Quick Takes

Gambling
We got to the hotel a little after 3 p.m. and on the way to the room, we paused for a beer at the Masquerade Bar.  Most of the bars in Vegas have video poker games inset into the top of the bar and this bar was no exception.

I had four $1 bills so I decided to just play with them, one at a time, rather than break a $20.  We must have played (and have drunk beer) for an hour, but I got my $4 back!  Gambling is war - me against the greedy, faceless casinos and their fat cat owners.

That night I put in $20 and got zero back.  Discouraged, I went to bed.  Our last night, I put in $20 and took $21 back.  So, hah!  Take that, Vegas - I'll let you recover for now, but I'll Be Back.

Seafood Village
One of the great treats I was looking forward to here was a foray on the seafood buffet.  Visions of lobster tails, fat crab legs, succulent shrimp danced through my fevered brow (did I mention that it was 111 degrees that day?)

As usual, reality was quite different.  The crawfish looked a luscious, deep red, but their interiors were like dust in my mouth.  Mud Bugs clearly don't like steam tables or else some wag had put a couple of display crawfish in with the real ones and I got both of them...

The lobster tails had been quartered into chunks.  We ate a lot, but ... $97 for steam table food?  I learned something.   Go to the seafood restaurant and get it fresh.  It will no doubt be more expensive, but it'll be freshly-cooked, not left to languish on a steam table.

Fried Hard-boiled Eggs
At the breakfast buffet, I noticed in the Asian section something called "Fried Hard-Boiled Eggs in Tamarind Sauce."  When the manager heard me telling Richie about them, she said, "They're really quite good - the sauce is kind of sweet-ish, probably due to the sauteed onions in it."

So I went and got one.  It was sweet-flavored but the texture was weirdly chewy.  I examined a bite carefully and finally decided that the skin we normally peel off with the shell had been left on.  The skin toughened up in the frying and gave every bite that "brown lace" of an over-cooked egg.  

People of the Mist
We were just inside the open French doors to the patio of Mon Ami Gabi, Paris, when I noticed something.  Almost all of the passers-by on the Strip sidewalk would stop and bask in the misters lining the patio railings before slogging on in the heat - 110 degrees.