The Fergusons do Vegas - A mix game, VP and eating TR
04-05-2018
, 02:12 PM
Quote:
The home game I ran in Boston for years was great fun- a bunch of friends who could reliably be counted on for at least 2 sessions a week. It was small stakes so purely for amusement (for me, at least).
I was basically the fish (by choice). The stakes were minuscule compared to my serious play and it was an opportunity to just have some fun, blow off steam and maybe put people on tilt. So to your point above, I'd be the one blind-capping, driving the action with 2 undercards, etc. I'd usually make just enough correct decisions/play to more often than not walk out a winner. Anyways, as someone who has taken 47o, 27o, etc countless times, I can unequivocally say-
- it is SHOCKING how often you can get there with trash.
- putting someone on tilt who doesn't understand variance and the fact that any two CAN win is priceless.
In any case, carry on with your excellent TR.
I was basically the fish (by choice). The stakes were minuscule compared to my serious play and it was an opportunity to just have some fun, blow off steam and maybe put people on tilt. So to your point above, I'd be the one blind-capping, driving the action with 2 undercards, etc. I'd usually make just enough correct decisions/play to more often than not walk out a winner. Anyways, as someone who has taken 47o, 27o, etc countless times, I can unequivocally say-
- it is SHOCKING how often you can get there with trash.
- putting someone on tilt who doesn't understand variance and the fact that any two CAN win is priceless.
In any case, carry on with your excellent TR.
04-05-2018
, 09:06 PM
Unfortunately nothing til end of May when I'm doing a friend's bachelor party at the Mirage.
Because of the bachelor party I can't play the $2500 lowball mix WSOP event, but I'm pretty excited for the $470 triple draw lowball mix at Aria on Monday June 3rd.
Also just booked a trip for June 22 and will get a chance to play the Monster stack again where I've run pretty deep before.
04-07-2018
, 09:27 AM
Day 3
After another solid 4 hours of sleep, it’s 11 am, Marquee dayclub is pumping. Sounds like it’s time to regroup and smash some big wins. Not completely sure what to do for breakfast/lunch, wifey wants to go to Jaleo, a restaurant I have always had mixed feelings about. Jaleo is a Jose Andres restaurant and typically I’ve actually been quite happy with his restaurants (eg. Bazaar in LA), but have found them a bit on the overpriced side.
The coolest thing about Jaleo is that when it opened with the Cosmo in 2010, they had a secret restaurant in the back corner called E by Jose Andres. E is an 8 seat restaurant where you do a 15-18 course meal and while it is still there, it’s now openly advertised on their website. For the first few years, nobody knew it existed and you had to send them an email and book one month in advance. They would then send you a Willy Wonka style golden ticket by mail which was pretty cool.
We went to E twice in 2011, and the first meal had some of the most memorable courses of our dining life. The second meal 3 months later was nearly identical to the first, except the chef was different and the consistency and quality of some dishes was down significantly. We haven’t gone back to E since, though I am thinking about doing so this summer. We actually went to E and Robuchon on back to back nights in 2011 and E was the clear winner, except for the egg dish at Robuchon, that’s an all-time, top 5 legendary course.
Jaleo is a tapas style restaurant and one of their highlight dishes for sure is pan con tomate (tomato bread) with Iberico ham (pata negra). Jamon Iberico is the nut ham of life, on a whole different level from prosciutto, Serrano and jambon de Bayonne. The bellota version of jamon iberico is acorn fed and has the most incredible depth of earthy and nutty flavor. If you get jamon, make sure to always sample the bellota, not just the regular ones. We love this so much that we no longer actually order it at the restaurant though, we just buy our own Iberico leg for home consumption instead. Here’s one on our table.
Something I didn’t know about Jaleo is that they have a $25 lunch special which gets you three tapas style courses and you can add a plate of paella as well for an additional $7. Seems pretty hard to go wrong.
Jaleo
Lunch special menu
Manzana con hinojo y queso Manchego - Sliced apple and fennel salad with
Manchego cheese, walnuts and sherry dressing.
This was very good, light and refreshing with a great balance of flavors and not overly strong fennel flavors for those who aren't huge licorice fans. A bit more acidity/lemon would have made this really shine.
Endibias con queso de cabra y naranjas - Endives, goat cheese, oranges and almonds
This was unexpectedly super interesting in flavor profile. I wonder if there was a bit of tomato water in with this, as the whole combination was very savory and had many layers of flavor and a long finish. Would definitely get again.
Patatas bravas - Potatoes with spicy tomato sauce and aioli
We ate these pretty much daily in Spain. Love the very garlicky aioli and tomato sauce mixed together, rich, smoky and delicious.
