Vegas Baby!

Everyone gets excited for Las Vegas and who can blame them? It’s the city of sin, the city that never sleeps, there is always something to do in Vegas! 

This trip was work related but I made a point to enjoy myself while here. #SHRM19 brought me to Las Vegas and I’m lucky enough to be able to represent my company while also earning much needed CEUs. 

The first night of conference coincidentally brought me here at the same time as my BFF Natara who was also attending a conference where she was a guest speaker! So we planned dinner and a show  for the only night we could be together- Cirque du Solei -  O and Tao restaurant and club.

Having a resident show in Orlando, I was excited to see that O had a similar format but over water. I love the busyness of the stage where your eyes always has something to focus on which means each show will be a different experience. O amazes you with synchronized swimming, acrobats, and guests who become part of the show. It was so much fun and breathtaking all at once.

Tao greets you with large concrete tubs filled with water, rose petals and candle light. It deceives you with this serene entrance and calming decor of Asian deities but you quickly realize that the party has just begun as you turn the corner and the music gets louder and people are in abundance. Because we watch O first, we were Hangry! It was midnight on the east coast so I was way overdue for dinner which was why we over ordered👾.  I have to say, I'm not sure if it was the pre-party atmosphere or just how it is but the TAO service is less than mediocre. We had two service people. I couldn't identify what they did but it seemed like they had specific roles or they had to run things by each other before something was completed. For instance, if we had a plate that needed to be taken away, it was almost like one had to get permission from the other to remove it. There was no coordination of efforts and it was hard to flag down someone to get what you needed. That being said, lets talk food.


We started off with Spicy Tuna Tartare on Crispy Rice and Lobster Wontons with Shitake Ginger Brother. I have to say the Tuna Tartare was the most amazing thing I ate that night. The beautiful balls of tuna were deliciously marinated in a light spice, not too much heat, and the fluffy rice puff it sat on was a perfect crisp - light and airy. I can chow down on those all day. The wontons were good but nothing the captures the attention for a second serving at a price tag of $21 for four wontons. 

For dinner we ordered Diver Sea Scallops with Red Curry and Thai Basil, Triple Pork Fried Rice with pork belly, bbq roast pork and Chinese sausage. The curry did pack a medium level of heat but the scallops didn't pair well with the curry. The pork fried rice was good but I'd recommend that if you get a dish like curry don't get a speciality rice. Just get plain white or brown rice. The speciality rice section can be served as a meal on its own. The one shout out I'll give is the drink I had - Natara and I ordered the Phuket - a tequila base drink with lime juice, prickly pear, and fresh blueberries. The first one was so well made that I could have drank the whole thing all at once. However - the second was too sweet/almost tangy that it was hard for me to finish. I'd say try it especially if you don't mind throwing $17 at a beverage that has a 50/50% of being made well because it was worth it the first time. 

Day 2

We had reservations for Wing Lei, the first Chinese restaurant in North America to earn a Michelin star, which was conveniently located in our hotel the Wynn/Encore. I was overly excited for tonight's dinner because I've never been to a restaurant with a Michelin star. 

The restaurant isn't large but it is beautifully decorated with golds and greens. They even have a chair for my purse so I don't have to have it draped over my chair which could mess up the backs of these beautifully decorated chairs OR so it doesn't impede on the servers who tend to guests. Either way, when you walk in, it feels like a different world. Like you know you are about to embark on an experience like no other. And I have to say - This was hands down, the best dining experience I've ever had. So let's get to the details. If you look closely, to the right of my menu there are two sets of chopsticks. A black set and a white set. You are informed that the white set is for you to serve yourself with and the black set is for you to eat with. This is key in keeping your germs to yourself and reduce cross contamination which I'll get to in a moment. 

