Terrified of Vegas - Day 2

Each day we would wake up around 8AM and be out the door by 9AM. Today we were going to go to Hash House A Go Go, the one down by Freemont street. Don’t worry; we’re not planning on walking it! We hail a cab and tell him we want to go to the one by the Plaza Hotel. He seemed like a nice enough guy, as he was starting to drive he gave us a “fair warning” and told us that our destination was a “bit out of the way” I guess just so we wouldn’t think he took us for a ride. As we approached the Peppermill Grill, I told my travel companion that the place she wanted to go to later on in this trip Taco El Gordo should be around here somewhere, that’s when the cabbie piped in and said that the Taco place we’re looking for, closed down about 3 weeks ago. He thinks it was a dispute over the rental amount. He said he was pretty disappointed with it as well, since he didn’t get a chance to eat there and wanted to try it out.

We finally get to our destination and I was worried that there would be long lineups just like what we experienced last night, ‘cause it is Saturday morning, but I guess we were there early enough as there were plenty of seats available. By the time we were leaving, most of the empty seats had filled up. It didn’t take us long to order as we already researched it on Yelp and knew what we wanted. Andy’s Sage Fried Chicken.

I know what you’re thinking, that does not look appetizing at all, ‘cause that’s what I first thought when I saw the picture as well, but for someone reason seeing it in real life, it was different, and plus the chicken tasted baumskies! In other words, it was really good! The internet said that the portion sizes were huge, so we ordered one to share and that was more than enough!

I bought the American Casino Guide (ACG), and the plan was to casino hop and use some of the coupons listed in there. First stop, the hotel that we were already in Plaza Hotel. We got $5 worth of free slot play from them, probably burned through that like nothing playing penny slots.

We then went across the street to Las Vegas Club where they had a mid-sized slot machine right outside of the casino, we were invited to spin the machine and for my spin, I won a “Level 5” prize, which was supposed to be really good! I was thinking Match Play of some sort! That’s when I looked at his jacket and realized that he was not with the casino and what had happened. I let a time share guy talk to me! It was her turn to spin, and she spun a lowly “Level 1” prize, but the guy reset the machine and let her spin again, this time yielding a higher level prize. We were then invited inside to claim our prize. He walked with us over to this little booth, where another guy was sitting there reading a book. The guy from outside that brought us in, talked us up! Said we were really friendly, blah blah blah and wanted his friend to take good care of us and hook us up!

So his friend starts talking us up too, saying a bunch of nice things, making some small talk, then starts to “give us” stuff. Two show tickets, $100 in free slot play, $50 match play, free dinner. Says that we just need to attend a short presentation and at the end of it we’ll be able to claim all our stuff. I told him no thanks that we weren’t interested. I told him I’ve heard about this stuff and I was going to pass. He then told me that they weren’t a time share, it was something different. I then told him that we’re only here for a few days and that we’ve pretty much already have everything planned out and we’re on a tight schedule and didn’t have time for their presentation. He understood and stopped after that.

My travel companion was interested and wanted to do it, but I gave her the gist of it and told her what I knew about them and said that it would be high pressure selling trying to get us to buy stuff, and told her that maybe one time when I’m here for a longer period of time, I’ll attend one just to get a better understanding of it all.

After that we walked to the Players Club only to find out that their player’s club didn’t open till 1PM. Who opens up their players club so late during the day? So we just left and went across to the next casino, Golden Gate.

I was already a member here, so I couldn’t sign up and the only ACG promo I qualified for was for a free Calendar, I had a choice between the Girls of Golden Gate or the History of Golden Gate. I chose the history book. 

My travel companion was a new member and was able to claim the $25 match play, which she won on a hand of blackjack and $5 of free play by earning 50 points. Those 50 points were not easily earned; we almost lost a lot of money trying to win it! We parked ourselves at the bar playing Video Blackjack and was able to get 2 coronas out of the deal, but it was a close call!

After Golden Gate we went over to Binion’s. I wanted to show her the million dollars that you could take a picture with, and we did just that! Once again, me being an existing member, all I could do was request a new card. She was able to get a free “aces” card for a blackjack, meaning that the first card of her hand would be an ace on a $10 bet; she won that hand as well. Then if she earned 10 points she could get $10 worth of free play. They also had their existing swipe and win promo, where if you earned 5 points, you had a chance to swipe your card and earn up to $5 worth of free play. She swiped and won the $5; I swiped and won a 2-for-1 entrée, pass!

She was still extremely upset over the fact that Taco El Gordo closed down on her, so she was still on her phone trying to find another taco joint that was close by. She found a place called Zaba’s Mexican Grill that was fairly close by, so we started walking back to the direction where we came from. When we got to Main St. we made a left and started walking West for a little bit, a couple hundred meters in, we stopped, ‘cause it didn’t look like there were any restaurants, just empty buildings. We looked really lost and a passerby even tried to help us, but they didn’t know the place we were looking for as well. We started walking back towards Freemont thinking we made a wrong turn and was supposed to go right, that’s when she looked up and noticed it right across the street! It was located inside the Plaza Hotel! The hotel we started at this morning!

