To Vegas and Back with Pluto
 

This old villa

I finally talked Pluto into joining me in Sin City so I booked two round trips on National Airlines as Pluto met me in Los Angeles for dinner prior to the trip. Pluto’s flight was right on time and TripTalker, Hunnybear and I picked him up and headed straight to Long Beach for the infamous Omni Award dinner. Today we took a nice walk up Venice Beach to Santa Monica for an always-great lunch at Border Grill. Hunnybear had taken the red-eye last night to Toronto so she was unavailable for play. We recovered from lunch in time for dinner. TripTalker had booked a reservation at the very exclusive Matsuhisa, celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s Beverly Hills location.

We used Expedia Maps to find our way but it was too easy as there were only two turns involved in getting to Beverly Hills from Marina del Rey. The restaurant was unpretentiously typical for a Japanese restaurant and directly across the street from Ed Debevic’s, which competed for Nobu’s clientele by offering their famous meat loaf. To our surprise and delight, Nobu himself was there and greeted us as we entered. We had the master decide on our meal and ordered the $90 prix-fixe mystery menu. They also had a $70 menu but what kind of meal could you expect for only $70? I asked the waiter what the difference was and he said with the $90 you get better ingredients, like toro. “Of course,” I said. “How could you get toro for only $70?” We ordered dry cold sake and were off to the sumo races.

Dave the Zipcode Man joined us and had just a couple dishes because he wasn’t too hungry. Our meal was five courses, starting with twin hama-hama oysters topped with caviar. Then came a Caribbean-style shellfish ceviche, followed by a tempura stuffed Maine lobster claw. The toro came as advertised, seared and piping hot. Finally came five pieces of the best sushi I had ever tasted. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but they served three Western-style treats that we shared: chocolate roulade, tiramisu, and chestnut mousse. They were superb. Burp. Dinner came to $112 each. I remembered I don’t like paying for dinner.

TripTalker drove us down La Cienega all the way to the airport as I checked flight schedules on my cell phone. The pervious National flight had been delayed, offering us a perfect opportunity to jump aboard. We gave TripTalker a passionate belly hug goodbye and proceeded to National’s gate 61. I asked Carla, the friendly agent, if they had two First Class seats available. She said they did and I asked her to switch us from the midnight flight. “How are you going to pay for the upgrade?” she asked. Apparently I was the only one who had ever purchased a full-fare First Class ticket on National so I explained that the upgrade was included in the ticket price. She blushed and apologized and I pish-tushed her and told her to think nothing of it, but that she had better develop a little more unfriendliness if she ever hoped to work for United.

We had the best seats on the plane, the starboard bulkhead with cutouts for puters and two full-sized windows. One has to be careful when booking 1D and F because some of National’s planes have no window there and one actually has no seats there. As always we got our preflight drinks in real glasses because the FAA that United claims doesn’t let them serve drinks in glasses is not the same FAA that National uses. I wrote to United suggesting that they switch FAAs but they haven’t responded. We were delayed another half-hour on the ground past the original delayed time, which got us to Vegas over 90 minutes early from our perspective. The snack was toast with pear compote but neither of us partook given the reverie of our Nobuesque repast.

Stephanie, the only female limo driver at MGM, picked us up in a gold house limo and whisked us to the hotel. Pluto gave her a generous tip and we proceeded to the VIP lounge to check into our two-bedroom penthouse villa with a south Strip view from the airport to New York, New York. The entry opened onto a marble foyer with steps down to a formal dining room to the right and a bar and living room to the left. The usual embarrassingly huge gift basket was waiting with a love note from my host. This was the biggest and best room I had ever been given as I requested to blow Pluto away. Pluto was appropriately blown away. A private elevator removed the need for us to lug our luggage up the circular staircase to the twin master bedrooms, each with an enormous shower, dressing room, twin vanities, and Jacuzzis big enough to catch moderately large sea bass in.

We played a little craps and finally I had a little success betting wrong as nobody could make a pass to save their souls. We got to bed around two.


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I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com

I've been to Japan a lot, and from my observation, as a rule the Japanese do not eat dessert (since it isn't offered in Japanese restaurants).

That does not stop the diners from getting up and going to the western-style coffee shop next door and having some cake or pastry, but that isn't dessert, that's coffee.

OK, that's it. From this point onward, I will never mention desserts in one of your threads again. That will be my new rule.

Oh, congrats on the Omni, and nice tux. And I envy your ability to tie a bow tie.