While we ordered, the server asked if there was any food allergies - if you follow me on any of my other social media platforms you'd know that I had a recent incident with a Vegan restaurant and serving nuts to me after I told them I had a nut allergy. So I go about informing this server about my nut allergy before ordering and they took note and reassured me of their food preparation and the extra precautions they'll take. All fine and dandy but that is standard language I hear everywhere I go. What you do behind the walls is something I have to trust happens and often times it doesn't. 


They brought out these lovely little spoonfuls of tomato/cucumber in a smidgen of vinegar and spices as a refreshing starter. We didn't ask for it but it was a welcomed surprise. One of our friends didn't want to try it but when the two of us did, we urged him to try it too as we were raving about how good it was and when he did he was equally surprised by the flavors. Most people feel a tiny whole cherry tomato is hard to eat without something drenching the flavor of the tomato or masking the texture. But this tiny spoon of deliciousness was so satisfying and a great start to the dining experience. 

One of my friends is a Vegetarian so we ordered the Garden Dim Sum which had Red Beet, Corn, Spinach and Pea Tendrils wrapped around a garden of goodness inside. This is typically served over a bed of crushed nuts (sand) but they put it on the side for me and for the others to enjoy. Apparently it taste way better with the nuts so definitely make sure to add it if you can. 
I ordered the Sampan Prawns which is a crispy garlic, scallions with jalapeno and veggie fried rice. The prawns were expertly breaded - not too thick, a light coat so you can still taste the flavors of the prawns and the mixture of toppings (crispy garlic, scallions and jalapeno) paired with the veggie rice made this dish an a Asian explosion of flavors in your mouth. For people who have experienced authentic Chinese restaurants like I have, stepping into this one seems otherwordly. But when you take away the gold silverware and the fancy decor - and you bite into a dish like this your brought back home. 

Throughout our meal there were about three people who were tending to us. Each extremely knowledgeable about the menu items as they were quick to answer any questions we had or suggest alternatives. When I mentioned my nut allergy in the beginning it was with our female server. The other two male servers assisted in various ways all in sync with each other. There was never a moment we had to ask for something, someone was there anticipating our need. We were stuffed and didn't order dessert but the chef decided to create this little tower of tiny desert treats. 


When they brought it out, one of the male servers explained what each item was and informed me that for me, because of my nut allergy the chef added the pineapple jelly at the bottom right corner of the picture. The other desserts had nuts. Two things happened here - we got something we didn't ask for which was a delightful surprise but they (the service team and the chef) remembered my allergy so that everyone understood and made it a point to keep me in mind for this fabulous treat! It was at this point that I knew service like this can't be replicated. Beyond the amazing food, the beautiful establishment, the cleanliness of the bathrooms, the details of decor, the service is what will bring me here again. Thank you Wing Lei! 

After Wing Lei, a friend and I hopped on over to Zumanity! This Cirque show is one of the only shows with nudity so beware. Not for kids but super fun. The cast is a set of very sexy acrobats, dancers, showmen and women that wow you with their strength, flexibility, and showmanship. Its also all kinds of hilarious! 

Day 3

Day 3 of #SHRM19 was Lionel Ritchie night! "Hey Lionel!" But let's talk about food! I mean, thats why we're all here right!? Day 3 was a steak night. This was the only night I planned on eating at a steakhouse that left an impression on me the last time I was in Las Vegas. Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak at MGM Grand!  
I was really looking forward to this because of my last experience. I started off with a half dozen oysters. I wish I remembered what kind they were but I'm really never picky with oysters so I just told the server to choose and he did. They were pretty delicious! 