Zaba’s is located in their food court, we get in there and order their 2 taco combo, it came out to about $6.50 The taco was okay. I’ve never really eaten a taco before except from Taco Bell. So I was thoroughly confused when I saw the double layered flour taco, it looked nothing like Taco Bell taco.

After that I wanted to press on with the next casino, but it didn’t seem like she was enjoying herself too much, ‘cause we were suppose to go outlet shopping after this and she was worried that we wouldn’t have enough time for it. So I flipped through my remaining ACG coupons and found the “good ones” The D was giving out a $25 match play and a ‘money back’ bet if you got dealt a 22.

We decided to walk the rest of Freemont first, and then on our way back we would pop into the D to claim them. We were walking and then came across this mini food court that was selling tacos for $2. So we decided to each grab a Taco, one beef, one pork. OMG! These taco’s were baum! They tasted really good! Wayyyyy better than the ones we just ate at Zaba’s.

We passed by CVS and she wanted to go in, but I didn’t want to. So I devised a plan to divide and conquer. I would go to The D and claim the coupons and she would go to CVS and we’ll meet up after.

 

I got to The D and turns out, I already had a players card there, surprise surprise! So I wasn’t able to get the match play, but I was able to get the ‘money back’ coupon. The maximum bet allowed was $25. So of course I had to play the max bet to take advantage of it. I did one lap around their tables area, looking for a good spot to play in, noticed most of the table action was $5-$10 minimums, but they were mostly full. I was about to start my second lap of the place, when a female dealer from one of the elevated pits made eye contact with me and told me to go play there. This was an elevated pit ‘cause it was their “high limit” section.

Turns out the table minimum for their high limit section was $25 which was perfect! So I bought in for $100. As soon as I started changing the cash, a cocktail waitress walked up and asked what I wanted. I really felt like a high roller! Before I sat down to play, I texted my friend and told her that she would need to sign up for the players card in order to get the match play, ‘cause I couldn’t do it. So when she was done with her CVS shopping, she went to go sign up and met with me afterwards.

I played a flat bet of $25 per hand, one on one with the dealer until the end of the shoe, by the end of it; I was up $75, not bad I think. Then when she came back, I gave her a $25 chip to play the match play with ‘cause I knew $25 a hand was just too much for her to handle. Yup! You guessed it! She won her hand again! So I coloured up and walked away with $125 from The D.  This whole time I had the 'money back' card with me, but I played through the whole shoe without busting on a 22, so needless to say, I didn't need to use it and still have it! Maybe I'll save it for a future 2015 trip. I wonder if my play warrants any offers in the future, we’ll see!

After that, we hoped in a cab to the North Premium Outlets. As soon as we hopped in and I noticed that the driver got on the freeway, I knew he had longhauled us, but it was too late by then. I pulled out my phone and verified with google that he would have taken the local streets. The fare ended up being about $16.

We spent about a good two hours there at the outlet. I didn’t buy anything, I just sat around waiting for her, ‘cause at first it was really good to just sit down, then afterwards I got bored and started wandering around as well.

Once we were done shopping at the outlet, we cabbed it over to the Luxor, ‘cause I had another MyVegas reward to redeem, a $75 credit to Tender Steakhouse. We would be coming back here later tonight for dinner after our KA show at MGM. Dinner wasn’t till 9:30 so we need to grab a snack to hold us over, since we were in the Luxor we hit up Tacos N Tequila. That’s right! More Tacos! We ordered their Alambre and split that order.

I told my server that we were in a bit of a rush and he acknowledged that and was quick about everything! . These tacos were pretty good, much better than Zaba’s but still not as good as the $2 tacos we got from Freemont! I have a feeling that next time we’re in Vegas we’ll be making a special trip just to Freemont for those Tacos!

From the Luxor we took a tram over to Excalibur and then from there we walked to MGM and began lining up for KA, we got there just in time!

These tickets were part of my flight and hotel package that I booked, but if it wasn’t I would have been willing to pay for them anyways. This was my second time watching KA, my first time watching it was in 2008. This time it was just as entertaining as the first! The section that I was sitting in, gave the cast and crew a standing ovation. I think this happened the first time I watched it as well. This goes to show that KA is one of the better cirque shows.

Once the show was over, we started walking back to Luxor for our dinner at Tender. We were seated promptly and was greeted by our 2 servers. The reward stipulated that I would get $75 off my bill upon spending a $150. I pretended to be daft and asked my server how the voucher worked and he said he would take $75 off my bill. With him saying that, I didn’t “force” myself to spend the $75.

So all I ordered was the 14 oz Range-fed Ribeye from New Zealand:

and my dinner date ordered a glass of wine, the Lobster Bisque:

the 10oz Wagyu Kobe-style beef from Idaho:

and we split a Lyonnaise Potato Gratin:

but the steaks were more than enough that we barely even touched the potato. The bill came out to about $150 after tax. After he had taken off the $75 credit, I charged the tip and the rest to my room over at the Vdara. Why? It just made me feel special being able to do so!

When we looked at the bill we realized we were each charged $4 for the sauces that went with the steak, we were a bit cheesed about that, because we didn’t know that the sauces were extra. He phrased it in the way that we thought the sauces were part of the meal. But we didn’t make a fuss about it, will know better for next time!