Mike "Moose" M.'s Profile

Ah, you got me Rene.  Well played.  The classic bait-and-switch.  Touché.  

Sell me a deal through Groupon **CASH REGISTER SOUND**.  No mention of needing reservations, no mention of only a few "groupon parking spots".   But to be fair, I blame Groupon equally for not getting those terms up front.  

After attempting to reserve an elusive "Groupon spot" in this lot, I was quickly denied and told that I could use my Groupon "between March 8th through April 29, 2012".  

Well thanks Manager Rene, that's really helpful!  I'd LOVE to reschedule my trip around your unwillingness to let me park in spots not designated for Groupon customers.  Hold on while I:

- Call up the airline and reschedule my flight
- Call my hotel and rebook for dates that work for you Rene
- Contact the 3 restaurants I have reservations at and reschedule for sometime "March 8th through April 29, 2012"

Call me crazy, but what they are doing here is akin to a coffee shop only brewing one pot of coffee each day for Groupon customers, then denying Groupon customers after that pot of coffee runs out.  "Sorry, our Groupon brew is out for today, come back between March 8th through April 29, 2012".

Needless to say, I will not be parking my car within a mile of this shady business.

On second thought, I'll probably find the closest lot to this one, park so that Rene can see my car, and scream some sort of explitive about how he "coulda had this" or "don't bother to come crawling back".

Consider this a review of the owner/operator of La Paloma, rather than the establishment itself.

My company recently rented the theater out for a Friday night movie premiere and party.  Alan, the theater owner, was essentially the gatekeeper into everything that happened that night.

While being mostly helpful, he was also overly controlling of everything that happened.  When things needed to get done asap, he was hesitant to let anyone else do them.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt in being protective of his theater, but you can only be a control freak if you can get everything done that needs to get done.  He could not.

The night involved quite a bit of technology, including playing movies on a Mac tower (he refused to use the mouse, only keyboard shortcuts), and using an iPad to Facetime a person from China.

Let's just say that between unwanted audio playing to the theater, to his internet being down (until we fixed it), to having to run the theater lights on our own...it was 3/4 of a disaster.

The spoiled icing on the poorly baked cake was immediately following the finally, which was the showing of the 45 minute movie made specifically for this night.  The movie ends, and the house lights never came on.  Why no lights, you ask?  Thats because the theater owner was next door at the guitar shop...drinking.  It must have been more entertaining than the movie we were showing.  

I'd go back to the theater, but not if I had to deal with the owner or operation.

Hypothetically, had all of downtown SD burned to the ground, and I'm 5 years younger, I might have enjoyed the atmosphere at Union.

As it stands today, I'd rather remove my kneecaps with a rusty philips head screwdriver (yeah, not even a flat head!) than return to this place.

We arrived on a night where our party had the entire back room reserved...whatever that means.  There were plenty of non-party members in our area.  And by plenty, I mean close to 1000.  Maybe 5000, I'm not really sure.  

Moving around in this place reminded me of those wedding dress sales they have in New York, where all the brides-to-be basically trample eachother and don't care.  It lierally took us 5 minutes to walk from the back room to the front door, thanks to a plethora of wasted and extremely bad dancers.  I'm talking "overweight-dude-doing-booty-a-booty-shake-dance" wasted...they take up precious floor space.

Before leaving, my group of 4 sat at a table with a couple that was nice enough to share.  I got excited when I saw his Shrimp Grits.  I wasn't excited for the $16 price tag, but I was super hungry so it was probably worth it. So we wait for the waiter to come back.  

And we wait.  Still drinkless.

And we wait more...

25 minutes later, no sign of senor waitor, I find another waitress that tells me the kitchen is now closed.  

We hit the road and didn't look back, Jack.  Or rather, Taco Bell as it were.

I've been really happy with Los Primos every time I've visited them.  

On one occasion, I visited them without knowing where I was after a long bike ride from downtown.  As fate would have it, I ended up living a block from here years later.  

