So the world has totally turned upside down since the last time I wrote. This blog will continue to be my happy place as we navigate through these crazy times, so I don’t want to dwell on anything negative here, except to mention the following.

Danielle and I had this trip booked for months, and when we left on Thursday, March 12th, we were on alert, but didn’t even consider not going. But then everything seemed to change overnight, and by Friday, schools in Ontario were closed and my work had put a mandatory work from home order into place starting the next week. If we were scheduled to leave even one day later, we likely would have just cancelled.

We decided to just stay the weekend, but I want to say we were VERY cautious the entire time: we avoided crowds, used hand sanitizer like crazy, and stayed in the hotel room a lot watching TV and eating treats in bed (although to be honest, we do that on every trip anyway). We had a great time as always, especially since we haven’t seen each other since our last trip in 2018, but there was definitely a sense of impending doom over the weekend. Being out of the country at the onset of a global pandemic is basically my personal nightmare. Anyway, we got home okay, immediately went into self-isolation, and are both doing fine (physically anyway).

Having said ALL THAT, we still had to eat in Palm Springs, and as per usj, I wanted to document our favourites. I hope all of these places survive this crisis, because Dani and I will definitely be returning one day. My foodie research consisted primarily of looking at Gaby’s Guide to Palm Springs, plus checking with Nicole who has been to PS a few times. Here are the highlights of what we ate:

• Birba: I thought Birba would be a good choice for the first night in Palm Springs, since I’m always starving after a travel day (especially this one, as I was subsisting mostly on granola bars) and I was right. We shared a baby kale salad, a pappardelle dish with wild mushrooms and a fantastic pizza with arugula, honey and Calabrian chili.

• Norma’s: The first thing you need to know about Norma’s is that it’s in a super private, exclusive hotel called Parker Palm Springs. You can barely find the place because it’s enclosed with ten foot hedges, and you’re only allowed on the property if you’re a guest at the hotel or you have a reservation at one of the restaurants (seriously – the security guard checked my name/reservation before he let us in – on foot by the way because parking is for hotel guests only). We sat outside at Norma’s on their super cute patio had a very hard time deciding what to order. The menu is huge and has multiple varieties each of pancakes, waffles and French toast, but eventually we settled on Norma’s Super Blueberry Pancakes, Crunchy French Toast and a Breakfast Quesadilla with Scrambled Egg, Bacon and Guac. The pancakes were a bit meh in our opinion, and the French Toast was a bit dry around the edges (gotta soak that bread all the way through Norma!), and so the quesadilla ended up as my favourite item. Norma’s is also VERY pricey, so I don’t actually recommend it, although the vibe there was very cute, and I’m sure there were celebs on site, hidden away somewhere.

• Sherman’s Deli & Bakery:  The average age of the customers at Sherman’s is definitely 65, but these seniors know what’s up, because Sherman’s is great. They have a huge menu of all the usual deli classics, plus a bakery case at the front with every kind of cake and pie you can imagine. For dinner I had a classic, delicious BLT and Dani had a veggie sandwich, and then we got slices of Chocolate Cream Pie and Banana Cream Pie to take back to our hotel to eat in bed (our classic vacation move).

• King’s Highway Diner: This is a retro diner at the front of the Ace Hotel that used to be a Denny’s back in the day (in fact, the whole city of Palm Springs appears suspended in the 1960s). This was a recommendation from Nicole as she had stayed here a few years ago for her Bachelorette weekend. We shared Avocado Toast and Berry Ricotta Pancakes that were fantastic (much better than the ones at Norma’s) and had a nice tang and richness from the ricotta. Because it was Pi Day (3.14) we also had a slice of Banoffee Pie for Brunch Dessert. I’m not much for fresh bananas in my dessert, but this was great: graham cracker crust, layer of fresh bananas and a dulce de leche type caramel, and whipped cream with chocolate shavings. YES.

• Maracas: We were originally going to hit up El Jefe on Saturday night for Mexican, but I felt like it was going to be a whole scene, so instead we went to Maracas, which we passed on a walk the night before. We had guac and chips and I had chicken enchiladas and Dani had chicken tacos. Pretty standard Tex-Mex fare, but it hit the spot.

• Kreem: The first ice cream place we wanted to go turned out to be a bust, so instead we back-tracked to Kreem. Their flavours were a bit weird for us (there was even a savoury ice cream, like chutney basil something), so we stuck with a classic: Cookies & Kreem. It was fantastic.

• Peninsula Pastries: When you google “Best Bakeries in Palm Springs” there aren’t really any cute and trendy places that pop up, so I wasn’t sure about Peninsula Pastries. I warned Danielle as we drove over not to get her hopes up, as I wasn’t sure what kind of French pastries we were going to find in Palm Springs, so I wanted to manage her/our expectations. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Peninsula Pastries is legit, and I knew it as soon as we walked in and the owner greeted us with her cute French accent. There are trays upon trays of every kind of French pastry you can think of, and as usual, it took me forever to decide what to get. We ended up with a plain croissant, pain au chocolate, chocolate tongue (kind of a long brioche bun with custard and chocolate chips) and a butterscotch twist (same as the tongue but twisted with butterscotch and pecans). Everything was incredible. When we go back to PS one day, this will be our first stop.

Other non-foodie related notes:

• When we were looking for a hotel, the only criteria I had was that it had a dope pool. We stayed at the Marriott Renaissance Palm Springs and it was perfect.
• No notes here on things to do (our agenda for each day was basically: brunch, pool, nap, dinner, Target) but just one note that you’ll need a car to get around town.
• Danielle lives in Alberta and has mountains in her backyard, but I couldn’t stop commenting on all the beautiful scenery as we drove around town. I can’t wait to go back.