The church is a very pretty one, right on the strip, across the street from the Luxor and Mandalay Bay. It’s pretty much a tourist church in that I’m not sure it’s an actual parish. They don’t do weddings, baptisms or funerals but they’re there to serve Catholics in town for Mass, Eucharist and I have to assume Reconciliation. What better place for all of that than right in the heart of temptation? They DO accept poker chips and cash out slips in the collection plate.
After Mass, we left town for the South Point Casino where they serve a fantastic buffet, with brunch being offered all day on Sundays. It’s totally worth the ten minute drive out of town. I haven’t seen such a comprehensive brunch since MGC dropped their Easter brunch, back at the turn of the century.
Jay had a make-your-own-omelet with a pile of bacon and I had bacon, fresh fruit, cranberry bread, a waffle, several styles of shrimp and a giant wedge of chocolate torte. And all the coffee and mimosas we could drink.
We played a few slots after brunch and headed back into town. We didn’t see Margy or Jeff on Sunday, as their time was taken up with Gonzaga festivities.
The afternoon has merged into that vacation memory blur. I do remember dinner though: we weren’t starving, having packed ourselves so full at brunch but eventually we wandered into Emeril’s New Orlean’s Fish House. We’d had a couple of appetizers there earlier in the trip (barbecued shrimp and oysters; fantastic!) and discovered that they serve a mean Manhattan, so we stopped in again for dinner at the bar. It’s Emeril’s, so you know the food is good.
I had the wedge salad (A+) and Jay had the jambalaya (A+).
Jay went off to play poker and I went back to the room to read my book and sleep. That’show I like to spend my nights in Vegas.
Monday was the first day in which the sun didn’t shine. That did not deter Margy, Andy (her son and the reason they’re all in town cheering for the Zags) and I from spending an hour at the pool at the Bellagio. Oh, so fancy!! That has to be the prettiest, fanciest pool complex in town. We lounged around, pretending to be fancy folks until our skin turned blue and we never even got wet. It’s a lot warmer than back in Minneapolis, but 50 is not really pool weather.
Then it was off to the Orleans and basketball time!
I was the only one with no ticket to the game but Jay was working on that, so he went off to get that job done while I went in to the Gonzaga pre game party with the rest of the fans.
A parking lot next to the arena had been blocked off for the Gonzaga block party, which was packed with students, alumni and fans. There was a ton of food for all and lots to drink but the lines at all the drink stations were hundreds deep. We picked a line and stood. There was very loud music and kids dancing. Totally threw us back into deja vu of our own college days.
It was horrible.
“So…” the good doctor said, in his matter of fact voice, “we left the Bellagio for a college party.”
“Yep.” Margy and I nodded sadly.
"The only difference is I didn't get groped in line." I said.
"That was the best part of those parties." Margy sighed. Ours was not a delicate generation.
Ten minutes after I finally got my beer, Jay called. He had a ticket for me but I had to come find him to get it. I said “adios” to my crew and told them I’d see them inside. Then it was ten minutes of swimming against the flow of basketball fans pouring into the arena, back out to the poker room where Jay was waiting for me with our tickets.
We got to our seats just at tip off. The seats were great, of course; right behind the bench, three rows up. It was a fun game, too. Gonzaga drilled Peppardine.
One of Gonzaga’s players had played for DeLaSalle in Minneapolis in high school, so as the team left the court, triumphant after their win, Jay yelled “Go Islanders!!” and the young man heard him, turned and waved.
We met up with the Colorado Zags after the game for a brief recap, then Jay and I headed back to the strip in search of dinner. We ended up back at Emeril’s Fish House.
Instead of sitting at the bar, we opted for a table. It was kinda dead on a Monday night. Not completely deserted but for a place with no windows and no clocks, it seemed like the middle of the night. We had time to talk to the waiter. We told him it was our third meal in three days there. Then we ordered, starting with Manhattans.
They brought us a special appetizer, on the house, for coming in for the third time! It was a salmon ceviche and it was delicious. We split a wedge salad, which they halved and served on two plates for us. After that, we split the prime ribeye steak.
