irish beer and rare steer

just a few highlights from a four day, three night trip to attend the clothing trade shows, and throw in a little fun between the business of buying next falls merchandise.

sunday morning is a great time to arrive in las vegas, no cab lines at just before 9 am.

had reservations at luxor tower, with an early checkin requested, if available. when we attempted checkin, there were no rooms available, and they would not assign us a room, our rez was for one king bed. as it turned out, when we finally got back to the luxor at 8 pm that night, all the rooms were booked, and we wound up with 2 queens. no biggie, but a little disappointed that that was not handled better. we had a rate of 79 for two nights, and the third night free. we were in the east tower, just a little confusing finding our way to the room that night, after drinks and dinner with a bottle of wine, but navigating the luxor got easier as the trip went on. room was ok, view out across the north entrance and over toward the excalibur. best part of the room was the large glass shower! room was clean, housekeeping good when we returned each night. will stay at the luxor again, price being right.

after checking the bags with the bellhop after failing to checkin , we cabbed it over to the venetian, the venue for one of our trade shows, arriving about 11 am. since we had been up since 2:20 las vegas time, decided breakfast at bouchon would be in order. we have had breakfast there a couple other times, but earlier in the day, and at 11 on sunday they were busy, and the waiters were not able to give the service that one would expect for a 50 dollar breakfast for two. still, food was good, the pastries and bread are wonderful, and the white sausage as good as i remembered. the bargain of the place is the coffee. at 3.50, it is less than starbucks, unlimited fills of french press made coffee, some sort of dark roast, and the refills on beverages did not suffer from the busyness of the place.

went to the trade show and did our thing, about 3 we were tired, had done a good amount of business, but just did not have the energy to go walk the aisles looking for new vendors, so we went to the palazzo! wanted to look around, great building and impressive area between the venetian and palazzo, sent some pics of the waterfall. played a little video poker, went looking for a paigow table, finally found two, both 50 dollar minimum tables. did not play. looked in the high limit room, it was very active in there, many asian players, chinese new year was being celebrated, and the palazzo must have attracted a lot of players. drink service while playing vp was good, asked for a makers mark at the first machine and that was no problem. however, i found out i cant even drink good bourbon straight anymore, so at the next machine had the cocktail waitress bring me some mixer. that was a good drink.

back to our 5 oclock reservation at delmonico. 5 is the only time that i can ever get a reservation there from opentable.com, and the desk there at delmonico will always defer seating us until later if we ask. this time, though, we were just tired, wanted to eat and get back and check in, so dined at 5. great service and food as always, i had lobster bisque and then the bone in ribeye, i know wife had fish of some type and am sorry i cant even remember her appetizer. we were also served an amuse bouche, some sort of crab salad on a wonton, very tasty. we ordered the same wine we usually have, and the head waiter then tried to upsell us. sometimes the information that a place keeps on you, (his was the fourth trip in a row that we had eaten there,) can be used the wrong way. i declined and got what we wanted, but didnt like the upsell. all in all, it is probably time to try something different next trip, we were wowed the first couple of times, and with that comes expectation, and they did not top those expectations the last two times there. i will still recommend delmonico to someone who has not eaten there, it is still very good.

back to the luxor, in the room by 8:30, quality time in the shower, and absolutely no desire to go gamble, 19 hours up had been enough.

next day was the meet with hoya and dane and coaster kikky. to be continued...

 

sounds like a great 1st day. looking forward to reading the rest.

 

bright and early the next morning, over to the rio for the most important trade show of our trip. they have a free continental breakfast, and even better for them and us, a free lunch. it is one of the few trade shows that we go to that does this, but it is so smart of them, because otherwise people would leave for lunch, and it being las vegas, probably not make it back to do any business in the afternoon!

worked until 4:30, then back to the luxor to drop the briefcase, and over to the j-pop sushi bar at Mandalay Bay to meet hoyaheel, her husband dane, and coasterkikky, who i had met at previous meets. just want to encourage everyone on the board to get past any reservations they might have about meeting people that they only know from online, these meets are fun. had a great two hours with the group, it truly was a pleasure meeting the hoyas and seeing kikky again, time flew by. takes a while to drink those great big cans of sapporo beer, but i can say i only had two!

after saying our goodbyes, wandered back over to the luxor, and having made no dinner plans but being suddenly hungry, would up down at the MORE buffet there at the luxor. it was 19.99 pp, plus tax. i would call it a fair value for the price, nothing fancy, but very clean and nice. we did wind up having breakfast/lunch there our last morning, so we have already went back!

played a little video poker, never did get much going at the luxor that way, and also had a session in the poker room, very friendly staff and a nice 2-4 game. never much for cards and lost a little, enough players paying to see every flop that you could not push the table around, so needed cards to play that did not come. they had no use for the players card there, so no credit for play, and with the very little vp i played at the luxor, i am sure i did not make a good case for getting offers for luxor based on play.

tomorrow, nine fine irishmen, gallaghers, and a peek inside the bar in times square.

 

Good to see you again, bro! I noticed it took the beer drinkers considerably longer to finish their supersized Sapporo cans than it did Mrs Kitson & I to finish our yummy martini(s). Very good stuff there.

