Just got back from Las Vegas Saturday night. This particular Vegas trip was definitely my favorite in a long, long time. When you live in Vegas, it kind of loses it’s luster but when you visit, you get to go to those awesome clubs, restaurants, and tourist spots you took for granted as a resident. I went for the Five Diamond Classic at the Bellagio. Played 4 tourneys, all of which did not turn out well or you most definitely would’ve heard about it. I went deep in the $1k rebuy but sputtered out right before the money at the beginning of day 2. In 3 of the 4 tourneys I somehow sat next to my roommate, Amit. He was on my left in all 3 of them and even had the gall to bust me from the $15k main event on day 2. He ended up going on to cash the tournament so at least he put my chips to good use.

This time I stayed at Panorama Towers with Steve O’Dwyer. He’s pretty awesome and his perspective on good food is unrivaled. He knows his %@#$! As the trend of the tournament series seemed to be for me, I was seated next to Steve on day 1 of the $15k. It was almost as if the poker gods wanted to screw with me a little bit. He owned me in multiple spots and gave me fits all day. Oh well. At least he also went deep in the tournament ending up getting 6th place for a cool $200k. Congrats Steve!

During my time spent in Vegas I ate at many restaurants I loved. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — nice Ferris Bueller reference might I add — that the best part about Vegas is the food. This time the far and away best place I ate at was Julian Serrano. It was a tapas place with the same chef from Bellagio’s restaurant Picasso. Apparently Picasso is one of the most expensive restaurants in Vegas so when Julian Serrano was the best meal I’ve had in a while, I wasn’t surprised. By the way, for anyone curious what a tapas restaurant is google.com is one click away hah.
Julian Serrano is in City Center which, not to digress, is filled with oodles upon oodles of amazing. Seriously, go there when you get to Vegas. It’s different from any casino or hotel you’ve ever been in. Anyways, the best dish at Julian Serrano was this tuna tapas dish. It was ahi tuna breaded with sesame and a cube of raspberry on top of it. I’ve never had raspberry with any type of fish until tonight and it was just phenomenal. The crème brulee was also quite delicious and coming from someone so well versed in crème brulees, you should respect my opinion. But yea, definitely check out Julian Serrano. It’s even reasonably priced.

Another highlight of Vegas was playing the game Cranium for the very first time. I’m generally not a fan of board games even though my dad had tons of them when I was a kid. To me, they just seemed inferior once video games became such high quality. Justin Bonomo, David Williams, Scott Seiver, Eric Froehlich, and others all were playing and while initially I was a bit apprehensive just because of my disdain for board games, I decided to give it a shot. What transpired was an amazing night of sitting around playing this game. Basically, Cranium is a game these two Microsoft employees quit their jobs to make. The game tries to use all parts of your brain. Some questions you might have to act out a famous person, sculpt something out of Play-doh, or even draw something with your eyes closed. I ended up winning all 3 games we played. Guess I was the MVP although having not much of an idea how to play initially.

Now I’m off to Florida for the holidays to see my parents, go to a wedding on New Year’s, and then to the Bahamas on the 4th for one of the biggest tournaments of the year in Atlantis. Okay, so in closing remember to: never sit next to your roommate in a poker tournament, eat at Julian Serrano in City Center, and play Cranium! If you follow those rules, you’ll be enhancing your life. Until next week, keep killing it at the tables!