Next day I joined Melville after checking out; we took some
bus or other down to Mandalay Bay, whence the plan was to
work our way up the wonderland to Luxor and Excalibur, then
New York, MGM Grand, and who knows.
For some reason Mandalay Bay, which I'd never seen in
daylight, took up more time than I'd thought. We lunched at
Hussong's, which has Negra Modelo on draft, a good thing.
Our waitress, from Oregon, was pleasant though ditsy. I
think she thought her Spandex pants falling down to her
butt crack was alluring. She was cute, but it didn't work.
Chips and salsa, probably local and definitely not a mass
produced product, did work, the thickish, slightly oily
tortillas very nice, and the two salsas - a cooked red
pureed one (hot) and a probably uncooked green one (not)
went well with.
We each ordered three tacos, which followed the Las Vegas
standard procedure - they cost more than they would about
anyplace else, but you get more to eat, as well. Her three:
steak, chicken, carnitas (pork). Mine: beef marrow, beef
cheek, and beef tongue. The marrow were out, so I
substituted carnitas. They were all good - my favorite was
the tongue, as the cheek I thought had been underbraised
and the carnitas, though tasty, a bit stringy.
Rice (rather industrial) and frijoles borrachos (quite good
stewed pink beans, I'm farting just thinking about them a
day later) came with.
Went back to the Ren, to visit* for a while, and then I
excused myself to walk up to the Hilton. The bellman tried
to convince me to take a cab (all of half a mile), but I
promised him I wouldn't take heatstroke and die.
The Hilton is a little lower-key than most of the other
places - it either doesn't have an identity, or its custom
is staider (read: older) than elsewhere. It's got 3000
rooms and is said to be the largest of all Hiltons; still,
its design makes it pretty easy to navigate.
The check-in girl looked at my elderliness and cheerily
told me that I had a room right near the elevator (my
HHonors profile reads "away from elevator"), so I protested
citing my hearing and at length was issued a fairly nice
room with almost nobody around me in the underutilized
east tower; it looked a little old and beaten down, though,
and I doubt the check-in girl's claim that it was a newly
renovated room and the manager's welcome letter claim of it
being a premium room. And it appears to be or to recently
have been a smoking room. Bathroom: pretty nice, big oval
tub (though old style), snazzy pressure flush toilet (which
doesn't always work quite right). Bed: comfy. A/C: somewhat
inadequate, but when you're dealing with 12 hours a day
over 100 and the rest over 90, one can forgive an 80 degree
room. View: bleak. The water tasted sort of like Roquefort,
which is sort of how the corridors smelled. This remedied
by a few seconds' running the tap.
No more Star Trek Experience.
Gold amenities:
daily free breakfast for two; two free waters per stay;
daily free parking; daily free health club access.
Extreme generosity (from the breakfast buffet coupon) :
"Children two (2) and under eat free when accompanied
by an adult."
Diamond amenity:
entrance into the VIP lounge, which is the offices behind
the front desk, equipped with about 8 chairs, some of which
are mostly for use of customers of the concierge desk,
sparkling who knows what kind of wine, and beer and Coke:
not conducive to lingering. I had a couple Heinekens.
Fortuna in the lobby bills itself as "a coffee and wine
experience"; it has an Enomatic system, which dispenses
neutral-gassed wine using a card system.
Beaune Clos de Feves 05 (Chanson), $3.50/oz - a bargain;
cherry, wood smoke, stems - very long stemmy finish. A good
wine in a price range that I can't easily afford any more.
Not stellar, but rather nice, and somewhat better than
Nuits St.-Georges 1er cru 05 (Jean St. Honore), 1.50 or
2.75/oz - there were two stations, one at each price -
the 1.50 was billed as 2002, the 2.75 as 2007; both
bottles were 2005 - pineapple and light red fruits, meaty,
a little too acid, medium finish of plums and stems.
Bleasdale Mulberry Tree Cabernet (Langhorne Creek) 05,
1.25/oz - vanilla and blackberry; as with many Aussies, a
bit of sweetness gives a bit of a milkshake impression;
blackberry finish. I got a little of this to finish off a
prepaid card.
I drank more of the Nuits at 1.50 then the Beaune, as it was
a better deal and an almost as good wine. You will notice
too that both of these were offered at close to retail, a
huge surprise.
They had Smith Haut Lafitte 2000 for $36 a bottle. I was
very excited and considered checking a bag back. But then I
noticed that it was the blanc, which wasn't that terrific to
begin with and must certainly be over by now.
* in the lobby, dirty mind people.