Saturday, January 07, 2006

2005 CES Week Pre Day One 010406

Today is Wednesday, January 4th. It is also my mom's birthday today but I'm heading to Vegas for CES. I promised my mom that we'll celebrate her birthday when I return on Sunday.

My flight was out of Oakland airport on America West. I arrive in Las Vegas at 11:30am and take a limo to the hotel. Nothing major was originally planned but I ended up having my yearly dinner with the good folks over at Epic Megagames. Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein are the most gracious hosts. If you've never heard of Epic Megagames, I'm sure you've heard of Unreal Tournament. These guys run the company that both develops the game and the engine. In short, these guys make really good games.

We dine at Delmonico's steak house. This is the 4th year in a row where we've dined at this top rated fine restaurant. The wine is out of this world and the food is to die for.

http://www.venetian.com/dining/dining.cfm?ID=1

Jay is a personal friend of Emeril Lagasse so getting reservations is fairly easy for him. A few years back, Jay was able to secure the kitchen table which is one of the better dining experiences for this restaurant. There is no menu to order from when you sit at the Chef's table. The chef decides on what you will eat and the Somalier serves the perfect combination of wine.

For tonight's dinner, I started with the bbq shrimp which was slightly spicy but very tasty. For my main course, I ordered the bone-in rib eye cooked medium rare which is one of the most flavorful steaks to choose from. It is a marbelized steak with just enough fat to really make it juicy and full of flavor. Jay orders some incredible wines like Grand Cru Montrache. This bottle alone is about $600.00 and we easily finish 3 of them. To top it off he also orders a 2002 Joseph Phelps which is currently rated #1 by Wine Spectator.

We finish dinner off with desert. I ordered the Bananas Foster (the same as last year) and an espresso. After dinner we head to the casino to gamble.

After losing a little bit at the Venetian, we head over to the Hard Rock to try our luck. Our luck doesn't change much except the dealer at the Hard Rock made it fun even though we were all losing. We head to the bar and hang out till about 5am and return to our hotel.

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