Vieiras con piniones y PX* - Scallops with pine nuts and Pedro Ximenez
reduction
Great scallop, cooked perfectly, PX is the sweetest form of sherry, and when reduced with raisins, makes for a borderline too sweet sauce. But overall very good.
Paella with chicken - We added in the paella for an extra $7, having had several good paellas at Jaleo before. Unfortunately, this was an unmitigated disaster. Heavy, salty, and completely devoid of any other flavor. This was like a 1/10, dish with the chicken being the only edible item on the plate. Had to send these back, just terrible.
Gambas al ajillo - Shrimp sautéed with garlic
A few of these shrimp were nice, but there was a very bitter component to the dish, either burnt oil or dirty shrimp flavor that ruined it a bit.
The final dish was the grilled hangar steak with piquillo peppers. The meat was well cooked but old and tasted of blood. Another dish we did not finish.
The start to this meal was so promising, but once we hit the third course and paella, it all went off the rails. The shrimp were dirty, the beef tasted old and the paella was just a complete and utter disaster. I can’t recall the last course so bad that I had to send it back. It came off the bill, so the lunch was still a relative bargain even for the first two courses, which combined interesting flavors and were very good. Overall, Jaleo still remains a great option if you need an Iberico fix, but I’m not rushing back for the lunch special. Stick with Milos across the hall.
Stuffed with paella salt and needing something sweet for dessert, we headed down for some VP and $1000 cookies in the high limit slot room. We always talk about the average cookie cost for the trip, and considering we’re decently stuck on the VP, we better be ****in cookie monsters at this point. These are only our 2nd cookie each for the trip, so we’re looking at about $750 a cookie at this point. Basically there are two options, either start winning, or eat so many cookies that we’re getting some decent cookie comps!
Cookies - $1500 each
This time we just put in a quick $500 and get the following hit.
Nothing too exciting.
We also made another little bet on the Red Sox, who seemed to be the most consistent winner of this trip, and are still crushing. Maybe 5K on the Sox next trip is the way to go.
At this time I got a great phone call. We were on the wait list for Kabuto and someone cancelled last minute so there was room for us at 830. Yes, please!
Time to have some wine. If you have no wine interests, skip a few paragraphs. We go upstairs and pop the 2001 Schrader RBS, but forgot to bring a butler’s corkscrew. The room’s corkscrew sucks, and the cork breaks. Fortunately I’m able to pour the wine out into glasses and do the cork removal by plastic ice bag trick. I’ve put a video to some people from the deep south doing this if you have no idea how it works. It’s actually pretty cool and will then allow you to clean out the bottle and put the wine back in for transport.
Using bag trick on Schrader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEYIHQCDFd4
Alright Riverdog, you asked for a tasting note. This is my first bottle of Schrader, and I have about 10 more bottles of 2014 and 2015 from their mailing list, so I specifically purchased this to get a sense of whether I want to buy more or just get off the list. Cali cab is only a small portion of our cellar, maybe 80-100 bottles in all, and while I love some of them, others are just overpriced, alcoholic fruit bombs. We love the purity of fruit that you can only get from the California sun, but the vast majority of cab in our cellar remains Bordeaux.
My favorites from Cali are actually much older ones, particularly the 1987s (particularly Dunn and Phelps Eisele Vineyard, before it became exclusively Araujo and now Latour owned) and the early-mid 90s vintages up to 1997. I think some 97s haven’t aged particularly well, too much heat and lacking in structure, while 91, 92, 94-96 have done great. I really love the Caymus SS and Phelps Insignia’s from back then, now they have become higher in alcohol, rounder and do not have the finesse that they used to, particularly Caymus SS. There are also many less famous wines from Cali in the late 80s, early 90s that are fantastic. Whitehall Lane, particularly their Leonardini vineyard is great, older Cardinale (now way overpriced), Philip Togni, Montelena, etc.
The wine making style of the 70s to mid 90s seemed to focus much more on elegant, balanced wines that retained acidity, which is evidenced in the 13.5% alcohols of most of them. We have really moved into the Parkerized world of wine since then and the finesse is often gone. I am well aware this applies to Bordeaux and the rest of the wine world as well, I mean you can drink 09s now which is crazy. Doing one Montelena vertical from 1984-2003 a few years back, the stylistic change around 2001 was dramatic, I much prefer the older ones.
The big boy wines of Cali like Harlan, Schrader, Shafer, Bond, Screagle, Colgin, etc. are a whole different level of extraction and sometimes oaking (eg. Shafer) than many of these aforementioned wines. My limited experience with Harlan is that it is very good, but still hot, for Bond a 2008 Pluribus from last week had some bitterness on the finish, while a 2002 Vecina was a bit confected. I think Colgin is fabulous, and it has won side by side vs. Harlan for me. Shafer is out of control with the oak, making a near monolithic vanilla bomb but it makes for a very easy to drink wine. All this said, I still enjoy many of these wines, but need to evaluate them due to the price they command.
