Boeing 787

After years of delay, Boeing is set to deliver their newest long range, 2 engine jet-liner, called the “Dreamliner” to ANA in Japan on September 28, after leaving Everett, Washington the day before. Let’s hope there will be no more delays or this plane will be known as the “Vaporliner” instead.

Because the entire plane is made from composite material, it is lighter and uses less fuel, is quieter and has special automated controls for a smoother ride during turbulence.

787 Interior lighting

There are tons of cool gadgets on this plane including LED mood lighting to simulate natural lighting, and super large windows that can be tinted darker by the passenger. On top of that, they have new technology to keep the air cleaner than older planes.

Boeing is pretty much betting their future on this plane, at least for the next decade. If this doesn’t fly, they will be in serious trouble.

For a gadget freak like me, this plane has everything to entice me to fly. I may have to travel to Japan just for that reason.

We tried the Wagyu Tataki for an appetizer and although the sauce was a little heavy for my taste, the meat was fine. We also had the Edamame ($8.50) which was slightly over cooked. Normally, I wouldn’t think much of it, but at these prices, I expect better.

Wagyu Tataki - $28

My friend had the Sushi and Sashimi combo (shown below), which was average at best.

Sushi Sashimi Combo - $76

To be different, I had the Sushi Deluxe, which was also just average. Don’t get me wrong. There was nothing specifically wrong and the fish was acceptable, but again, at these prices, I wanted to be wowed. Instead, I was left feeling like we should have gone to a steak place instead.

Sushi Deluxe - $48

It’s surprising how hard it is to get really good sushi in Las Vegas. It’s a lot easier to find good sushi in Los Angeles. That’s for sure.

All in all, for the price, I’m not impressed.

Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill
3708 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Las Vegas, NV
877-893-2003
cosmopolitanlasvegas.com

Long lines at registration

Even with the long lines, I have to say that the WSOP people keep tweaking the event each year for the better, and this year was again slightly better than last year, in my opinion. Considering how large this event is, it’s amazing how well it is organized.

Unlike previous years, I was not able to enter the main event, although I got to within 6 more knockouts to winning my way in via Mega satellite. For my last table, I sat to Mini Tran‘s right but I didn’t see her make any crazy moves. In my opinion, she is a fairly straight forward old school player, compared to many of these 20 something online players who like to 3 and 4 bet you with air.

One thing I noticed was the porters were giving out bottled water and Red Bull for just the cost of a tip. I’m not sure how they can afford to give out Red Bull for free, but I’m guessing they are a WSOP sponsor. While they’re at it, Jack Links should have given away their beef jerky to the players as well.

Poker Player's Championship

This year, I entered at least one tournament each day, and if I got knocked out early, entered a second one the same day. To change things up, I tried the Deep Stack tournament at the Venetian on one of the days. I’ve played cash games there before but this is the first time I played a tournament there. From what I could tell, the tournament was run smoothly. The only person I recognized in the field was Dennis Phillips from the 2008 November 9.

There is an Asian restaurant called “Noodle Asia” right next to the poker area where they have very good Chinese food. If you’re there, try the Hong Kong style Won Ton noodles and the Lamp Chop if you’re hungry for some meat.

Seared Petit Lamb Chop at Noodle Asia - $8.95

If you need some other drinks or snacks, you can go out the door, go up the escalator, then down again to get to the Walgreens which I think is open 24 hours. This is very convenient for tournament players during their breaks.

As a sign of the times, take a look at the picture below.  Apparently everything in the casino is connected to some central server. You can’t get away from big brother in Vegas, that’s for sure.

Slot Machine at Venetian

Although I failed to cash this year, I felt at ease and never felt like I was out of place. I tried to have fun even when I was not doing well at the table. All in all, I had a good time and I will be back next year.

This hotel is located within walking distance from the new convention center and the Ala Moana shopping center. So if those 2 things are of interest to you, and you are just going to sleep in the room while you do business in Honolulu, then the location is perfect.

The pricing can vary from $90 (special rates from Expedia) to $170 (regular rates) depending on the deal you can get. There are 2 towers (Waikiki and Kona) and the rooms are basically a very small room with a bed (except the 1 bedroom suites) and only vary according to your view out the window. The Waikiki tower has balconies, the elevators are closer to the lobby, and the elevator stops directly on the 2nd floor where you can walk to the mall without having to come down to the lobby. However, usually the Kona tower rooms are cheaper (but not always).

Notice the chair against the bed

A few (not all) of the regular rooms are smaller than normal, as you can see above. Out of the 4 times, I got one of these small rooms once. The width is so tight that the chair at the desk will not come out far enough for you to be able to sit down. The bed will get in the way of the chair and it’s hard to even walk past it. It looks like the width was somehow made too short (either by accident or design) and you can see below that the closet door (when closed) covers the light switch panel. It doesn’t block the actual switch but you can see the design is very strange.

The closet door covering part of the light switch

This room size reminds me of a hotel I stayed in many years ago in Billund Denmark where the closet sized room was so small, the bathroom door opened out into the room because there was no room inside the bathroom for the door to open into. The entire room was about the size of a large walk in closet.

But I digress.

There’s a Chinese restaurant on the 3rd floor and The Plantation Cafe on the ground floor, but is only open to 10am, so if you’re like me and get up late, forget about getting brunch there.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is, the service is acceptable and problems that I had in the rooms were quickly solved and the rooms are clean and relatively new looking.

You also get free Internet in the room (cabled so bring your own WiFi), and there is WiFi in the lobby but you have to pay.

There’s a business center with computers, swimming pool, fitness center, electronic safe, refrigerator, hair dryer,  microwave oven, coffee maker, and iron (and board).  If you’re into HDTV, you’re out of luck but they do have basic cable, as well as TV checkout (which seems to be down a lot).

So if you’re in Honolulu for business, and need to be near the convention center and/or Ala Moana shopping center, and don’t really care about the view or size of your room, this might be the place for you. If you want to be right next to the beach or you’re on your honeymoon, this is definitely not the right one for you.

Ala Moana Hotel
410 Atkinson Drive
Honolulu, Hawaii 96814
808-955-4811
alamoanahotel.com

She found Okada at the Wynn for me, and the although the look of the restaurant was semi-fusion, I liked the ambiance there. The first thing you see is the wonderful waterfall and koi pond, although I didn’t actually see any koi. Perhaps, they were being fed somewhere. The sound of the waterfall is very relaxing and would be perfect for meditation.

Waterfall

As per my usual test, I ordered the sushi combination dinner as shown below. Although the quantity was low, the quality was very high and the portions were generous, fresh and prepared correctly.

Sushi Dinner - $46

Although the miso soup was a wopping $6, the green tea was free. As readers of this blog knows, the free green tea is the indicator I use to see if a Japanese restaurant is authentic or not.

For desert, I tried the Creme Brulee shown below, which was well prepared and delicious.

Creme Brulee - $4.50

All in all, I can finally say that I found some good sushi in Las Vegas. Yes, it’s a little pricey but that’s expected and as long as you’re not looking for bargains, I recommend a trip here.

3131 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Las Vegas, NV 89109-1967
(702) 770-3320‎

Although, by LA standards, this place is pretty large for a mom-pop type restaurant, by Vegas standards, it’s not that large. However, the first indication about it’s authentic nature was when both the hostess and waitress both spoke Japanese. So far so good.

One thing I did notice was that the restaurant was completely empty. I may have been the only customer there. That’s always a bad sign.

The menu consisted of the usual traditional type dishes, so I ordered Hiya-yakko (cold tofu) to start, and a sushi combination for my dinner.

Hiya Yakko - $5

The tofu was okay, but not great. Nothing wrong with the way it was prepared, but the tofu itself wasn’t fresh.

And below, you can see the low quality of the sushi itself. The tuna was not fresh, and everything was sub-par, including even the egg sushi. In fact, the ginger was even dry, which is a clear indication that they are not busy enough to use up their ginger. But how hard is it to keep your ginger fresh? At least it wasn’t $90, but I’d rather pay more and get good sushi.

So far, I’m batting zero in Vegas for sushi. At least the green tea was free.

Sushi Dinner - $27

Come here for the non-sushi traditional Japanese food. Actually, just skip it.

Hamada of Japan
365 E. Flamingo Rd.
Las Vegas, NV
(702) 733-3005

Upon out waiter’s recommendation, we tried the Sweetbreads, which was prepared perfectly but not a dish that I would try again. There was nothing wrong with it, just not my type of dish.

Sweetbreads - $13

For our main course, we tried the Poutlet Roti. As you can see from the picture below, it looks like a big pile of chicken, which is exactly what it is. As you would expect, it was prepared perfectly, but I’m not sure the ambiance and name makes the price tag worth while. Of course, if you are price conscience, you shouldn’t be coming here.

Poutlet Roti - $59

If you like excellent service, and upscale French bistro and you happen to be in Vegas, check this place out.

3355 Las Vegas Blvd.
S Las Vegas, NV
(702) 414-6200
bouchonbistro.com

Compared to 2007, this year’s WSOP was better organized and seemed to be running a lot smoother. I liked that the 1st day wasn’t a marathon 16 hours, and instead was not even 12 hours (including the 90 minute dinner break). This made the experience more enjoyable and I actually had a lot of fun, unlike in 2007.

During my day off from the tournament, I saw an interesting spherical camera device that was hanging above one of the tournament tables. There was an operator (see the guy in the white hat on the left) that was controlling it using what appeared to be game console controllers. The sphere had multiple camera lenses on it, including one at the bottom (see picture below).

360 degree camera?

I don’t know what this device was but it was not being used at an “important” table so I assume it was some kind of experiment, perhaps by ESPN.

Just like in 2007, I stayed at the Rio for the advantage in the tournament to being closer to it during the breaks. As a matter of fact, I was able to leave the table a couple of minutes before the 20 minute break, get back to my room, order food, go to the bathroom, and still make it back in time. One thing I didn’t know until this year was that I could just ask room service to leave the food in my room even if I wasn’t there in time. This made it a lot easier for me to have my dinner waiting for me in my room.

Something I did this year was to go to the grocery store near the Rio (Food For Less, a few blocks away) and stock up on food to put in the frig in the room. This is a lot cheaper (including the taxi cost) than eating and drinking from the room bar. This was definitely the smart move and I’ll be doing this again next time.

The only thing that was a fail at the Rio was the internet connection, or lack thereof. It was so intermittent, it was basically unusable. I literally spent several hours total over a few days talking to the customer service people for the Internet service.

If that wasn’t bad enough, even the checkout service on the TV was not working properly. As you can see below, I guess the Internet service wasn’t working for the hotel either.

Rio TV

Despite this one glitch, my stay at the Rio was good and I plan on staying there again when I return to the WSOP, hopefully next year.

Poker Armor Sunglasses

Just like in 2007, I had to make a big decision with a medium pocket pair (10s) hoping they had AK, but turned out to be KK in one case, and QQ in another case. Both of these decisions turned out to be my downfall because I didn’t have enough chips to work with after these bad calls. I have to learn to know when to let these hands go.

Doyle Brunson shown here on day 1D

Right after dinner break on day 2, an active player raised, got flat called by the guy next to him, and I decided to put what is called a squeeze play on them with 10-7 suited. The active player quickly folded, but the flat caller went into the tank. After a long time, he called with K-10, which was bad since I didn’t have 2 live cards. Nothing came and I was out of the tournament with a whimper.

Although I didn’t cash like my last outing in 2007, I felt a lot more confident and relaxed. I never felt nervous like the last time, and I felt like I knew what was going on at the table at all times. What a difference 3 years and winning a couple of tournaments make. I really want to go back in 2011, and will probably do more than just one event.