Vegas Nights!

Part of our joint celebration of Christmas with our daughter was to go to dinner and a show in Las Vegas,  We decided to keep it simple and have both at one resort - the MGM Grand.  Dinner was at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak.  The show was the Cirque du Soleil's 'Ka'. 

Dinner was first, kind of early at 17:30 but we are all early birds and staying out to midnight isn't our style any more.  Craftsteak doesn't look it but is a surprisingly large space.  We started with a drink at the bar - $40 (including tip) for two wines and a beer is pretty normal for the strip; not so much for the real world.  When we got seated, we were in a kind of a hurry so didn't order much - salad for me and the daughter, soup for my wife, a steak entre for each and a side of potatoes to share - not a lot I would have thought.  Add in an $85 bottle of quite nice California Cab and the bill was $350 before the tip. 

My wife and I have dined in a lot of expensive places; sometimes on our own dime, sometimes on our employer.  You get tired of the pretense that this steak is so much better than the other guy's.  I guess you would have to say that we are disgruntled foodies; or maybe never foodies at all.  Anyway, the food was good but jeez.  The salads were good, large but nothing special.  The lobster bisque was, as we heard on the web, excellent. My shortrib had fantastic flavor.  I'm only sorry I couldn't get the sauce out of the pan - they seem to think diners like kitchenware since they don't plate anything but serve everything in a pan..  Our daughter had an aged New York Strip steak; aside from being much larger than advertised I couldn't see it had a lot going for it.  My wife had the Wagyu beef flat iron steak; she loved it.  The fingerling potatoes were, well, potatoes.  Would I do it again, nope.  It just isn't worth all the hassle.

The show, Ka, was an athletic masterpiece.  The cast must number fifty, each one a aerial performer of significant talent.  The 'story' is of a young brother and sister who are on a journey.  It is interrupted by various trials and tribulations but they manage to fight though all that.  The 'star' would have to be the staging - the main stage is this huge space, perhaps 20 ft by 50 ft (7m x 17m) that is mounted so it can move forward and backward and can tilt up to almost 90 degrees.  There is lots of acrobatic climbing, running and jumping and a significant about of flying about on ropes.  We liked it but again, don't need to see it again!

So I guess that's the end of Christmas.  Maybe I don't have to do that again either.  We'll see.  Have a good one!