With all that in mind, the 2001 Schrader was to evaluate whether I should continue purchasing the mailing list wines and get a handle on the aging of this wine. Using CT as a guide, it sounded like this should be in a great spot, and 01 was a well structured and balanced vintage. Onto the tasting note.
Wine is unfortunately just another form of gambling, and this trip we had another loss. Always sucks opening these $300+ bottles of wine and they’re just ****ed in some way, whether it’s pre-mox, TCA or just storage at some point in the wine’s lifetime. No biggie, onto the next bottle.
A great bottle of wine.
Castello di Ama is a very famous Chianti producer, but L’Apparita is a 100% merlot. I actually am a big fan of 100% merlots from Tuscany, with Galatrona, Redigaffi and Masseto all being great wines. Though Masseto is definitely not worth the price anymore and Galatrona is an absolute steal. Having never tried L’Apparita, I came across a couple of cases at an amazing price, so had to try it. The provenance on this bottle was clearly great as it came at me with intense roasted Tuscan earth right from the get go. Pure, terroir driven wine, unmistakably Tuscan. But instead of the expected cherry and strawberry of the usual Sangiovese, this was deep and dark with black cherry and plum, as well as copious amounts of anise, great minerality and some smoke notes as well. Intense on the palate, great acidity and structure, this opened up over the next two hours and was a great wine. Very impressed and happy to drink one of these a year for the next 15-20 years. It has a great structure for aging.
We headed back downstairs and enjoyed the wine with some low stress 5 cent VP, which made for a great couple of hours before dinner.
Ooh, a 5 cent Royal. At this point I'll take anything.
Off to Kabuto, it was time to eat all the fishes. We went with the usual Nigiri only and then added about 10 more pieces. We were also at a table this time, which makes it a lot easier picture wise, though the bar is always the preference.
Ice cold Asahi, love their super thin glass, I swear it tastes better out of this glass.
Lime sake aperitif today
Tuna sashimi appetizer course - Very good
Oysters from Seattle - These just have such an amazing texture, love them.
All left to right - Toro on rice, Kanpachi (Amberjack), Akami (lean tuna), Kuromutsu (Black sea perch), Itoyori (Bream).
All very good as always with the Kuromutsu being the highlight. The flavor, density and texture of this fish was unbelievable, perfect in every way. The sweet finish after eating this piece probably lasted a full minute. We had to get more of that but only 2 more pieces left
Gyoku (egg), Anago (Golden sea eel), hagashi-toro (silky fatty tuna), Sayori (Halfbeak) and I think meichi-tai (Gingko fish)
The egg was much better than usual today, not usually a huge fan of their gyoku. Anago is always a great piece at Kabuto, the hagashi-toro was absolutely a great piece, pure melt in the mouth texture. Sayori is still my favorite when available, just amazing texture, much like the kuromutsu. Meichi-tai was solid.
Kamashi-ta toro (marbled fatty tuna), Kuromutsu redux, Hie-tai (star snapper), Botan-ebi (live sweet shrimp) and Kohada (shad).
Amazing second piece of kuromutsu, and the shrimp and toro were both spectacular as well. The other two were very good but not great.
Ishigaki-tai (spotted knifejaw), Zuke (soy marinated tuna), Kobu-tai kobujime (asian sheepshead wrasse), chu-toro (medium fatty tuna)
Another great lineup, zuke is always a great value piece, with the soy covering up the metallic note that is often apparent in akami. Both tai had great flavor and texture, and the chu-toro was delicious as always.
Wifey got a few special pieces where there was only a single left.
Anago redux, hagashi-toro redux, Akamutsu (red sea perch), Kuromutsu redux and Kasugo-tai (spring baby snapper)
The repeat pieces are obviously all amazing, and she loved the kasugo-tai, but said she preferred the akamutsu at Hiroyoshi the day before. Last trip the akamutsu at Kabuto was my favorite piece of the trip, so a bit disappointing I guess.
Toro hand roll - Particularly great today
Jiggly puff cheesecake, always great, what texture and silkiness while still remaining light.
Awesome as always, $300 with tax and tip for about 19 pieces of great quality fish. Man I love Kabuto.
We head back to Bellagio and walk through the conservatory, which is particularly nice this trip. The theme is Japanese Spring, and you can check it out here if you want.
We head back to Cosmo for a little more VP before I tuck the wifey into bed and head out for some more degeneracy.
Bravo shows the 20/40 Mix at Bellagio has 4 on the list, so I head to Aria because there are a few other doctors in town that I saw on the plane ride down to Vegas. They’re some younger guys and are at Jewel nightclub, so I figure we can meet up after for some drinks or pit games.
