The Traveling Steve's

The Generous Pour – Week Two

After another busy work week, (this week in Philadelphia area), I was really looking forward to our second Generous Pour event at The Capital Grille Orlando.  As I detailed in the last post, The Generous Pour is a summer promotion Capital Grille offers, providing a selection of seven different wines for $28 when purchasing a dinner.

My work week in Philly went quickly and as I worked late most evenings, really only had the last night to myself to enjoy dinner.  I walked to the restaurant next door, and as luck would have it they were having 70’s trivia in the bar area!

I had my dinner in the bar area and enjoyed listening to the questions, which seemed quite easy to someone who grew up with the Brady Bunch and Happy Days; i.e. ‘What TV show was the phrase “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha” spoken on, or “what show was the Fonz featured on?”  It seemed simple enough for me, but to the younger crowd not as much.  

I flew home on Friday afternoon on American, nonstop PHL to MCO, in First Class seat 4D, after an hour or so wait in the Admiral’s Club. What should have been a quiet and uneventful flight was ruined by this obnoxiously loud man sitting in coach the row behind me, who didn’t shut up the whole flight.  He was strange as in weird too, (possibly crazy) and sat the whole flight without his seat belt on, turned to the stranger across the aisle blabbing on about the cost of the flight, his life story etc.  I felt like opening the curtain separating First and Coach and yelling STFU, but fortunately I had some ear plugs which helped somewhat.  And no I didn’t have my noise canceling headsets with me. Fortunately I restrained myself from telling him to shut up, and made it thru the two hour flight.  Usually it’s screaming kids on my flights to Orlando that drive me nuts, but this man’s nonstop gibberish about nothing was too much to listen to.

Once home, Steve (DOS) and I had dinner at home and I unpacked and repacked for my trip next week to Harrisburg, PA.

As we did last Saturday, we checked into the Hyatt Regency Orlando Convention Center for our overnight staycation. This week we got a Metropolitan Suite on the 27th floor; quite high indeed, and with a preferred pool/Disney view too.  We like the Metropolitan Suites as they have a separate living room area from the bedroom.  

We actually prefer being on the odd number floors, with an even number room, on the 23rd floor or below as they have balconies with a nice solid wall enclosure (as opposed to the even floors with only a grill enclosure on the balcony), but it sounds too fussy to ask for this at checkin and there are only a few rooms of that type, so we are glad to get any Metro Suite they give us.  Per Orlando Fire code, hotels can’t have a balcony above the 24th floor, so the Metropolitan Suites above floor 24 are actually slightly larger, with the living room extended out over where the balcony would be lower down.  They are all similar in layout, and quite comfortable for our overnight stay-cation.

We took our usual walk thru the convention center and all the way to the Hilton and back for a bit of exercise.  Like last week, the convention center was not occupied, so it was a nice walk thru the long empty corridors of space, and covered walkways between the buildings and hotels.

There was some type of fashion award show going on over the weekend, and we saw several models dressed up getting their professional photos taken outdoors.

In the evening, we went to the Concierge Lounge around 6:30 for a quick brewski and snack before heading to the Capital Grille at 7:30pm.  DOS had booked a flight for us this afternoon for next Memorial Day to Bordeaux, France, so we spend the 45 minutes in the lounge glued to our iPads, looking up tours, hotels, and Chateaus to visit.  We love touring different wine regions of the world, and while we’ve been to France, have not toured Bordeaux before, so it sounded like a good adventure for us.

We headed down to the hotel lobby at 7:15 for our short walk over to The Capital Grille, taking the same photos we take each time we go.

We were seated at a table for two, and although not in the wine room, it was in a quiet section of the main dining room.  I did take a photo of the 7 wines on display of the Generous Pour as we walked in the restaurant.

  While our favorite waiter Sebastian was off tonight, we had wonderful service from all who attended to us, pacing our meal leisurely as we requested. Like last week, we started with an entree portion of Ahi Tuna, which we shared.

We then had two shared appetizers of Crab and Lobster crab cake, and a pan seared garlic shrimp dish, without the garlic per our request.  While we lobed the crab cakes, the shrimp dish was not too appealing to us as it was sautéed in butter; next time would get a shrimp cocktail instead.

We skipped the salad course as we had gotten the appetizers and Ahi, and then split a bone-in Rib Eye, which like last week was too big for the two of us to finish, although DOS tried eating off the bone!

The red wines were as good as we remembered, and of the three whites, only the Chardonnay was to our liking.  We especially love the Brave Cabernet, and had it with our entree and later dessert.

After dinner we walked back to the Hyatt, stuffed from the food and wine, but feeling good to walk off the heavy dinner.

In the morning, we had breakfast in the Hyatt’s Concierge Lounge, and got a late checkout of 4pm thanks to my Hyatt Globalist status; really a nice perk. We again did our walk for some exercise, and spend a lazy afternoon at the hotel surfing the web and researching Bordeaux.

We left the Hyatt Orlando Convention Center hotel around 3:30pm and headed over to the Hyatt Regency at Orlando Airport, where we’re staying tonight (Sunday) as I have an early flight on American in the morning.  We got our favorite room on the 10th floor, with a large balcony overlooking the runway, and as always enjoyed watching the planes take off.  


 

We love watching the jumbo jets take off, and tonight there were 4 Virgin Atlantic 747s, one Lufthansa 747, two British Airways 777s, among the others such as LATAM, Aer Lingus, Air Berlin, Azul, Thomas Cook and other international-bound flights, mixed in with the huge mix of domestic flights.

We had a nice dinner in McCoy’s Restaurant on the 4th (lobby level) of the Hyatt.  We hadn’t been there in a while, and the manager and server both welcomed us back.  They had added a couple items on the menu, and I had the ribeye, while DOS had the Salmon; both of which were wonderful.

Now it’s 9pm, and will soon be heading to bed as the weekend draws to an end.  I’m flying up to Harrisburg, PA in the morning (via Charlotte) on American Airlines.  I got upgraded on both legs of the flight which is nice, and as I don’t have to be on site until Tuesday, hopefully will have some time in the afternoon to tour the Chocolate factory there.  Until then, have a great week everyone!

 

One thought on “The Generous Pour – Week Two

  1. ED GONZALEZ

    ALL THE FOOD LOOK GREAT.
    I THINK THAT THE LOUD MOUTH PAX HAS NEVER SEEN PEOPLE FLYING FROM ONE SIDE THE OTHER ON A 747 OR CARTS GOING UP IN THE ON 777 DURING TURBULANCE.
    KEEP HAVING FUN, HUGS ED

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *