First Day of School

We woke up yesterday to the reality that we really were retired because it was the first day of school and we weren't there! I slept soundly but Marilyn did the wake up every couple of hours routine. We headed over to the Bellagio for the breakfast buffet which was great. We ate enough that we weren't hungry again until around 9 o'clock! Here we are with our first plates and champagne. Oddly, they didn't have mimosas but could give us a glass of orange juice on the side!

After we walked around a bit, we went to the Aria pool, well pools, as there are 4 or 5 of them. The bonus of this time of year was that there were no kids!! It was pretty relaxing and we ended up ordering drinks but didn't rent a cabana! 

Later in the day we picked up our rental car, a Ferrari red Chev Aveo, and headed off to find the Vegas sign. It's by the executive airport on the median of Las Vegas Blvd. They've built a parking lot there as there was too much vehicular mayhem before. It was pretty much what we expected but the bonus was, a couple was there doing their wedding photos. It added a lot to the tackiness of the whole thing!

And, here's our little car in the parking lot!

After the sign we used the gps to get to the Premium Outlet Mall North. It's an outdoor mall and going later in the day meant that we didn't fry. I expected to be carrying bags of stuff Marilyn bought, but it was the other way around. She bought nothing and I bought all this:

Who knew? I never expected to buy stuff here.
After our shopping experience, we headed over to the Fremont Street Experience. It's one of those things that you do once because you should see it, but it's pretty much a 10 on the tacky scale. Lots of fancy lights, casinos, and showgirls walking around. The walk back to the car through the dark streets was our least favourite part.

We were kind of hungry by this time but there was nothing overly attractive at Fremont so we went back to the Strip and had some great bbq at the Harley Davidson Cafe across from our hotel. We shared the Hog Platter which was more than enough for the two of us.

And that was it for the day. We had to be up at 6 on Wednesday to head off to Red Rock Canyon.

Amazing Food

We've been here for a few days now and the thing that stands out most is the food. We knew that was one of our main reasons for coming but we're still amazed at how many choices there are. Dinner on our first night was at Jaleo, a Spanish tapas restaurant by Jose Andres. He is someone we've watched on tv often and we had planned to visit his restaurants in Washington DC at some point. Our dinner consisted of 6 types of tapas and some great Spanish beer. 
First we had these really tasty jamon croquettas made with iberico ham. 

Next we had what was called a tuna salad sandwich. Sounds boring but it was made with preserved tuna of some sort and hard boiled eggs and mayo. Incredible flavours!

Then we had a home made sausage and mushroom stew called butifarra that, again, sounds simple but had amazing flavours. 

On Monday morning, we were up fairly early and went out looking for coffee and tea. It was overcast and quite a bit cooler than Sunday. We found the streets almost deserted at first. This first picture is on a walkway near our hotel. It's near a shopping area called The Crystals which looks amazingly like the new ROM building. It wasn't designed by Frank Gehry but I'll post some pictures and you can decide if they've stolen a few ideas or not. In any case this first shot reminded me of school because of the eraser!

We were walking around the strip and saw this next picture happening which should go into the Only In Vegas category. There are more like it. In this one we see Captain America having a chat with a couple of the ever present street guys.

Next, we went down to Mandalay Bay to check out the shark exhibit and find lunch. The shark exhibit is not overly large but has a good display of fish and you end up in a viewing area where the fish can swim all around you. This first shot, although it suffered a bit because of the glass, gives an interesting perspective of one of the sharks.

The jelly fish were Marilyn's favourites. You wonder how they can be so flimsy looking and survive in the ocean.

We ended up having lunch at Border Grill, a Mexican restaurant owned by another chef we've seen on Food TV and the Master Chef show. We sat on a patio (there are apparently no annoying wasps in Vegas) overlooking the beach and waterplay area of Mandalay Bay. We had the quesadillas and taquitos shown below. Again, lots of great flavours that were accentuated by a couple of Mexican beers that we'd never tried before.

Later that day, we walked all the way from Aria to The Palazzo where we had dinner at Lagasse's Stadium, a giant sports bar. It had one 12 foot tv and endless other flatscreens showing all the games of the day. On the way there we saw this guy with his family and pet. Again, only in Vegas?

