Vegas baby! Vegas!

As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, vacationing in Vegas is cheaper than ever right now. Well, as you may have guessed, I'd already taken advantage of that.

View from my bedroom

THEhotel

In November, I found a great deal at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay so I drove up for three nights just before Thanksgiving. I stayed at Mandalay Bay during my very first visit to Vegas - Petter was there for a conference so we had a free room - but I'd never stayed at THEhotel before.

My bedroom

For those of you not familiar with it, like many Vegas hotels nowadays, Mandalay Bay has a separate tower in the back with more upscale rooms. I opted for the upgraded 740 square foot (68 square meter) corner V-suite. The living room faced west overlooking the desert and my bedroom faced north with a nice view of the Luxor pyramid and the strip; each room had a 42-inch plasma TV, and the marble and granite-surfaced master bathroom had a small LCD TV; a guest bathroom; a wet bar... I've never spent so much time in my room on a Vegas trip! On day 3 I took a long, hot bath while I watched The Hunt for Red October for the umpteenth time.

The livingroom

The bathroom

THEtp at THEhotel

In addition to pampering myself with a luxurious room I had three goals for the trip: enjoy the Vegas sights and atmosphere, have fun gambling and eat some really good food.

Vegas Sightseeing

As on every visit - I visit Vegas at least once a year - I love walking up the strip just ingesting the preposterousness of it all. It's all fake, but it's fake on a grand scale, and I love it: the black Luxor pyramid next to the white Excalibur castle; the New York Skyline (pierced through by a rollercoaster) behind the Brooklyn Bridge; the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe across the street from the Fountains of Bellagio; the Colosseum outside Caesar's Palace and the erupting Volcano at the Mirage; the singing gondoliers on the Grand Canal of Venice and the Wynn Waterfall; the Thrill Rides on top of the 1,149 ft (350 m) high Stratosphere tower...

Flowers at Bellagio Conservatory

Out of all these places, the one I never fail to visit is the Bellagio. I have to say that I never tire of the Fountains of Bellagio, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that I think they are one of the truly great achievements of mankind. In terms of manmade wonders of the world, the only one I've seen that surpasses them in terms of beauty and magnificence would be the Taj Mahal in Agra.

More flower arrangements and a watermill in the background

I also always make sure I visit the indoor Bellagio Conservatory, which is located just behind the lobby with the incredible glass flower ceiling by Dale Chihuly (2,000 giant hand-blown flowers in different colors). The Conservatory is a single large room that is maintained by 140 horticulturists and showcases meticulously arranged flowers, trees, water features, bridges, etc, according to themes that change five times a year. During this visit the theme was Fall Fantasy.

An ent in the background

Gambling

As a gambling venture, the trip was enjoyable but not as good as they have been in the past. I did well during a six-hour sting at in the Bellagio poker room, but gave it all back (and some more) at the Mandalay blackjack tables. Lesson learned: stick to poker.

Metal trees with built-in waterfalls

Fleur de Lys

I had three noteworthy food experiences during my stay. Fleur de Lys is a renowned San Francisco restaurant with a Michelin star, and Hubert Keller, the chef, has opened a second location inside the Mandalay Bay, so I decided to try that out on my first night. I selected a four course menu with accompanying wine pairings:

• Black truffle onion soup - a white Burgundy from the Les Charmes vineyard
• Pesto scallop with a crab-filled squash blossom - a rosé from Bordeaux
  
• Fillet and foie gras, potato purée, baby spinach and shallots over a red wine reduction - a right-bank Bordeaux
• Grand Marnier soufflée, creme d'anglais, elderflower ice cream - a Moscato d'Asti

I'm a sucker for truffles and while the Burgundy was not special it was a good pairing for the soup, so we got off on a good start. Speaking of truffles, supposedly, the Italian composer Rossini once said: "I have wept three times in my life. Once when my first opera failed. Once again, the first time I heard Paganini play the violin. And once when a truffled turkey fell overboard at a boating picnic."

The pesto scallop was excellent while the squash blossom was merely ok, but again the wine pairing was very well done. The main course was simply heavenly: the fillet was so tender it was like cutting butter, the foie was well prepared, and the creamy potato purée was out-of-this world. Finally, the soufflée quite good, but even more impressive was the wine pairing. The Moscato d'Asti arrived a minute or two before the dessert, and as soon as I put my nose above the glass I was hit by the scent of elderflowers. So, when the elderflower ice cream arrived it was a match made in heaven.

Overall, I'll say the experience was good. The service was impeccable and much of the food was very impressive but a bit too uneven. So at this price level I'm not sure if I'll return again. I have to say that they did a great job with the wine pairings, though. The wines themselves were fairly pedestrian, but in combination with the food they truly shined. It really shows you how much proper pairings can enhance a meal.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I had the option of substituting the regular fillet for A5 (top-rated) Kobe beef. I would have loved to try that. The only catch: it was $30/ounce with a minimum of four ounces.

