Got up early at Bellagio on Friday and went down to the casino to play off some freeplay on the $5 9/6 JOB. Fortunately I scored a couple of screwdrivers (3 Westies) and a 4OAK for $625 (4.5 Westies) which funded the remainder of my Vegas play at lower denominations.
I rented a Ford Focus from the Avis rental at Bellagio (Car and rental experience--4 Westies; Cost--2 Warren Buffetts) and waited for the son-in-law to join me. We drove to the Palms where we banged away on the one- and two-cent 9/6 JOB 50-plays (3 Westies). S-i-l collected $90 freeplay from previous year's loss rebate and converted it into $110.
We then zipped over to the Gold Coast which was the first visit for both of us. We found the quarter 9/6 JOB STP and NSUD MS machines (4.5 Westies for vpFREE 2) and played our little hearts out. It being after noon and the two of us having worked up a powerful vp hunger, we decided to eat at Ping Pang Pong. We checked out the menu in front of the restaurant and most of the entrees seems to be in the $10-15 range.
We were seated and my s-i-l ordered a beer. Then the carts started arriving at the table. We were confused since we were expecting to order from a menu, but we quickly jumped into the dim sum experience. It was difficult for us to understand the servers' explanations of the dim sum dishes, but we managed to select three--buns filled with barbecued pork (4 Westies), a dish of some sort of meat patties on sections of green pepper (3 Westies), and a very strange dish of tempura fried whole prawns (1.5 Westies). It was easy enough to rip the heads off the prawns, but was I supposed to eat the battered prawn shells? I did, figuring that they wouldn't have bothered to batter them if I was supposed to remove the batter and shell before eating. So I ended up with shrimp shells stuck in my teeth and throat.
We decided to head out at that point because I was expecting a $40 or so bill. Surprise, surprise--$16.37 for a beer and three dim sum dishes (4 Westies for not gouging us). I will be back.
Then back to Bellagio to meet up with The Little Woman and my daughter. They had spent the day lounging by the pool and doing whatever a mother and daughter do on a 102 degree day at a pool.
One of us went up to the room to nap, and nap nicely I did.
We had four tickets for Zarkana at Aria. Part of our offers included two tickets for TLW and two tickets for me. We were to pick them up at the Box Office for the 7:00 p.m. show. About an hour before the show, the four of us found the tram to Aria and made the short trip from Bellagio.
I knew nothing about Zarkana other than it was a Cirque du Soleil show. I'm also not a theater-goer. So we got our tickets and TLW, our daughter (the Spendthrift Princess), our s-i-l, and I headed in. Our seats were five rows from the front and center stage (5 Ushers). I politely sat there, humoring TLW, cooling my heels, and waiting for the show to begin.
Once Zarkana began, I had a silly smile plastered on my face for the next 90 minutes. I had seen a couple of Cirque shows on TV, so I knew they had weird costumes and amazing gymnasts/athletes. But the whole show was the most amazing production I've ever witnessed--the costumes, the music, the lighting, the performers, the staging (6 out of 5 Andrew Lloyd Webers). Most of the show could only be fully appreciated if seen live.
After the show, we trammed back to Bellagio and walked over to Caesars Palace to eat at Gordon Ramsay's Pub and Grill.
The meal began poorly. We arrived ten minutes before our reservation and the cute little hostess told us to come back in ten minutes. "We can seat you at your reserved time, but not any earlier." So we waited for eight minutes and returned. They did seat us two minutes early.
We got a Scotch Egg (3 Westies, $11), pretzel sticks (4 Westies, $8), and calamari (4.5 Westies, $17) as appetizers. I knew what a Scotch Egg was, but I had never eaten one. And at $11 for one hard boiled egg with a sausage patty wrapped around it, I probably won't be eating a second one.
TLW and I both opted for fish and chips (3.5 Westies, $30 each) with minty, mushy peas (2 Westies and maybe that wasn't there official name). The s-i-l got a burger and fries ($21) which he claimed was very good. The Spendthrift Princess got split pea soup ($12, which she enjoyed) and truffle chips ($12) which appeared to be exactly the same fries we had with our fish.
We also got one Peroni draft ($8.75), one diet Pepsi ($4), and two Margaritas ($13.50 each). That put our bill at $195 which seemed way more expensive than it should have been. So I told our waiter that I wanted to charge it to our CP room (which was primarily occupied by my s-i-l and the Spendthrift Princess). My CP offer included the room and a resort credit that would cover our meal.
The waiter returned very quickly and said that my room had been blocked and he could not put the charge on the room. I asked what he meant and he said that the front desk would not let anything be charged to my room because of some problem. "Uh, oh," I thought, "somebody found out that my room is occupied primarily by my s-i-l and the Spendthrift Princess and they are rescinding my resort credit offer." So I paid for the meal with my credit card.
We exited the restaurant and my daughter and her hubby split off from us and disappeared into the crowd. TLW and I hiked the several miles from Gordon Ramsay's to the CP front desk. The woman at the front desk was very helpful and explained that Gordon Ramsay's staff was apparently delusional as there was no block on my room. She made a phone call to the hotel manager who confirmed that the meal should have been charged to the room. Unfortunately, I had to walk back to Gordon Ramsay's, armed with the name of the hotel manager, and have the restaurant reverse my credit card charges and bill my room.
At least I wasn't busted for putting a fake me and TLW in the Augustus Tower.
So we had to fight our way back to Gordon Ramsay's through the Pussycat Dolls Casino which is a scantily-clad dealers and dancers area within Caesars. I might have lingered there a while if TLW wasn't accompanying me on this leg of the hike.
I explained my story to another cute, young hostess who disappeared into the bowels of the restaurant for fifteen minutes or so. She had to speak with the manager who was apparently chained to a small desk in the kitchen. Or should have been. Eventually, another young woman walked up to me from the kitchen area with a slip showing that they had credited my card for the earlier charge and I had to sign a new slip charging the meal to my room.
When I asked her what had happened that prevented my original charge to the room, she indicated that it was the hotel's fault, not the restaurant's. Right. It would not have been a big deal to me if I wasn't required to run a marathon obstacle-Pussycat Dolls course back and forth to get it resolved. That's customer service for you.
Anyway, forgetting the payment problem at the end of our meal, I would say Gordon Ramsay's Pub and Grill is not a bad place to eat, but it's not a great place to eat either. It's maybe a step up from mediocre and costs about three times what it should in the real world and probably double what it should cost in Vegas. It might be a good candidate for an episode of Kitchen Nightmares.
Max
Posted by: maximumbett@yahoo.com
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