On the way home after dinner, we stopped briefly to attempt to watch the volcano show at the Mirage but, for some reason, we both got ants all over us. I think they were on some sticky stuff near where we were standing but it was dark and all I could feel was them crawling on me. So, we spent the next 5 minutes getting them off me and then we saw that they were also on Marilyn so we got her cleaned off as well. Needless to say, we didn't hang around for more of that. The last couple of pictures are night shots of the Strip. 

We're now just taking a break after this morning's buffet and our time at the pool. At 4 we'll pick up our rental car and go off to find 1. The Vegas sign for tacky photos, 2. The Premium Outlet Mall to see if it's like all the other outlet malls, 3. The Gun Store where one can shoot all sorts of interesting guns (mostly my idea) and 4. Fremont Street where we'll eat and watch the light show. Back later...

Back In Vegas!

We have finally made it back to Las Vegas! The flight was great and our shuttle from the airport was quick and incident free. Once we got to Aria, we found that we couldn't check in so left our stuff and set off in search of lunch. We ended up at Todd English's Pub at the City Centre. City Centre wasn't here on our last trip so we have a bunch of exploring to do. Here's the pub:

Here's Marilyn at the pub with her fancy grilled cheese sandwich that had brie and bacon. She also has a Newcastle Brown and I had a beer from the states called Arrogant Bastard that was very good.

This was truly a giant sandwich and I ended up having to help Marilyn finish it. You can see my Bison Burger with blue cheese in the picture below. Not sure about my pose though. I should have been holding the beer!

This is the Aria from the outside showing the really modern construction. Below is another exterior shot.

When we finally got to the room, it was great. We had a mountain view room which turned out to be a bonus because the strip view rooms face the Cosmopolitan Hotel and its Day/Night Club. The music booms from mid morning until about 5 a.m. and if you are on that side, you always hear it. Below is a view from our room through the wall to wall window.

The room is also very high tech. We saw some complaints in reviews before we came about people not being able to figure it out. You have an ipad type device beside the bed that controls lights, curtains, music and whatever video devices you have plugged into the room's system. Not hard at all. You can use the tv and remote to control things as well. Then, we you want to go to sleep, you push the Goodnight button and the lights and tv go off and the curtains close. Pretty cool. 

This shows how you can even control the room temp while watching tv. I need this system at home!

Wishing We Were Still There...

Sadly, we are back home in Mississauga. Not that we don't like our home and everyone here, it was just sad to have left NYC on a beautiful Friday morning. Next time we go to NYC, we will be including a weekend. We were just talking about what we liked best so I thought I'd finish this segment of the blog with those thoughts.
On leaving the city, we were a bit nervous about time. Those who know us, me especially, know that we tend to be early for things. And I get very antsy at the prospect of being late. We were told to allow lots of extra time to get from Manhattan to Newark on the Express Bus. We left just after 9 and the taxi ride seemed a bit circuitous but the guy took the FDR expressway instead of going through the city. I made sure he knew I was looking at the gps and knew where we were going. I think it was faster in the end. The bus ride was slow as we hit numerous traffic jams and construction sites. We finally arrived at Newark and had lots of time to spare. The Porter people then said there were openings on the flight before ours and we ended up leaving 50 minutes after getting to the airport. Not bad!
Here we are in the Lincoln Tunnel. This is another scene that reminds me of tv shows and movies that have used the tunnel.

One of the things about the city that we loved was how most people are genuinely helpful. Once again this time, we were approached if we had our map out by someone who wanted to give us directions. Just after we'd arrived and were getting our bearings in the subway, a young police officer came over to us 3 times to make sure we were ok.
We never felt unsafe while walking around. Yes, it's a big city and we're used to that, but we felt like we could walk pretty much anywhere we wanted. We didn't do the dark, back alley tours or anything but you get the idea. Times Square was the busiest place we visited. It was ok but more touristy that we liked.

We preferred the smaller places like Washington Square Park. This little band was playing in the afternoon of St. Patty's Day. There were 3 or 4 others bands playing in different areas of the park.

No matter where we walked we saw interesting views and architecture. This is from the courthouse on the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge.

And this was a building that caught our eyes in Soho. It's actually near our $3.75 million future loft home.

We found the subway pretty amazing. It was quick and seemed to go everywhere. It was great that you could actually hear and understand the stop announcements too. The one thing we did notice often was that the stations were pretty run down. This stairway was a common sight.

It was also amazing that you could go to the beach on the subway. We saw Coney Island, and Brighton Beach and Rockaway were close by as well.
This is the view of Coney Island from the long pier.

