Viva Las Vegas

Perhaps this is the best SQ has come in surprising me. After a couple of days of non-stop heavy rain, our original plan of spending 4 days driving south along the Pacific Coast was "washed away." It became apparent to us on Sunday that the entire California would be rained out, north or south. Since I had already taken the days off work, I was prepared to spend the next few days at home, relaxing.

But on Monday morning, SQ woke me up at 8am and told me that we had a flight to catch at 11. I thought he was joking, but SQ is not someone who pulls tricks like these. Sure enough, by 10am, we were at the airport...flying to Vegas!

We've been to Vegas many times, but this was really somewhat of a surprise. We stayed at MGM and SQ even got us Cirque de Soleil tickets for KÀ.I've only watched one Cirque de Soleil, many many years ago - tickets courtesy of Googi. But that was a travelling show, which means that the set and special effects were minimized. So KÀ was definitely a nice treat. Very cool! I heard that "O" is also very good - hopefully, I'll get to see that next time.

On this trip, I was determined not to eat at any buffets. Every time we go to Vegas, we end up chowing down some buffet at some hotel. Although the food most of the times is good - I was just sick of it. So, this time, we went to Wolfgang Puck. We chose this place for 2 reasons: (1) it's in the MGM, and (2) the magazine had this place listed with only $$, which means entrees are $20-$25. The rest of the listings we saw had $$$ to $$$$, which is $25-$60 per entree!! We couldn't afford that! So Wolfgang it is.

We ended up ordering their tasting menu, which is a prix-fixe with a starter, entree and dessert. Of course, SQ and I ordered different things so we could try the entire menu.

For starters, SQ ordered the Arugula salad - yummy but too much dressing for my taste. I ordered the cream of Cauliflower, which I ABSOLUTELY LOVED! This was the best of the 3 dishes I had.

Entrees: pictures below. Quail on a bed of spinach (left) and braised short ribs (right). I'm not a big quail fan so didn't eat much out of that plate. The spinach was to die for. So tender and tasty. As for the ribs, it was OK. It was actually a really big piece of meat. The picture doesn't really show it. At first the dish tasted really good, but after I ate 1/2 of it, it got kinda heavy... so this wasn't my favorite.

There was only 1 option for dessert - carrot cake with pecan ice cream and nuts. This was good, not great.

Overall, I was neutral on this restaurant. It didn't WoW me but I did like the soup. I always like his soup recipes. They're good. At the end, I was just super glad that I wasn't in some buffet.

P.S. No luck on gambling... we both lost $$. :(