ourselves up on the Boston events. Then we hung out by the pool, reading and chatting. There were some guys there from Boston who added more personal information from contacts at home. It was a little cooler and I got a bit chilly sitting in the shade.

We walked to dinner, which was pretty far up Palm Canyon Drive, at Workshop Kitchen + Bar. It was quite the "LA scene" there. It was crowded and obviously trendy. Even though we had a reservation, we had to wait quite a while. While waiting, we saw The Edge (from U2) come in and they made him wait too, so it wasn't like we were singled out. The bar staff seemed good at mixology, but were disorganized. Service seemed random and slow. We finally got seated at the long communal table in the middle, which was fine by us. The wait staff was also slow and disorganized and seemed to struggle with how to serve people seated at the communal table. The food was uneven. We had an octopus carpaccio that had been cooked sou vide; really good. The braised veal cheeks on white chocolate potatoes wasn't cooked long enough; it was too fatty and tough. The potatoes were tasty, but had a gummy texture and a "corn" taste. An asparagus medallion salad with lobster was extremely tasty. The final main plate of scallops on squid ink rice was mixed. The rice was good and flavorful - inky! The scallops were overcooked and too salty. We opted for no dessert since we were afraid it wouldn't be any good.

There was a giant statue of Marilyn Monroe in town while we were there.



The long walk back to the hotel made me sleepy!