Melville went off to freshen up; as I'm a guy and freshening
up usually involves splashing a couple ounces of water on my
face, I wandered the Strip for a while and then met up with
jswong at the Wynn, where I proceeded to lose on the slots
at a rapid rate, while he won a modest amount. Luckily we're
both fairly sedate about this, so I lost under a hundred (in
a few minutes), and he kept his winnings.

Melville rejoined us at Red 8 at the Wynn, which I'd wanted
to try. We sauntered up, and the hostess asked if we had a
reservation: of course not. Are you resident at the hotel?
jswong said, does the Encore count, and next thing we knew
we were in the funny little alcove six-top where passers-by
look curiously at one as if we were some exotic species. The

prices were about double what I'm accustomed to, but the
portions were also double, and the quality was excellent.

As Melville and I had recently eaten, we weren't too
enthusiastic about eating, but jswong hadn't eaten all day.
We ended up with three huge dishes anyway - and did good
work on them.

A barbecue plate - pork, duck, and chicken - was served
Hong Kong-style, on a bed of legumes (sometimes soybeans,
here peanuts). The pork was somewhat fatty, very tender,
better than the red things you see hanging in shop windows
in Chinatowns everywhere; the duck was standard but very
moist and crisp, a fine iteration; and the chicken, though
sweet rather than salty, was also nice.

Salt-chile soft-shell crab seemed overpriced at $24, but
what came was six larges, and considering that the cheapest
I can get frozen ones at is $4 each, I began to smell a fix.
The crabs were excellent, nicely prepared, and we felt glad
to be taken care of by Dr. jswong at the Encore.

String beans in XO sauce were completely perfectly done,
just crisp, just tender, and the sauce - though there was no
discernible conpoy - extremely savory.

Forstmeister Geltz Riesling (Zilliken) 08 had jumped right
out as a bargain at under $40, so we got that - rather more
luscious than a standard-issue table wine should be, flowery
and aromatic, good tropical and pineapply fruit, a tad sweet
but very smooth. Quite nice.

All in all a most satisfying meal, and almost a bargain, and
in that setting, too. But all good things come to an end.

We wandered around the Wynn, I lost a couple more bucks, and
after we said our goodbyes, and I went back north on the
Deuce, which though direct was extremely slow.