Best Food Ever!

Vegas is like a movie. It can be all about sex or partying or gambling or shopping. For me Vegas is about food. I love food and for me Vegas is the one of the best places to go.
I do love the buffets. We hit buffets at the Paris, MGM Grand, and the Circus Circus. I love the food at the Paris. Although the wait was so long (Sunday bunch) the wait staff and the food made up for it. We hit the MGM Grand twice, once for dinner and once for breakfast. Breakfast wasn't all that. Dinner was so much better with the crab legs. The Circus Circus was ok. We got there at the tail end of breakfast and the beginning of lunch. The food was alright. Nothing super yummy. But the price was right. At $10.50 each, it was the cheapest buffet we tried.
But there was one special meal we had planned. I had read about Pampas Churrascaria a few months ago. I was intrigued. I'd never been to a churrascaria, but it sounded up my alley. I found a $25 gift certificate on restaurants.com. It was a wonderful experience. We went with the surf and turf option.
First was the salad/grilled veggie bar. Here's my plate:
Here's Tai's plate:
They bring out the plate of seafood:
Then here's 5 of the 11 types of meat:Tai wanted to get all 11 before I took the picture but I felt bad for making him wait. So they walk around carving meat off the spit when you ask. The meat was so fresh and delicious. The seafood was delicious. I loved the salmon. Tai thought it was a little salty. The shrimp was so yummy especially dipped in the melted butter.
It was an expensive meal. The most expensive meal we had on our trip but so worth it.

Travelling Purse

I take the same purse when I travel. I've been using this purse for the past 4 years. I think it's time to retire it, but I need something that looks similar.It's a Franco Sarto purse. I bought it at Macy's. It's big enough to put all this crap in it.That's my wallet, my ipod, my sunglasses, 2 pens, my cell phone, Tai's sunglasses, our room key, 4 packs of gum (!), 2 tubes of chapstick, one nailfile, one lipstick, one lip gloss, and one hair tie. I also had my camera in there. And at some point in the trip, I had Tai's cell phone and his smokes. When I got off the plane I shoved our books in there too. It's huge but never feels too big.

Random Vegas Bits

It's too much for me to recap the entire trip by day so I'll just touch on the highlights.

*I really liked the MGM Grand. It was a great choice. It was centrally located to everything we wanted.
*Cabs are expensive. We bought a 3 day monorail pass which was wonderful. We zoomed up and down the strip! It was also fun since the monorail goes behind the hotels. It was like seeing the movie sets in Hollywood.
*16 different kinds of soda is hard to drink in one sitting.

We tried the around the world sampler at the Coke store. I think the Red Flash was my favorite. Tai loved the Lift Apple. We both hated Beverly from Italy. But it was fun. Tai really wanted to try the float sampler but I knew that much dairy would leave him dying!
*Tigers are pretty.
I really enjoyed getting to see them everyday. Such beautiful majestic creatures.
*Sadly we didn't get to see any shows. We would have liked that.
*We ate some amazing food which I'll recap in a different post.
*The wedding was wonderful. I'll post pics of that later in the week!

Vegas Bound!

Tai and I are on our way to Vegas for Kris and Tony's wedding. We'll be gone for a few days so posting with be light until next week. I convinced Tai to leave his laptop at home so I will be cut off from the internet! So I'll recap our trip next week.
Have a great weekend everyone!

Absence Explained

So Tai and I had to take a last minute trip to Los Angeles to see his mom. About 3 weeks ago, his mom had an infection that ran rampant through her body. Her kidneys shut down and they thought she was going to die. But she improved and decided to release herself from the hospital, against doctor's orders. (And you know where I'm going with this) She relapsed and had to be readmitted to the hospital.
Friday afternoon, Tai gets an email saying something to the effect of: "Mom's back in the hospital. Her kidneys are failing again. Her blood pressure is through the roof. She might not bounce back this time. Call if can't come." Needless to say we hoped a flight and went to LA.
So that's how I met my future mother in law.
Let me back up here a minute. Originally Tai did not want to tell any of his family about the wedding. He just didn't want to invite them. Obviously we didn't have much choice in not telling them when he showed up with me.
Saturday we arrived in LA and went directly to the hospital. Tai's mom was shocked to see us. Tai didn't tell her we were coming. Her blood pressure was still high and her kidneys were improving. She was pleased to meet me. We hung out for several hours there before retiring to the hotel.
So here are the highlights of our LA trip:
-His mom was very excited about the wedding and plans to make the trip in July.
-His mom shared her life story, starting in Japan. I was touched that she shared her story with me.
- We ate at some of Tai's favorite restaurants such as Hurry Curry, Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler Texas Barbecue, VIP's, and Pink's. The Chicken Cutlet Curry at Hurry Curry was fantastic. I really liked the beef ribs at Dr. Hogly Wogly's. VIP's at some fantastic pancakes and freshly squeezed orange juice. And the hot dogs at Pink's were worth standing in line for.
-It was so warm and beautiful. It was in the 90's for our entire visit.
And the lowlights:
-The bed at our hotel sucked! We had a hard time sleeping since it was so hard.
-It seemed that LA isn't aboard the recycling bus. The grocery store had all the produce in plastic containers and the bananas were in plastic bags. They used too many bags for us to carry the food out. I saw tons people driving with only one person in the car. In fact I didn't see any car pool lanes and very few buses on the freeway. I was quite disappointed.
We spent 4 days in LA. We hung at the hospital with his mom every day we were there. Her blood pressure started to stablize and her kidneys are on the road to recovery. So Tai's mom should be released from the hospital this week. If she is better by July, I hope she'll come to the wedding.