Always good to catch up

October 23, 2009
Las Vegas, NV

Last night we had fun. First, it was off to dinner with Cindy and Larry. We make it a point to catch up with them each time we visit Las Vegas. Come to think of it, we seem to visit Las Vegas quite a bit in our travels, considering that we're not gamblers, although it's been a year-and-a-half since our last real stop. We don't count passing through on the way north in April, since we only stopped at the Camping World for a new tow bar.

We met for dinner at the new M Resort casino, which was very convenient for both as they live in Henderson and we were near I-15 just south of the Strip and airport. Las Vegas Boulevard continues south for quite a while (11 miles?) from where the major casino-hotel complexes are, and the M Resort is about 8 or 9 miles south, about as far as you could go for development along that line. You can tell that the place is new (I think it had just opened when we passed by in April), as some areas are still under construction or final deployment, and some of the signage was generic ("Steakhouse" or "Italian Restaurant" instead of the actual name of the eatery).

Anyway, we found our way without too much difficulty and met Cindy and Larry right on schedule. They're both doing well and looking good. We caught up for quite a while before we took the hint that the waiter really wanted us to order. The food was pretty good, too; lots of places need quite a while to get their "sea legs" and consistently put out good food, and Marinelli's is doing well.

After coffee, we said our goodbyes and headed back. Now, normally we'd be heading back home but in this case, we were going to meet the Connecticut Crowd (Pat, Al, Mike, Lynne) once they arrived. They chose the Oyster Bar at Harrah's even though they were staying at the Flamingo two hotels away, but who are we to argue. We arrived first and parked with the valet (I'd already called to see if we had a vertical clearance issue with the roof pod on the Range Rover - yes, so let the valet deal with it), and Geri was already done with her first round of oysters on the half shell by the time they arrived, along with another couple that Mike knows who happened to be in town at the same time. We hung out and finished our wine while they all motored through some seafood platters (air travel makes you hungry since they stopped serving food). Around midnight, they hit the wall due to the time difference, the waitress wanted to go home, and the party broke up. We headed home to walk the pups.

Today was a pretty calm day, as all we had planned early on was to have the Connecticut Crowd over to the coach for a late lunch/early dinner (pre-show). We made our kicked-up "Philly" Cheesesteaks. I put "Philly" in quotes because we have enough experience with the real thing to know a) you can only get the real thing at one of a handful of shops in Philadelphia (no matter what they tell you somewhere else) and b) ours aren't authentic in any way since we can't get the right bread or meat on the road. So, we do the best we can with what we have. We'd bought the meat (half of a whole beef tenderloin, trimmed and chopped up) and cheese (aged provolone and something with truffle), and prepared the sides (caramelized onions, sautéed peppers and onions, and fried mushrooms) earlier in the week.

The Connecticut Crowd arrived by cab around 3:00 PM, we fired up the grill for the griddle, and the cooking was under way as soon as we'd popped the cork on a California Pinot Noir and served a couple of vodka tonics. With the truffle cheese and a drizzle of white truffle olive oil, the sandwiches were reasonably good, even if the roll to filling ratio was a bit on the high side (you don't want the rolls too big so the meat and cheese get lost). The wines were very good as well, highlighting that California can do pretty well with Pinot Noir (Mike's a fan of Oregon Pinots, but coming around).