A couple of weekends ago I joined my friend Lola for a girl’s day out. Lola and I met in Egypt during our college year abroad eons ago, and we spent much of our time together there hanging out at the cafe of the Semiramis hotel. It was across the street from the building where the American Research Center in Cairo was located (our other hangout) and quite close to school – almost any afternoon you could find us there sipping cappucinos. So when Lola and I decided to get together for a girl’s afternoon out a couple of weeks ago, it was natural that we decide to spend most of it hanging out in yet another hotel coffee area.
The Fairmont Hotel is coveniently located in downtown San Jose. It has an old-fasioned, somewhat imperial lobby which is however populated by tourists in brightly colored t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops. The Lobby Lounge is in a recessed area in the center of the lobby. It’s furnished with sofas and comfy chairs and it’s quite attractive and relaxing. It offers a vast menu of alcoholic drinks, a few sandwiches, desserts and sushi. They also do a tea service between 2 and 4 pm, but by reservation only. We basically hang out while drinking very expensive cokes ($3, no refills). It was very nice and relaxing.
After a couple of hours of doing this, my husband Mike and our two daughters came to pick me up. Mike was hungry, and the foie gras burger in the menu sounded quite enticing – though at $20 it was quite pricy. Still, he gave it a try. It was quite good, the meat was juicy, the foie gras delicious and yet the whole thing didn’t work for me – at least not to the tune of $20. I thought that the burger would have been better if it was seasoned – just some salt would have helped, but that might have hidden altogether the subtle taste of the foie gras. Still, it was a pretty good burger and worth trying once.
One minus point for the Lobby Lounge is that the underside of their sofas is completely filthy – as I discovered while trying to recover a toy that had been dropped.
The Lobby Lounge
The Fairmont San Jose
170 South Market St.
San Jose, CA
408-998-1900
http://www.fairmont.com/
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