The Fourth Annual Palm Springs Desert Resorts Restaurant Week cooks up delicious dining experiences from 100 locations, June 3 to 12.
Restaurant weeks have grown in number and popularity due the opportunity they provide to try new locations at lower than normal prices. Diners can feast on three-course prix fixe menus for $24 or $36 in Palm Springs and surrounding desert communities during Palm Springs Desert Resorts Restaurant Week.
The diverse selection includes everything from Californian, Asian, Italian and vegetarian.
Morton’s The Steakhouse in Palm Desert is one of the best deals. Their $36 menu includes choice of salad; choice of salmon, chicken, or filet; and dessert. The regular price for the single-cut filet mignon with bearnaise sauce is $43; potatoes or vegetables are extra. Long-term hospitable staff, wine lockers where guests can store bottles, and, most importantly, aged prime beef make Morton’s a steak lover’s heaven. General Manager Josh Soto said 85% of restaurant week guests order the filet.
“We’re known for steaks. Restaurant week gives us a chance to meet new guests. We get to spoil them and capture a few. It only helps us,” Soto said.
Palm Springs, a couple of hours from Los Angeles, has wonderfully sunny weather come June. Palm Springs is a welcome change from the June gloom that delays the start of summer all over the coastal Los Angeles basin. Golf, hiking and biking can still be pursued early in the day. Browsing the boutiques, shopping the malls and pool lounging easily round out the time until lunch or dinner.
Other activities include The Living Desert, 1,200 acres of zoo and botanical gardens featuring North American and African desert life. Camels, giraffes, golden eagles and badgers along with saguaro, jumping cholla, and agave are just part of the beautifully displayed animals, trees and flowers.
The Monarch of the Desert exhibit, home to a jaguar, is designed to look like an old abandoned silver mine with a miner’s cabin and rusty truck.The largest cat native to the Americas, the jaguar is somewhat reclusive as are some other animals, depending on the time of day and temperature.
The Discovery Center is kid-friendly with replica fossils to touch, a glassed-in sand feature that shows how wind creates sand dunes, and a craft counter with rubbing plates and crayons to create a snake or owl. The giant ground sloth is impressive at eight feet.
Signs throughout name and explain how animals and plants adapt to the heat and lack of water. Hiking trails through untouched Sonoran Desert make up 1080 acres of the park.
Other activities include:
Desert Adventures – Red Jeep Tours
Room rates drop in June anywhere from 30 to 50%, making the trip even easier.
For example Hyatt Grand Champions’ summer rates begin at $129 versus $189 during the rest of the year. Pool, palms and flowers create an oasis with gym, spa and excellent dining in Lantana.
