I am in San Diego, CA now for the 2007 etech conference. Though I had another tight connection, this time at LAX, I managed to make the flight as did my bag.

Over the weekend we had a fabulous dinner at Social House in Las Vegas, NV. We had a testing menu of japanese/asian items. I'm not very good at keeping track of what was good or bad, it all seemed delicious (plus: Sirens of Treasure Island pirate show for free. It's always free.). I do suggest that you pass on the tasting menu if you are at all price sensitive, I don't think any of us thought to ask and the end result was a tad higher than we all expected (it included various Sake and mixed drinks so it's unclear how much was tasting menu and how much was alcohol).

We had an eh meal at Chinois in the Caesar's Palace complex. The food was fine if a bit bland. The service was impeccable through the first half of the meal, then our water glasses went unfilled and it took forever to get a refill on a soda. And no, they weren't that busy, maybe a third–to–half of the seats were taken.

Last night we ate at Picasso in the Bellagio. Picasso is named for the artist whose paintings grace the walls. If you get a window seat you get a close–up of the Bellagio fountains. We were seated at the back of the restaurant (New York riff–raff that we were). The food was excellent, the service quite good (one minor issue: the menu and tablecloth had some schmutz on them. Nothing grievous, just an observation). The bill was comparable to Social House, so Alex and everyone else were quite right to give their credit cards a rest.

I think I broke even for the weekend, not winning much, not losing much either. My options were pretty limited as the table minimums at many of the casinos were $25 and up, too pricey for me.