Trip report-THE Hotel at Mandalay, Oct 9-13

Got in at 11 am, dropped off our bags at THE Hotel-what a fabulous place! Very chic. Best room I have ever stayed in. A 42" plasma TV and a bathtub with plenty of room for two. We immediately went and picked up my wife's sister and her fiancee and took them to the courthouse so they could get their marriage licence for the next days' wedding. Downtown is a major league shithole. Dirty like the worst parts of New York. Why anyone would go all the way to Vegas and stay there is beyond me. My wife and I went back to Mandalay and hit the wave pool for a while-you gotta catch a wave running and jump into it, sliding up to the front! What a beautiful place! My wife and I took the bride and groom to be to Emeril's Delmonico Steakhouse that night for their present. A NICE present!! It could not have been better. A beautiful setting, nice soft, low lighting, looked like a low ceiling cathedral. There was what seemed like an army of servers waiting on us, all professional while being very down to earth people. Offered good drink suggestions. We started with a shared bowl of Parmesan Truffle Chips-as thin as potato chips could be, tossed in Parmesan and Truffle Oil. So light and sooooo good! I had the Oysters Bienville appetizer, which was like shrimp pasta with fried oysters on the corners of the plate. I have never had oysters that I liked before, but gioven my experience with Emeril's Fish House and his cookbooks, I figured it would be good. Outstanding! Oysters that taste good? Then, I had the bone-in ribeye, by FAR the best steak I have ever had. Done exactly as I asked, and perfect! I tried some of my wife's Barbeque Shrimp-the flavor was throughout the whole shrimp and unique-perfect shrimp, to say the least. I was stuffed, but knew I had to have dessert, so I had apple bread pudding with cheddar and oatmeak cookie ice cream. A perfect end to a perfect evening. I was still full when I woke up the next day-oh well!

 

After Emeril's, we met up with my wife's other sister and her husband, as well as her mom for drinks at the AVA lounge at Mirage before we all saw Ray Romano at Mirage. He was really funny, and did a Q&A with the audience afterwards.

Day 2
Slept in, went to the Venetian and looked around for a while before we met with everyone. The women went and shopped and had their hair done for the wedding that night, and us guys went and had lunch at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill at Caesars. A very cool place! Suprisingly good prices for the quality of food. Burgers with fries and breadbasket with corn muffins were $11. I had ancho-honey glazed salmon-the thought of beef so soon after Emeril's made me feel stuffed again. Very, very good place, classy but casual, a good place to go with the guys. The front of the place is colored glass that overlooks the sportsbook, so we could watch all the NFL games that were on. After that, looked around the Forum Shops, got ice cream at TI where the bride and groom were staying, got dressed and made our way to the Stratosphere for the wedding in the PT Cruiser convertible my wife and I rented for $30 a day! The chapel was high up and beautiful! We all went to the outdoor observation deck afterwards, talk about a great view! You really get an impression of how big Wynn Las Vegas is-it dwarfs everything else, even the Bellagio. It has to be pushing 60 stories! A monster for sure. One of the guys and I went on the X-Scream, which was terrifying but a lot of fun, cause they really make you think there's no way the thing will stop!

 

The post wedding dinner was at Olives. We couldn't have asked for a more romantic, beautiful setting! We had a big table in its' own alcove against a big window overlooking the fountains. I had never seen the fountains like that before and will definitely dine at Bellagio every time I go to Vegas! Olives was excellent, we all split flatbread pizzas as appetizers. Ours had shrimp scampi and was excellent. I had ahi tuna for my entree-excellent fish! Medallions seared on the outside, pink in the middle. Great texture and seasoning. We all retired to our room at THE Hotel(minus bride and groom, of course) for the post wedding party, which didn't last long cause we were beat.

Day 3
The newlyweds took this day as their honeymoon day so we didn't see them. We briefly saw my wife's other sister and her husband, cause they had a 10 am flight. We spend the morning hanging out with her mom, who had an afternoon flight. We were playing slots at Mirage, when I hit a quarter slots jackpot for $1400! I actually had to wait while casino people took my license and soc# and printed up a tax form. It was on a "Double Triple Diamond with Cheese" machine! By far the most I'd ever won! We layed the money out on our bed, then stuffed it in the safe and spent most of the day in the pool. We celebrated my winnings by having dinner at Nobhill that night. They have the best drinks I have ever had-you have to at least go to their bar and try a Mojito! They bring you steaming hot fresh bread right out of the oven that's a hundred feet away from you, placing the basket on a long, oval shaped candle powered warmer that also serves as candlelight. Three kinds of butter for the bread, man was it good! I had lobster consomme, which was good but not spectacular. I had John Dory for my entree, which was excellent, a lot like Dover Sole. What a food fest this trip was!

 

I will have to finish this later, just can't type anymore!

 

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How is it that three days of great meals left me hungrier than ever?
Oh yeah, I'm not really there...But it's fun to read about it.

Keep it coming, Rush. You're modeling the good life for the rest of us...

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Guess i'm beyond you... And i'll venture a guess that there are others.

I've stayed at the best, and the worst and hey... Vegas is Vegas...

Different strokes make the world go round.

Another brilliant comment...

 

I guess that too makes me a major league sh!thole. We stay exclusively downtown. I suppose I could ask you why you stay at one of the worst places on the strip as far as gambling odds go?? Oh, don't worry, me and my scumbag friends will continue to stay downtown so you can have the strip and it's terrible gambling games....

 

Frankly, I go downtown to get away from the people who can't understand why someone would stay downtown.

Loved the "laying out the money on the bed" thing, tho. That would be pretty fun.

 

Should have known I couldn't read this post with out getting insulted. I guess people that like downtown are just one more group for you to look down on. I'm in multiple groups cause I like cheap buffets too.
Some people, jeez.

 

hey, that was a pretty good report, and the reviews of the nice restaurants are appreciated by those of us who aspire to have one nice meal on a trip, let alone three!

one comment of three pages should not be enough to get attacked over, although i recognize there is some history behind the issue.

i will add my two cents, and that is that the area behind harrahs, some of the distance between the sahara and hilton, and even the strip between ti and Monte Carlo are just as seedy as a block off fremont. so which is lower class, casino royale, or fitzgeralds? its all in the eye of the beholder, and i like it all. i can enjoy a shrimp cocktail at the golden gate for what it is, just as well as a great meal at the range.

so i will give a pass on one comment, and enjoy the rest of the trip report for what it was.

 

No matter where you go, there you are....

Every city and town has parts to it that can be considered "a major league shithole". Heck, there are plenty of quaint little towns where if you walk a block away from the main drag, you'll be clenching your butt cheeks as you hear the banjo strains from Deliverence! I found Downtown to be fun albiet a different crowd. I would definitely go back there. BTW, it looked about a hundred times cleaner and safer than parts of the Bronx or Harlem or even parts of Hartford, CT to me. I'm willing to bet you could say the same about parts of your town. Just my opinion...

 

Lookin' forward to Pimp's input on this one.

 

I think it was a great report. Some people just don't like the downtown area. Granted most people tend to stay on Fremont. You really don't go to the out lying areas. I think Downtown when referring to the Fremont St. area is great. Anywhere outside of that it is a dump.

 

Kitson, I'm not attacking, its far from it.

I'll say it again, "Opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one..."

So, If Rush believes downtown is a shithole, then thats what he believes... Some of us know better though!

 

I think the key aspect of a trip report is that you don't set out to insult your readers from the get-go. I enjoyed the dining comments. I would have enjoyed the report a lot more if the comment that offended me as it offended others had been left out. I too have stayed at the nice places and the not so nice places and I've loved them all because I'm in Vegas. As others have said, different strokes for different folks....

PS Vegashost--when I stay downtown, I go exploring. Makes my husband CRAZY. I've walked down Main street, we always use the DTC, we walked from Charleston (I think) over to the new outlet mall--fun times! But I used lived in a big city for years and I like to get out and explore sometimes--and the seedy areas are just a different kind of scenic to me

 

Well, to Elrushbo, Downtown is a major league shithole. To fans of Downtown, Elrushbo is a major league asshole. Yin and Yang.

Anytime you start a presentation by insulting your audience, you've lost all credibility (not like you had much in the first place with this crowd). So any other information about the fancier restaurants that might have been useful was immediately discounted as the ravings of a feces-flinging moonbat.

But my guess it's more likely somebody 'playing above their bankroll', as it were. People that actually have class don't need validation.

What a farking dilda.

Mikey

 

Agreed Hoya. I don't think he made it down to Fremont. I think he'd have a different view if he had.

 

Which reminds me of the first time I went to Vegas. My buddy and I went downtown, and wandered around. We got to the end of the pedestrian mall (by Neonopolis) and I said, hold on, where do you want to go. He said, I dunno, just see what's out there. I repeated, no, where do you want to go. 'cuz we're not just wandering around out that way.

Now I prefer to stay 'out that way'. go figure.

 

I'm glad you had a good time so far and that you had some great meals.

Delmonico's bone in rib steak is always great. The service there has almost always been outstanding. I was thinking about going back to Nobhill when we go back in March, but will probably try someplace else.

 

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A few of the faithful are reacting as if downtown were some kind of holy shrine, desecrated by Rushbo. In reality, downtown is just a cheap place to stay and play.

Cheap rooms, cheap food, and low limits are great in their own way, but only because they're cheap. Anyone with an adequate bankroll has other alternatives. When downtown gets compared to other locations in Vegas, it's likely to get dismissed on appearance alone, without extended deliberation...

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[ October 23, 2004, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: LearningVegas ]