After much confusion on where to have dinner tonight, I decided to try the buffet at The Mirage. So I zipped down Spring Mtn Rd and went through the TI parking area into the Mirage parking garage.

The buffet, known as Cravings is a beautiful buffet room. Neat, clean, and organized, just as one might expect The Mirage to be. I made a lap around the place to check out the various stations of food. At the end was the Italian side and I noticed roasted garlic. Bingo, I've made my $22 back. Now it was crunch time, to find out what goes good with roasted garlic. I had roasted garlic with prime rib, roasted garlic with BBQ ribs, roasted garlic with bouillabaisse, and several other interesting combinations. I counted 9 plates and 2 bowls of food before hitting the desserts. I think I must have eaten at least 3 whole heads of garlic. That was fun.

For dessert, I almost tried roasted garlic with vanilla ice cream, like they used to serve at the old Garlic Cafe. For some reason I had a banana craving and the only banana pie they had was sugar free. They had bananas foster though. So I got the ice cream and topped it with the bananas foster. It was a pretty good combination.

While I enjoyed a good meal in a very nice room, it is a buffet. Everything was good, nothing was great. It's just the product of sitting on a steam table or sitting under heat lamps. It was okay by buffet standards. I'm sure there are better buffets and a whole lot of worse buffets.

After stuffing myself, I felt I owed it to myself to take a walk, so I walked over to the Wynn Dot. Once inside, there is no mistake that this is a Steve Wynn property. I entered through the Esplanade which is near the corner of Spring Mtn and the strip, right where the overhead walkways will one day dump many a tourist. The sign outside said no strollers and no unaccomanied minors. Apparently many of the toruists can't read. Most of the shops are so upscale, I don't even know what they sell. I made a few rounds to attempt to familiarize myself with the property. It didn't work. It is a pretty property. The outside features much more water than I originally thought. From what I could gather, there is a "water feature" on an outdoor patio, accessable by curved escalators, with gaurds to decide who is cool enough to enter. You could see the part of the water feature without going downstairs and outside. I am assuming that this water feature is what is on the back side of the mountain.

Moving through the casino, I found some nice bars with drinks too expensive for me to stop for. I found a huge line to look at the Ferraris. The typical Steve Wynn decorations were everywhere. This is a nice place. I suspect people will even be talking about how nice the bathrooms are. If you go, take time to look at the little things, like tile work, floral arrangements, lighting, etc. It's way overcrowded at this time to really enjoy the place. People have no problem deagging their kids through it to add to the traffic jams.

Just for giggles, I sat down at a multi game VP machine and forked out a $20 bill for some double double bonus action. After a while, I hit a regular 4ok and a few other nice hands. The machine started to go south, so I cashed out $125 profit. It felt good to take a little out of Wynn Dot. I giggled all the way to the ticket machine to cash out my winnings.

On the way back to my car, I went in front of the TI at 8:20 and the Sirens show starts at 8:30 so I hung around. To cap off my winning streak of the evening, the winds were too high for a Sirens show, so I don't know if the ship still sinks or not.

So I had a nice meal, walked through the Wynn Dot, missed the TI show, and came home with $100 more than I left with. That's not a bad night out on the town.

Wendell, the Mirage buffet has all you can eat shrimp that are already cooked, peeled, and chilled. I found them edbile, but too soggy for my taste.

JMT - Why are you calling it the Wynn "Dot?" What's the significance of "Dot?"

Also, I remember when the Bellagio first opened, I plunked down $20 and also made a profit of $100 - I wondered if Steve has set his machines to be "loose" at the beginning just to rope us in!! (Maybe it's true?)

Mike

Mike, the logo of the new resort is cursive script lettering of Wynn with a dot on the end of it. And Wynn Dot sounds so much nicer than Wynn Period.

I haven't heard it from the horses mouth of exactly why it is that way. The most popular rumor is that the dot signifies the Wynn resort is as far as one can go in building a hotel and noting can surpass it, therefore it is a period. Another rumor says that Wynn describes the place and that's all you need to say. Wynn, period. I think he did it to get attention, therefore I cave to his ego.

You can see the logo on the building on the website. The dot/period is no accident. Strangely enough, as the website opens, a "Thank You" letter comes up and it is signed with Steve and a dot or period after it. It comes up while loading the flash or whatever script they use. If you have already been to the site recently, you might have to delete your temporary internet files to see the thank you letter. A normal person just doesn't sign a letter with a first name, followed a period.

Local legend has it that new casinos will often loosen the machines when they first open. I don't know if it's true. I'm sure a casino doesn't want to get a bad reputation as it's first impression. I've seen casinos change pay tables and eventually remove good VP machines over time. It would be interesting to know how much a casino can legally tweak a VP game. If you've ever watched the display when you get a hand pay from a royal, there's a lot of statistics on the various screens they pull up. From what I know about video games in general, there are a lot of dip switches to change game settings.

JMT; You just can't beat and eveninng out with a nice dinner and a $100.00 profit. Thanks for the update on the Mirage shrimp. See ya in a couple of months.

Thanks for the "dot" explanation, JMT - it's makes perfect sense! It's almost like a logo for this place.

Regarding "tweaking a VP game," although all the things I read say otherwise, I still believe it's possible. JM2C.

JMT,
What where the paytables like on those wynn dot machines???

They were all multigame multi demonination, so the only ones I saw were the few that I checked. They weren't pretty. I don't remember the numbers, but they were all short pay.

This sounds like a great night out, but I think it could have been even better if you had been driving Wendell, Maxine and me with ya. The Mirage buffet sounds worth a look, and that walk over to Wynn had to be good for those extra garlic calories<g>. Thanks for the report; I'm looking forward to checking this out on my next trip.