I hop in the 2/5/10 PLO game and proceed to be insanely card dead for the one hour or so that I’m there. I get one playable hand QJ109r and on a flop of Q73r, it gets potted and re-potted by two opponents, so I’m out of the way against a wrap and middle set.
The nice part about being card dead is that I meet a couple of lovely people at the table, Javanewt and her husband, Mr. Newt. I had known that they were in town for the weekend, and Java said she was a bit older than me and always played Aria PLO. Using the powers of deduction, I figured the number of females in their 40s playing PLO at 3 AM is probably pretty low, so was able to figure out who she was. Both her and her husband were super nice people, with lots of common interests, wine/food/poker/horses, so it was nice to meet. They had actually eaten at Hiroyoshi and Kabuto as well in the last two days, kind of hilarious.
We were a must move table, and after Mr. Newt left, the game broke so I met up with my other friends from back home. They were hungry so we went to Cosmo for secret pizza and waited half an hour for it at 4 AM. It was good, but not really half an hour wait good. What else is open after 4 though?
The next part of the trip might be the most memorable, and definitely not in a good way. The guys wanted to play lower stakes BJ with good rules so I suggested TI for $10 3:2. For some reason I decided to take a cab in Vegas for the first time in years. I have only taken uber/lyft the last couple of years because of long hauls etc.
We get in the cab with an Arabic guy who’s name is definitely in my mind right now. He is about to leave the Cosmo and is going to take the strip to TI which seems pretty suboptimal. I ask him to take Dean Martin and not the strip. He looks at me angrily, then turns right and floors it down Harmon-Aldebaran-Dean Martin. He is literally going 70 mph, runs a red light, and is swerving around like a psycho. I ask him why he’s driving like this and he then turns the speakers up to max volume and rips into the TI parking lot at like 50 mph. Total ****ing nutjob. This guy is 100% a danger to the public. Unbelievable. I find out that reporting this to the Taxicab Authority requires me to literally go to a police station and fill out a report. I don’t do this, but this guy is probably about one drive away from running over 70 pedestrians on the strip in a cube van.
Fortunately, today is not the day that four doctors get killed by this guy, and we make it to TI in one piece.
Sitting down with these three friends at the $10 BJ at TI, I realize immediately this will be hilarious. We’ve got people standing on twelve against a dealer ten, hitting twelve against a dealer 6, all kinds of crazy plays. The funny thing is they were telling me how blackjack is about a 50/50 game lol. Pretty sure it’s like 40/60 now. I try to coach them, but it’s one of those days where they always lose when they play correctly and sometimes win by playing bad. So they just do whatever. I’m sure sticking to the minimum bet at this table.
We play for about 2 hours and somehow I break exactly even while they all lose about $2-300. Inconceivable.
It’s about 630 AM so we safely take a nice Uber ride back to the Cosmo and go our separate ways. My mind is still going with the crazy taxi ride but eventually I’m able to fall asleep by about 8 AM.
Day 3
BJ Even
Poker -150
VP -1200
Day 4
I wake up about two hours later (total 9-10 hours sleep in 72) and I’m feeling pretty rough. Our flight is for 12:30, but for a bit of rungood, it’s delayed to 2 PM. Yay, more gambling time. I’m far too tired to gamble, and don’t really want to, so wifey heads down to get in a couple more hours of VP before we leave. While she’s gone, I complete the annual tradition (13 years running) of an Easter egg hunt for her. I secretly packed her “nuclear football” and mini eggs, kinder’s, etc. so am able to make a little in room easter egg hunt while she’s out.
I get two extra hours of sleep and then we are off to the airport. We make sure to grab some extra cookies before we go.
Cookies are only $500 each now! Eat that Cosmo!
All in all, an interesting trip. Lots of VP runbad, probably only got about 10 hours total play of VP, but great food, fun times going downtown and one very good bottle of wine. Sadly I didn’t get a chance to play much poker or any mix games this trip, which needs to be rectified in the future.
When I got home, I slept for a solid two days to recover, that was the delay in writing this TR. Having dumped about 5K for minimal play, and having played quite a bit in January (not Leon levels or anything), I decided to just email a host at Cosmo and ask if I can get anything more than just $50 free play. I kind of felt like 150K coin in might get a bit more than that, but I don’t play slots, so I have no real idea. The good news is that a host replied and said they’d be happy to comp me 5 nights, including weekend for my June trip, so at least I got something back.
Next trips will be in late May/June for a friend’s bachelor party (20 guys, oh no!) and then with Mrs. Ferguson again in later June. Gonna head to Amsterdam and Santorini between now and then, so won’t be punting quite as hard, and should get some relaxing times in.