Burger Bar

The next day I went to Chef Keller's Burger Bar in Mandalay Place (the shopping center that connects Mandalay Bay and the Luxor) for lunch. It's a casual bar with gourmet burgers and a great beer selection. I had a couple of Belgian beers (a gueuze and a Chimay) and a Kobe-burger (not A5!) with a slice of foie and garlic fries. Unfortunately, an overall disappointing experience. The burger itself was pretty good, but I can name at least five places in the Phoenix area that do a better job, and the foie was at-best average. Not a bad meal by any means, but when I have a $65 lunch it'd better impress me. If you go, stick with the beer and the fries.

Aureole

On the last night I went to Charlie Palmer's Aureole: famous for its Michelin star, its Wine Tower and accompanying Wine Angels. The restaurant has a superb wine list and most of the wines are stored in a glass-enclosed four-story wine tower behind the bar, with the "Wine Angel Stewards, who gracefully ascend the tower to retrieve bottles." At this point I didn't feel like a formal sit-down dinner so I went to the bar and just had some appetizers. I started with a paté platter and a glass of riesling, and followed it with some foie-sliders and a half-bottle of 2005 Clos des Papes. The sliders were good but the wine was absolutely singing! A fun evening with friendly people on both sides of the bar - I'll come back here again.

2008 Music - Albums I listened to the most

I Just checked my iTunes stats to see which new albums I listened to the most in 2008. 

I only included albums I'd added in 2008 (so they could be older, but they're new for me in 2008) and added up the Play Count of all songs on each album. (I love pivot-tables.) Here's the list:

1. Hanne Hukkelberg - Little Things
2. Portishead - Third
3. Duffy - Rockferry
4. Katie Melua - Piece By Piece
5. Lhasa de Sala - The Living Road
6. Martha Wainwright - I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too
7. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
8. Oh Laura - A Song Inside My Head, A Demon In My Bed
9. Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
10. Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim

Observations:

• The top 6, and 8 of the top 10, are female singers
  
• Fleet Foxes is the only album still in active rotation on my playlists (will likely keep climbing)
  
• Just outside the top 10 (#14) is Frida Hyvönen's Silence is Wild, which I'm still playing a lot. Had it come out earlier in the year it may have cracked the top 5 
  
• At the beginning of the year I'd only heard of three of these artists (Portishead, Lhasa de Sala and Gnarls Barkley)
  

I had a bit of a music re-awakening in late 2007 after a number of years of stagnation (mostly listening to artists I'd known for a long time) and I'm happy to be back!

The story of a bottle, a lasting passion, and an evening with friends

A decade and a half of waiting ended this Saturday.

It's no secret that I have a passion for wine. This is the story of how it all started. 

It was the summer of 1993 and on a ferry between Kiel, Germany, and Gothenburg, Sweden. This was at the time when the exchange rate between the Swedish Krona an the Deutsche Mark made shopping trips to Germany very popular. My parents had found a last-minute deal on the overnight Gothenburg-Kiel ferry, and we booked roundtrip tickets (with a cabin) on two consecutive nights so we'd have a day of shopping in Germany. 

At the same time, my aunt, uncle and cousins (the Klingbergs) were already vacationing in Germany and were due to come back on our return ferry. We picked the dates to coincide, hoping we'd find each other (remember, this was before cell phones) and surprise them. It worked out even better than we'd hoped for; only a few hours after we'd arrived in Kiel we ran into each other in the shopping district!

This was before Sweden joined the EU, so there was still duty free shopping on the ferry, and since the Swedish taxes on alcohol were so high this was one of the highlights of the trip. Up until this point I'd always been fascinated by the world of wine but I didn't know much about it. My dad, who has also always had a wine interest but never the budget to buy fine wines, knew enough to recognize Mouton Rothschild as one of the five first-growth Bordeaux. 

Well, as you may have guessed by now, there was a bin of 1989 Mouton in the duty free store . I'd heard from my friend Anders Carlsson who had spent 1989-90 in France, that 1989 was supposed to be a great year in Bordeaux, so I was intrigued. 

The bottles were 500 Swedish Crowns - a lot of money when you haven't even started college yet! The shelf-talker recommended opening the wine after 1997. Well, I was about to start college that fall and scheduled to graduate in 1997 so I told myself I'd buy it and save it for graduation.

There was only one small problem, though. The import limit on duty-free wine was two bottles per adult, and we'd already filled our quota. So, when we arrived in Gothenburg, we went through the Red lane to declare our extra bottle and pay the import tax. The customs officer just laughed at us and said "One bottle! Between all of you? Move on!" I guess he had bigger fish to fry.

So, I put the wine in storage with my parents and went off to college. Well, a few years later I read another tasting note where they recommended waiting longer before opening it. So, college graduation came and went. For the next ten years I've been thinking about my wine and what the right occasion would be to open such a special bottle.