In any case, you can't go wrong with the chipotle shrimp burritos here.  The shrimp is occasionally a bit overcooked, but the sauce and size of the burritos make up for any shortcomings in shrimp.

My wife had enchiladas that were decent, and we've both had nachos that were more than sufficient (I can't vouch for our sobriety at that point in time, however).

Let's be honest, girth is what matters with burritos.  And for burrito girth, I go to Los Primos.

Karma is one of those places that "just gets it".

The biggest draw to this spa (that rhymed) is absolutely the prices.  First time visitors receive "member" prices, which are basically unbeatable by any spa in SD.  To boot, their record-keeping is not the best...lets just say I've been there for the first time, many times.  

60% of the time, I'm a new member every time.

The therapists are mostly Asian, which I find to be an absolute plus.  Eastern medicine and traditions are much more aware of the body, and the massage therapists here are really talented.  They find parts of your body that you didn't know were sore and make them feel better.  I've also found that they all tend to be much stronger as I prefer heavy pressure.

I probably wouldn't go here for the immersive, uber-relaxing-day-at-the-spa as my wife likes to do.  But those looking for a 60 to 90 minute barrage of elbows, knuckles and feet to the body can't go wrong with this place!

Being a man, and a cheap man at that, I was resistant to the idea of wedding planners.  I definitely did see the value in a "day-of" coordinator, because I really didn't want to be bossing the wedding party around, much less having to even THINK about what they were doing.

And given the EXTREMELY small budget we had for our wedding, I didn't grasp the value of having a wedding planner.  

I can tell you now, 6 months later, IT WAS ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT.

Kaila and Lacey are ROCKSTARS.  They managed to pull together our odd-ball wedding, despite me not wanting to fully relinquish complete design control.  

They had great suggestions in areas we didn't really give much thought, which ultimately saved us money.  The most valuable part to me was their help with the "flow" of the wedding in general, which tends to be hard to grasp when you've never been married before (even if you're a wedding crasher).

Next time I get married (JUST KIDDING HONEY!), I'll absolutely choose Lacey and Kaila, and I won't hesitate for a second this time.

Though, for the record, I still don't forgive you guys for convincing my wife to go with the "fancy" chairs.  You guys made up for it in other ways so I didn't take a star away for that!

I took my wife here for her birthday dinner, and a milestone birthday at that (coughTHIRTYcough).

The 4 stars are given for REALLY good food, REALLY good view, and above average service.  Given the aforementioned items and their obvious draw, the 1 negative star is given for the wait to enjoy said food & view.

Yes, we got there after 6, and I knew that was a bad idea.  Yes, we asked for an ocean view table (it was a special night, sue me!).  With that said, we did wait 1.5 hours for a table for dinner, which would have been excessive at any other place.  

During our wait, we grabbed some martinis (very good), some wine (very good), George's famous soup (FAN-FOOKING-TASTIC), and the tuna app (really really good).  We enjoyed the bar for awhile but you can only sit there so long before you get bored.

After much waiting, we landed the best 2 seater in the house and were snickering to ourselves that we had landed it.  Let's be honest, we don't belong at a place this nice but we'll gladly play the part for a night.

I ordered skirt steak and HOLY JESUS it was spectacular.  My wife ordered a less impressive pasta dish which ended up as lunch the next day.

For just north of $200, we had a top notch meal, great view, and memorable time.  We'll be back, but only as often as my bank account will allow.

Came here with my wife for a mini-celebration, on a Wednesday as I recall.  The place *looked* empty from the outside but actually had a couple dozen people hidden inside (mostly UCSD students if I ventured a guess).

We were very happy with everything we ordered, minus the whitefish that came with the sashimi plate.  All the other fish was EXCELLENT and fresh (you can't always expect that in the middle of the week).

The Rock n Roll was my favorite item of the night...if I was of hispanic descent, I would describe it as "Mexcellent".  I am, however, of Caucasian descent and thus cannot do so.

