Viva Las Vegas – Day 2

Slept in a bit, then hit the café downstairs for breakfast. I ordered a Dutch Pancake which was fairly disappointing – not eggy at all, but regular pancake batter cooked in a cast iron skillet. Once fed and awake, we stopped by the spa to book an appointment, then changed into suits and hit the pool. A few clouds would pass by periodically, but otherwise it was nice to be warm. We had strawberry daiquiris and did several laps on the lazy river. After a snack of chips and guacamole, we packed up and ventured toward the spa for our facials. The facial was good, though I always forget how much it hurts when they start digging into your nose extracting blackheads. Ow! But man was my nose clean. We also dunked into the Jacuzzi and steam room before exiting the spa.

For the evening we decided to walk up to Caesars for dinner and then head downtown. Heading towards Bellagio we walked past the ginormous new City Center project going – $9 billion dollars worth of hotels, shopping and condos. One of our cabbies told us it would be self-contained, with their own police and fire. How crazy is that? It’s huge. At Caesars we went in search of Mesa Grill, one of Booby Flay’s restaurants I wanted to try. However, we were told the first opening was at 9:30pm. When I asked to make a reservation for tomorrow night, they handed me a card and told me to call the central reservations number. Seriously? Because the staff was as full of themselves as Bobby is, congrats Mesa Grill – you are now on the black list. Instead we went to La Salsa Cantina for half the price and no attitude. From Caesars we caught a cab downtown.

In all my trips to Vegas and I had never been downtown, but every time I go, Grandpa Homer asks me if I went to see the Fremont Street light show. So that was my one goal for the trip. We arrived just in time for the 9:00pm show, which was set to Don Maclean’s American Pie. Everyone pours out of the casinos and crowds a two-block area, all the casinos turn out their lights, and then a two-block canopy projects a glitzy digital lightshow. It was cool – later at 10:00pm we saw the Queen tribute, and at 11:00pm listened to the KISS tribute.

We wandered the two blocks and decided to gamble at Glitter Gulch ‘cause we liked the name and sign. As we got closer though, we figured out it was actually a strip bar. We were delighted to find an ABC store (Hawaii specialty, and Sara purchased a giant daiquiri in crazy cup. We had thought the casinos downtown would have cheaper tables, so we were looking forward to playing blackjack and craps down there. However, as we walked through the Golden Nugget, all the tables seemed to be $10 just like on the strip. Therefore we stuck to Penny slots. After a few missteps we finally found our favorite slot – Goldfish. We played it for quite awhile, and when we got back to the Monte Carlo, we played it some more! But once we ran out of our $20 in free play, we headed up to bed.

Viva Las Vegas – Day 1

Last Wednesday over a delicious dinner at Mar’s house, Sara said she was thinking about going to Vegas the following week for spring break, and randomly asked “anyone wanna go with me?”  My brain started scanning my upcoming week and as I thought about G being trapped in China, I soon blurted out “I totally think I can.”  Thursday morning was spent comparison shopping various Vegas deals that had arrived in our inboxes over the week, and by early afternoon we were booked for three nights at the Monte Carlo and flights on Alaska.

Picked Sara up in the morning, got all checked in, made the obligatory stop at Dish D’Lish for some food and boarded our plane.  However, just after sitting down, the captain alerts us that maintenance is work on a problem, it’s gonna take 1-2 hours, and we need to de-plane.  I should note here that Sara and I are in the very last row, so it’s gonna take like 30 minutes for us to just get off the plane. As we are standing and waiting to de-plane the Captain gets on the speakers again and lets us know we have a new plane instead, so head to gate D10. Yay! We all caravaned over there, head to row 30 once again, and wait to take off.  At this point the Captain reminds us that we are headed to Vegas and what are the odds that two planes would break on us?  Say what?  He tells us the other plane needed a new hydraulic pump that would take awhile to replace so they decided to switch us to this new plane they had just flown in from Denver. HOWEVER, there was a blizzard in Denver and two of the landing lights cracked, so now we had to wait for maintenance to replace those.  Seriously?  Luckily screwing in a couple light bulbs doesn’t take too long and we were on our way soon after.

It was a quick flight and we only landed an hour late despite all of our delays. We grabbed our bags and a taxi and were soon at the Monte Carlo for a couple days of fun.  We chose the Monte Carlo for two reasons:  first, we always eat here at the brew pub, and two, their pool area features both a wave pool and a lazy river.  The other reason is that it’s a quieter hotel in a good location, easy to get in and out of, and easy to get to other places from.  We have room on the 15^th floor, just halfway down the hall from the elevator.  It looks like any other hotel room in America, except our view is of the New York New York roller coaster.  We quickly dumped our stuff, changed into our suits, and ran back down for an hour on the lazy river.

