this is the personal blog of brandon quintana.

Last weekend I headed out to Vegas for the Super Bowl with a few friends. It’s becoming a regular thing now for us to go in January. We all decided to take Friday off from work and head out early that morning.

It ended up being a rough morning. The dogs made a mess I had to clean up before I left. That made me late to drop them off, which made me late for BART. I missed my train and had to wait 15 minutes for the next one. I got to the airport with about 10 minutes before my flight and for some reason I let this lady with a baby cut in front of me. Wrong move. I heard them calling my name in the overhead speaker and as I arrived at the gate they were closing the doors. I had missed my flight. I had two choices: take the next direct flight in a few hours or fly to Burbank and then to Vegas. It was off to LA then to Vegas and a few hours later I had arrived.

We stayed at Mandalay Bay and luckily we were able to check in early. It’s not a big surprise with the economy being the way it is and it showed by how dead Vegas was that weekend. I rested in the room for a little while then decided to get an appetizer before dinner since I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I figured it was going to be a long night so eating was probably a good thing. I just got a quick order of Calamari and a beer at Red, White & Blue a small restaurant inside our hotel. It was okay and enough to hold me over until dinner.

We wanted to go to a nice restaurant that night and ended up at Tender Steakhouse at Luxor. With the exception of it being right up against the Casino floor, once you go inside the restaurant it seemed like a very traditional upscale steakhouse restaurant. I started dinner off with a Macallan 18. With it being Vegas plus an upscale restaurant I expected it to be twice the price for the drink as anywhere else and it was. I’m still trying to stay away from beef and pork as much as possible so I had seafood. I started with the oyster sampler. The waiter didn’t tell me which was which and I don’t know if I would have remembered all of them anyway. I’m a big fan of raw oysters and all of them were very tasty. I followed that up with the ahi tuna appetizer which was very good as well. The fish was very fresh and the dish had excellent flavor. As my main course I finished the meal off with the small portion of main lobster. It was good, but I wasn’t very impressed. Overall it was a good meal.

That night we headed over to Body English at the Hard Rock Hotel. It was pretty empty so we decided to head over to the Palms. We spent some time at Ghost Bar and Moon. I have a buddy with a few connections which is nice since we don’t have to stand in line or pay cover charge. It also gives us an opportunity to move around a little bit since we aren’t paying an arm and a leg just to get into a place after waiting an hour or two. After the clubs I just played a little bit of Blackjack then off to bed for a few hours maybe. I stayed away from Craps that weekend and don’t really have any reason why. Those are my two big games. I think I just understand them and it makes me more confident right before I lose all my money.

The next day was a lot of the same. I had a turkey burger for lunch at Red, White & Blue and it was probably the driest tasteless burger I’ve ever eaten. After a few card games and watching some of the basketballwe headed to Maggiano’s Little Italy for dinner. The appetizers were good, but the Linguini and Clams I ordered was pretty dry. It was a swing and a miss as far as food goes that day.

We started the night at Foundation Room in Mandalay Bay. For those who haven’t been there it’s on the top of the hotel and it probably offers the best view I’ve seen in Vegas. The view at Moon and Ghostbar are good as well, but with Mandalay Bay being on the strip it gives you a look straight down Las Vegas Blvd. We then went to Rain in the Palms. It’s funny because the crowd there stays the same age and I keep getting older. Oakenfold spun that night, but I didn’t stick around to witness it. We spent a little while in Ghostbar then over to Moon. I’m beginning to think I’m getting to old for this. Next time I go I think I need to go to lower key places instead of places that are all in your face all the time. I just can’t handle it anymore, but I say that now and my next post about Vegas will probably be a carbon copy of this one.

This brought us to Super Bowl Sunday. We got a couple of tables in the Mandalay Sports Book. They had most of the TVs setup for the big game and there were a ton of dudes fans in there watching the game. It was good to have some relax time and a lot of people were into the game. It was a great game and we ended up watching the entire game there. After the game we all flew out and left Las Vegas. Another good trip.