These TRs sure are pretty wine and food heavy, so I hope you’re still enjoying them.
Thanks for reading.
TF
After another solid 4 hours of sleep, it’s 11 am, Marquee dayclub is pumping. Sounds like it’s time to regroup and smash some big wins. Not completely sure what to do for breakfast/lunch, wifey wants to go to Jaleo, a restaurant I have always had mixed feelings about. Jaleo is a Jose Andres restaurant and typically I’ve actually been quite happy with his restaurants (eg. Bazaar in LA), but have found them a bit on the overpriced side.
The coolest thing about Jaleo is that when it opened with the Cosmo in 2010, they had a secret restaurant in the back corner called E by Jose Andres. E is an 8 seat restaurant where you do a 15-18 course meal and while it is still there, it’s now openly advertised on their website. For the first few years, nobody knew it existed and you had to send them an email and book one month in advance. They would then send you a Willy Wonka style golden ticket by mail which was pretty cool.
We went to E twice in 2011, and the first meal had some of the most memorable courses of our dining life. The second meal 3 months later was nearly identical to the first, except the chef was different and the consistency and quality of some dishes was down significantly. We haven’t gone back to E since, though I am thinking about doing so this summer. We actually went to E and Robuchon on back to back nights in 2011 and E was the clear winner, except for the egg dish at Robuchon, that’s an all-time, top 5 legendary course.
Jaleo is a tapas style restaurant and one of their highlight dishes for sure is pan con tomate (tomato bread) with Iberico ham (pata negra). Jamon Iberico is the nut ham of life, on a whole different level from prosciutto, Serrano and jambon de Bayonne. The bellota version of jamon iberico is acorn fed and has the most incredible depth of earthy and nutty flavor. If you get jamon, make sure to always sample the bellota, not just the regular ones. We love this so much that we no longer actually order it at the restaurant though, we just buy our own Iberico leg for home consumption instead. Here’s one on our table.
Something I didn’t know about Jaleo is that they have a $25 lunch special which gets you three tapas style courses and you can add a plate of paella as well for an additional $7. Seems pretty hard to go wrong.
Jaleo
Lunch special menu
Manzana con hinojo y queso Manchego - Sliced apple and fennel salad with
Manchego cheese, walnuts and sherry dressing.
This was very good, light and refreshing with a great balance of flavors and not overly strong fennel flavors for those who aren't huge licorice fans. A bit more acidity/lemon would have made this really shine.
Endibias con queso de cabra y naranjas - Endives, goat cheese, oranges and almonds
This was unexpectedly super interesting in flavor profile. I wonder if there was a bit of tomato water in with this, as the whole combination was very savory and had many layers of flavor and a long finish. Would definitely get again.
Patatas bravas - Potatoes with spicy tomato sauce and aioli
We ate these pretty much daily in Spain. Love the very garlicky aioli and tomato sauce mixed together, rich, smoky and delicious.
Vieiras con piniones y PX* - Scallops with pine nuts and Pedro Ximenez
reduction
Great scallop, cooked perfectly, PX is the sweetest form of sherry, and when reduced with raisins, makes for a borderline too sweet sauce. But overall very good.
Paella with chicken - We added in the paella for an extra $7, having had several good paellas at Jaleo before. Unfortunately, this was an unmitigated disaster. Heavy, salty, and completely devoid of any other flavor. This was like a 1/10, dish with the chicken being the only edible item on the plate. Had to send these back, just terrible.
Gambas al ajillo - Shrimp sautéed with garlic
A few of these shrimp were nice, but there was a very bitter component to the dish, either burnt oil or dirty shrimp flavor that ruined it a bit.
The final dish was the grilled hangar steak with piquillo peppers. The meat was well cooked but old and tasted of blood. Another dish we did not finish.
The start to this meal was so promising, but once we hit the third course and paella, it all went off the rails. The shrimp were dirty, the beef tasted old and the paella was just a complete and utter disaster. I can’t recall the last course so bad that I had to send it back. It came off the bill, so the lunch was still a relative bargain even for the first two courses, which combined interesting flavors and were very good. Overall, Jaleo still remains a great option if you need an Iberico fix, but I’m not rushing back for the lunch special. Stick with Milos across the hall.
Stuffed with paella salt and needing something sweet for dessert, we headed down for some VP and $1000 cookies in the high limit slot room. We always talk about the average cookie cost for the trip, and considering we’re decently stuck on the VP, we better be ****in cookie monsters at this point. These are only our 2nd cookie each for the trip, so we’re looking at about $750 a cookie at this point. Basically there are two options, either start winning, or eat so many cookies that we’re getting some decent cookie comps!
Cookies - $1500 each
This time we just put in a quick $500 and get the following hit.
