myVegas Baby! Day 4 & 5: Mirage and Home

Cleaning the Mirage Aquarium

Wednesday is High Tea at Bellagio day. We grabbed coffee and pastries at The Roasted Bean in the Mirage retail area and then decide to wander around and try to hit it big. On the way to parking ramp we notice the divers cleaning the Mirage aquarium. Pretty cool.

We buzz over to the Hard Rock, play a little, and browse around their memorabilia displays for a while. As always, I'm amazed by the number of Gretsch White Falcon guitars scattered among the Les Pauls, Strat's and occasional PRS. Unfortunately as a definitely non-professional player, I've never been able to come up with an adequate excuse for buying one.

Around noon we head back to the Mirage, drop off the car and stroll down to Bellagio. As usual our myVegas redemption goes smoothly and we waste some time playing various random machines until our 2:00 reservation time.

In addition to tea of course (each of us gets an individual pot) there are the sandwiches:

The pastries:

and the scones:

Of course there are butter, clotted cream, and jam for the scones. It was terrific. I haven't really gotten too worked up (like some people) about the myVegas changes lately, but I will definitely miss this one on our trip next year.

Now, if, like me, you happen to know that the Bellagio fountain shows start at 3 o'clock, and if, like me you made your tea reservation for 2:00 chances are good you'll be walking out of the Bellagio just as the first show of the day begins:

No Crowds!

Thursday is our last full day and we've got Nine Fine Irishmen reservations at 7:00 so the day is wide open for for losing money. Miraculously, we don't. We don't really win anything, but after almost a week of looking at our losing-est  trip ever, it pretty nice to be entertained for a change.

As dinner time starts to approach we decide to make a concerted search for Viva myVegas QR codes. The one in the Mirage is easy to find - it's right outside the high limit slot room. We grab our car and head down to New York New York. And BOOM! There's another QR code in the parking lot right at the entrance to the hotel.

All of a sudden we're seeing them everywhere: the "Center Bar", in front of registration, and at the entrance to the Zumanity theater. Since we have some time we decide to walk over to Excalibur and see if we can find any there. Sure enough, there's one in front of the Dick's Last Resort Margarita window. We don't see any others and it's timeto head back to Nine Fine Irishmen anyway.

In the past we've really enjoyed Nine Fine Irishmen. Service was slow, and the food graded out about C-. Beth's Chicken Pot Pie was good, if bland, with plenty of chicken chunks and vegetables. My Shepard's Pie was a disaster - basically hamburger in gravy with few traces of vegetation under a cap of over-beaten mashed potatoes. A second Guinness eases the disappointment and settle up and make our way back to the car and the Mirage for our final night.

Once there we log int to the somewhat unreliable Mirage WIFI to see what we got from the QR Codes. We didn't score any non-chip prizes, but the chip rewards did come to 31,000 chips. I did manage to make note of one of the prize wheels so you can get an idea of what's available to win:

Cognac Tasting at Andre's
10K Chips
50 Loyalty Points
250 Chips
500 Chips
1 Criss Angel ticket
10K Chips
250 Loyalty Points
2500 Chips

Friday's flight back to Philly isn't until 11:30 so we have plenty of time for breakfast. We head down to the Pepper Mill, a Las Vegas classic that we've just never seemed to make time for. I can say their reputation for friendly service and huge portions is well deserved.

Ham, Eggs, Hashbrowns

French Toast, Eggs, Bacon & Sausage

I almost finished my ham and managed about half the rest. Our waitress cheerfully kept the coffee coming and after an hour or so of battle, we gave in and grabbed a cab back to the Mirage to check out:

All told and including the room downgrade at Mirage we cashed in about $1566.00 in free stuff. The more restrictive myVegas rules and loss of the high end rooms means we probably won't be able to manage this a second time. But it sure was fun! We'll just have to wait and see what they have available next April when we head back to Las Vegas from the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

Gardening 2013: May Update

Nearly to the roof this year!

This spring has been a little hard on the garden. It was very hot early, then got wet, and now we're on a period with more seasonal daytime temperatures but night time lows in the low 40's.

That hasn't bothered the cippolini onions or the cima di rapa in the front bed. They're watered using 1/4" drip line every 2nd row.

