Palms Place pool, restaurant a great place for star spotting
You can’t party hard every weekend. Some Sundays, you must chill at a spot such as chef Kerry Simon’s restaurant-pool party at Palms Place.
Yet even last Sunday, as laid back as Simon’s was, my party and I looked up to see a TV shoot setting up at a table.
Adrienne Maloof and Camille Grammer of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” sat with other TV friends and ate crispy rice sushi, French toast and Snickers waffles.
There was nothing scandalous to report. Reality TV is a controlled invader. The women munched. A camera and sound crew sat stone-statue still. Diners around them just went on with their meals while stealing glances.
The setting for this TV episode was: a girls’ day out. But just outside, at the pool, lying on a cabana’s lounger was Maloof’s husband Paul Nassif, the rhinoplasty specialist.
At various moments, a cocktail waitress in a little bikini would stand in front of Nassif’s sunglasses and wiggle her behind to the beat of DJ music, revealing a severe confidence to shake her skin for the inspection of a cosmetic surgeon.
There was no tantalizing or lascivious behavior at this pool party, named Sunday Scene, where many Palms employees lay out on the clock.
But that’s the appeal of Sunday Scene. You go to eat the $40 pajama buffet brunch — servers wear PJs, and you can too if you want — or you head straight to the pool.
On Sunday, the pool music was a little too hard (house music thump-thump). This dayclub may be better suited to songs on the soothing level Kaskade (which did come late in the afternoon) or softer trip-hop or even ambient electronic.
But Simon’s is still a reliable, go-to stop for locals and tourists on the weekend, with splashy sightings that are not preannounced or paid appearances.
Two years ago, I had a business dinner at Simon’s, and I noticed a large group of people in a private room.
“Who’s back there?” I asked a server.
“It’s Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon, celebrating their anniversary,” she said.
Three years ago at an extravagant CineVegas night party at the pool, I walked past a cabana to observe beefy security guys guarding the person inside — Britney Spears, hiding from the prying eyes of VIP guests and media people.
A couple of years ago, Palms owner George Maloof called me and asked me to join him for Sunday brunch. I drove over, walked up to his table, and sitting at his booth with a cotton candy dessert was Avril Lavigne (in pajamas, if memory serves).
Some months ago, I went to Sunday brunch with photographer Denise Truscello and Dayna Roselli from KLAS-TV, Channel 8, and we glanced up to spot Paul Stanley of Kiss, who stays in the Palms Place condos.
On other days, there’s been Jessica Simpson, the Kardashian sisters, a “Today” show segment with Natalie Morales, Dennis Hopper, Toby Keith, Cheryl Burke, Usher, Jamie Foxx, T.I., Jenny McCarthy and many others.
And that’s the dependable getaway for food and/or pool lounging of Sunday Scene. Although, if you gorge first (adding the $17 all-you-can-drink champagne or $11 all-you-can-drink bloody marys), and then do the pool second, you will feel like a beluga whale.
Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Contact him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.