Spoiler:
Nothing too exciting.
We also made another little bet on the Red Sox, who seemed to be the most consistent winner of this trip, and are still crushing. Maybe 5K on the Sox next trip is the way to go.
At this time I got a great phone call. We were on the wait list for Kabuto and someone cancelled last minute so there was room for us at 830. Yes, please!
Time to have some wine. If you have no wine interests, skip a few paragraphs. We go upstairs and pop the 2001 Schrader RBS, but forgot to bring a butler’s corkscrew. The room’s corkscrew sucks, and the cork breaks. Fortunately I’m able to pour the wine out into glasses and do the cork removal by plastic ice bag trick. I’ve put a video to some people from the deep south doing this if you have no idea how it works. It’s actually pretty cool and will then allow you to clean out the bottle and put the wine back in for transport.
Using bag trick on Schrader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEYIHQCDFd4
Alright Riverdog, you asked for a tasting note. This is my first bottle of Schrader, and I have about 10 more bottles of 2014 and 2015 from their mailing list, so I specifically purchased this to get a sense of whether I want to buy more or just get off the list. Cali cab is only a small portion of our cellar, maybe 80-100 bottles in all, and while I love some of them, others are just overpriced, alcoholic fruit bombs. We love the purity of fruit that you can only get from the California sun, but the vast majority of cab in our cellar remains Bordeaux.
My favorites from Cali are actually much older ones, particularly the 1987s (particularly Dunn and Phelps Eisele Vineyard, before it became exclusively Araujo and now Latour owned) and the early-mid 90s vintages up to 1997. I think some 97s haven’t aged particularly well, too much heat and lacking in structure, while 91, 92, 94-96 have done great. I really love the Caymus SS and Phelps Insignia’s from back then, now they have become higher in alcohol, rounder and do not have the finesse that they used to, particularly Caymus SS. There are also many less famous wines from Cali in the late 80s, early 90s that are fantastic. Whitehall Lane, particularly their Leonardini vineyard is great, older Cardinale (now way overpriced), Philip Togni, Montelena, etc.
The wine making style of the 70s to mid 90s seemed to focus much more on elegant, balanced wines that retained acidity, which is evidenced in the 13.5% alcohols of most of them. We have really moved into the Parkerized world of wine since then and the finesse is often gone. I am well aware this applies to Bordeaux and the rest of the wine world as well, I mean you can drink 09s now which is crazy. Doing one Montelena vertical from 1984-2003 a few years back, the stylistic change around 2001 was dramatic, I much prefer the older ones.
The big boy wines of Cali like Harlan, Schrader, Shafer, Bond, Screagle, Colgin, etc. are a whole different level of extraction and sometimes oaking (eg. Shafer) than many of these aforementioned wines. My limited experience with Harlan is that it is very good, but still hot, for Bond a 2008 Pluribus from last week had some bitterness on the finish, while a 2002 Vecina was a bit confected. I think Colgin is fabulous, and it has won side by side vs. Harlan for me. Shafer is out of control with the oak, making a near monolithic vanilla bomb but it makes for a very easy to drink wine. All this said, I still enjoy many of these wines, but need to evaluate them due to the price they command.
With all that in mind, the 2001 Schrader was to evaluate whether I should continue purchasing the mailing list wines and get a handle on the aging of this wine. Using CT as a guide, it sounded like this should be in a great spot, and 01 was a well structured and balanced vintage. Onto the tasting note.
Spoiler:
Wine is unfortunately just another form of gambling, and this trip we had another loss. Always sucks opening these $300+ bottles of wine and they’re just ****ed in some way, whether it’s pre-mox, TCA or just storage at some point in the wine’s lifetime. No biggie, onto the next bottle.
A great bottle of wine.
Castello di Ama is a very famous Chianti producer, but L’Apparita is a 100% merlot. I actually am a big fan of 100% merlots from Tuscany, with Galatrona, Redigaffi and Masseto all being great wines. Though Masseto is definitely not worth the price anymore and Galatrona is an absolute steal. Having never tried L’Apparita, I came across a couple of cases at an amazing price, so had to try it. The provenance on this bottle was clearly great as it came at me with intense roasted Tuscan earth right from the get go. Pure, terroir driven wine, unmistakably Tuscan. But instead of the expected cherry and strawberry of the usual Sangiovese, this was deep and dark with black cherry and plum, as well as copious amounts of anise, great minerality and some smoke notes as well. Intense on the palate, great acidity and structure, this opened up over the next two hours and was a great wine. Very impressed and happy to drink one of these a year for the next 15-20 years. It has a great structure for aging.
We headed back downstairs and enjoyed the wine with some low stress 5 cent VP, which made for a great couple of hours before dinner.
