As our five year wedding anniversary approached we knew we
wanted to take a quick trip to celebrate, but the question was where? There
were so many options, but after a lot of research, we decided to head to Las
Vegas! It’s a super quick trip from Denver so we wouldn’t waste a lot of time
travelling, and we love to eat and drink wine, what could be better!
After searching for deals we found that the best prices can
often be found through the hotel websites. We found an amazing deal from theWynn for airfare and three nights for $800, so we snatched it up. We were so
excited to stay at the Wynn, we had heard so many good things, and were looking
forward to a relaxing and luxurious trip!
We left early on a Sunday morning and took a quick cab ride
to the hotel after arriving in Las Vegas. We walked into the Wynn and were just
amazed...it’s gorgeous!
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There was no line to check in and we were actually able
to get into a room right away; it was 9:00am on a Sunday morning so we were
shocked. Our room was beautiful with a view of the strip.
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The restaurant has a gastro pub vibe and they have so many beer selections the menu is on a tablet. We both found something we wanted to try and enjoyed what we picked!
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Our meal started with a beet and chevre salad. It had wonderful flavors, but didn’t come with any bread to sop up the sauces (which we fixed!). Our main dishes were actually two appetizers: a duck confit poutine and a pork belly dish. They were both amazing, but the winner was definitely the poutine. As this dish has grown increasingly popular, we’ve enjoyed it at different restaurants, but this was the best we’ve ever had!
After lunch we continued to walk and ended up at The
Bellagio. I had heard about the Jean Philippe Patisserie and wanted to stop in
for something sweet. We were exhausted by the time we got there (our two year
old had kept us up most of the night before we left, so we were working on
almost no sleep), and we were disappointed with what we found.
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The chocolate
fountain is pretty amazing, but I was expecting a patisserie like in Paris, and
that’s absolutely not what was there. They had very little pastries, but a huge
gelato case, which is what most people were lining up for. So we skipped the
sweet stuff and hopped in a cab back to our hotel.
That evening we had dinner reservations at Sage in the Aria
hotel. The chef had previously worked in Chicago at Spring and Green Zebra,
plus the restaurant has gotten wonderful reviews on chowhound and is on the Las
Vegas Eater 38 list. We arrived a little early for our reservation, so we decided
to have a drink at the bar. The bartender quickly shared that they had a Rioja
on sale so we both ordered that, and he also offered to have an appetizer
portion of the scallop dish created for us as a starter. Before these items
came we had an incredible amuse, which I can’t remember what it was (thanks, Rioja!), but it was
really, really good! The drinks and appetizer arrived and they were all
incredible, so at this point we were very much looking forward to our dinner. After a run-in
with another bar patron who thought we’d like to partake in some absinthe with
him (no thank you), the hostess showed us to our table.
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The wine list was expensive, but there
were some of our favorite bottles (that were way out of our price range) on the
list so we figured the wines would be good. After speaking briefly with the
sommelier, we ended up ordering two half bottles (at $50 a pop, ugh!), which I
should have written down. But they were both mediocre. The first bottle was
from Pride, which is one of our favorite producers, but now we know why we’ve
never had one of their whites. It was almost undrinkable, which is not
something that happens to me very often. The second wine was a red and it was
just so-so, nothing special.
The remainder of our food that night was incredible and we were
very impressed. If only the wines had been better...we were so confused about
how they had been so bad with such a wonderful list. Our conclusion was that
our tastes and the sommelier's tastes must have been on opposite
ends of the spectrum.
The next day of our trip was the six year anniversary of our
engagement. We were lucky enough to be engaged in Paris at the base of the
Eiffel Tower, so we always celebrate that day with something French. Where else
would we have breakfast but at The Paris Hotel! I had done a ton of
research on TripAdvisor about restaurants, and the hands down favorite was MonAmi Gabi at the Paris Hotel, and that’s where we headed.
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We were seated on the
patio with a beautiful view, right across the street from the Bellagio
fountains and underneath the Eiffel Tower. Sadly our food was seriously worse
than the view. I don’t know how so many people love this restaurant; it’s
definitely not French food, but even for an American breakfast it was awful! My
omelet was anything but light and fluffy (heavy and dense) and my husband’s
short rib eggs benedict was just so-so. And the fresh squeezed orange juice?
Definitely not, maybe at a factory somewhere, but not on site. So that was a
pretty disappointing way to start our day!
After breakfast we walked the rest of the strip and then
went back to the hotel to play a little craps and relax by the pool. We had
drinks at the pool for $15 apiece, and they were pretty good, definitely a good
amount of alcohol. Our lunch by the pool was a simple ceasar wrap, nothing
special, but not awful either. The pool itself is beautiful though, very relaxing
and quiet.
We were headed to a show that night, so we had an early
dinner at the wine bar on the Wynn property, La Cave. This was one of our
favorite meals all weekend – the wine and the food were amazing! The restaurant
is a small plates concept so we were able to try 5 or 6 items, and we didn’t
have anything bad. This was probably our favorite restaurant at the Wynn!