 

kikky, thanks for sharing the poker machine wealth with us by catching that first round of tinis and big beers!

on tuesday, wife and i split up for a while, her to finish at one trade show, me to do some buying and then scouting for her at another, and then she joined me later. gave me an excuse to sneak from the lvcc over to t he hilton and play a little paigow, too. even had a winning session there, cashing out up 65 on a 15 dollar table. also, while having lunch at the trade show, met and had a nice conversation with a young man who happened to be a host for pure group, like in the pure nightclub at caesars, among others. not sure why he was over at the trade show, though some of the entertainers, and some of the nba athletes do have sponsorships, etc. with some of the clothing companies, not the ones we do business with. he told me about lebron james, and larry johnson, among others, and schmoozing and taking care of details for the bottle service patrons at pure and their other places. kept his card, my college daughter was impressed to know i "knew" a host.

after the show, we took the shuttle back to nyny. wife went back over to luxor to dump the briefcase, and i told her i would try to find someplace for dinner, and that i would meet her outside 9 fine irishmen at a certain time, and if i was not there, i was going to be inside at the bar. i got reservations for gallaghers at 8:45, this being about 5:30, and was surprised that i got them, so it was back to the irish pub for me. found one empty barstool, and using the information that others on the board had shared, ordered a smithwicks. wow, was that good. when it was time for a refill, i explained to one of the pro bartenders there that i had never had an irish beer before today, and that others had recommended smitticks to me, but was there anything else he would recommend to me...he poured me another smitticks, said why take a step back downhill. midway through the second, or third, wife rejoined me, they were trying to get stools put away but grabbed another that came empty before the bar staff could, and she had a bushmills and 7up while i also had another. we had a nice conversation with a guy from chicago who was there for the same trade show as hoya and dane, and i had another beer. we did look at the menu, our bar mate had the fish and chips, and i think that with tax and tip it was 20 bucks. i dont think the food there is probably a very good value, and some might question whether 7 bucks a pint for beer, tax included, is a value either, but i thought i had the good end of the deal, and will look for smithwicks again, and will go back to nine fine irishmen again too.

the reason they were clearing out the chairs is because music was to start in there at 9, but we wandered on out, i went and played a little paigow, mostly entertained by a young engaged couple at the table from sacramento who were being very friendly with each other and not unfriendly to the rest of us! alas, time for dinner at gallaghers, you two have a great trip!

they seated us right away at gallaghers. service was right there, fast and efficient. though we did not need more to drink, a 32 dollar bottle of shiraz was going to be a far greater value than a couple of drinks that we knew would top 10 apiece, so logically we got the wine. it was one of those that started out not tasting that great on top of irish beer, but got better with each glass. we split a caesars, each had the cowboy ribeye, and split an order of steak fries, along with the wine and a refilled bread basket. tab with tip was 70 dollars less than our other dinner at delmonico, and my wife just raved about the steak. i finished hers, rather than mine, and she was right about her steak. that would be my only complaint, we both had the same cut, both ordered medium rare, mine was cooked at least to medium and then some, while hers, the part i got to finish, was rare, with the her eating all the medium rare portion.

gallaghers is loud, as we had been warned from this board, yet we were able to have a conversation just fine across the table, and with the table next to us. somehow, the loudness of the place, with its new york heritage or whatever, seemed appropriate. we have eaten a couple other loud places in las vegas, n9ne was impossible to talk, and hugos overrated cellar was like an echo chamber. tables are close together in gallaghers, you expect a little body contact with waiters going by, and its part of the experience and ok, unlike hugos where the contact is from them shoving chairs into your legs.

anyway, when we were done, it was my wife who said, "we are coming back to this place". so we will.

took a peek into nine fine, the band was on break. walked over by the dueling pianos, some awful rendition of freebird was being shouted out. i was chatting with the girl manning the ropes to get in and out, and i said that these guys were not very good. she replied that they have different teams of two, and i said these guys must be pretty far down the roster, she couldnt really say so, but her nod and smile told me she agreed. can you imagine having to listen to that night after night as a job, especially the bad ones? i dont usually toss out the word suck, but these guys did. sometimes loudness and enthusiam can make up for a lack of talent, but not here. it did very much remind me of the times i listened in on the dueling pianos there at harrahs, thinking how much better the nyny guys were. guess it depends on the night now. as we left, they were slaughtering sweet child of mine, so i decided to do the japanese karaoke version of the song on our walk back to the luxor. wife was glad we did not know anyone on the way back.

slept in the next morning, hit the buffet about 10 minutes before the switch to lunch, and so had both, plus the people ahead of us in line handed us a coupon for 3 dollars off, each. so that was cheap. played in a poker tourney after that, there at the luxor, and was 8th of 23. played really well, except for the hand i did not play well that put me out. implosion.

did finally find a few vp machines i liked, just before we left for the airport, and had a couple of wild royal flushes on deuces for a profit, then got a four of a kind deuces, no kicker, on ddb at the airport! so finished on a winning note.

returning home through salt lake was not fun, circling the mountains until they let us land, and then one of those landing where everyone cheers when you get on the ground! but we got home, wife put off her toothache until the airport, and i started a bronchitis cough on the airplane, so we are recuperating now, but at least it did not hit until the trip was over.

68 days until the next trade show, this one will be smaller, hopefully can cover in a day and a short second day, get to return to the golden nugget this time, and try out allegiant for the first time.

thanks for reading, hope there is some information there somewhere that helps.

 

It sounds like you had a pretty good time. Did the Luxor comp you for not having a room available both times you went to check in?

I agree. Sometimes, though, I think we're wowed so much the first time that we miss things that we catch on future visits.

Hope you both are feeling better. At least you both didn't get sick while you were in Vegas.

 

Superb trip report, Kitson. Thanks for giving me a few days of great reading. I'm 4 weeks away now from my trip and getting antsy.....

 

Great trip report, Kitson. I'm glad you had fun. It's so nice that you got to meet people from the board.

These reports are the only things keeping me going until my own trip, so thanks!