Two Stars. Three and a half. Five. Five.

We've been staying at Hotel Carmel in Santa Monica. My travel partners have been here longer than I, so I understand their lack of enthusiasm about this 2-star hotel. There is no restaurant, so no room service. The rooms are very small and remind me of the room at the Breakwater on South Beach in which Cameron and I stayed over New Year's Eve a few years ago. All of the furniture is Mission, which I like.



Santa Monica is great though. I can see the beach from my smoking room on the fourth floor. It's been raining since I arrived Monday evening. It looks like we're going to have a sunny day today.

Dinners here have been nothing less that what I expected. Monday night we ate at Sushi Roku. After a little research online, I learned that it's part of a chain of restaurants. The reviews I read were mixed, but I enjoyed it. We walked back to the hotel and opted to have a nightcap or three in the bar/restaurant next door, Chloe.

Tuesday evening, we went to Chloe for a drink then to Wolfgang Puck's Chinois on Main. The food was great, the service was good. Too many martinis. My head really was pounding Wednesday morning.



Last night, we went to Craft, Tom Colicchio's restaurant in Century City. What an experience. The food is served family style. We had an assortment of oysters, two salads, one arugula with pine nuts and another with Romaine and crispy anchovies, and a curried pork belly appetizer. For dinner, we ordered a 45-day dry aged Porterhouse, roasted chicken, spare ribs, potato gratin, sweet corn, roasted brussels sprouts with bacon. For dessert one of us ordered pear sorbet, another ordered banana pudding, another butter pecan ice cream. A couple of the guys ordered White Russians. I ordered Gingerbread with egg nog ice cream and ginger sorbet and an espresso.

Today is the last day of pulling these commercials together. We're supposed to be at Jigsaw at 9. So, I need to jump in the shower and make my way down to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for some java.