Vegas, Saturday evening*

*I will now defraud my readers by setting the "publish" date on this post to Saturday, September 20. That's when these photos were taken, that's the day I'm chronicling, and that's the day I should have written this. So that's it, and that's that.

Most of our daytime activity in Las Vegas occurs poolside. The pool at the Palazzo is nice, in comparison to the pool at Mandalay Bay (where we usually stay) for several reasons:

1) The Palazzo's pool is generally less crowded, so we don't need to reserve our chairs by 8am. (Seriously, last year on at least one occasion we stood in line to enter Mandalay Bay's pool area when it opened, just to snag seats.)

2) The Palazzo has seating in the pool. (This was very popular with my friends. I, uh, I like to be dry, OK? So I always chose a chair just by where they were sitting, but on the pool deck.)


3) The Palazzo pool boys and girls come around and distribute ice cold washcloths during the heat of the day.

4) They also provide cucumbers for our eyes. Or, for our bellies. Either way, cucumbers are nice.

5) The food available near the Palazzo pool is much better, you aren't required to present your room key card to gain entry, and the overall setup is much easier-to-navigate.

However, Mandalay Bay is still perfectly acceptable, and meets our pool standards (which are high).

Here is a photo of part of the pool that we spent most of our time in, with the Wynn and Encore in the background:


There are a couple more pools behind that one.

The best thing about Saturday in Las Vegas is that Saturday is the night we typically have reservations at Hugo's Cellar. This is one of those places where you say that dining is an experience. The maître d' starts off by giving each lady entering the restaurant one red rose. Once seated, drink orders are taken, and this was the first restaurant where I was ever given a chilled decanter with my martini (in 2004):


Then, salads are prepared for each of us individually, to our specifications, at the table. (Mine went something like, "Tomatoes? - Yes. - Red onions? - Yes. - Pine nuts? - Yes. - Bleu cheese? - Yes. - Baby shrimp? - Yes. - Anchovies? - Yes. - Artichoke? - No. - Croutons? - No. - Fresh grated cheese? - Yes. - Fresh ground pepper? - Yes." Even before the days when I started eating salads, I loved the salad at Hugo's.

My salad (with flash overexposure correction, sorry):


The menu is 100% steak/meat/seafood. I ordered the no-longer-completely-taboo chilean sea bass topped with "sauce nantua," described in the menu as "crab meat topped with luscious shrimp sauce," which, if you're wondering, has nothing to do with cocktail sauce. This was Scrumpcheez, our new word coined in Vegas 2008.


The thing about Hugo's Cellar is that it is literally underground, below the casino level at the Four Queens hotel. The Four Queens is in downtown Las Vegas, which is, well, the other end of town, the seedier, gaudier, less "classy" end ("class" being a relative term in Vegas). Casino tables are cheaper, everything is older (translating to lots of stuff, such as, lower ceilings in the smoky casinos), and the atmosphere is just plain different. Here is the Four Queens:


If it looks like there is a ceiling over the outdoor walkway, well, there is. But just around the corner we found actual sky, and we also found the Las Vegas Fire Department:


By the time dinner is over we're all stuffed, giddy and drunk. This is us, after our cab dropped us off back at The Palazzo, and I had somehow acquired all the roses: