I'm so over Tripadvisor

On a recent trip to New York city, all the restaurants I found on Tripadvisor were duds. So I'm looking for better guides. I like Frommers, Fodors, and now, I found a professionally curated list of restaurants that was mentioned in this great article in New York Times. It's the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants list. This list was juried by chefs and foodies and features short descriptions of each establishment. The best restaurant? Noma in Copenhagen. Foraging for authentic Nordic fare made this place an institution. With a ton of visualizing and a bit of luck, maybe I'll review this foodie mecca some day soon!

A savory selection from Noma

Google Hotel Finder

Google has a great new tool to find hotels - www.google.com/hotelfinder. You can adjust it to look in certain areas of a city. Here's a gorgeous one I found in New York...

Ink48

Viva Las Vegas!!!

It was my husband's birthday and our second anniversary, so we decided to spend it in Las Vegas. While he played poker, I splurged on shopping, spa-ing, and other girly exploits. Here's some highlights...

We stayed at PH Towers Westgate, which was very reasonable and we had a beautiful room, thanks to an upgrade. They were fully booked and didn't have the room we had originally payed for. We didn't mind! The picture above is the view out of our bedroom. We were able to see the Bellagio fountains. (Room 2505)

We splurged and got a cabana at the pool our last day. It was $100, and for Las Vegas, that's a deal. We sat under the misters and watched all the pretty people play.

The best meal we had by far was at Jaleo in the Cosmopolitan hotel. The lamb was superb and the cheese plate divine.

I also spent a few hours at the Spa at Encore, which was the perfect antidote to tired feet. Plan to walk A LOT in Las Vegas! For great highlights and haircuts, Christophe Salon in MGM Grande is a must. Thank you for a rejuvenating trip Las Vegas!

Atlanta Garden Tour

Just went on the garden tour put on by georgiaperennial.org - the gardens were amazing!

This is my husband Tao - doesn't he add nicely to the landscape? This place had 300 different species of Japanese Maple. I didn't know they made that many! The garden was situated on 3 acres full of meandering stone paths, hostas, hydrangeas, and concrete balls. More on those later.

This garden above was tiny - no larger than the backyard you would find in a patio home, but it was choc full of topiary. No space was wasted!

Of course, I have to get a kitty picture...

Balls were an element that were found in many of the gardens - they must be en vogue. Another garden had concrete balls. Big concrete balls. This could be psychoanalyzed, but I'll leave that to the experts.


The goat was a suburban resident. They also had chickens and a vegi garden.

Here is the garden that had balls. The concrete ones. Interesting that I am featuring this one the most. Hmmmmm. It was situated on 3 acres and was so serene and gorgeous. Pictures don't do it justice.