I tried one thing I've never tried before - Wagyu beef. I went with the Wagyu surf & turf with a filet and 1/2 lobster tail. It was a delicious meal but I'll tell you a few things why it wasn't amazing. First - I was never a real fan of lobster tail so  this experience was not any better. The lobster, in my opinion was rubbery instead of buttery but that's how I've always experienced lobster, why I thought this day would be different, I don't know. Second - if you read my blogs you know I just experienced the most amazing steakhouse ever so I was a bit on a high horse thinking that in some way this infamous Wagyu beef was going to knock my socks off. It didn't. And I won't order it again. The money is not worth the taste or experience. The filet tasted like any other filet that I would get at a steakhouse of this caliber.  We also got two sides - an assortment of mushrooms and their speciality corn. The corn is a must have. The mushrooms were good, still earthy.  If you like mushrooms - I'd get them and then put them in the steak skillet to add some flavor to it. If you kind of like mushrooms - don't get them. I feel like if I had those mushrooms I could have made an amazing mushroom sauce keeping them whole (like they did) that could enhance the steak flavors. But I think they literally toss it in a pan with a little bit of oil, maybe butter and a pinch of salt and add it to a dish. For that - just pass.   

Day 4

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My last night in Vegas was Wednesday night, the last night of the conference. I planned to see Beatles Love and eat at Giada's restaurant at the Cromwell. I love Giada. I watched her cooking shows when I was younger so I took this opportunity to experience some of her cooking while I had the opportunity. 
Table for one please :-). I started off my meal with a charred octopus salad - Calabrian chili, radish and ice wine vinaigrette. You can really taste the flavor of the ice wine in the vinaigrette. I would have appreciated just a touch more. But what was really amazing is the octopus. I've had octopus plenty of times but this was the first time I've had octopus and it wasn't rubbery. It was cooked beautifully, you can slice it with a fork, no knife needed, and it almost melted in your mouth it was so soft. The char on it gave it a nice smokey flavor that complimented the dish well. 


My entree was the Risotto - it was a rich and creamy flavor  but the risotto was a little undercooked for my taste. I wish I hadn't stuffed myself the entire week with amazing food so I could have enjoyed the risotto more. The scallops was also, THE BEST scallops I've had ever tasted. Cooked to perfection, a buttery soft texture that went well with the creaminess of the risotto. I can say this - Giada's restaurant cooks seafood so well, it was quite frankly the best I've had ever experience thus far! 


I ended my dining experience with the blackberry merlot sorbetti - tangy blackberry  sorbet with a merlot finish. It was a great finish to the evening. 

I ended the night watching Beatles Love - a Cirque show. I was front row! 
I have a deep love for the Beatles because of my father. I got discounted tickets because I bought tickets to O so these front row tickets were a little over $70. Money well spent if you asked me. The show was everything I wish it would have been and more. A festival of love performed to all of the best Beatles songs! It was nostalgic and colorful! I would love to take my family and experience this again! 

Closing thoughts: I highly recommend booking all of your reservations on Open Table as I did. It makes it super easy to find what you want, and if you need to make adjustments to the amount of people or the time, you can do it all on your app. 

 I also loved our hotel! I can't thank my company enough for choosing this hotel! It was a great experience and the amenities were first class. We stayed at the Wynn Encore. It is the newer tower of the Wynn hotel which boasts larger rooms. It was perfect for the times I had to work, attend conference calls or do interviews because it had a desk in the room that I can easily plug and play in a quiet and serene environment. The rooms were equipped with Alexa which was super convenient having to ask Alexa to turn on the lights or off the lights or close the drapes or open the drapes! Definitely stay at the Encore if you get a chance! Also if you ever run into Debra, she's amazing. She wears purple lipstick to match the purple jacket she wears. When I needed help finding a bathing suit she directed me and staying with me the entire time until I knew exactly where I needed to go. Who does that? Debra does! Best employee ever! Tell her I said HI if you bump into her!

I love Vegas - not for its Casinos (I didn't spend a penny on gambling while I was there), but for everything it has to offer you in a concentrated 4 mile block they call the Las Vegas Strip! Go have fun, eat well, see shows and if you feel so inclined - get some casino time in! 

Berns Steakhouse - Oh my!

