Rest of the Las Vegas Trip (food, gambling, VegasSummer10)

I felt that Musashi deserved it's own blog post, but the rest of the trip was not as eventful. Did not have much luck at the tables, and almost tilted away the hard work I'd been putting in on online poker (which I'll talk about in a future post). There were some bright spots though, so let's get to that.

After getting there Friday night, we started off with the Bellagio buffet. It's not cheap at almost $40, but there's a lot on offer. For my first plate, I went with crab legs, spicy tuna roll, smoked salmon, and a salmon pastry thing. They had two types of crab legs, Opilio and Alaskan, but neither of them really had that sweetness that I look for in crab. I love the spicy tuna roll there. There's no or very little mayo in the mix and it has a nice slow burn. The smoked salmon was good, and I love the combination of smoked salmon and drawn butter.

The second plate was meats and sides. Slice of kobe top sirloin was mediocre at best, but the one bite with fat was very tasty. Beef wellington was ok, but the grilled quail was quite nice. Creamed spinach, potatoes au gratin, and fingerling potatoes were as expected.

The third plate is more of a catch-all. Another spicy tuna roll, some salmon nigiri, some ham and pineapple pizza just to try, some shrimp cocktail, some california rolls made with real crab, and lobster ravioli. The lobster ravioli was surprisingly good, with a good amount of lobster meat.

After the buffet, we hit the tables and I showed my friend how to play pai gow tiles. It's a great game and he had a good time learning. We had a fun dealer and sat for a long time having drinks. I strongly suggest people who have had experience with pai gow poker (with cards) give it a try. There's a lot of good info here.

Saturday was more of the same with food, drinking, gambling, and that wonderful teppanyaki dinner. After the dinner, we caught the 10pm showing of O from amazing seats. Lowest level, 12 rows back, dead center.

They don't allow photos for obvious reasons, but I snapped this one of the clowns walking right in front of us before the show started.

The rest of the time, we ate dim sum at Noodles restaurant in the Bellagio, thanks to a generous comp from our pai gow floor guy. Pictured here clockwise from the top right are the har gau (shrimp dumplings), steamed pork spare ribs, siu mai (called shumai in American Chinese food speak), and zhan zhu gai ("pearl chicken" - glutinous rice filled with meat and sausage wrapped in lotus leaf and steamed). My friend BM was especially taken with the pearl chicken, which does provide flavors and textures that most Americans don't come across.

On the last night, after watching the World Cup final and having more dim sum, I discovered Blackjack Switch. I'm usually not a big blackjack fan. The swings are too quick, everyone (should) plays basic strategy, and I don't even get to touch the cards if I'm playing small stakes. Blackjack switch is a lot more fun, and even though the numbers are much more complicated, it's even a slightly smaller house edge than regular blackjack according to the Wizard of Odds. As for the basics of the game. The bad news is that if the dealer has 22, it's a push and blackjacks pay even money. Sounds pretty bad right? Here's the good news. Every player must play two hands, and after the first two cards are dealt, they have the option to switch the second card of the two hands. So if you were dealt 10-5 on your first hand, and 6-J on your second hand, you can switch the cards to end up with a 20 and a 11. This leads to more decisions (when to switch) and makes the game more fun for me.

Musashi Japanese Steakhouse in Las Vegas (food, VegasSummer10)

The Travel Channel's many food shows have led me astray before, but Musashi makes up for all the bad advice. I went there last year, and I'm beginning to think that I will go there every time I'm in Vegas from now on.

They make a big deal out of the Kobe beef, but it is indeed a big deal. I asked to look it over before ordering, and here's what they showed us.

Not bad, eh? It gets better. The price is $136 for 9 oz of this beef in addition to the normal teppanyaki set of rice, vegetables, soup, salad, and shrimp appetizer. The relatively cheap price for what they said was A5 Kobe beef obviously raises some suspicions, but I didn't care. If I had to guess, the difference in price could stem from the part of the cow this is from, just as different cuts cost different amounts of money. But with Kobe beef with that marbling, do I really need to eat a filet as opposed to whatever other cut?

Here's our chef, flipping his utensils before we start. There are only two chefs here. The owner with his back to us, who is Japanese, and our guy, his brother-in-law who is Korean.

Dim the lights, set the grill on fire, let the show begin! It's like being at an NBA game.

We start with fried rice. Delicious, hot, and well-seasoned.

The ubiquitous onion volcano while he made our vegetables.

Our vegetables included sprouts, zucchini, and mushrooms. The sprouts, loaded with black pepper, were especially good.

There were only a couple shrimp included in the set menu, so I ordered some extra.

They make all their sauces fresh. The sesame sauce was nice and included a cool lemon slice trick. They also had a terrific teriyaki sauce that was not as sweet as the regular ones. In fact, our chef told us that the owner was offered 100k by a restaurant group for the recipe but wouldn't sell.

The kobe beef. That piece was for both me and my friend BM.

Cooked to a beautiful, melty, medium rare. He didn't think it needed any sauce, but did provide a light wasabi cream sauce which went really well with the beef. Gave it a nice little kick without taking anything away from the beef's flavor.

Quick Thoughts, First Night in Vegas (VegasSummer10, food, sport, stock/trading, entertainment)

Quick thoughts and an interesting encounter.

Was in a ridiculous line to get through security while at the Delta terminal for my flight. The line went out the terminal and almost ran out of sidewalk. People had to be continuously expedited through the line to make their flights.

Cliff Lee is ridiculously good, but I understand that the Yankees already have two top left handed arms. This move, however, makes Texas a very very strong team, now that they have a real anchor in the staff who could win 2 games every playoff series by himself. Great move by Texas, and it looks like the Yankees did what they could, but it wasn't worth any more than what they offered.

Thoughts on the whole Lebron thing and the NBA in a future post.

So on the flight over, there was a pretty hot woman in the aisle seat. Looked vaguely familiar, but couldn't put a name to her. Then she started talking to the guy in the middle seat, and she mentioned that she was a former pole dancing competitor, but more importantly, is the wife of Kenneth Starr, the alleged ponzi schemer. Oh, the people one meets from NYC to LV. She was pretty down to earth though.

One of the entertainment options on Delta was a trivia game. The cool thing was that you competed against other passengers on the plane. Nobody talked trash, but we did look over to see who the other players were. It's a good way to pass time since your brain is engaged and so you don't feel the passage of time as much.

One flight attendant spilled a little soda on my pants while handling a credit card transaction (with a cup of coke in her other hand) and did not come back to offer even a napkin. This and the long line at the terminal are obviously signs for why US airlines are just all doomed.

Lots of quality here, and even on the plane over. Some of the hottest Chinese girls I've seen in a long time.

Introduced my friend BM to Pai Gow Tiles. It's not the easiest game to learn, but we had a fun dealer and a great time.

Ate at the Bellagio buffet. Pictures to come.

Looking foward to the World Cup final. Seems like the classic confrontation of the best team (Spain, pre-tourney favs, European champs) against the hottest team (The Netherlands haven't lost a single World Cup match or even one of the qualifying matches).

I'm actually tempted to play some online poker right now. Such a junkie.