Cover Stories Where to shop, stay, play, and dine with your dog | Where to shop, stay, play, and dine with your dog |
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| Saturday, 31 March 2007 | |||||||||||||
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From death row to “penthouse pet of the year”
Hotel: The Ritz-Carlton San Francisco
600 Stockton St San Francisco, CA 94108(415) 773-6168  The vibe: First class elegance with a sense of humor
Pet package: A fluffy bed set in a brass four-poster frame with Ritz trademark lion heads atop each poster, chews and treats, bowls, a leather collar (sized for the usual 5-pound guest), and a brass tag inscribed with the Ritz logo engraved with your dog’s name.
Where to dine: Your dog won’t mind hanging in the regal rooms at the Ritz while you sample award-winning chef Ron Siegel’s spectacular nine-course tasting menu at the hotel’s high-end destination restaurant, the Dining Room. For brunch on the weekends, there’s no better all-you-can-eat caviar bar than the one at the Terrace. A veritable smorgasbord awaits you in the Ritz-Carlton’s lovely daytime venue, and if the weather is nice, you can enjoy the buffet al fresco.
What to know: Dogs must be under 10 pounds (they made an exception for Jasmine so she could check out the digs). It was imperative that one of the nearly two-dozen hotels we visited be San Francisco’s regal Ritz, but I knew there was a weight restriction so, and Jazzy weighs 10 pounds plus 50, so I called my friend Angela who works in the corporate office and asked if they could make an exception for Jasmine’s article. “We’re going to ‘wow’ you and Jazz,” she said. “She’s quite the diva at this point,” I explained, “so that might be tough, even for the Ritz.” When we arrived, a bellman grabbed Jasmine’s three bags (and my one) and white-gloved valets pulled open the grand doors. “Welcome to the Ritz, Ms. Reynolds,” one of them said, “and to you too, Jasmine.”
We made our way through the lovely lobby to the front desk where a staff member handed me a glass of champagne while I checked in (my kind of place) and, as usual, desk personnel cooed over Jasmine’s adorableness (which she loves). “You’ll need your card key to access your floor,” one of the desk staff told me. We were staying in room 919. The last person to stay there was Vice President Dick Cheney, and before him, Rolling Stones’ lead singer Mick Jagger. We were staying in the Penthouse.
It was bigger than my friend’s apartment in Russian Hill with sweeping (and I mean sweeping) views of The City from one end of the suite to the other. There was a dining room with a crystal chandelier hanging over the table that could easily seat 10. The main living area featured a huge flat screen TV and a Steinway grand piano. On top of the piano, Angela and the pastry chef had left us an edible welcome gift: a marble slab held a white chocolate frame containing Jasmine’s photo, a pink sparkly collar made of fondant and decorated with candy rhinestones, house-made chocolates and truffles (made at the Dining Room for their truffle service at the end of each meal), and, written in chocolate across the marble were the words, “Welcome to the Ritz Susan and Jasmine.”
That night, Jazzy and I watched the fireworks at the Chinese New Year parade from the windows in the dining room, and later I selected from a glass vase filled with scented fizzy balls for a bubble bath, which I took while watching a movie on the flat screen TV above the tub. Jasmine kept trying to drink the water and, once again, she managed to scoot herself over the edge of the tub and into the bath with me. When we crawled into bed that night, both of us clean and smelling of mango-coconut fizzy ball, my first thought was, “I’m sleeping in the same bed as Dick Cheney.” I decided to think instead about the fact I was sleeping in the same bed as Mick Jagger. We turned on flat screen TV number three, closed the curtains with our remote control, and drifted off to sleep. The four-poster brass dog bed was empty, and I ended up squished in the corner of the giant mattress beside a former pound puppy pit bull, stretched out on her back, snoring blissfully.– S. Reynolds |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 10 December 2007 ) | |||||||||||||
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