Jay and I both love steak. His dad was a butcher and Jay is a whizz on the grill. We’ve tried steaks all over the country and we’ve got our favorite places, cuts and styles of preparation.
We each cut a thick slice off the ribeye between us and took a bite.
We looked at each other in shock. I think I started to cry.
“This is the best steak I’ve ever tasted!!” We both said at the same time.
I don’t have the words to describe it. It was so tender you didn’t have to chew it and so tasty you just wanted to savor each piece in your mouth for as long as possible. I’m not sure if the tears in my eyes were because I was enjoying it so much or because I realized all I’d had up until that very moment in time was crap. Okay, not crap but not...this.
No offense to Jay, Ruth’s Criss, Morton’s, Manny’s or Gallagher’s, but not only was Emeril’s the best steak, it wasn’t even close.
You know that scene in Stranger than Fiction, when Will Ferrell eats his very first chocolate chip cookie, hot out of the oven? Like that, only MORE.
We summoned the waiter over and told him so. He nodded, smiled and said “Not bad for a fish house, eh?”
Every bite seemed even better than the last. They very kindly told Jay how they cooked it. Naturally, you have to start with the best grade of meat, apply Emeril’s creole seasoning rub, sear it in a 500degree pan and they said they finished it in a stove. I’m sure Jay will spend the rest of his grilling life trying to duplicate that flavor. I hope he does!
All I can say is if you’ve ever liked steak, do not pass up an opportunity to get the prime ribeye at Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House.
After that dinner, Jay went off to play poker and I returned to the room to read. That's right; I go to Las Vegas to read.
I’ve downloaded about 2 dozen books free from Amazon Prime over the last few years and have only read a few so this was the perfect time to try some more. I picked one at random and was disappointed that it was written in that most annoying of styles: First person present.
I don’t mind first person. I have no problem with “I ran down to the dock but was dismayed to find the ferry had already left”. What I can NOT stand is “I run down to the dock. I’m dismayed. The Ferry is gone.”
But the first page also set up a story of a little girl who discovered at the age of 7 that her ‘imaginary’ friend is actually her twin sister, who disappeared when they were toddlers and her mom has been pretending never existed…
I wanted to know what happened, so I sped read the book. It was totally stupid and extremely irritating. In this book, the title of which I didn’t bother to remember, every single female is a doormat, willing to be abused and every single male is a violent jerk. Oh, the missing twin? Not dead. In fact, not even all that far away. Mom had to let violent jerk of a dad keep her and never bothered to check up her for fear of violent reprisals from dad FOR NEARLY FORTY YEARS.
yeah. Even after Mom found a wonderful man to marry, who raised her remaining daughter as his own, and the internet became a household item, and Google became a thing, Mom never bothered to check on her other daughter or make any push to rescue her from Psycho Dad. And this is the woman the author insisted was strong.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
I hated it.
Back in the early 90s, two stories hit the news at the same time. The first was Susan Smith, who claimed her two toddlers were kidnapped during a car-jacking. I remember seeing her on the news, looking sadly at the camera and saying "My babies." At the time, I thought her story stunk. A day or two later, another story of a car jacking hit the news: in this one, the car thief was foiled by the driver, who told the police she wasn't about to let no one take her car while her daughter was asleep in the back seat, so she drove over him. And I thought "Yes! THAT'S how a mother behaves!" Sure enough, Susan Smith had not been car-jacked, she had strapped her little boys into their car seats and pushed the car into a pond. Their existence was preventing her from having a relationship with a man who didn't want kids. She's been in prison ever since, although I'm not sure what she did is still illegal in some states...after all, her kids (they were 3 and 14 months old) were in the way of her dreams and the life she wanted for herself! I still think about those two little boys; barely old enough to talk, terrified, confused, helpless, betrayed, dead. The difference between what Susan Smith did and what the states of New York and Virginia advocate is haggling over age.
Anyway...
... I chose another book, which was advertised as a laugh a minute. I got one paragraph in and said “THIS IS FIRST PERSON PRESENT, TOO??? NO.”
So now I’m reading Astrophysics for Dummies (that’s not the title but it may as well be) by Neil Patrick Degrassy. That’s not his name but it may as well be.
It’s not bad.