San Diego offered a surprisingly good restaurant strip in the form of
the
Gaslamp district along 5th Avenue. On the first night some of us hooked up
with the
Sonoma Partners (no referring to themselves as Sonomans) and headed to the
Bondi Bar. These guys always hassle me
about the amount of drinking on my blog - but I didn't
name my entire
business after a wine producing region. The bar was a decent place
(apparently also the local meat market - which made discussing business there a
little surreal). Cocktail quality and ingredient availability scored high. I
managed to wean a collegue off Sapphire and Tonic and him hooked on
Martin
Millers. Food was good (including the party pies) - but the wait for a table was
excruciatingly painful. I liked the Australian style service - you have to go to
the bar to get a drink. The place, I'm ashamed to say, did make me a little
homesick.
On Sunday night I opted for a low key business dinner instead of the mega
convention party - for reasons described
elsewhere.
We headed to Croce's restaurant named after
Jim Croce the folk singer.
It was a nice oasis of 'quiet' where a few of us could effectively do some
business. Food, drinks and service were good. However one of my colleagues
remarked that he had better many better experiences dining there in the past.
Each Convergence the field team typically host a dinner. This year we headed
off to Chianti for an
'Microsoft only' get together. The food was good - but maybe a little too
Southern Italian for my liking. I suppose I was expecting more of a Tuscan
influence given the name.
After Chianti I headed off to the Avanade
Cocktail reception at the
W Hotel. The Avanade guys are great hosts, the W had great atmosphere - but
the service and drinks for crap. One has higher expectations when drinking at a
W. My expectations were simply not met. The service was rude and slow. The bar
was very poorly stocked. The glassware used was crude and unimaginative. This of
course didn't stop us having a good time and talking CRM until the wee hours
with some super smart MVPs and Avanade employees.
Last night I found myself with the Sonomans, the Dutch and one of Sonomas
very large enterprise customers. We went to
Ole Madrid for some tapas and
sangria. I found myself not eating a lot and barely touching my sangria. The
place seemed interesting but was a little 'dead'. I enjoyed spending some
quality time with the 'enterprise customer' (I won't embarrass them here)
discussing the various architectural options for deploying CRM in a complex
global environment.
San Diego seems like a fun place. I can't say I spend these last few nights
'partying' as I'm a little too 'business focused' at these events - but I could
see myself coming back to have some real fun.