<<How are you going to pay for the upgrade? she asked. Apparently I was the only one who had ever purchased a full-fare First Class ticket on National so I explained that the upgrade was included in the ticket price. She blushed and apologized and I pish-tushed her and told her to think nothing of it, but that she had better develop a little more unfriendliness if she ever hoped to work for United.>>

I believe there's an FAA regulation that precludes friendliness -- that law has been in effect for years!

LOL! Great trip report! I bet it's not snowing in Vegas http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Hey QL, how come those cheap .......s at the MGM never fly you up too?...

Several of the Vegas hotels used to have ads in the San Diego Union in the early 90's in the sports section, offering to fly up anyone who'd play minimum $5 hands for 4 hours...throw in a room if you played longer..(probably not the 2-br super suite at the MGM though unless you were playing $10 a hand..)..oh the good old days..

George... the MGM does reimburse my airfare, rest assured.

Picasso

I got up early to play a little video poker and ended up a little ahead although the Royal drought continued. Pluto joined me and got a tour of the high-limit area then watched as I played. We had lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s Café and started with the trio of spring rolls, excellent as before. Both our entrees were a bit overcooked but edible: Pluto had the salmon and I had the rosemary chicken. Pluto left a generous tip and we headed down to the spa to take some Jacuzzi and steam before Pluto’s half-hour massage.

At two we took the tram to Bally’s and walked across the street to Flamingo, no longer called a Hilton, and picked up our VIP seats for Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. Great seats indeed they were, at the front and center table. Drinks were not included and they wanted a non-comped $4 for water (bottled; a glass was only $2) so we passed. The show was well performed and had some good numbers but lacked a good book. Since it timed out to only 90 minutes, I thought the addition of a well-crafted story line could make it into a smash hit, or at least better.

After the show we got out of that dump the Flamingo as soon as possible and took a brief tour of Paris and Bally’s before returning home. I did my traditional free million-dollar slot pull, not winning anything but nonetheless saying, “Hot dog!” When we got back Pluto wanted to learn to play video poker, although not on the same machines I was playing due to the high cost of prices. We signed him up for the Directors Club and hooked him up for MGM’s unique slot-club benefit: frequent-flyer miles on American Airlines. Pluto was all excited about the world of comps after experiencing our villa in the sky, so he confidently approached the clerk and said in his best Ben Stein impression, “I hold an AAdvantage card.”

We set up shop in the duck pond at the single-play dollar machine and Pluto earned 250 or so miles while losing just a little as I sat on his shoulder and told him what buttons to press. He picked it up fast and soon will be on his own with just a little help from the patented Bob Dancer™ strategy cards.

It was time for dinner so we met our limo out front and were driven to Bellagio. I had kept Pluto in suspense about plans for dinner, among other thing this trip, and to his consternation walked him by just about every restaurant in the place before taking the secret escalator down to our real destination: Picasso. Besides having a phenomenal seafood menu, Picasso was one of the finest rooms in the world to dine in. Original paintings by the eponymous artist hung generously all about, but the beauty of the art was overwhelmed by the magnificence of the famous fountain show, visible from the entire restaurant through enormous picture windows. While we waited for our table, we had a couple huge martinis at the bar, actually priced reasonably at only $8 each for at least a triple. The barkeep let us sample the new Tanqueray Ten, which we both liked when sipped neat as he recommended.

The hostess came by and showed us to a table that disappointingly was the only one in the room without a view of the lake, hidden as it was behind an enormous banquette so opaque and ostentatious that it could have been a sight gag in a television sitcom. I was crestfallen. I asked the hostess if she had anything else but it was not possible. I resisted the temptation to ask, “Part of the new cruelty?” and instead persisted and suggested we could wait for a better table. She offered something in an hour but just then a manager appeared and within seconds I overheard a hushed whisper between them: “You’ll just have to tell the anniversary couple that we’re sorry.” Next thing we knew we were sitting at the best table in the house, right smack in the middle of the picture window with a perfect view of the entire lake, the Eiffel tower rising illuminated out of a miniature Notre Dame beyond.

Dinner was a choice of the $80 menu, which had several choices for each course, or the $90 menu degustation, which had only one choice: bass or lamb for the entrée. We chose the $90 because it offered something we serendipitously discovered was both our favorite: seared foie gras. This was only on the $90 menu because what kind of foie gras could you get for only $80? Each course came with a wine pairing for an extra $48 each, which we both allowed the casino to treat us to. We began with the now-ubiquitous Peekytoe crab, made into a small salad. This crab was sweet and exceptionally yummy. The driest wine I have ever had came with it, 1999 Lusco, Albarino, Rias Baixas, Spain. Next came a nice sea scallop paired with a white from Archery Summit, one of Oregon’s premier wineries, the 1999 Vireton. Third came our foie gras, which was the best we’d ever had, along with a 1998 Maculan, Torcolato, Veneto, Italy. Pluto had the sea bass next and I the lamb, both outstanding. His fish came with a white Chateauneuf-du-Pape, 1999 Chateau Le Nerthe, while my lamb was paired with a 1997 Tinto Pesquera, Ribera del Duero, Spain. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but I seem to recall through the alcoholic haze that there may have been some sweets involved at this point.