Arriving at the pool, we grabbed towels and inquired about inner tubes, where we were told they cost $16 a day to rent.  Excuse me?  I asked about a multi-day deal, and then the girl told us we could also buy our own at the pool shop next door for $10.  Ahhh, much better.  So, that’s your tip of the day if you’re gonna be on the lazy river more than once J  Since we arrived in Vegas later than planned, parts of the pool and river were already shaded from the sun, but we hopped in our tubes and floated for about 45 minutes, round and round.  So awesome!  Some of you know the story of me and Sara at the Sydney Olympic pool where they also have a lazy river, so this was a good spot for us to be.  As the sun finally crept behind a building, we hopped out, toweled off, grabbed our inner tubes and went up stairs to change for the night (which really just meant putting on our previous outfits since it was a Monday night).

Whit had told me about the ½ prce ticket booth across the street from our hotel, so we wandered their first to see what was available.  We had figured out that of we wanted to see Love (the Beatles show) or Wayne Brady, tonight would be our only shot.  Love was starting in just like 20 minutes, so we didn’t think we would make it, and the ½ price seats for Wayne Brady were sold out.  Looking at the other options though, we decided to taxi up to Venetian and see if full-price seats were still available for Wayne.  They were so we splurged, and since the show didn’t start for a couple hours we wandered looking for a dinner spot.  We ended up at Enoteca San Marco, along the Canal and owned by Mario Batali.  Good were the 8 oz. wine pours and fried risotto & prosciutto balls.  Bad was the bread – it was burnt all around the crust.  We asked if this was normal or could we have a new batch.  We were told it was normal, part of the process they use.  Who wants burnt bread? Especially when they didn’t give us any oil to dip it in.  Our pasta entrees were good, though not amazing.

Back at the theater we were looking forward to sipping some sort of blended delight, but the slushie machines were empty.  Just wine for us.  Wayne Brady was hilarious – I don’t know how he makes up all those songs on the spot.  The most crazy part of the evening though came when he asked for volunteers and all of sudden Sara was on stage with him! It was Sara, some other guy, Wayne, and Wayne’s partner Jonathan.  Sara and the other guy had to make sound effects for whatever Wayne and Jonathan were doing.  It was great!  Sara is officially a Vegas Show Girl!

Walking into the Venetian we had surprisingly noted the existence of penny slots.  As we walked around after the show we headed that way, but noticing it was almost 11:00pm, thought we would run outside first to see if the pirate show was happening.  (Real Fire!)  Sadly it wasn’t, so instead we walked next door to check out the Wynn.  To our delight they also had penny slots – this is a sure sign of the recession I’m convinced.  We sat down, plugged in two bucks and started playing.  Sara immediately won like $16! (remember this on pennies) which was great.  I eventually racked up a couple to keep me fairly even, but I think I lost my initial $2 investment.  Drats.  With our winnings from the slots we also took on penny draw poker while sipping our gambling drink of choice, Amaretto Sour.  Sara ended with about $15, me with $4.26.  Yep, big first night.

Other Local Faves

while we’re at it though, here’s my list that I recently gave to a new hire, with a couple additions from Shelby C:
Subject: Kendra’s favorite restaurants

Nice

All Tom Douglas restaurants:  http://www.tomdouglas.com/    (Serious Pie is casual though)

La Spiga: http://www.laspiga.com/

Flying Fish: http://flyingfishrestaurant.com/

Boat Street Café: http://www.boatstreetcafe.com/index.html

Matt’s in the Market: http://www.mattsinthemarket.com/

 

 

Casual

Volunteer Park Café:  http://www.alwaysfreshgoodness.com/

Pies & Pints: http://www.piesandpints.com/

Tamarind Tree: http://www.tamarindtreerestaurant.com/index.php

La Rustica: http://www.larusticarestaurant.com/

all Chow Foods restaurants:  http://www.chowfoods.com/   (Skip Hi-Life though)

Chinooks: http://www.anthonys.com/restaurants/info/chinooks.html

Divine: http://www.divineseattle.com/

Fu Man dumpling house: http://www.nwsource.com/ae/scr/edb_vd.cfm?ven=32332&s=nws

Baguette Box: www.baguettebox.com/

 

 

Ethan Stowell is making quite a name for himself – his restaurants aren’t my favorite but in case you want to check them out they are: Union, Tavolata, How to Cook a Wolf, Anchovies & Olives.

