Miami Vacation 2011 Part III: Seinfeld Dinner +

South Beach:

South Beach, regularly ranked in the top ten beaches in the world, great sand, wide beach, great water and of course scantily clad beautiful people. So needless to say my expectations were high. In the end, it lived up to the hype. It was beautiful, filled with all sorts of people from the weird to the beautiful, it was a great people watching beach.

The only issue I ran into was created by my own neurosis; fearing the worst in people. I have a hard time leaving our bags/towels unattended. I mean we have an expensive camera, an expensive video camera not to mention all of the photos and video and someone could easily come along and grab the bag and run. So although I did enjoy the beautiful warm water, I also kept guard of the possessions a bit more and allowed my better half to enjoy the water with the kids more than I did. Crazy, I know.

The Miami Seaqurium

Right off the bat a bad taste arises as we arrive to the $8 Parking Fee and a $45 Admission Fee. Are you kidding me, $8 to park? Just add it to the damn price of admission as there is NO OTHER way to get to the Seaqurium. After getting over the parking fee, it was a good time and the kids loved it. We saw every show they had: Killer Whale Show, Flipper and His Dolphins, Seal Show, Another Dolphin show and the Shark Feeding Show. For me the best was the Killer Whale show again because at any moment that Whale could go crazy and eat a human right in front of your eyes, what an experience that would be, as macabre as it may be.

I was slapped again with outrageous prices when we ate lunch at the cafeteria, purchased $3 bottles of water (it was HOT OUT) and $4 Snow Cones. Seriously, $3 bottles of water which have a producer cost of about what .35 cents each? 

Our Night Out:

So both my better half and I as well as Eric and his wife each went out as a couple one night while the other couple watched the 4 kids. On their night, they went out to eat followed by dancing at a club returning home at 5 AM. When we went out, we went out to eat and came home about 9:30 PM. We don’t dance or go clubbing, it’s just not who we are.

Our dinner: We went out to Houston’s. This experience just reinforced my overall view of ‘high falutin’ restaurants. They took our names but did not write them down, odd. We later learned they write down a description of guests and then find them in the bar rather than yelling out a name as most restaurants do, impressive. We started out in the bar as we waited for a table, it was nice to just sit and have a drink talk with the better half sans kids.

Glass of wine, two beers, a Pork Cop and a Tuna Steak

We got our table about 45 minutes later. A nice dimly lit atmosphere. Menu, very pricey but what the hell, we hardly ever do this right? So I order the “Tuna Steak with Thickly Sliced Tomato” for $24 dollars. I say to my better half, “Damn, it must be one special fancy tomato.” So we place our order. In the meantime, we assume some bread or some ‘food’ will come out to tide us over until our food arrived, I mean come on with these prices we should get some bread, even the Olive Garden brings out bread. No bread, nothing.

Our food arrives and this is what I get (see pic). Seriously, THIS is the “Thickly Sliced Tomato”? They cut a small’ish tomato in half? No sauce, no garnish, no fancy cut, a small’ish tomato cut n half. So I took my camera out to take a picture, I had to capture this one. The waitress saw me doing this and came by and said…

Waitress - “Is there something wrong sir?”

Me – “Well, the menu said ‘Thickly Sliced Tomato’ and I guess I was expecting something a little more substantial than a small tomato cut in half. I mean why even mention the tomato if it’s just a small tomato cut in half. Just put “Tuna Steak” o the menu.”

Waitress – “Oh, yes, that is not the correct tomato, I don’t know why they gave you that. I’ll go get what they should have given you, sorry about that.”

So she comes back a moment later with this (see pic).

Seriously, just a larger tomato cut in thirds with a piece of garnish on it, no sauce, nothing. So I had to take another pic of the ‘correct tomato’. Why do they even mention the tomato, seriously, what a joke. The Tuna Steak was good, I really liked it and it also came with Cole Slaw but the tomato, come one. I have never liked spending a lot of money on food, it’s just food and in the end, it all just turns into poop.

More to come…