Ooh, a 5 cent Royal. At this point I'll take anything.
Off to Kabuto, it was time to eat all the fishes. We went with the usual Nigiri only and then added about 10 more pieces. We were also at a table this time, which makes it a lot easier picture wise, though the bar is always the preference.
Ice cold Asahi, love their super thin glass, I swear it tastes better out of this glass.
Lime sake aperitif today
Tuna sashimi appetizer course - Very good
Oysters from Seattle - These just have such an amazing texture, love them.
All left to right - Toro on rice, Kanpachi (Amberjack), Akami (lean tuna), Kuromutsu (Black sea perch), Itoyori (Bream).
All very good as always with the Kuromutsu being the highlight. The flavor, density and texture of this fish was unbelievable, perfect in every way. The sweet finish after eating this piece probably lasted a full minute. We had to get more of that but only 2 more pieces left
Gyoku (egg), Anago (Golden sea eel), hagashi-toro (silky fatty tuna), Sayori (Halfbeak) and I think meichi-tai (Gingko fish)
The egg was much better than usual today, not usually a huge fan of their gyoku. Anago is always a great piece at Kabuto, the hagashi-toro was absolutely a great piece, pure melt in the mouth texture. Sayori is still my favorite when available, just amazing texture, much like the kuromutsu. Meichi-tai was solid.
Kamashi-ta toro (marbled fatty tuna), Kuromutsu redux, Hie-tai (star snapper), Botan-ebi (live sweet shrimp) and Kohada (shad).
Amazing second piece of kuromutsu, and the shrimp and toro were both spectacular as well. The other two were very good but not great.
Ishigaki-tai (spotted knifejaw), Zuke (soy marinated tuna), Kobu-tai kobujime (asian sheepshead wrasse), chu-toro (medium fatty tuna)
Another great lineup, zuke is always a great value piece, with the soy covering up the metallic note that is often apparent in akami. Both tai had great flavor and texture, and the chu-toro was delicious as always.
Wifey got a few special pieces where there was only a single left.
Anago redux, hagashi-toro redux, Akamutsu (red sea perch), Kuromutsu redux and Kasugo-tai (spring baby snapper)
The repeat pieces are obviously all amazing, and she loved the kasugo-tai, but said she preferred the akamutsu at Hiroyoshi the day before. Last trip the akamutsu at Kabuto was my favorite piece of the trip, so a bit disappointing I guess.
Toro hand roll - Particularly great today
Jiggly puff cheesecake, always great, what texture and silkiness while still remaining light.
Awesome as always, $300 with tax and tip for about 19 pieces of great quality fish. Man I love Kabuto.
We head back to Bellagio and walk through the conservatory, which is particularly nice this trip. The theme is Japanese Spring, and you can check it out here if you want.
We head back to Cosmo for a little more VP before I tuck the wifey into bed and head out for some more degeneracy.
Bravo shows the 20/40 Mix at Bellagio has 4 on the list, so I head to Aria because there are a few other doctors in town that I saw on the plane ride down to Vegas. They’re some younger guys and are at Jewel nightclub, so I figure we can meet up after for some drinks or pit games.
I hop in the 2/5/10 PLO game and proceed to be insanely card dead for the one hour or so that I’m there. I get one playable hand QJ109r and on a flop of Q73r, it gets potted and re-potted by two opponents, so I’m out of the way against a wrap and middle set.
The nice part about being card dead is that I meet a couple of lovely people at the table, Javanewt and her husband, Mr. Newt. I had known that they were in town for the weekend, and Java said she was a bit older than me and always played Aria PLO. Using the powers of deduction, I figured the number of females in their 40s playing PLO at 3 AM is probably pretty low, so was able to figure out who she was. Both her and her husband were super nice people, with lots of common interests, wine/food/poker/horses, so it was nice to meet. They had actually eaten at Hiroyoshi and Kabuto as well in the last two days, kind of hilarious.
We were a must move table, and after Mr. Newt left, the game broke so I met up with my other friends from back home. They were hungry so we went to Cosmo for secret pizza and waited half an hour for it at 4 AM. It was good, but not really half an hour wait good. What else is open after 4 though?
The next part of the trip might be the most memorable, and definitely not in a good way. The guys wanted to play lower stakes BJ with good rules so I suggested TI for $10 3:2. For some reason I decided to take a cab in Vegas for the first time in years. I have only taken uber/lyft the last couple of years because of long hauls etc.
