Las Vegas

Tarrant_sl said:

Adam really pussed out and didn't let you put his picture up there? Seriously?

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That's a 99% accurate representation of myself. Well more like 105%, I'm not that fat.

Tuco I thought you said your wife was mexican!

Looks like you guys had fun. Come to Chicago and we can do something!

My wife and I spent about 4 or 5 days in Vegas back in May. We stayed at the Mirage. Rooms were decent but nothing special. We pulled the "it's our anniversary and our first time in Vegas" line out and it got us upgraded to Strip view rooms. We had a spectacular view of the Mirage Volcano when it went off at night. The nice thing about going in May is that it was hot but not unbearable. We had monorail passes but ended up walking the Strip a few times.

Though we stayed at the Mirage we spent all of our time gambling at MGM Grand which, we felt, had the nicest casino on the Strip. We also did the Tix 4 Tonight to see David Copperfield and it was a fantastic show. We had free tickets to Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur (food is bland and not that great but it's a fun show). Plenty of other stuff to do as well.

As far as food goes, we couldn't stand Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill. However we LOVED Gordon Ramsey's BurgR. We also ate at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant at MGM Grand and, in my opinion, his restaurants are always fantastic (pricey but the food is worth it).

As far as casinos go, like I said we spent most of our time at MGM Grand. We seemed to have the best luck there (we each won a couple hundred bucks) and it was the largest but any of the Strip casinos are going to be tight. The Mirage was OK but despite staying there, we didn't gamble there. Flamingo is a dump (supposed to have higher payouts to get people there but we didn't really care for the atmosphere). I think we had our worst luck at the Aria and ended up leaving after blowing $50 each in less than an hour. The off Strip casinos are supposed to be looser but we never got off Strip to check them out.

Blowing $50 in less than an hour in Vegas is nothing.

Alex_sl said:

Blowing $50 in less than an hour in Vegas is nothing.

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This is true. But at the Aria we didn't even get small wins to offset our losses. At other casinos you'd get the occasional win to keep you playing but at the Aria we never saw that. It's a higher end resort though and that might have something to do with it.

I'm going to be in Vegas next week. Staying at MGM again. I've already got reservation for Gordon Ramsays Steak. Will provide any good stories and pics if the bitches be fine.

Echuta_sl said:

I'm going to be in Vegas next week. Staying at MGM again. I've already got reservation for Gordon Ramsays Steak. Will provide any good stories and pics if the bitches be fine.

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We really wanted to eat there but was a bit too pricey for us. We settled for BurgR at Planet Hollywood and Pub and Grill at Caesars. We were very happy with the compromise but next time we get back we're definitely going to splurge for his Steak restaurant.

We're probably goin to hit BurgR as well one of our nights. Anything there you'd highly recommend?

Echuta_sl said:

We're probably goin to hit BurgR as well one of our nights. Anything there you'd highly recommend?

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Let's see, we ate at the following (and ended up having a lot of burgers while we were there):

BLT Burger at the Mirage: Only reason we ate here is because we had just got off the plane, got to our resort and needed to eat something NOW. Despite that it was actually really good.

Gordon Ramsey's Pub and Grill at Caesars: Fantastic. I had the Shepherds Pie and my wife had the gourmet Mac N Cheese. She said it was the best mac n cheese she's ever had and my shepherds pie was awesome. Also very reasonably priced. Our service was pretty decent but the table behind us had been complaining that they had been waiting for over an hour and a half for their food. The waiter kept apologizing but it wasn't making the food come out any faster. Not sure what happened because, like I said, our service was on point.

Gordon Ramsey's BurgR: I think I went boring and just had his American Burger but it was one of the best burgers I've ever had. My wife had the Uber Cheese burger and loved it (she LOVES cheese). Reasonably priced for a celebrity chef's restaurant. For dessert the Sticky Toffee Pudding is fantastic (I think he has it at all of his restaurants because we had it while at the Pub and Grill and it's also on the menu at BurgR).

Pinks: Outside of Planet Hollywood. They've famous for their hot dogs and Italian Sausages. It was pretty decent as a lunch.

Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill at MGM Grand: His restaurant's always impress me. Not as expensive as other celebrity chef restaurants (particularly the steak houses) and his food is amazing. I had the organic chicken which was fantastic. I can't remember what my wife had. I want to say she had the salmon though.

Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill: We didn't care for this after having been spoiled by Gordon Ramsey's BurgR. Other people might rave about the place but it didn't impress us.

The Wicked Spoon at the Cosmopolitan: This was our only buffet and it was decent. If you like buffets this is probably the one to go to since the food is of higher quality than most other buffets. But, personally, I'm not a buffet person myself. I never really feel like I get my money's worth since I don't like to over eat.

Delights at MGM Signature: We had vouchers for free breakfasts here and it was really good. I'm not a big breakfast person but the Lemon Raspberry Pancakes had a ton of flavor and the french toast was pretty awesome.

Serendipity 3 right outside of Caesars: If you don't mind paying $15 for a hot fudge sundae, this place is fantastic. They also have some pretty kick ass frozen hot chocolate.

When I say "reasonably priced" that's reasonably priced for Vegas. Expect to pay for even low end meals. While my wife and I couldn't justify $150 for Gordon Ramsey Steak we decided that we weren't going to do McDonalds or Denny's either. Since we were in Vegas we wanted to eat at places we couldn't eat at when we're at home.

Final note. The service in Vegas is VERY slow. If you're used to going to a restaurant and having the waiter at your table within 5 minutes with drinks and your order in, you'll be disappointed. At first we thought that the slow service was just due to time of day or the restaurant we were eating but we discovered that it must be a "Vegas" thing because the service everywhere was pretty slow and not all that great.

Oh yeah, we also had free tickets to the Dinner Show at Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur. In my older post I said that the food was passable but not great (the chicken was a bit dry). However, you don't go to TOK for the food. You go for the full experience and on that it delivers. It's a lot of fun. If you've ever been to a Medieval Times it's a similar experience.