After yet another very good breakfast, we checked out of the B&B and said goodbye to Ross and Norma. We then loaded up the car and headed back to Vegas. When we got there, we went immediately to the hotel and checked in. New York, New York has a somewhat intelligent design, once you realize they aren't trying to make it easy to get around, but rather force you to go through the casino on your way to anyway. There was a lot of energy in the city. Once we had checked in, we decided to go get a slice of wedding cake at Freed's bakery (they had been mentioned on Rachel Ray's $40/day show on Food Network). Really good cake. After that, we went back to the hotel and decided to go check out what it had. We ended up having a slice of New York style pizza for lunch, which was really good and, according to AM, pretty authentic.
After lunch, we went and checked out a bunch of the other hotels on the strip. First was Excalibur. You can call it is a little older than the others. Overall, it was pretty boring and had a lot of chinchy shops with Sword and the Stone type trinkets. From there we walked into the Luxor. Now that is an impressive building. A hollow pyramid inside of a pyramid, with no internal supports. Some of the shops were a bit more interesting than Excalibur, but the main thing I liked about it was definitely the building itself.
The main thing we looked at for the other hotels was the shops. Some of them were rather intesting. We were somewhat disappointed, because we wanted to look at the art gallery at the Bellagio, but $15/person seems a bit excessive. A lost of museums don't charge that much, and have a more extensive collection. Plus, the main feature right now is Monet, which I don't really care that much about. Paris does have a really interesting design though, and we will probably stay there at some point in the future.
After checking out the other hotels, we headed back to our room to get changed for dinner. When we arrived at Emeril's, we were promptly seated and the waiters were very attentive. We decided to have the tasters menu, which is 6 small courses, each about 3 oz. The first course was an appetizer. This was the only course I didn't like, because it had a rather strong mayo flavor, as well as capers.
The second course was by far the best. It was a giant scallop on a bed of rissoto with lemon garlic sauce. The scallop practically melted in my mouth, and the rissoto was simply amazing. I will more than likely have that as my main dish the next time I go there. AM feels the same way, and she isn't normally a big fan of scallops.
The third course was a breaded, cajun spiced filet of skatewing served on a bed of grits with roasted roma tomatoes. The taste and texture of the 4 were great when combined, but I wasn't a big fan of the grits without all of the other flavors. This was AM's second favorite dish.
The fourth course was another fish dish. AM wasn't really that impressed with it, but I liked it. It had a red-pepper sauce and a type of salsa with it. Very tasty, but slightly more sedate after the spicy skatewing.
The fifth and final dinner course was a piece of flank steak and mashed potatoes. The flank steak had Emeril's custom worcestershire sauce on it, and was cooked to absolutely perfection. We only had slightly serated knives, yet they cut through it like it was butter. I've never had a steak this good anywhere.
The sixth course, dessert, was a bananas foster. The sauce had a considerable amount of rum in it, which made it taste really good. I loved every bite of it. The dinner cost a bit more than I had expected, but it was worth it.
After dinner, we went back to our room, changed into some clothes for the night, and decided to go check out some of the bars. AM had looked up some in the magazine that came with the rental car, so we started with a couple at Ceaser's Palace. When we got there, we decided to check out the sports book, since it is somewhat legendary. AM was a little impressed with it, but she also though that the one at the MGM was rather impressive as well.
She had actually confused the first bar on the list (The Mermaid Bar) with the Seahorse Lounge. We decided to not stop there at all because it was too boring. Next was the Shadow Bar. That place turned out to have a dress code, so we didn't get in. Apparently it is a rather trendy place anyway, and not much is going on there.
After this, we made our way back to our hotel. First stop was the Big Apple Bar. The band on stage had a really good stage presence and pretty good voices, so it was a lot of fun. The bartender was also pretty good. We stayed there for about a half hour and had a lot of fun.
When we left the Big Apple Bar, we headed over to the Bar at Times Square. They had dualing pianos, and were playing some fun music. Everyone in the bar (which was completely packed to standing room only) was signing along as they played Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer." We ended up staying there for about 30 minutes as well.
At this point I had had enough to drink, and was looking to just go have some fun (roller coaster). AM didn't think it was a good idea, as she had never been on a roller coaster with a loop before. So, instead we went up and got a pretzel. Once we finished that, we decided we were tired and went up to bed (we had to get up at 6am to make our plane). Unfortunately, we weren't able to do any of the breakfast buffets, as none of supposedly good ones opened early enough for us. We'll have to do that next time.