We get in the cab with an Arabic guy who’s name is definitely in my mind right now. He is about to leave the Cosmo and is going to take the strip to TI which seems pretty suboptimal. I ask him to take Dean Martin and not the strip. He looks at me angrily, then turns right and floors it down Harmon-Aldebaran-Dean Martin. He is literally going 70 mph, runs a red light, and is swerving around like a psycho. I ask him why he’s driving like this and he then turns the speakers up to max volume and rips into the TI parking lot at like 50 mph. Total ****ing nutjob. This guy is 100% a danger to the public. Unbelievable. I find out that reporting this to the Taxicab Authority requires me to literally go to a police station and fill out a report. I don’t do this, but this guy is probably about one drive away from running over 70 pedestrians on the strip in a cube van.
Fortunately, today is not the day that four doctors get killed by this guy, and we make it to TI in one piece.
Sitting down with these three friends at the $10 BJ at TI, I realize immediately this will be hilarious. We’ve got people standing on twelve against a dealer ten, hitting twelve against a dealer 6, all kinds of crazy plays. The funny thing is they were telling me how blackjack is about a 50/50 game lol. Pretty sure it’s like 40/60 now. I try to coach them, but it’s one of those days where they always lose when they play correctly and sometimes win by playing bad. So they just do whatever. I’m sure sticking to the minimum bet at this table.
We play for about 2 hours and somehow I break exactly even while they all lose about $2-300. Inconceivable.
It’s about 630 AM so we safely take a nice Uber ride back to the Cosmo and go our separate ways. My mind is still going with the crazy taxi ride but eventually I’m able to fall asleep by about 8 AM.
Day 3
BJ Even
Poker -150
VP -1200
Day 4
I wake up about two hours later (total 9-10 hours sleep in 72) and I’m feeling pretty rough. Our flight is for 12:30, but for a bit of rungood, it’s delayed to 2 PM. Yay, more gambling time. I’m far too tired to gamble, and don’t really want to, so wifey heads down to get in a couple more hours of VP before we leave. While she’s gone, I complete the annual tradition (13 years running) of an Easter egg hunt for her. I secretly packed her “nuclear football” and mini eggs, kinder’s, etc. so am able to make a little in room easter egg hunt while she’s out.
I get two extra hours of sleep and then we are off to the airport. We make sure to grab some extra cookies before we go.
Cookies are only $500 each now! Eat that Cosmo!
All in all, an interesting trip. Lots of VP runbad, probably only got about 10 hours total play of VP, but great food, fun times going downtown and one very good bottle of wine. Sadly I didn’t get a chance to play much poker or any mix games this trip, which needs to be rectified in the future.
When I got home, I slept for a solid two days to recover, that was the delay in writing this TR. Having dumped about 5K for minimal play, and having played quite a bit in January (not Leon levels or anything), I decided to just email a host at Cosmo and ask if I can get anything more than just $50 free play. I kind of felt like 150K coin in might get a bit more than that, but I don’t play slots, so I have no real idea. The good news is that a host replied and said they’d be happy to comp me 5 nights, including weekend for my June trip, so at least I got something back.
Next trips will be in late May/June for a friend’s bachelor party (20 guys, oh no!) and then with Mrs. Ferguson again in later June. Gonna head to Amsterdam and Santorini between now and then, so won’t be punting quite as hard, and should get some relaxing times in.
These TRs sure are pretty wine and food heavy, so I hope you’re still enjoying them.
Thanks for reading.
TF
Last edited by TurdFerg; 04-07-2018 at 09:34 AM.
04-07-2018
, 11:13 AM
I would avoid. I don’t know many of these guys that well except that they’re pretty much alcoholics. I am laying 2-1 that someone jumps in the Bellagio fountain.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
04-07-2018
, 11:46 AM
Hey Leon,
Jaleo has some good stuff, just choose wisely. Just get all the Jamon Iberico and you'll be set.
Well I have my own host now, by emailing them, as opposed to the other way around. I've never had a host before now. I don't play $1 TDB and Ultimate X, I'm an ER doc remember
Yeah FU machine is right!
Jaleo has some good stuff, just choose wisely. Just get all the Jamon Iberico and you'll be set.
Well I have my own host now, by emailing them, as opposed to the other way around. I've never had a host before now. I don't play $1 TDB and Ultimate X, I'm an ER doc remember
Yeah FU machine is right!
04-07-2018
, 01:59 PM
Quote:
Hey Leon,
Jaleo has some good stuff, just choose wisely. Just get all the Jamon Iberico and you'll be set.
Well I have my own host now, by emailing them, as opposed to the other way around. I've never had a host before now. I don't play $1 TDB and Ultimate X, I'm an ER doc remember
Yeah FU machine is right!
Jaleo has some good stuff, just choose wisely. Just get all the Jamon Iberico and you'll be set.
Well I have my own host now, by emailing them, as opposed to the other way around. I've never had a host before now. I don't play $1 TDB and Ultimate X, I'm an ER doc remember
Yeah FU machine is right!
04-08-2018
, 05:54 AM
