November 30, 2011 by Arthur
The food was good but not great. Decore is very pleasant. The service was professional and friendly. The price was quite high given the food quality.
Overall I’d stop by again if I was in the neighborhood but I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here. There is better Russian food to be had in New York.
Onegin Restaurant
Category Restaurants | Tags: NYC,Restaurants | No Comments
November 27, 2011 by Ford
The WestCord City Centre Hotel in Amsterdam has one primary redeeming characteristic and that is its extremely central location. Its primary detracting characteristic is its complete disregard for customer service and quality assurance. It doesn’t have to be that way though. For not only is the hotel well situated, it also has a rather pleasant and modern boutique-like feel. The hotel is clean, well kempt and sports a trendy design in both the lobby and the rooms. The rooms themselves are quite small but poses appealing and unique design elements such as : (1) the reverse positioning of the bed with the headboard facing the center of the room and serving as the back splash for the room’s desk and (2) the bathroom being entirely walled off from the main portion of the room by glass walls.
And here the first signs of the hotel’s complete disregard for quality first rear their ugly heads. Our queen bed, though possessing one common queen size bedspring and one completely immobile queen-size headboard, nevertheless (for some extremely absurd reason) had two independent twin size mattresses over the common bedspring. Two twin mattresses that had nothing holding them in place due to the very minimalistic design of the bed. Two twin mattresses that ensured that at least one of bed’s occupants found themselves in the hole that quickly formed between the mattress by morning should they attempt to cuddle or engage in sex with the other occupant on the mattress across the chasm. Simply rolling over in your sleep proved rather perilous as well.
To this one must add little annoyances. The garbage can in the bathroom that is positioned in a corner in such a way that it is impossible for the lid to open more than a third of the way when you press the pedal. The two rather dark stains and a prominent rip on one of the mattress’s otherwise rather clean sheets. The fact that housekeeping neglects to take empty water bottles out of the room as garbage. These sort of issues (even the bed debacle) can easily be avoided by greater attention to detail and quality assurance by the hotel’s management and staff. But they are not. In fact the hotel staff take a rather uncaring, and if I may say so European, attitude toward servicing their guests. When requesting a room with a single bed, the front desk did not poses the insight to make a note of my preference but rather insisted that I stop by every morning as early as possible (during my vacation) to see if any became available. Recommendations for restaurants and questions such as “Do you think they’ll have a table for 6?” were followed up with answers of “Maybe” and a shrug, rather than a call to the restaurant to confirm. It seemed you had to walk the hotel staff through their own jobs, one instruction at a time, in case you wanted to get anything done. Smiling at the customers was completely out of the question.
That being said, one of the evening front desk staff, Steven, though initially seemingly surprised by our request, was extremely helpful in making restaurant suggestions on several occasions and after some time warmed up to us and took on a far more helpful and friendly attitude than the other staff.
Given its location and generally pleasant décor I would go as far as to recommend this hotel and stay at it again if the price is right; say $120 a room a night. I would highly recommend on doing your own quality control and being proactively insistent on getting the level of service you require. Given the debacle with the beds (and it was a complete debacle given the importance I place on both sex and a good night’s rest when I’m on vacation) I would say the $180 a night we paid for the hotel was excessive.
Oh and call ahead and insist on a single large mattress in your queen room. On the other hand swapping what sexual positions actually worked for whom the night before over breakfast with your friends can be an unforgettable vacation experience.
Really, why the hell would you put two mattresses on one bedspring especially if you can’t move them apart to make two beds?
Category Europe, Hotels | Tags: Amsterdam,Hotels | No Comments