Florida USA: Fort Lauderdale: beaches, art and steak house dining

On 16th February we went to Fort Lauderdale.

This was Shrove Tuesday as well, so on the way we stopped at a diner in Weston where I was able to get my "fix" of pancakes (with eggs, bacon, etc. etc.).

After initially parking in downtown Fort Lauderdale and walking a brief way along Las Olas Boulevard we decided that it would be too much for my mother to manage to walk to the beach – she has angina – so we went back to the car and drove to a car park by the beach. I was asked by a visitor from Alabama how to pay for the car parking.

We then walked on the beach a little way, and then sat enjoying the view. We left mum sitting on the sand and went for a stroll, stopping for the world’s most expensive smoothie on the way. While drinking my smoothie I was asked to take a photo for a couple of German tourists.

We then drove back along Las Olas Boulevard to the Fort Lauderdale Art Museum. We parked just around the corner and went in. The ground floor was closed as an exhibit had ended that weekend and the new one was setting up so we were allowed in for free – possibly because there was only a couple of hours left until closing too!

There was some frankly odd art from the CoBrA school (artists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam), but I did enjoy the rest of it. Some great stuff by Andy Warhol and other “names” like Tracey Emin in an exhibit called “with you I want to live” as well as a wing devoted to the American artist William Glackens.

We had a chat with the security guard as we left. His wife was from Norwich, England. They met on the beach at Fort Lauderdale 20+ years ago! He recognised our accents and wanted to know if we knew Norwich.

Back at the hotel we had dinner in the Ireland’s Steak House restaurant with my daughter’s new “in-laws” plus my two youngest. The food was great (and expensive to match) but the service was lacking. We were 10 minutes late getting to the restaurant and they had given our (reserved) table to someone else. This was despite me asking for an 8 o’clock table and being told they could not take us until 8:45. I had to pursaude them to take us at 8:30, we arrived at 8:40. They then said we’d have to wait for 10 minutes for a table so we sat in the bar drinking bloody mary’s. The ten minute wait for a table turned into half an hour. It then took them 30 minutes to take our order and another 30+ minutes to serve it. So it was now 10:15 and we had all eaten loads of bread. The restaurant was nearly empty anyway.

Lots of silly frippery in the restaurant – like different types of salt for different courses/entrees, loads of different types of bread and different types of butter for each one. They offered a 36 ounce steak as well – which they said we could share if we wanted. I found the 8 ounce was just fine. My mother and daughter had the halibut – causing some amusement, my daughter had never encountered “hali – butt” before.

I also hated the way the server kept interrupting our conversation to tell us about the menu choices or whatever. I appreciate they need to do their job, but butting into our conversation is just not acceptable to me.

I see from this review http://findlocal.sun-sentinel.com/weston/restaurants/steaks/irelands-steakhouse-at-the-hyatt-regency-bonaventure-weston-restaurant that other diners have had a similar experience to us recently. One of the reviews seems a little TOO good – maybe written by a member of staff? I also see online that they are advertising for a new maitre d’ – I think they may need one!