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That night we saw the Cirque du Soliel show, Zumanity. It’s their cabaret show and it was very entertaining, and a little frightening as they flew around the stage! After the show we went back to our hotel to play craps. Since we had such an early dinner we were hungry around 10:00 and wanted a quick snack. They only had one restaurant open at that time and there was an hour wait, what? We were shocked there weren’t more options for food, especially since we would have kept gambling if our bellies had been full, so we went to our room and ordered room service. For $50 we had a wonderful burger and plate of cookies, ouch!
The next day we had decided to just stay at our hotel. It
wasn’t worth the cab fees to get off the property, and we were sure their
restaurants were top quality, especially after our meal at La Cave the night
before. We started our day with breakfast at the Terrace PointeCafé. The food was leaps and bounds better than our previous breakfast at Mon
Ami Gabi, but the service was lacking. However, their fresh squeezed orange
juice was definitely fresh and we had a beautiful view of the pool while we
ate.
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We spent the rest of the day at the pool and walking around
our hotel. We went to the Parasol Down bar overlooking the Lake of Dreams in
the afternoon. We found a table with a beautiful view of the lake (which
doesn’t really do anything until after dark) and ordered some drinks. The
drinks we had there were expensive, but so, so good!
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We had reservations at one of the fine dining restaurants, Lakeside Seafood, that evening, but had some time to kill and decided to
have a quick appetizer in the sushi restaurant Mizumi beforehand. We had wanted
to try the restaurant, but their prices were so exorbitant we knew we couldn’t
get out of there for less than $300, so we had chosen to not have a full meal
there.
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We sat at the sushi bar and ordered two glasses of wine, a roll and some sushi pieces. The sushi was incredible, the best I’ve ever had! But the service was pretty awful; once our waitress figured out that we were going to be a small ticket, we were pretty much ignored. We even had to flag down a busboy to get our check, and there were only two other people sitting at the sushi bar. Ridiculous!
When I made our reservations for dinner at LakesideSeafood, I confirmed a 7:30 reservation on the patio overlooking the Lake of
Dreams show. However, when we arrived at the restaurant for our
reservation, we were seated at a table inside. The hostess told us that patio
seats are first come first served and they couldn’t guarantee patio seating. So
that was a pretty big let down to start the meal.
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We moved on and placed our order with the server. Our first course of calamari arrived fairly quickly and we could immediately tell by looking at it that it was overcooked - the breading was dark and the squid looked dry. After taking a bite, we knew it was absolutely overcooked: completely rubbery and chewy. We informed the server and he immediately took it away. After seeing a couple other orders of calamari come out to the dining room, we asked our server if they had fired another order of calamari for us, and he seemed surprised that we wanted it replaced. The second order of calamari arrived shortly after that conversation, and it was again horribly overcooked. We again informed the server and he took it away. On the way to the kitchen I saw him say something to the manager, so I know he was now aware of the issue. Not once did we hear the word sorry, which would at least have been appreciated. The manager didn’t even take the time to come apologize or check in with us. He was too busy supervising tables being set up for large parties. To add insult to injury, when our bill arrived, the calamari was still included! The server came back five minutes later having realized it was still on there and he removed it, but it was a slap in the face.
The other crazy thing is that they were constantly moving
around tables and chairs to accommodate different sized parties; we even saw tables
being carried at least twice throughout the dining room over the heads of the
guests. I’ve never seen that at any other fine dining restaurant. In face, La Cave (the
night before) was categorized as a "casual" restaurant and yet was far more "fine dining"
than Lakeside! We left our dinner supremely disappointed and felt like we had
wasted our time and money on what should have been a nice anniversary dinner.
{After these experiences I sent a letter off to the hotel’s
customer relations department, and I felt like they brushed us off. All they’d
do was give us a free meal at the same restaurant – Lakeside Seafood. The
thought behind the offer was that they wanted to make up for the experience,
but we gave them the chance that night and I’ll never, ever go back to that
restaurant again.}
One overall note about the food and wine on our trip. It was
RIDICULOUSLY expensive! We’re used to fine dining restaurants and the prices
that go along with them, but this was above and beyond anything we have
experienced. We weren’t able to get a glass of wine for less than $18 anywhere; because of this,
we felt a little gouged! It does seem like a lot of
foreigners are coming to Vegas to spend their money, so I’m wondering if the
pricing is targeted at their deeper pockets. Unfortunately, their money goes
further than our American money does, and I’m sure there are lots of expense
accounts roaming around out there.
So our last day at the Wynn was a little disappointing, but
our overall trip was pretty amazing. The Wynn is an absolutely beautiful hotel,
but I don’t know if we’d stay there again. They had some pretty serious
customer service stumbles that I don’t know if I can get over. But they have an
amazing wine program; every glass of wine we had there was spot on. The other
bonus, which we didn’t take advantage of, was that every restaurant on site has
a Vegan and Vegetarian menu. Steve Wynn himself is a Vegan and brought Tal
Ronnen in to create these special menus (which I didn’t find out until later).
We also loved gambling in their casino, it was so clean and the dealers were
all very friendly. After having walked through other casinos we definitely
loved coming back to the Wynn for a little more refined gambling!
If we go back to Vegas, there are other luxury hotels we
decided we’d like to stay at. We really liked the Aria, and they had a lot of
wonderful restaurants we wanted to try (but it was at the complete opposite end
of the strip, so we didn’t make it there much). There are so many other places
we’d love to visit, but Vegas is a quick indulgence, so who knows when we’ll be
back!
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