Sunday 1.10.10

UGH. I can’t believe I am still standing. This is brutal. My last day on the show floor and I am going to make it brief. I got a random Facebook message from an old high school friend telling me to check out this robot/love doll thingy called True Companion and when I walked up to her and put my finger in her mouth I got yelled at.  Sheesh! Whatever! OK bring a plastic love doll that supposedly talks and keeps you company and then get snippy with me when I want to feel her skin? oh ok .

I moved to the Palms Hotel, a serious downgrade from the Palazzo and I realized that not only am I a food snob, I am a hotel snob as well. There is a different tradeshow going on for the next 3 days and it’s a totally different scene. Before hitting the gay parties tonight I had made a reservation for 818 and I to go to Joel Robuchon’s restaurant inside MGM (btw check out their cool website with the pillow feathers). I had been researching the menu at Robuchons trying to decide whether to do the 4 course, 6 course or the 16 course tasting menu and was torn. When I made the reservation early in the weekend I wasn’t sure if 818 would fully appreciate what we were eating… but over the last couple days I learned a lot about him. I don’t know that he is as passionate about food as I am, but he certainly “gets it.”

First we had the giant bread cart come by and we got to choose our bread…. I picked bacon and mustard on the left and a saffron roll on the right.

For the amuse bouche we had some amazing caviar

For the appetizer he had king crab with some other stuff  (King crab, avocado in a heart of romaine and olive oil with coral)

I had a black truffle pizza thingy which was really good. (Crispy fine tart with melted cheese and shaved black truffle)

Next course was soup: (Paris mushrooms, veal raviolis cooked in broth with black truffle)

And for the main course I chose pasta with black truffles. (Homemade spaghetti, soft poached eggs and shaved white truffle) Let me explain how I never learned how to eat pasta in public! I think 818 was mortified when I asked him to teach me how to do that trick when you eat pasta with a fork and you twirl it on the spoon and gracefully get it into your mouth without slurping and flinging it all over your face.  Super embarrassing that I am 38 years old and can’t eat pasta in a restaurant. GAWD.

Now, here’s the thing. I love truffles, but I learned the expensive hard way this evening, that it is really WHITE truffles that I love. (which are about 3x the price I might add). I wasn’t that impressed with the meal meaning that nothing really jumped out at me but 818 is convinced that it’s because I had truffle overload. Everything I ordered was buttery and truffely. I will definitely go back and do the 16 course with Chris (my favorite dining partner) and give it another shot, but I don’t know that this is the end all be all restaurant in Vegas.

818 had the fish as his main course: (Turbot filet, octopus with lemon grass, baby leek and artichoke)

The dessert was average, too. This was a chocolate mousse thing with a little cup of booze on top. I mean it was good, but I expected to be blown out of the water.

I actually liked my dates dessert better than mine and I rarely eat citrus type desserts.

I was falling asleep at dinner, didn’t even finish my bottle of wine and wanted nothing more than to take a quick nap before we had to head out to the club for the next 5 hours. So, that is exactly what I did! I took a 45 minute nap (I really did sleep this time) and then we headed out to a club called Gipsy where we had one of our regular Suite 703 models dancing his butt off in our gear.

And here are the boys looking sexy as usual

We ended up at a nightclub called Revolution which has this awesome light table thing that consumed most of us for the better part of 2 hours. It was sensitive to touch and changed patterns every few minutes so we just kept playing with the damn thing forever. I have to have one for my place!

Tommy looking scary as all hell.

Awww! Thank you for not making a dumb face!

Love this shirt!

And late night after we got back to the Palms Tommy decided to come down to the bar in this lovely outfit. Sweats and Doc Martens? Really? Go back to bed.