Monthly Archives: March 2009

Las Vegas Weekend (Sunday)

Our second day we slept in a bit before heading out for lunch, shopping, dinner, and a show.

We had lunch at Todd English’s Olives Restaurant in the Bellagio Hotel.

We shared a nice bottle of Pinot Gris, a bread bowl w/olives, and 4 plates.

A fig and prosciutto flat bread pizza. I love anything with figs.

Seared scallops with mushroom risotto and some greens. The risotto was delicious.

Chestnut ravioli, filled with chestnut marscapone with a nutmeg sauce and some spinach. I want to try to make a filling like this.

Grilled squid and octopus with chick peas. The squid was better than the octopus.

The service at this restaurant was a bit abrupt though. We asked them to bring all the dishes out at the same time, which they did, but as they did it, they were just shoving the dishes around on the table and didn’t wait for us to move our water and wine glasses out of the way. If we weren’t fast enough, they would’ve knocked over our drinks. They came to whisk away our plates as we were finishing but they seemed very impatient and wanted to get us out of their as soon as possible, they’d ask us if we were done with the dish even though there was still quite a bit of vegetables left or 2 pieces of ravioli left… it was a bit weird.

We had dinner at Picasso in the Bellagio. We had a lovely seat on the patio and had the water show every 15 minutes. We were at dinner for almost 3 hours and there was never a repeated song. The patio was warm with the heaters and the weather itself was beautiful. Inside the restaurant also seemed nice, they had real Picasso paintings, but with the nice weather, we wanted to sit outside.

A bit too expensive bottle of wine… but went wonderfully with our meal.

Amuse bouche of a pheasant croquette topped with Serrano ham and with a red bell pepper soup. The soup was nice, smooth and a bit sour and spicy.

I ordered from the Menu Degustation for $123 per person.

Maine Lobster Salad.

An oyster from the other menu… so buttery…

Pan Seared Sea Scallops.

Foie Gras with a honey muscat poached pear.

Roasted Aged Lamb Chop.

Desserts… for us and for the birthday girl.

A molten chocolate cake.

An apple bundle.

Opera cake.

White chocolate panna cotta.

To finish the meal is a selection of chocolates and small bites.

We had some coffee to end the meal… and so we wouldn’t fall asleep during the 10:30pm showing of Cirque Du Soleil’s “O”. A spectacular show if you’ve never seen it before (this was my 1st time). We sat in the front row which is pretty close and you may get slightly wet but it was very cool. The water acrobatics are amazing. The clowns are always my favorite part of the show.

A great day.

Las Vegas Weekend (Saturday)

So I went on a short weekend getaway with a few friends to shop, eat, and enjoy Las Vegas.

We stayed at Trump Towers and had a very nice suite. There was a sitting area, a large king bed, a full kitchen (with stove, sink, refrigerator, blender, coffee maker, utensils, dishware, everything!), and a huge bathroom (with a TV in the mirror!).

The lobby had a delicious fragrance… smelled like gardenias although no gardenias in sight, but plenty of other flowers.

We settled in then went in search of lunch. We ended up the Wynn Hotel Country Club Restaurant. We ordered a few things to share.

Mini crab sliders with fries. There was plenty of crab meat and fresh. The only thing was the waiter kept on forgetting the ketchup.

French Toast Bread Pudding with glazed bacon. Glazed bacon… makes me drool a bit thinking about it… so good.

Called a “Kobe beef burger” on top of a potato cake. We were all expecting to be a burger with a bun and veggies or something… but this was good too. Although I don’t know what’s the hype with Kobe beef, I think I need to go try real Kobe beef in Japan.

We ended up walking around Fashion Show Mall that is right across the street from our hotel. It was a good workout!

We built up quite an appetite so went to find dinner. We ended up at Terrace Pointe Cafe at the Wynn because the Buffet line was way too long. We had a lovely dinner with delicious sangria.

I had the corned beef on rye bread with fresh slaw. The crust of the bread was a bit too hard though so kind of hard to eat. The slaw was refreshing though, I love good coleslaw.

The others had the prime rib special. Yum-my!

The French onion soup a bit too salty.

The creme brulee that came with the prime rib special. We were stuffed so only ate like 1/3 of it.

A nice way to start the weekend… I have only pictures of our meals but the girls have pictures of us… I’ll have to get those at some point and update.

Gentle Giants Rescue – not so good of a place

I was enlightened by a visitor’s comment today. Apparently Gentle Giants Rescue isn’t so wonderful a place as their website seems. I previously posted about it here. The dogs are not well cared for and the adoption fees don’t seem to be put towards the care of the dogs on their property. Read the testimonials of adopters for yourself, HERE, you’ll be appalled.

I’d still like to rescue a dog someday but only when I have the time and space to put my energy and loving into caring for the dog…

Missed delivery

Today I am disappointed with UPS delivery service. I have been home since after work, about 5:45pm waiting for my iron that I ordered on Amazon. It was set to be delivered today and it hadn’t been delivered while I was at work (I checked the status) so I stayed at home waiting for it. After having dinner and watching some TV, I decided to check on its status since it was already 7:30pm and I still hadn’t received a call on our apt intercom.

On checking the status, the status was set to re-delivery because they said an attempt was made at 6:46pm but receiver unable to sign. I’ve been home all this time, not in the kitchen, not in the bathroom, not sleeping… just waiting for the intercom call. Nothing. I go downstairs and there is a slip on the door saying they attempted delivery and would be back tomorrow after 5pm.

So I call UPS and it’s a voice automated system. Frustrated trying to get through the menu, saying “Customer Service” gets me to a real life person. I ask them to look into the delivery, check the address, etc. The address is correct but they can’t do anything about redelivery today because it’s already too late here in California. So I ask him if he can put a note to the driver to make sure to press the correct intercom button because that’s the only way I can figure why I didn’t get called. He gives me a bit of an attitude… “hold on”… then comes back “ok, done”. No, “anything else I can do to help?”…

I ordered this iron on March 1st and have been waiting anxiously since then. Our iron died, it no longer heated up at all, so I haven’t been able to finish or start any new sewing projects. As a customer service agent, you would have to have some sort of courteous attitude or at least pretend to be helpful. We deal in customer service almost every day and I always try to be helpful because people wouldn’t be calling unless it was important to them. I don’t understand people in the customer service sector who aren’t courteous and helpful… then why be a customer service rep?

So just had to vent, I hope everything works out tomorrow. Just upset today…