We had a few dollars left on our comp so we took just one glass of Johnny Walker Blue Label and sipped it slowly on the patio while we watched a couple more fountain shows before Pluto left a generous tip and we walked back. I found a voice message that Arnie the Compmeister had arrived and I called him to let him know we’d meet him at MGM. He was there with Gary and we played some craps. I had the worst hoovering of my life, betting wrong as usual and making five points in a row as shooter, including four fours, the odds of which are 80 to one against. After that debacle we invited Arnie and Gary up to the villa. The Compmeister decimated the complimentary gift basket of food while I basked in bottled water and self-pity over my craps losses. Gary wanted some ice so I told him to press the exclamation point on one of our 20 phones. In 30 seconds a butler arrived with an ice bucket and told us as an aside that we had an ice maker in our pantry. We crashed in the wee hours.


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I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com

"She blushed and apologized and I pish-tushed her...."

Excellent reference, following your audience with Nobu-san! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

For those in the dark:
_____________________________________________
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
THE MIKADO OF JAPAN
NANKI-POO (his Son, disguised as a wandering minstrel, and in love with Yum-Yum)
KO-KO (Lord High Executioner of Titipu)
POOH-BAH (Lord High Everything Else)
PISH-TUSH (a Noble Lord)

etc.

Nicely done, Lorraine

I woke just before seven. During the night someone had stuffed a three-pack of Charmin into my open mouth so I spent a few minutes upon waking trying to work it free. Every time I moved my head, though, the corkscrews inserted through my ears tightened, producing sharp pains behind my frontal lobe. I rolled out of bed and found that someone, perhaps the same joker, had swapped 300-watt light bulbs for the soft white ones formerly present throughout the villa. I threw some clothes on and headed downstairs to play a little video poker when I remembered the crap game last night. I decided I was in a foul mood and viciously stuffed bills into the five-play machine trying to get it to cry uncle.

Arnie came down and watched me play interspersed with trips to the blackjack table. Around 8:30 I asked him to give Pluto a wake-up call, expecting him to be in at least as bad shape as myself after the Picasso staff forced glass after glass of wine upon us last night. Pluto answered the phone groggily. Arnie said in his unforgivably cheerful voice, “Hi, this is Arnie, the Compmeister!” Pluto shook off the cobwebs and racked his brain trying to figure out which department of the casino compmeisters worked in and whether an early-morning phone call was good or bad.

At nine I was entered in an invitational slot tournament. The whole gang cheered me on as my first two spins were the top two jackpots. I took the early lead but after halftime the machine went cold and I ended up barely in the top half of the contestants in the first of three rounds. We played some more video poker and I got terribly hoovered so we went for lobsters at Emeril’s. They saw us coming and had four huge chilled steamers at the ready. They were the best ever.

After lunch I had booked Pluto for three hours of spa treatment while I played the second round of the slot tourney, finishing again in the middle. Video-poker expert Bob Dance was sitting two machines away from me and I asked him what the best strategy was in a tournament like this. “Push the button,” he said.

When Pluto finished his treatments we went up to write and change for dinner. We had 6:30 reservations at Brown Derby and sat at a nice booth with a slow waiter who never refilled our wine glasses. The food was top-notch but the service was not up to par. I had the escargot with edible foccacia plate while the rest had excellent crabcakes. The main course was chateaubriand, prepared perfectly. We ordered a bottle of 1994 Opus One to go along with it but they took forever trying to get approval for some reason and we had to rush the dessert, which as I rule I don’t eat, in order to make our limo. I did scarf down just one order of the famous grapefruit cake à la mode while Pluto had a chocolate decadence and Gary his favorite crème broulee. Arnie was good and just had some berries. The bill came to $1000 including $540 for the one bottle of wine. We stiffed the waiter on the wine because of the bad service and left 18% or so on the food.

Tonight was the big surprise for Pluto, comp seats to his favorite show, Penn & Teller. He thought they weren’t playing but they just started at the new showroom at the Rio so I fooled him. The show was great as always including one of my favorite bits as well as Pluto’s, the one where Teller holds his breath in a tank of water while a bimbo times him with a stopwatch as Penn takes his sweet time with a bumbling card trick, pausing every thirty seconds to reassure the bimbo with the stopwatch, “Nicely done, Lorraine.” We returned to MGM around midnight and played a little craps, winning back a tiny portion of last night’s hoover, before retiring early around one.


