PALM SPRINGS, Apr. 27, 2011— Restaurant weeks grew in number and popularity, due to the opportunity they provide to try new locations at lower-than-normal prices. Diners can feast on three-course prix fixe menus for $24 or $36 Palm Springs and surrounding desert communities during Palm Springs Desert Resorts Restaurant Week.
The diverse selection includes everything from Californian, Asian, Italian to vegetarian.
Morton’s The Steakhouse in Palm Desert is one of the best deals. Their $36 menu includes choice of salad, choice of salmon, chicken or filet and dessert. The regular price for the single cut filet mignon with béarnaise sauce is $43; potatoes or vegetables are extra. Long-term hospitable staff, wine lockers where guests can store bottles, and most importantly, aged prime beef make Morton’s a steak lover’s heaven. General manager Josh Soto said 85% of restaurant week guests order the filet.
“We’re known for steaks. Restaurant week gives us a chance to meet new guests. We get to spoil them, and capture a few. It only helps us,” Soto said.
Palm Springs, a couple of hours from Los Angeles, has wonderfully sunny weather, come June. Palm Springs is a welcome change from the June gloom that delays the start of summer all over the coastal Los Angeles basin. Golf, hiking and biking can still be pursued early in the day. Browsing the boutiques, shopping the malls, and pool lounging easily round out the time until lunch or dinner.
Prickly pear cactus bloom at The Living Desert.
Other activities include The Living Desert, 1,200 acres of zoo and botanical gardens that feature North American and African desert life.
Camels, giraffes, golden eagles, and badgers, along with saguaro, jumping cholla, and agave are just part of the beautifully displayed animals, trees and flowers.
The Monarch of the Desert exhibit, home to a jaguar, is designed to look like an old abandoned silver mine, complete with a miner’s cabin and rusty truck. The largest cat native to the Americas, the jaguar is somewhat reclusive, as are some other animals, depending on the time of day and temperature.
The Discovery Center is kid-friendly, with replica fossils to touch, a glassed-in sand feature that shows how wind creates sand dunes, and a craft counter with rubbing plates and crayons to create a snake or owls. The giant ground sloth is impressive at eight feet.
Signs throughout name and explain how animals and plants adapt to the heat and lack of water, and hiking trails through untouched Sonoran Desert make up 1080 acres of the park.
Docent shares birds' nests which patrons can carefully touch.
Other activities include:
Desert Adventures – Red Jeep Tours
Room rates drop in June anywhere from 30 to 50%, which make the trip even easier. For example Hyatt Grand Champions’ summer rates begin at $129, versus $189 during the rest of the year. Pool, palms and flowers create an oasis complete with a gym, spa and excellent dining in Lantana.
Linda Mensinga was editor of Culinary Trends for 15 years, now a contributing writer. If you have a great restaurant, recipe or food you’d like to share please send an email. You can reach her at mensingabakes@gmail.com or Linda@culinarytrends.net.
Read more of Linda's work at Culinary Quest in the Communities at the Washington Times.
-cl- 5/4/11
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