When I moved to Arizona in 2004 I started getting serious about wine: I bought a wine fridge and began building my collection. Having one really great bottle hardly constituted a collection! Since then, through the wonderful world of wine, I've found a group of good friends and we've formed a tasting group that gets together 1-2 times each month. Over the last couple of years I've slowly come to realize that these are the people with whom I should share my Mouton.

Jeff Nowak, Debra and Mark Gettleman, Melanie and Kevin Stoddard (and our server)

This past Saturday the six of us - and the other five's spouses - got together at Jeff Nowak's house for a Christmas/Hanukkah gala. Jeff's wife Jane had put together a phenomenal menu (see below) and everyone was stepping up with their wine contributions. So, I decided to bring a 1996 Dom Pérignon and my precious 1989 Mouton.

Lisa and Josh Ivey, Shelly and Scott Scherger, and Jane Wagner (Jeff's wife)

I opened the Mouton at home a couple of hours in front of the dinner to check that it was in good condition and to pour the wine into a decanter. (Most red wines improve with some air.) I was quite nervous when I opened it up - it would be a terrible disappointment if the wine was corked or damaged in some way - but I was quickly reassured by an onslaught of fresh aromas. I poured a splash into a Riedel stem and sat and smelled it for a good five minutes before I even thought of tasting it. Well, this bottle was open for business and did not need any decanting, so I quickly re-enclosed it trying to capture the magic I had unleashed.

Me and my Mouton

I can't do the evening justice other than saying that we had a fabulous time, and sharing the menu and a list of some of the wines we had.

The food:

• herbed cheese crostini
• seared ahi tuna with thai mango jicama salad on toasted baguette
• brie in croute with raspberries
• mushroom leek soup
• chili seared salmon tower with layers of mashed potatoes, sauteed eggplant, mixed greens mango and tomato salsa with plum vinaigrette
• spiced molten chocolate cake and ginger ice cream
  

The salmon tower

The wines (my favorites):

• 1996 Dom Pérignon (champagne)
• 2004 Fevre Grand Cru Chablis 'Les Preuses' (white Burgundy)
• 1984 Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf du Pape (red Rhone-blend)
• 1985 Leoville Barton (red Bordeaux)
• 1989 Mouton Rothschild (red Bordeaux)
• 2000 Lynch Bages (red Bordeaux)
• 2003 Lafite Rothschild (red Bordeaux)

All but Kevin thought the Mouton was the Wine of the Night. (He preferred the Lynch Bages.) The last two wines were also very good - espcially the Lafite - but much too young to fully appreciate at this point. When realizing that, Jeff exclaimed (in classic Jeff form): "I swear to God! This is the last time I open a 100-point Lafite for you turds!" (About a year ago we got together for poker night and Jeff went out of the tournament early and got bored and went to his wine locker and brought out a 1996 Lafite.)

Mark and Kevin expressing their love for the Lafite

Waiting 15 years before opening the Mouton was not easy, but it was well worth the wait and I couldn't think of a better group of friends to open it with. Not only are they wine geeks like me but we also have great fun together.

Flotsam and jetsam

It's been all quiet on the western front lately, but now I'm breaking radio silence after a nearly two-month hiatus. No real reason for going off the grid, just haven't made it happen lately.

So, what have I learned over the last eight weeks? Well...

• The period between the election and the new president-elect taking office is less than 11 weeks but feels like an eternity. (Thank you, still-president Bush.)
• During a robbery, telling someone to move to a different spot means you're also guilty of kidnapping and gives you about 15 years in prison. (Thank you, OJ.)
• Becoming the governor of Illinois makes you more likely to end up in prison (50%) than murdering someone does (48%.) (Thank you, Jon Stewart.)
• When opening a wine bottle, mistaking the vintage for the price tag can make a seeming $19.99 bottle of champagne actually cost you $389. (Thank you, The Dentist Brothers.)
• Oolong tea is good and green tea is ridiculous. (Thank you, Jennifer Stanchina.)
• The iPhone is actually as slick as can be. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.)
• You should always strive to spend more time barefoot. (Thank you, Joy of Rediscovery.)
• The financial meltdown means that a vacation in Vegas is cheaper than ever. (Thank you, Housing Bubble.)
• James Bond becomes bitter and vengeful with age. (Thank you, Daniel Craig.)
• Keynesian economics are back. (Thank you, Self-Imploding Markets.)
• Without Woo-Girls, tiny cowboy hats would only be worn by tiny cowboys. (Thank you, Barney Stinson.)
• Southern California now catches fire every year. (Thank you, Rich-and-famous-people-living-there-so-we-have-a-reason-to-care.)
• Wearing your shirt with the back of the collar straight up is an effective way to broadcast your douchebaggery. (Thank you, Scottsdale Douchebags.)
• Living in the desert for four years makes you think gray skies are beautiful. (Thank you, Scarcity of Clouds.)
• Cyndi Lauper has a sense of humor. (Thank you, The Hives.)
• Facebook is great for finding old friends, but I still suck at actually keeping in touch with them. (Thank you, Unyielding Reality.)