Same goes for Matt Dillon – his restaurants are Sitka & Spruce and the Corson Building

 

Haven’t been here yet, but I think it’s gonna be good:  http://oddfellowscafe.com/,  springhillnorthwest.com, http://www.table219.com/, www.spinasse.com

 

ADD:

Harvest Vine http://www.harvestvine.com/

Pair http://www.pairseattle.com/

Barolo http://www.baroloseattle.com/

Rock the Wok

Technically I haven’t gone anywhere to warrant a blog posting on my travel site, but I’m posting this info for anyone who may be traveling to Seattle, ’cause it’s a good list.  All credit goes to Mar, who has guest-blogged here before.  Heidi asked me for good chinese restaurants in Seattle, but I deferred to the real expert – here’s her list and commentary:

Question: Are the out of towners native chinese or non-chinese? Are they from a city with good Chinese food (Vancouver, SF, New York, Los Angeles)? If native chinese, then avoid places like Judy Fu, but otherwise, you could go to any of these:

My parents really like Chiang’s Gourmet on 80th and Lake City Way – by the old Mojito Cafe. It’s got consistently good food – my parents know how to order and also has the favorites that tend to be liked by most westerners. However, KMJ, they have your honey walnut prawns too.

Up north, there is T&T seafood, which is by the Ranch 99 but that’s getting close to Lynnwood

In Wallingford, a small place is Rocking Wok (near Stone Way and like 43rd or so, one block east of Stone Way). We went there a few times, but haven’t been lately. My parents are creatures of habit.

Judy Fu’s Snappy Dragon is good for some things – hand cut noodles, pot stickers, but caters more to a americanized chinese palate – not that I don’t like their food, I love it, but my parents tend to only like it for those things, less their main dishes.

Kendra is a big fan of Fu Man Dumpling House up in north Greenwood (Greenwood and 140th). Great dumplings, but no rice/meat/veggie dishes.

Over in Bellevue – there are more options cause there are more Chinese people over there, so over there off 520 beyond 405 there is Ming’s Chinese Garden, in downtown Bellevue there is Sea Garden (also in the ID). Top Gun used to be in the ID, but is now at Factoria. They are also quite good and have Dim Sum.

Down in the ID, there is Sea Garden for dinner, but for dim sum you could try Jade Garden – often crowded though. Dim Sum at Noble Court in Bellevue is good too.

I think our family consistently goes to Chiang’s Gourmet. We like them a lot. Hmm…I’m going to save this list.

Seattle Burger Wars

One Sunday morning a group of girls headed out in the rain to tackle three Seattle institutions and declare one as having the supreme burger.   Since one of the girls didn’t eat burgers (me!), the group also rated grilled cheese and onion rings. At each spot we shared one burger, one grilled cheese and one order of onion rings.  Below, please find our results:

Red Mill

Price $11.08/ $4.09/$3.34/$2.59 (total/burger/cheese/rings)

Burger got a 4.  Bun sesame seed and toasted.  good/fresh condiments on burger.  special sauce, unevenly distributed but good flavor.

Cheese got a 2.5.  Tillamook cheese.  wheat bread.  not evenly toasted.

Rings got a 3.5. 

Wait time 10 min.  Overall 3.75

 

Kidd Valley

10.76/3.65/3.65/2.69

Burger got a 2.5.  Sesame seed bun, not toasted.  special sauce like salad dressing.  toppings not as fresh.

Cheese got a 4.5.  American cheese, sour dough bread.  grilled evenly.

Rings got a 3.5.  not very oniony.  crumbly.

Wait time 5 min.  Overall 3.25

 

Burgermaster

11.90/4.39/3.79/2.99

Burger got a 2.  NOT sesame bun, yes toasted.

cheese got a 4.  good but not as good as kid valley.

rings got a 3.5.  even though they were frozen!?  not crumbly and more oniony.

Wait time 5 min.  Overall 2.  SICK!!!

 

Final Summary:  Red Mill, of course, was the clear winner for burgers, but Kidd Valley will always probably be my fave.  The most shocking point of the day was actually the downhill slide of Burgermaster – the one at U Village was just gross dirty, and not very economical for what you get.

Also Noted:  D’s bathroom trips.

Only two.

12:16 Redmill

1:47 Burgermaster