I've lived in Florida for almost 32 years.🌞 I think it may have been in my early twenties when I first heard of Berns. I heard it resembled castles inside and that dessert is its own stage in the meal process so I envisioned high ceilings, old English decor, long windows draped with velvety embroidered fabric and exquisite art lining the wall. I had always wanted to have a meal at Berns to experience what everyone talked about but there are truths that I will divulge here and now, 1 - I didn't think I had Berns type dinner money AND 2 - I wasn't willing to make the day trek to Tampa to just have a meal.

Having spent the last 15 years in a role where I had to travel the state for work, I have now trained myself to take day trips all over Florida AND now I know I can afford a great meal at a fancy restaurant. So I checked out the website to see how reservations were made and was both pleasantly surprised that I can make reservations online and then completely aware that the availability of good reservation times are few and far between. I scoured the three month span that was open at the time to find a date that I knew Jimmy and I could have a nice dinner together and what do you know - Memorial Day was the only day we both had off and reservation times weren't after 8pm. This was a very good indication that what I was about to embark on was going to be a really amazing meal!

Our reservation time was for 5pm this is also the time they open. As is natural for Jimmy and I, we were 30 minutes early. The foyer was open for us to wait in but the restaurant doors were still closed. There was one other couple inside before us. A sign inside the foyer states the dress code for Berns- simply stating an oxford shirt and long pants are minimum and shorts are not permitted. This is similar to what they also state on their website. I saw two different couples come in where the males wore shorts and both were seated so my guess is, Berns does not enforce their dress code 💁.

Once inside you find yourself in a dimly lit atrium with painted portraits that lined the walls from top to bottom. The orange hue of the light made it feel very much like the haunted mansion at Disney. After checking in, I had to use the restroom which was upstairs. The banisters were lined with velvet and the ornate picture frames and intricate Victorian style decor was almost what I had imagined. The ceilings were not as high as I thought but nonetheless, there was a very unique atmosphere to Berns that made you feel fancy even if you're wearing shorts😏.

We were seated at our table, a quaint two top in a row that had a four top between another two top. The room that our table was in was small, maybe fitting about 40 people total. Our servers name was Lee. He was very down to earth providing us with recommendations and caution due to the amount of food that comes with the steak. We were very appreciative of all the information he provided.

First Course - French Onion Soup. Its served in a mini metal dish with four kinds of layered cheese that sealed the rim shut. The cheeses used were Asiago, Geitost, Parmesan, Fontina. The cheeses are pre-cut prior to opening in the perfect circles with the exception of the Geitost as I'm told those create the brown speckles on the top.
Breaking the layers of cheese was like a French Onion Fort Knox! But once you get in its a little slice of amazingness. The broth wasn't too overwhelming in flavor as I've had in other place. It balanced well with the soaked bread and the cheese which kept its form after emerging into the broth. The Garlic toast was a nice touch of flavor to the onion soup and Jimmy tried the spelt toast with the soup. He doesn't typically like sweet with savory but he said that spelt toast enhanced the flavor. What I liked most about this soup is that it was the perfect size to start you off.



Next course was the house salad. Jimmy and I both ordered the Cleopatra dressing which was a Caesar dressing. The salad came on a smaller plate but was deceivingly in abundance of food, how much salad could fit on this small plate!? You had red peppers, avocado, onions, carrots, cucumbers, cheese, tomatoes, olives, egg, celery, romaine lettuce and croutons! It was a delicious salad! I loved the thinly sliced celery hidden under it all that when I took a bite where the celery was hidden my mouth watered a little more with that extra burst of celery flavor!
The potato was prepared for us table side. Lee expertly loaded it with sour cream, butter, bacon and chives. I strategically skipped eating this knowing that my main course AND dessert took precedence over this. I did have a taste after I ate my main course and would have loved to devour this potato but I would have done a disservice to myself if I skipped out on my favorite part of the meal - DESSERT!
My main course were the 3 lamb chops. I have a love for Lamb! And if given the choice, I've often went for the lamb over steak thus was the case on this day. There was strategy in planning as there was support for this decision.             Lee suggested I get the lamb and taste Jimmy's steak so I took it and was so happy with the his suggestion.
Lamb often gets a bad rap for being gamey. It does, in most cases, have a distinct taste to it that is unique to lamb. Like celery. You know when you bite into a celery that it is celery. The same goes with lamb. However these lamb chops were not the unique taste you get from lamb but a blend of flame crusted "steakish" flavors that muted the lamb flavor in a good way. The Pinot Noir reduction served with the lamb enhanced the delicate flavors that was pure bliss. It was so good I was gnawing on the bones trying to suck out as much of that flavor as I could before letting it go. As you can see on my plate, carrots, green beans and onion straws are also served. Everything noted above are standard with each meat option! So heed the warnings of Lee and temper your appetite. The onion straws were delicious and green beans were still crisp with a smokey flavor to it. I was not a fan of the carrots. They were sweet and I don't particularly enjoy shaved carrots.

Jimmy had a Delmonico steak because I asked him to order it. He wanted to order the filet mignon but instead he got what I asked of him. I love a good Rib Eye because of the marbling that creates this rich flavor within the meat and I wanted to be able to experience an aged rib eye where I know I won't be able to recreate the experience anywhere else but at Berns. Berns is known for this crusty exterior of their steaks. The crusty exterior, with a nice pink center, and the melty fatness striated between beautiful chunks of meat is what you want when you bite into a steak. And it does not let you down! We used some of the lamb sauce (pinot noir reduction) on the steak, just a drop of it create a full bodied flavor that makes a 9 steak rise its full potential -10!

We did take home part of that steak and most of our sides because we knew we wanted to experience dessert. We checked out with Lee and headed to our Tour of Berns!

Jimmy and I both worked in restaurants before and we both had the same comment about the Berns Kitchen - The floors are so clean! No grease or wet floors. Tyrone was our kitchen guide. I had no idea about Berns Farm or the extensive knowledge that everyone who works at Berns has to know before even hitting the floor to serve! It was a great experience learning from Tyrone before he handed us off to our wine tour guide!
I thought of my friend Iranys as we traveled down the wine cellar. The bottles of wines that lined endless rows made me wonder what wines she knew of and how many has she tasted? One of their bottles is a pricey $30K bottle! The cellar is kept at cool 54 degrees to account for potential power outages. The Berns collections is one of the largest private collections ever. They have over 150,000 bottles at Berns and another 600,000 (don't quote me) in a warehouse! When she asked if we wanted pictures I jumped at the opportunity! You can see Jimmy Kwong actually smiling in our photo 😍!

Next we went upstairs to have our Dessert! Each Dessert room is shaped like a barrel, even the bathroom stalls upstairs are barrel shaped!     Sorry for the tangent - On with desserts.

I love dessert. I can never say no to a good dessert but I do have a food allergy which consist of tree nuts, melons, and banana. Reviewing the menu made me a little sad. There was an abundance of desserts with tree nuts which limited my options. They have an extensive list of ice creams they make but I didn't want ice cream I wanted something I can't have anywhere else. The options were short so I opted for a Cafe con leche wtih the Exotic Vanilla dessert which is a sample of three different vanilla based creations - a vanilla bean cheesecake, vanilla creme brulee tart, vanilla bean mouse with fruit creme and I chose a blueberry pomegranate sorbet to go with it. The sorbet was honestly the best part of this experience but I did like the creaminess of the mouse with the fruit creme.


Jimmy had a hot fudge sundae and I, of course, stole a taste and I can say that ice cream is their specialty.

All in all, Jimmy and I had a great time experiencing the flavors Berns has to offer. It is a place that Jimmy and I have already stated we want to visit again. The aged steaks and lamb, the way they are cut to order and cooked to perfection is something that isn't offered at every steakhouse. It doesn't compare to the Ruth Chris' or Flemings. Berns is in a league of its own!