A perfect home away from home: Ace hotel & swim club, Palm Springs

Palm Springs must be one of the only places on earth where summer is considered the off season! But with Jax over for a visit, and ignorance on our side we headed down for a girls mid week mini break. We rolled into the Ace Hotel & Swimming Club late after a 6.5 hour shopping break at what I think are some of the best Outlets around (Desert Hill Premium Outlet)

What a delight this place is!! I think I could happily move my life to this little oasis. The hotel is an old motel that has been renovated beautifully. The rooms are lovely and the beds are ridiculously comfortable. 

It turns out that off season in Palm Springs means that pretty much everything is closed- but when you are at Ace, you don’t need to go anywhere, you’ve got everything you need.

We started off our break with a late outdoor dinner on the patio. Set out by the pool, with a bottle of wine it’s a pretty good evening.

For our first meal we tested out:
* Mushroom “chorizo” & papas tacos: this was one of my favourites! Shiitake, crispy potato, chihuahua cheese, hybiscus onion & scallions. You won’t even miss meat with this, there is so much flavour.

* Orange carnitas taco: confit duroc pork, smoky beans, desert cactus salsa & coriander. This was good but I preferred the mushroom. I’m not actually a big confit fan so found myself digging out fat bits (which would not have been wasted if Al was around)

* Marinated beets: Yumbo!!! These were set on some fromage blanc (which we saw several times during our stay) with blood orange and fennel. The fennel is quite light so don’t be afraid, besides the beets are perfect. 

* Cauliflower esquites: Another one I could not get enough of. Corn husk butter, lime, coriander and parmigiano. I don’t think this is going to be too hard for me to create a version of, the beauty of it was in their perfect cooking of the cauli

* Roasted carrots: Of all the dishes we got this was the weakest. There was nothing actually wrong with it, just that the others were better. The carrots were roasted with almonds, cardamon, coffee and honey.

In true, Jax and Jill style it was too much for us but we just couldn’t help testing out a few dishes. Besides, we burnt off our In-n-out burgers during our shopping marathon 🙂

With overly full tummies, our super comfy beds were calling….

The real beauty to the mid week mini break during off season is the ability to get down to the pool and not have to fight over lounge chairs- and if your lucky, grab a sun bed! You are going to want to lounge around the pool pretty much all day- it’s much too hot to do anything productive! We were lucky that we got there for the ‘perfect week of the season’ but it was still nearly 40 degrees (that’s 104 for you funny Fahrenheit  people)! We attempted walking into town once, got about 200 metres down the road and gave up 🙂

Have I mentioned there is no need to leave the hotel?

We have 2 great breakfast places that we have been to before Cheekys and Jake’s but both were closed for summer- if you’re there at another time they are worth trying.

We ended up having poolside breakfasts for both mornings and they were delicious. Here’s a look at what we tried:
* Soft egg & grilled corn cazuela. Dish of the day!! This is unlike anything I have ever had before. Kind of like a big mexican cheesy baked egg with yummy corn mixed through (I am currently obsessed with corn, and pineapple) with a bread roll type thing for dipping it in. Melted heaven.

* Smoked salmon: not for me at all! I like salmon but am just not a fan of smoked salmon- this was 100% for Jax, and she was pretty happy with it. Plus it was filling so she could steal all of my cheesy egg 😝
* Breakfast burrito: can you ever go wrong with these? This is jammed packed with heaps of egg, chorizo and yummy hash potato. Normally I find people overload the potato (cheaper) part of the burrito but here it was definitely the egg.

* Chilaquiles: I am addicted to these. Ever since I got to California I have been hooked. The Ace ones are amazing. Some spice but not too hot. And very prettily presented. 

Now I want to be clear with you, this is 2 days of breakfast! I know we can go overboard but double breakfast is too much! Even over 2 days we were so full we had to make sure we lounged by the pool for 30 minute before getting in to make sure we didn’t drown.

By Friday the weekend crowd was starting to arrive and it gave a taste of how busy it can get, I can only imagine what it would be like in the peak of the season.

I’ve been to Palm Springs before, both times for Coachella so not really the most ‘real’ experience of the town, and this off season trip probably still sits in the ‘not real’ experience but I don’t care. I have loved it every time and I absolutely adore Ace Hotel & Swimming Club. I have decided this is to be my hideaway going forward 🙂