The Road To Mandalay (Monday Night)

According to several travel information sources, the Palms is the hip hot trendy hotel in Las Vegas. I was prepared to see a slew of fashionably dressed 20-somethings gamboling and gambling, and was paranoid that I didn't have a cool enough outfit to wear to dinner at their French restaurant, Alize.

Imagine my disappointment when I realized the Palms was full of the same sneaker-wearing, t-shirt sporting, about-to-wash-the-car attired usual Las Vegas suspects that I'd been observing all weekend. Don't people care how they look in public any more, or is comfort so paramount that no one can wear anything at all spiffy? Granted, it was a Monday night, but still, a hotspot is a hotspot but this spot was not particularly hot. The casino decor was interesting. It was trying to be modern and clean-lined but it came off more like Ikea meets Michael Graves doing Disney (and he did) meets brand-new airport terminal meets food court. They could take out the slot machines, put in bookshelves, and have a very nice modern library. We wandered around a bit and played some slots before dinner, and then went to the restaurant.

Fortunately the restaurant was completely fabulous. There was a three-sided view of Las Vegas (tables for four get seated on the Strip side, tables for two along the other edges that have partial Strip views), and it was just sunset and moonrise so the scenery was stunning. The color scheme was wines and golds, with cushy velvet chairs at the tables. We started with champagne, and had an amuse-bouche of venison carpaccio. Susie had lobster bisque for a starter, and I had seared foie gras with a cranberry chutney. A palate cleanser of passion fruit sorbet followed. For the main course, I had rack of lamb in a cashew-truffle crust, and Susie had ribeye steak with some incredible potato-wild mushroom-sweetbreads side dish that looked like a beef bone full of marrow. We wound things up with chocolate souffle and a warm flourless chocolate cake with fresh raspberries. The food was absolutely wonderful.

From there we headed to the Rio to see Penn & Teller. They started the show by demonstrating one way how the old "saw the lady in pieces and move the bits around" trick works. There was also juggling of dangerous broken bottles, fire eating, and a bear trap. Susie loved it and afterwards insisted we get our picture taken with Penn Gillette.

We played some more slots, and then went over to check out the Mandalay Bay. Now that is one gorgeous hotel, with nattily-dressed people to boot. Unfortunately, there was some packaging container convention being hosted there, and so hoardes of drunken salesmen in nice suits were wandering around in packs. It really put me out, I guess I'm still traumatized from visiting the Olympic Gardens the night before. If and when I come back to Vegas, I'd really like to stay at the Mandalay Bay. I do have to wonder about the name of the hotel, though. Mandalay is a city in Burma, way up the Ayeyarwaddy River. Like Las Vegas, there's no ocean or bay anywhere near it.

After that we walked back to the Luxor, and I played video blackjack for a while. I'm just too cheap to play at the actual tables -- the minimum bets were $10, and I just can't see throwing that kind of money down. Ironically, at one point I hit the wrong button on the video blackjack machine, and ended up betting $20 on a single hand. I held my breath and crossed my fingers, and managed to win the hand. I ended the evening $10 ahead of where I started, plus we each drank a couple of complimentary Midori sours, so it all worked out well in the end.