This could be my next regular sushi spot!

Customer service is not the priority at Anderson.  While visiting a friend near Disneyland, we decided to order some fresh seafood for the next day.

We ordered halibut but received seabass.  No easy way to rectify this quickly.

Called customer service and they basically told me I had ordered the wrong thing.  

I'll take my business elsewhere, thanks.

I was really tempted to write a review of Las Flores sooner, but I had to give it awhile to let everything soak in.  Here's the 411 (how 90's of me to say):

- Lived here for a year (2009 to current)
- Have switched apartments since living here

PROS
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- Beautiful area with a HUGE park right behind the complex
- DOG PARK across the street
- Pet friendly complex
- Pool & jacuzzi on-site (and jacuzzi is always HOT)
- Well-landscaped

CONS
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- RAMPANT AUTO THEFT (2 cars & 2 motorcycles in the past 3 months)
- HORRENDOUSLY BAD MANAGEMENT
- NAZI-like parking policies
- Multitude of maintenance issues due to aging buildings
- HORRIBLE MANAGEMENT
- Pool, jacuzzi and laundry close at 11pm (even the public safety officers complain about that)
- Pet rent is $50/month

Management
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Let's start with the management.  I think the easiest way to explain this would be this: I would rather have a rusty phillips head screwdriver inserted under my kneecap than go to the front office and try to get something done.  

I have to give them credit though...they do have collecting rent checks down to an art.

Also, the time it takes to get a maintenance request in and completed is pretty ridiculous.  Our heater didn't work, and it was 2 weeks before they fixed it.  Oh, and you don't actually get to schedule the work...they put it in a queue can call you 10 minutes before they are ready to do the work.  If you're not home, you are SOL.

Parking
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Parking has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY worse in the last 3 months.  Las Flores has contracted Western Towing to patrol our parking lots and garages and immediately tow any vehicles that are remotely violating the new set of rules.  

Oh, you're a resident and you just want to park in an outside spot while you're home for lunch?  TOWED.

A friend comes over and visits for 10 minutes but doesn't have a visitor placard in the window?  TOWED.

A maid service comes to clean your house but doesn't know they need a parking pass?  TOWED.

THEFT: On top of the WWII-Germany-style parking enforcement, auto theft is also way too common here.  On New Years Eve night, I had my motorcycle stolen from the gated/locked garage.  Not a trace, not covered by insurance, and I'm sh!t out of luck.  A friend that lives in the same complex had his car stolen the month previous, as well as another resident I spoke with.  

Pet Rent
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I guess since they are one of the few complexes around La Jolla Colony that allows pets, they can get away with exorbitant pet rent.

My dog Jasmine has had to turn tricks the last 4 months just to cover her $50/month in rent....I guess that's to be expected in an economy like this.  She still owes me too, but evicting her isn't an option yet.

Maintenance
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The buildings were obviously built just long enough ago to start falling apart now.  My neighbor just had his pipes back up and pour raw sewage ALL throughout his apartment.  The cleaning crew was there from 10pm until 3am!

There have been temporary storage dumpsters blocking 5 of the outdoors parking spots since I moved in.  This is a huge nuisance for those of us on that side of the parking lot.

Interiors
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Our apartment is probably one of the nicer ones despite its age.  We're one of the few units on the firelane, meaning we get no traffic in front.  We also get a lot of natural light in our unit compared to other units (including the one we moved out of across the firelane from ours).  

The top floor units have vaulted cielings which really help the units feel bigger.  The bathrooms are sufficient size, though we can never get our shower to stay hot (I've done everything I can with the water heater).


Conclusion
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All in all, I like living at Las Flores because its near my work and the area is pretty.  Our unit is big enough for now, and as long as we don't have to deal with the management, its not too bad.  

Having my bike stolen was a big ass bummer, but now I know that I need to be more careful.  I probably WOULDN'T recommend this complex to a friend unless they were in the same situation as me.