Just about ready

We'll probably harvest the cima di rapa in another couple days and make pizza with it. Valley Shepard Creamery in Reading Terminal Market makes mozarella daily on-site so I'll probably pick up half a pound on the way home from work Tuesday. (Which in turn means making a batch of dough Monday evening.)

San Marzano Tomatoes

As you can see, we're using red plastic "mulch" again this year and each plant has it's own drip line with a 1 gallon per hour emitter. There are a couple rows of peas on the right - they get plenty of eater from the gutter garden just visible at the top right.

Unfortunately, the eggplant and peppers I started are way behind. I may visit some garden stores next week and buy larger plants. It's annoying, but these things happen now and then. And I still have to pop some zucchini seeds under the black plastic in the front "bamboo bed".

mVegas Baby! Day 3: The Mirage

We Love myVegas!

Tuesday morning we pack up and checkout from Mandalay Bay. Unfortunately, a 10:00 AM checkout followed by a 3:00 PM check in time at The Mirage means we have some time to waste. But this is Las Vegas so there's plenty to do.

The first step is to head north and drop the car in the Mirage parking lot. Then breakfast. The Mirage is more or less across the street from the Venetian and in the Venetian is one of the best French restaurants in Las Vegas: Bouchon.

Bouchon is rather well known for their breakfast offerings so we head across the street and make our way to the restaurant which is located in a sort of out of the way corner of the hotel. We're seated immediately (it's about 9:30 - way early by Las Vegas standards).

Jambon et Oeufs

Beth had the ham and eggs. A thick slice of grilled ham, poached eggs,  pommes lyonaise and toast.

Bouchon French Toast

And that's my french toast - brioche layered with caramelized apples with some lightly sauteed apple slices on top. I had some breakfast sausage as well. After plenty of coffee we're ready to hit the casino.

But wait! What's this?

Cool! They're making some sort of advertisement. We watch various makeup and hair engineers poke at the actress but we can't quite make out what it's actually for. So off to the casino to lose some more money. We play for a couple hours, snag a few "free" Bellinis and actually manage to come out about even. That would soon change - this is destined to be our worst day of the trip.

Eventually 2:00 rolls around and we decide to see if our room is ready. So off it's back to the Mirage. No line thank goodness! But our luck doesn't hold. Not only is our room not ready, but the Tower Suite we'd reserved is not going to happen. Bummer. But heck, it's free and we combine the two reservations so we don't have to move again. I give the clerk my cell number, she gives me the key cards to the as yet unready room and we wander off.

We've got dinner at the Tender Steakhouse in Luxor tonight so a big lunch is out. Not wanting to go far we head over to BLT, the fancy burger place in The Mirage, for an appetizer and a couple adult milk shakes.  Finally about 4:30 I get the text hat our room is ready and up we go. We're both tired and a little cranky from the long wait so we just crash in the room until it's time to head down to Luxor for our myVegas Tender Dinner for Two.

Tender Steakhouse

Tender is a much nicer steakhouse than The Steakhouse at Camelot. hat fact is born out not just in ambiance but also in the more sophisticated menu, better executed sides, and a very, very nice wine list.


Tonight we skip the cocktails in favor of soup to start. Beth has the wild mushroom (right) and I go for the lobster bisque (left). Both are darn good but the lobster get the edge.

Once again we go for two sides this time creamed spinach and "Lyonaise" potatoes. The spinach is excellent, though topping it with cheese doesn't really add anything to the dish. I'm accustomed to a more traditional style of Pommes Lyonaise, but the cheesy gratin is tasty, if a bit heavy.

Instead of another prime rib I chose the more reasonably sized filet. As at Excalibur, the meat is perfectly cooked.

Beth, on the other hand decides to go wild and try the game sampler. It is by far the winner of the four steakhouse entrees we've had: "Nilgai antelope osso buco, axis venison medallion & wild boar loin with farro, fig chutney & huckleberry venison reduction." All are products of Broken Arrow Ranch. Of the three items, the antelope osso bucco was, we felt, the best.

Once again, we retired, overfed by a large margin, to our Tower King at the Mirage.

Day 1
Day 2
Days 4 & 5