I wasn't going to visit Las Vegas in May, honestly I wasn't but when I learned Vegaschic had signed up for the $2500 buy-in tournament at Venetian/Palazzo and other friends would be in town I decided to go for three nights starting May 19th. Okay, we all knew I would cave!
Flight out of San Jose was easy and despite hearing stories in the news of long lines, I breezed through using TSA-Pre and as far as the normal lines they didn't seem that busy. My limo driver was waiting for me, luggage was quickly out and before I knew it I was in the Palazzo VIP lounge checking in. Thanks to my former host and friend who now works in guest services my room was preassigned, on the high floor I preferred with the view of the high roller wheel and strip.
Friend's Beeejay had been in Vegas for a couple days and Vegaschic had already arrived this morning so I left my luggage unpacked in the room and hurried downstairs to join them for a late lunch. It was decided we would like to sit outside on a patio so first we tried Lavo which turns out is not open for lunch.
I then mentioned Dal Toro as I have been told their patio is very nice and it was!
We were seated and took some photos. Before we ordered I asked for separate checks so all of us could charge back to our rooms and have our food comped off. At that point the server apologized and said he couldn't do room charges. He then explained the restaurant was permanently closing in a couple weeks so they weren't doing charges billed to rooms. Since all of us are comped, we decided once again to move on, LOL!
Thinking we might have to go to Grand Lux for lunch we noticed that Morels was open and voila they have patio seating too and would take charges to our rooms!
I asked the server about two shrimp appetizers, chilled white prawns or crispy white prawns and she recommended the crispy white prawns. Crispy should have clued me in to them being fried but the menu didn't mention it and I ended up with the large appetizer below. I'm not big on fried food so I ate two of them and did my best to convince Vegaschic and Beeejay that they wanted to eat those fries!
Beeejay had the French Dip Sandwich, it looked yummy.
Vegaschic had the Dungeness Crab Cocktail.
Yes, I foolishly ordered a second appetizer the pan seared Diver Sea Scallops and it was big enough alone to be lunch. It was also very good and I would order this again for lunch skipping the Prawns!
Photo of part of the inside of the restaurant. Forgot to take a photo of the outside.
After lunch we scattered to the casino floor. I think I left Beeejay and VC playing video poker, while I hurried into the Palazzo HL limit room to make my points for the daily tournament. I quickly made my 3000 points for the maximum 4 entries as did VegasChic and we were soon signed up and playing our sessions. Unfortunately both of us were not contenders for any of the prizes and since we didn't break up our tournament sessions both of us had sore hands and arms!
As I was waiting for VegasChic to finish her fourth tournament session Linda and Kristi fans of my YouTube channel recognized me and said hi. Kristi had gotten lucky earlier in the week and took first place in the daily tournament!! Great to meet you two ladies!
Around the time of our daily slot tournament Vegasfan from the slot fanatics message board that Vegaschic is one of the moderators on, and I'm a member of had texted me and we got to meet up in person for the first time! All of us hit it off and Beeejay, Vegasfan, Vegaschic and I decided to walk over to Venetian and do a HL pull on the Sky Rider slot machine, a game that both Vegaschic and I have been very lucky on in the past. Each of us put in $200 and we played that $800.00 the majority of the time at $20 a spin! I almost always hit a bonus on this game in the first $100 to $200 but this time playing all $800.00 in it not one great hit or bonus! So sorry guys!
After our HL pull Vegasfan had to return to her hotel where fortunately I later learned she was winning. She was also winning before she met up with us, LOL!
I played both High Limit and penny slots and just lost, lost and lost! One of my better wins was a $1 Quick Hit bonus that paid a measly $75.00 on a $15 bet! Gambling wise the trip was not starting out good, but fortunately being around friends made it fun.
Dinner tonight was with VC, BeeeJay and Vegaschic's sis is who had just arrived in Vegas in time to join us for drinks as she had already eaten.
Above is the four course dinner that all of us ordered with the exception of Vegaschic's sis.
I had the wine pairing for dinner and I can't recall who ordered this or which cocktail it was.
Caesar salad, excellent.
Looks like a Expresso Martini to me.
Emeril's famous New Orleans Shrimp with Rosemary Biscuit.
Candied Northern Country Bacon. I'm fairly confident that Beeejay liked this!
Since I had scallops for lunch tonight I had the Filet Mignon and it was excellent.
Any dessert off their menu can be selected when you order the four course dinner.
White Chocolate Malassadas-in other words Doughnuts with Cinnamon Sugar and Creme Anglaise.
Bananas Foster Bread Pudding, delicious!
After dinner we split up and were gambling a bit and my bad luck continued with a sucky $1 Jungle Wild bonus that only paid $54.00! Fortunately around this time I heard from my friend Jason (Montecarloplayer) that he was all checked in at Wynn for his $2500 buy in poker tournament. and was coming over to gamble with me.