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I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com

It was a great time in Vegas, but not a true statement about the gift basket. I personally ate 4 macademia nuts, a little birdie must have done the rest.

QL, I hope you're not making fun of the Flamingo just because its casino is smaller than one of the restrooms at the MGM!

Knaves and Beasts

Last night I had called the operator for an 8:30 wakeup call just so I would sleep better since I always get up well before then but if there’s no alarm I spend the whole night worrying that I overslept. The operator answered, “Mansion operator.” I asked for a wake-up call and she asked if I wanted the phone to ring just in this room or throughout the villa. I suggested throughout, as I wanted Pluto to wake up and cheer me on in the final round of the slot tournament.

I went down to play a little video poker before the tourney and got hoovered. Arnie, Gary, and Pluto met me at the tournament area and despaired as I didn’t hit much of anything for the entire first half. I came back a little in the stretch, though, cheered on by cute little Romanian slot attendant Ana, who asked if all of us good-looking men were in town for the convention. “Yes, the adult video convention,” I said with a straight face. “Have you seen my latest movie? I have a big part.”

I finished with about 65,000 points for the combined three rounds, not enough for the big prize but good enough for a consolation prize of $200, not bad considering the tournament was free. Casinos have very clever ways of making you feel like you’re winning. After the tourney I got hoovered some more on the five-play but then got dealt quad cowboys to start me on the path back to righteousness. Pluto was very excited about the dealt Cowboys and started asking me about the nicknames for the other ranks of cards, saying he liked all that gambling banter. I told him and soon he was doing a play-by-play on all my winning hands: “Knaves and Beasts. Ducks full of Storks. Four Bo Dereks.”

Arnie and Gary had an early flight so we went for lunch at Rainforest Café around 11:30. That restaurant was run completely by computer to the degree that the hostess could not assign us a table until they finished some program they were running on the console. At my suggestion the boys all had the excellent Mayan mixed grill. I was good and had a nice hot chicken-and-shrimp stir-fry that was just a tad too sweet for my taste. We rushed through the meal and so didn’t have time for dessert, which as a rule I don’t eat anyway. The bill came to $100 and the boys left a generous tip while I signed it into a fond memory.

We gave Arnie and Gary passionate belly hugs goodbye and then Pluto and I returned to the high-limit room to play a final hour of video poker before departure. I clawed my way back a little bit more thanks to several dealt Flushes and regular quads. My host came by and spoke my second-favorite six-word phrase—“I took care of your bill.”—and then Pluto and I went up to pack and reluctantly depart our villa. In addition to our luggage I toted a shopping bag with two bathrobes (an entry gift from the slot tournament) and the remains of the gift baskets brought every night to our villa.

We took the gold MGM limo to Ground Zero and took the tram to Terminal D where we checked in at the National Club and taught the hostess/agent/bartender to make Manhattans. We wrote and surfed and soon were on board the 757 to LAX in the butterscotch leather seats of 6A and B. I thought I had requested 1D and F but something must have happened. The flight was an all-too-short 38 minutes and we had no preflight drinks or hot towels but otherwise the service was great as usual with attractive young stewardesses. I had the cheese plate while Pluto practiced video poker. We landed 10 minutes early.

Hunnybear met us at the Red Carpet Club and we had a couple rounds of martinis before giving Steve passionate belly hugs goodbye and sending him off to Seattle. We hopped across the skybridge to Hunnybear’s waiting black Cabrio and scooted home.

The end.


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I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com

Okay QuietLion how 'bout a few tips to get use novices started in the world of comps? I'm going to Vegas in a couple weeks and never have tried to "earn" comps. Where does one start? I play very little slots, mostly craps. Also assume I know nothing when it comes to earning comps (actually it's 100% true). Do I sign up for the slot club even if I don't play slots? Please help a newbie.

Thanks.

In almost all casinos you use the same card for slots and table games. Definitely sign up. Give the dealer your card whenever you sit down to a table. Ask for all the comps you want. The worst they can say is no.

Unless you are betting at least $25/hand at a major Strip casino you won't get anything other than the occasional mailing with room discounts, but those are worth getting.

Actually, Japanese DO eat dessert traditionally (My roommate is half Japanese). They have red bean paste rice cakes which they eat as a snack as well. Also, they also eat weird cakes with red bean paste stuffed inside that look like they're two pancakes glued together. Just my two cents.

Arigato.

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