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Zinfindel Grille, Tex Wasabi, and Marriott Residence Inn Reviewed (and some links)

December 1, 2008 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

This weekend, my wife added another candle to her birthday cake. Trying to be a good husband, I took her to Sacramento for some good dining and a night away from home. If you ever find yourself in Sacramento, you may want to come back and look at these reviews.

We rolled into town around 1PM, time to catch lunch at Tex Wasabi’s. Tex Wasabi’s claim to fame is being co-owned by Guy Fieri, star of several Food Channel shows. It doesn’t stand out as a special restaurant – in fact my wife passed it dozens of times while working in Sacramento without thinking it was special. She caught his show one night where it was mentioned and we decided we had to give a shot. As a little background, the restaurant is aptly named – it’s a cross between BBQ and Sushi. This is big for the wife and me, because she likes sushi and I like my BBQ. We can both be happy at the same place.

We started off with a Code Red Bowal, a 64 ounce fish bowl drink for adults. I would say that 32 ounces were ice and though it was good, it wasn’t worth the $27. If we had to do again, we would have gone a different route, but it was a celebration, so we splurged. As for the food, my wife had the Crystal roll (a special of the day). She said it was the fantastic – some of the best sushi she’s ever had. I had the BBQ Beef Brisket Sandwich. It was about average – I couldn’t give it more than that. We split a Big Bird on Fire which is chicken in a sushi roll. That was fantastic.

One thing that I have to give Tex Wasabi high marks for is that the service was outstanding. The waiter took care of our every need and the owner (or someone that we presumed to be the owner) stopped by to chat with us a bit. The head waiter even came by for a spell. There were some other intangibles like live music nights and beer pong nights (this is legal in public restaurant?). I have to dock them a few points – though they had a decent beer special for Sunday football, the owner-type guy said that they didn’t have the NFL Sunday ticket to get the games from out of town.

After Tex Wasabi, we checked into our Marriott Residence Inn. Some might find it weird to have a celebratory weekend at such a run-of-the-mill hotel/motel. Since we were only going to be there for one night and not in the room for very long, we didn’t feel the need to spend a lot of money. For our $114 in Sacramento, here’s what we got: a large room, visco-elastic bed, a full kitchen (stove, pots, pans, full size fridge/freezer, etc.), free Internet access, an on-site gym, pool, and hot tub. There’s also free breakfast daily (eggs, potatoes, sausage, cereal, muffins, fresh fruit, etc.) as well as social events Monday through Wednesday at night. I have to give the Residence Inn my highest value rating. I’ve stayed at places upwards of $200 a night that charge you for Internet access as well as breakfast.

After relaxing in the hot tub and heading back to the room to watch a movie (Bring It On sometimes just sucks you in), we went out to Zinfindel Grille for dinner. When my wife is in Sacramento on business, she makes it a point to have a meal there. I was prepared for it to be overhyped, but it delivered the goods. The menu had food in all price ranges. My wife has only ever eaten the $12 small calzone (which was quite big – easily enough for a meal). I wanted to take them to the test and got the $30 Filet Mignon. It was fantastic. For drinks, I chose the white wine sampler. Yes, I broke all the rules ordering white wine with red meat at a place named after a red wine (Zinfandel). My wife when with the red wine sampler. The sample has 3 glasses of different wines – 3 oz. each. For $10 it’s a pretty good value for what amounts to about 2 glasses of wine.

All-in-all, it was a successful weekend. My wife liked her excursion as well as a couple of gifts I got her – one of which I’ll review at a later time.

Money Writers:

  • Brip Blap asks do you need a bailout?
  • Frugal Dad wonders have you ever been embarrassed to be frugal?
  • Is an extended warranty on a used car worth it? The good, bad, and ugly of these service contracts presented by Generation X Finance.
  • Million Dollar Journey writes the cash flow dam explained (aka cash damming).
  • Digerati Life looks into online shopping for the bargain hunter: top retail coupon sites.
  • Money Smart Life offers these safe places to invest your money in a bad economy.
  • My Dollar Plan says an administrative error could cost you your retirement!
  • The Sun’s Financial Diary posts triple my money: how long and what does it take?

More Finance Posts:

  • Blueprint for Financial Prosperity blogs the one sure fire way to fail miserably in your finances.
  • Lessons learned from losing a quarter million dollars, a guest post over at Consumer Commentary.
  • Free Money Finance asks how much will you spend on holiday gifts this season?

Filed Under: Links, Review Tagged With: food channel, guy fieri, marriott, residence inn, tex wasabi, zinfindel grille

Aww Phuket, I’m Outta Here

June 13, 2008 by Lazy Man 8 Comments

phuket-beach.jpgThere comes a time, where you’ve just had enough. I think my wife and I have reached that point. So we decided to take some time off and say Phuket… …… Phuket Beach in Thailand that is. We are going vacation this September. If you read my posts a few weeks ago about military travel and my lust for the Asus Eee as a travel computer, you may have already connected the dots.

We didn’t set out to go to Phuket. We actually were expecting to go to Australia for 2-3 weeks. When we looked at things a little more, we found a few ways to maximize our savings on what will be a three week-long trip, such as:

  • Hawaii – Using nearly free military vacations, we’ll fly there from Travis Air Force Base for free. They go almost everyday and very often multiple times per day, so this should be easy. From there we’ll stay at the Hale Koa for $100 a night or possibly stay on base, while we try to get to Australia for free via the military.
  • Australia – We have tickets from Hawaii to Australia that we paid for, but if we can fly via the military we’ll pay a small fee and use the tickets next year (perhaps to go to Tahiti). If we can’t fly via the military we’ll just fly to Australia as is.
  • Thailand – From Australia we’re paying out of pocket to get to Phuket beach. We’ll use our Marriott timeshare in Aruba and stay at a deluxe Marriott. We lucked out because we are able to trade a one bedroom for a two bedroom for the week. This means that we can bank our other bedroom in the timeshare or sell it off. (If anyone is ever interested in a deluxe place to stay in Aruba feel free contact me.)
  • Australia (part 2) – We’ll head back to Australia where we’ll spend a week in Sydney using Marriott points. We’d like to spend more time and see more of the country, but I don’t think we’ll have the time with my wife’s work
  • Back to the US – We’re paying again to fly from Australia to Hawaii. If the military is going back, we’ll try to hitch a free ride with them and execute the Tahati plan. Once in Hawaii, we’ll get on one of the many military flights and go back to California, where we drive home.

This vacation overall is going to cost us a pretty penny. Flying to Australia, even from Hawaii, is not cheap. Continuing to Thailand as well isn’t cheap. Still, we should be able to reduce the expenses of this trip in half thought the short-cuts outlined above. Well, that’s not really true since we had to buy the timeshare, but that’s paid off in full at this time.

Lastly, now you know why I was so gung-ho for the 2-pound Asus EEE laptop that I bought. I’m only a little sad that it’s already obsolete as Asus has put out about 3 or faster and better machines.

Photo Credit: pete4ducks

Filed Under: Spending Tagged With: air force base, aruba, Asus Eee, hale koa, Hawaii, marriott, marriott timeshare, military travel, phuket beach, sydney, tahiti, travel computer, travis air force base, vacations

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