So let's see, after the Michael Jackson show, we decided to walk around for the rest of the night. We stopped at the new Margaritaville Casino that is shoved in between Flamingo and the Margartiaville restaurant. This was actually a pretty cool place, and it would later turn out to be the place that we spent most of our time actually playing. More on that later.
Let's move to Monday. We woke up a bit later and needed to go eat. We headed to The Grand Lux cafe in Palazzo. We had been there before and it was great. I forgot how big the portions were. We had been in time for the lunch menu, but i was feeling hungry and thought I could tackle anything. I finally decided on the Chicken Parmesan. Kaitlyn got a chicken carbonara and a salad. The waitress convinced me that I only needed the lunch size, and thank goodness that she did. This piece of chicken was at least 12" long by 8" wide. And accompanied with some pasta. I did not finish it. I barely finished half of it. I guess my appetite isn't what it used to be. Plus we were going to have a really nice dinner later, so I guess I didn't need to be eating too much. The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out around in various casinos. Nothing exciting happened. I'd lose 2 hands of Pai Gow and get up for a while and walk around.
Fast forward to dinner.
Every time we're in Vegas, we try to visit a nice steak house. I think so far, we've done 5 out of the top 10 steak houses. Our initial reservation was for Delmonico at the venetian. Kaitlyn though really REALLY wanted to try this chocolate souffle at another place, so we changed our reservation to Cut which is at the Palazzo. Plus, we had tried Delmonico before, and while it was absolutely fantastic, we like trying new places. And...chocolate souffle apparently.
We show up and this place is your typical high end steak house. I'm watching the people showing up and the guys are wearing suits and the ladies are in their nice dresses. I take a gander at myself and my awesome Old Navy jeans and costco polo and figure, eh, whatever. regardless, this place is really nice. We are led back to our table and out of nowhere three other people come and pull out our chairs and are already unfolding our napkins into our laps. At one point, when we went in to the restroom to wash up, someone came over super quick and snatched up her napkin and brought out a fresh one.
the waiter brought out an iPad for us to make our drink selections. I had to ask them for a good wine pairing, and he didn't make me feel too stupid when I told him that I hadn't actually picked out my steak yet. They brought us over a tray of bread selections that we could choose from. the pretzel bread...amazing. And they had this focaccia onion bread that was fantastic too.
Then our waiter brought out giant slabs of beef to show us the difference between the 100% Australian waygu beef and the American Waygu hybrid beef, and the Rib Eye, filet and NY Strip. Kaitlyn already knew what she wanted and ordered the 8oz Prime Filet. I went back and forth with trying the American Waygu beef or just sticking with Prime. But I figured that because of my really good luck at 3 card poker earlier (story to come later), that I would splurge. And I've never had Waygu beef anyway. But I decided to go with the 9oz American Waygu Rib Eye. (The Australian one was nearly 2/3 more expensive. I'm not splurging that much). Plus, this one would be 100% gluten free, which is good for me. We ordered both as medium. Kaitlyn joked that she was going to order hers 'blue'. I asked if that was when they just walk a cow to your table and you just start poking at it with your fork.
We finally pick out a nice wine to go with it, Cune Crianza Rioja. 2006 Tempranillo. Which is fantastic and if I can find some I will be stocking up. We're hanging out and taking in the ambiance of this really nice restaurant. I'll admit, when we first came in I was instantly expecting the typical high end restaurant. Where the staff doesn't really seem to care about you and everyone is all snooty. But then suddenly I hear something. It's kinda faint so I really have to listen. And then I hear it. "But Gollum at the evil wall crept up and slipped away with her". Holy Crap! they are playing Zeppelin here. Awesome. So throughout the night, they are playing all these classic rock songs. steely Dan, Zeppelin, Tom Petty. It was awesome.
And then you start to notice the staff. there were always at least two people at our table. And our water glasses were never empty. They were so attentive and they were always just standing at their position scanning the room in anticipation for when people were finished or needed something.
Oh yah, the steaks. It is actually quite amazing to eat a steak like that. I've never had anything higher than a Prime steak, and even then has been on special occasions. It's quite amazing at how tender and easy it was to cut. It was actually starting to rival the tenderness of Kaitlyn's filet. And I've never seen that with a rib eye. It was delicious, and since Kaitlyn wasn't able to finish her filet, I got to have a side by side comparison. Cost value, I'd probably still regularly go with a filet, but this was a nice little treat. I'll just have to try really hard to not compare all future rib eye's to this one.
We also ordered a side of some mashed potatoes which were really good as well. After getting through the meat, it was time for dessert. I was torn between a couple, but kept going back to a banana cream pie that they had listed. But then they made my decision easy, as Kaitlyn had told them that we were celebrating my birthday (we're a little early, but it's okay). And they brought out a slice of the banana cream pie. While we waiting for Kaitlyn's souffle to do whatever it is that souffles do that make them impossible to make, we at my dessert. It was fantastic. Even Kaitlyn loved it, and she doesn't really like banana stuff. Once her souffle came out, the waiter prepared it for us. They poured the chocolate sauce over it and the whipped cream. chocolate overload. My goodness. I seriously was only able to eat about 1 spoon. I don't know how she did it, but she ate about 2/3 of it.
It was an amazing experience at this place. Much better than some of the other steak houses down there. It's no wonder that it is regularly rated #1.
More later about how Harrah's paid for this dinner for us.
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