This past weekend was full of a lot of good times, such as going to the MSU vs. Penn State football game on Saturday (a much needed and deserved win) but Friday was the tops. Some of the usual suspects (Matt, Kari, Stephanie, Tony) as well as a few others got together after work, dressed up a bit and headed out into the city for a night on the town. The reason? Well we don’t really need a reason, but in this case we happened to be celebrating Stephanie’s birthday, so all the better!

We started with cocktails at the Coach Insignia on the 72nd floor of the Ren Cen. I love going to that place for drinks. Not only do you get the breathtaking elevator ride up to the top that looks out over the river and Windsor but you get the 360 degree panorama of the city when you walk around the lounge. I always find it really cool to look out over downtown, or the bridge. Easily one of the greatest views around.

From up there we had a good view of how packed the city was, since it was the night of the Christmas tree lighting (which some of you paying attention to my Flickr would have seen going up in front of my office over the last couple weeks). We watched the actual lighting ceremony from the lounge and then once we were done there walked through to Campus Martius to get a first hand look at the tree, the ice skating, and the bands that were playing.

After that we headed for Fishbone’s in Greektown for an excellent dinner. That place has always been very consistent in terms of the food and the service. I really like it because they have a great variety, it’s a nice large restaurant (though even still it can take a while to get a table) and while you can definitely go there and dress it up a bit, it is still a pretty casual environment that puts you at ease.

Then it was back to the cars and over to the new MGM Grand casino (which I visited a little more than a week prior just to scope it out) though this time we planned on doing some more serious clubbing. We hit all the lounges and gave the place a once over; I can happily say that it is definitely a great place to go and a lot of fun, though you need to be expecting to drop some money if you do go (even if you do stay away from the tables). V has a great sound system and lighting. I would love to see that place turned up to 11 with a really good DJ spinning some house or trance. Ignite is definitely more laid back, with it’s unique fire displays and down-tempo chill out soundtrack. The other bars are a bit more relaxed, more tailored for people coming in for a drink from the slots or the tables, but Agua is still a unique place to go hang out, and has some pretty projected special effects and water displays.

After closing the place down everyone agreed that it was a really great night, and best of all really great to see everyone out downtown and having a great time. Detroit gets a hard time, but this city has plenty of life left. It will come back strong over the next 10-15 years, I can feel it.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Anything and tagged with detroit, dining, holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.