2-night, 4-star hotel stay bid on priceline.com $230
3-day Rental car booked on hotwire.com $50
Gasoline $150
Mix of overpriced and cheap food $290
2 tickets for Ka by Cirque Du Soleil $300
Total money lost on gambling $20
My shopping spree $250
Paul's Speeding ticket $190
(OK, now you all know the punch line....)
Acting like we're spontaneous and wild..... Priceless!
You see, the fact that I'm able to recount every dollar I spent tells you much that there's nothing spontaneous about me, let alone wild. And while jotting the expenses down, I'm already sweating about being judged by my parents who already think I'm the spoiled daughter kidnapped by the greedy demon. My mum already disapproved of us losing $20 on gambling, she's going to faint when she sees this...
But that's the thing about Vegas nowadays. You still end up spending like crazy without hitting the slot machine. But this is what frustrates me: Finding a good restaurant in Vegas is like hitting the jackpot and so far I have had no such luck. I always start by spending a fortune, hoping fortune will finally return its favor to my stomach and taste buds. And then I always wind up in Chinatown, since at least the mediocre Chinese food won't cost me my already dwindling fortune.
But something beyond normal bad luck is worth mentioning about. It's the restaurant by the world famous chef (for those who watches Food Network anyway)--Mario Batali's Enotesa San Marco at the Venetian hotel. Since everything was sort of a last minute decision, we didn't make any reservation for food, figuring there are thousands of restaurants to choose from. Our first choice Bouchon (@ Venetian) was out of the question, Mario gave us only an one-hour wait, the shortest if at all.
And don't let Mario's khaki short, soul warming food on the TV fool you, the food was nothing like that. First it came a bag of burned cold bread, along with some kind of imported bread stick that tasted like its wrapping paper. The bread does not come with any butter or olive oil unless you ask for it specifically. We didn't, the bread is too burned to even bother.
Then the waiter who pronounces perfect Italian came with the menu written mostly in Italian. While the price on the menu seemed reasonable, everything is ala carte so each side cost $9 on top of the entre. I figured I'd survive without the $15 slices of cheese or the $9 fries. But obviously everyone around us couldn't resist to open their wallet and do what's expected in Vegas. We did order some drink and the wine was smooth and the Bloody Orange martini was heavenly, but it was also 50% more than what you expect to pay. Then our food came, I ordered Linguine Vongole, and Paul had duck breast. My Linguine came with 5 tiny tiny little baby vongole, and Paul's dish came with 5 pieces of bite-size duck breast and one tiny tiny little charcoaled carrot. Hmmm, maybe our waiter was extremely hungry, and the person in charge of the oven was obviously on vacation that day.
We spent about 5 minutes to finish the food and the rest of the evening feeling hungry and $100 poorer. What ever happened to cheap food in Vegas?
1 comment:
I have to say the taste of the linguini and duck breast is great. The linguini is very flavorful and the duck is very juice and sweet. But from across the table, the linguini looks just like a plat of plane linguini 光面. The duck is more like an appetizer than a main course. Had the bread being any softer, I would have wipe the plate with it. After dinner, the waiter suggested their gelato (with the freshest ingredients) at $12 a scoop. We passed and had three scoops of gelato at a gelato stand next to the restaurant for $7.50, which also tasted very good, or may be we were just hungry.
It just dawn on us, Marine Room is a bargain price restaurant.
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