Picture Parade from our Vegas Vacation Part 1: Soprano's, Bellagio, and Rick Moonen

Our vacation tour via pics should begin with me snoozing my lazy butt away the first day--all day!--but what the hell, that's what vacations are for, right? Fun and rest! Well I had tons of both--one of the best vacations ever! Thank you, Geno, for planning everything and working so hard to entertain me!

Ahhhh...my artsy-fartsy shot of the pyramid. Yes, we stayed at the Luxor.  No, I didn't get any shots of our beautifully fake-Egyptian appointed suite. Well, I did but they sucked. I'm no Diedre. I won't be making my living from my photography any time soon but I did like this one. So you'll have to imagine us checking in tired and bedraggled into an 800 sq ft suite with a full living room, wet bar, separate bedroom, and bathroom as big as my bedroom at home but designed by a freaking man.  No countertop around the double sinks to lay a makeup bag out on. Grrr... But the jacuzzi made up for it.

We have a first night tradition when we get into a hotel late of simply putting on our pj's, relaxing, and ordering room service.  My first meal in Las Vegas?  A burger. But, it was a treat in that it was no ordinary burger, AND, I never eat burgers.  Okay. Rarely.  They normally don't do anything for me but it was vacation and the menu listing of add-ons intrigued me.  My burger was layered with bleu cheese and avocado. The best part?  The bleu cheese was very liberally applied to the burger so I pulled some off and let it melt down onto the garlic fries. Now THAT'S a big yum!  It's a whole new way to look at the pub-standard cheesy fries.  The kitchen also added bacon to my burger that I didn't order but like with all goog pub cheese fries, I crumbled it onto them and it was way yummy.  Worth every calorie.

For more pics, click below. Please be patient. Depending on your computer it may take a while. There are a lot of pics!

The Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay.

What can I say? My favorite aquarium.  Here's video from inside one of the tubes. I love sitting there.  You never get to see the bellies of the fish and the sharks are quite interesting from this angle even when they aren't really doing anything...but plotting the death of all creatures great and small. Come on. You know they're thinking about it. All the time.

And then Soprano's! I rarely gamble but the penny slots are a bit of a draw since they are modeled after pop culture icons and they're set up to play like video games...I'm easy that way, I admit it.

And I won! As a slot, the Soprano's machines are actually fairly boring.  Tony and Johnny Sac are the wild cards and there is no bonus game tie-in to the show, only free spins, but it is progressive with the jackpots called "Boss", "Capo", and "Soldier".  I won $100 (on a penny slot, y'all) and hit the "soldier" progressive twice.  So yes, I was entertained.

Crummy pics. Cocktail waitress took them. But hey, I'm thrilled it's not a cardinal sin to take pics in the casino anymore. 

See the open hallway on the right?  That's the link from the Mandalay Bay where we were playing Soprano's into the section that connects it to the Luxor.  Immediately to the left outside that doorway is a double decker restaurant called Rick Moonen's RM Seafood restaurant.  The first floor was the casual part of the dining room and the upper tier was the formal dinner room.  We loved the contemporary interior and Gene was hankering for sushi for lunch so we stopped there.

This red curry coconut soup with small diced potaotes and onions was to die for.  So good. I wish I'd only ordered it.

The sushi was just okay. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it was bad but it was disappointing because it wasn't fabulous.  You know, you go on vacation to Vegas where all the celebrity chefs and soon to be celebrity chefs are expanding their franchises into restaurants, you read the menu and ON THE MENU is a picture of the chef, Rick Moonen (never heard of him personally but I applaud that he's a big enough name to have his own restaurant in that hotel and named after himself), and you expect to be dazzled.  The soup was dazzling.  All the flavors were there: spicy, sweet, sour, savory.  It was PERFECT.  The sushi was pedestrian in both presentation and taste. The positive side, though, is it made us appreciate our favorite little sushi restaurant, Umi's, even more.  (Click on "Umi's" to be linked to posts and pics I've written about it before.)

The rolls were a hamachi and avocado (back plate), the "Las Vegas" roll on the left that so impressed me that I can't remember what was in it (maybe eel), and soft shell crab on the right. At the end we just picked the crab out and ate it plain.

The next night was our Bellagio night.  We went over to the hotel with the intention of hitting the Gallery of Fine Arts with their modern art exhibition. Unfortunately, we got the hours wrong and missed it by  20 minutes or so.  That left us with the conservatory, decked out fabulously in Chinese New Year. (Sorry about some of the pics. Not sure what went wrong.)

You know what?  This was also the night we ate caviar but this post is getting so long with so many pics that I'm going to break it up. How's that for a cliff hanger,  she asks with an evil grin?  Hehehe.  I'll break it up but I promise it won't take days and days for me to post all the pics. I'll just make another couple posts throughout the day.

As the TV people say "to be continued..."

Comments

[Monique]

Blue skies, palm trees, great food, magic world, lots of fun.....who told you I'm jealous ?????
No kidding, enjoy your stay !

[sher]

The burger and soup look marvelous!!!!!!

[Gelnna]

Monique--Thanks! It really was a great vacation.

Sher--They WERE! Yum!

[Troy]

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