Of course, the food was amazing. I think we walked enough not to come back 5 pounds heavier, but it would be hard to live there all the time and not overeat. Our favourite had to be DBGB but everything we tried was good. As usual, eating out in new places is inspiring me to try some new things too. After dinner at Mesa Grill I want to get some dried ancho chilies to make some sauces. I expect that this blog is going to morph into some sort of a food related blog in the near future.
And finally, our hotel was an incredible experience. We were very impressed that they upgraded us and then were more impressed when we found out the new room actually goes for over $700 a night! I can't imagine paying that much ever but we certainly enjoyed it. This is the side of the building we were on - 1401.

 You get a good idea here of how they fit the new hotel right into the space that used to be a derelict building.

 Yep, the room really was pretty much all white. And, I did not spill a drop of wine.

The room came with an ipad that mostly accessed hotel information. You had to use your own computer to access the internet. Seemed kind of odd but that's how it was.

 The room was small but all the mirrors and brightness made it look bigger.

 I guess that's it. We had a great trip and will definitely go back again. Thanks for reading. I'll let you know when this turns into a food blog.

The Last Dinner

For our final dinner in NYC, we decided to go to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill. It was a good choice. Although the place was noisy, we had a great meal.

 This is my appetizer of blue corn tortilla with bbq'd duck with habanero sauce. Very good!

 Marilyn's appetizer was shrimp and roasted garlic tamale.

 My main course was red and black pepper crusted filet mignon with mushroom, ancho chili sauce.

Marilyn's main was pan roasted venison with roasted jalapeno sauce and wild rice tamale.

Brooklyn, Coney Island and Back Again

This morning we woke up to a brilliant blue sky and endless sunshine. Our plan to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge was a go. We left here and grabbed coffee and tea at Starbucks and decided to walk from our place to the bridge. With a stop to look around the court houses on the way, we got there in about a half hour. The bridge walk is very interesting and we'd highly recommend it. The views back towards Manhattan are great. You just have to keep to the right as the bikers go flying past on the left. There was one section of the bridge that was under construction.

 I was pretty much fascinated by the patterns made by all of the supporting cables.

 This is one of the views back towards Manhattan.

Once we reached the other side of the bridge, we decided that we'd go to the parks that were supposed to be under there. The first thing we found was another Jacques Torres chocolate shop so, naturally, we bought more chocolate and had another wicked hot chocolate as it was still a bit cool out. From there we went to the Brooklyn Bridge Park which gave an excellent view back into the city. We also saw the famous Riverside Cafe. It is literally on the edge of the river. It was too early for lunch so we had to move on. We did, however, witness a photo shoot for some hip hop guy that I didn't recognize. Not the major highlight of the day.
This was a highlight. Although we didn't eat here, it was cool to see another of the famous NYC coal burning pizzerias. Grimaldi's is right under the bridge.

 A view from Brooklyn Bridge park.

 I was trying to balance the camera on a rock to take this picture when a nice couple came by and offered to help.

 Jacque Torres's cookies. We had a chocolate chip yesterday.

 This one shows the derelict area of Brooklyn that is being rebuilt with the bridge in the background.

 Looking up from the park area.

  This shot is from the garden at the Riverside Cafe. Next time, we're eating here!

 Manhattan with a police boat in the foreground. The police presence is very obvious most of the time.

  Looking back towards the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan from the park.

After we finished walking around the park, we decided not to go back to Manhattan and brave the St. Patty's day throngs. So, we hopped on the subway and headed off to Coney Island. How cool is it to be able to take the subway to the ocean? On the way I realized that we'd have to eat at Nathan's Famous Frankfurters. We have seen this iconic hotdog joint on numerous food shows. They've been around since, I think, 1916. The hotdogs are done on the flat top griddle. They aren't fancy, but they were good. After eating, we walked on the boardwalk and the beach. We even went out on the long pier. It was really nice to feel the sun warming us up.
Here are our Nathan's hotdogs. I had the chili dog of course. Marilyn had the basic one.

Here are a few images of the beach area at Coney Beach.

Once we got back to Manhattan, we decided to walk around and see what was going on. We found quite a few loud, noisy bars with over indulged yahoos in them. So, we went to another of Mario's places called Otto Enoteca. It's a pizza place but we had beers and bruschetta pepperonata. It was a great snack but, sadly, Mario wasn't there.