Part I: Michael Minas -- Las Vegas

My trip to Las Vegas with Shelley was incredible. The sites, the shows and the food. The best food I had was by far at Michael Minas at the Bellagio. I was having a seriously hard time selecting what to eat, so I finally settled on the "cookbook" tasting menu.

It starts out with a tuna tartare appetizer. I love ahi tuna, so I am easy to please on this dish. The tune was a beautiful rich red and it was diced and formed into a circle. It is served with a raw quail egg on top that looked delicious, but the server could not assure me that it was organic, so I had it removed. The description did not say anything about a quail egg, so that did surprise me. The tuna was served with roasted pine nuts, diced garlic and mint on the side, which the server mixed together table side. I enjoyed the crunch of the pine nuts contrasted with the tender tune squares. I must admit that I was hoping for something special from the mint, but I could not taste it. I have had tuna tartare dishes that I have enjoyed more with light fruity vinaigrettes and crunchy salad greens, but like I said, I am easy to please with tuna tartare and I was pleased with this starter.

The lobster pot pie served next was a successful experiment in decadent comfort food. A golden brown flaky crust topped a ramekin filled with tender lobster, black truffles, fingerling potatoes and a bit of spinach. I was worried the lobster would be tough. How can lobster be properly cooked in a pot pie? Well, ask Michael Minas, he knows how. I used my fork and knife to cut the lobster meat into bite size pieces, but then employed my spoon with each bite to scoop up the light cream sauce infused with the rich flavor of black truffles.

The miso black cod was perfectly cooked. The cut of the fish was tall, and I believe it was poached in the miso broth. The miso broth had long slender baby mushrooms. The menu said it would contain shrimp raviolini, but fortunately it did not. As I cut the cod, the moist white flakes would fall into the miso broth below and create what I thought was an elegantly simple combination of flavors. I would have been content if the meal had ended with the third course, but only because I did not know how good the fourth course would be.

A kobe beef ribeye medallion topped with foie gras?! What a treat. A friend I was dining with was a little hesitant to eat "duck liver." So I told him it was not duck liver, it was "duck caramel." I knew he would enjoy this combination, so I encouraged him to cut a slice of steak and foie gras, but to say in his mind "duck caramel" as he put it in his mouth. "Wow, this is really good," was his reply. And it was. The lightly braised "duck caramel" over rare kobe beef fused together into a melt-in-your-mouth meat opiate.

The dessert trio was very good, but ordinary. The root bear float with sassafras ice cream was a slight sophistication on the original; the coconut cheesecake was cheesecake with a nice flavor and texture, but nothing spectacular; and the chocolate cake with caramel ice cream was delicious, but ordinary. The three desserts were not really paired to accentuate or play on each other's flavors. It was just a sampling of well done, but not spectacular desserts.

The service was fabulous. We were dotted on by our waiter (who cheerfully answered all of our questions and added suggestions) and an array of servers who delivered our dishes with excellent timing and made sure our glasses were full and our needs met.

The restaurant is very expensive, but it was a great dining experience that I would recommend.

Cool Guy Chords

So I have been taking guitar lessons lately. I really like it. In fact, I have been practicing my chords when ever I have free time and I can no longer feel with the tips of the fingers on my left hand. The chords seem pretty tough to master. Moving two, three or even four fingers to different configurations on the frets of the guitar in sync with the beat or strum pattern of the song -- brutal! My teacher kept telling me that it would soon be done through muscle memory -- no more difficult than picking up a pencil properly to write a note. So this week at practice I did pretty good. I was playing "Knocking On Heaven's Door" by Mr. Dylan -- G G D D Am Am Am Am G G D D C C C C. I am strumming and you can even recognize the song. So, now I was feeling pretty good and ready to move on. Right?

The teacher says I can pick some songs and he will write the music down for me to practice. We listen to Ordinary World by Duran Duran, Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down, Good Riddance by Green Day. Turns out these guys don't play traditional chords. You know, the ones I have created muscle memory for and have calluses on my finger tips to prove it.

They play "cool guy" chords (what my teacher calls them). What does that mean? Well basically it means that they don't play the third note in the chord, i.e., the ring finger. The finger that is totally retarded and does not like to do anything unless the middle finger does it too. The finger I have been struggling with all month. Cool guys don't use it. Oh, and if you don't use it, it appears that it gives your guitar playing a more "wild" sound.

So all the songs my teacher wrote down for me to play, don't work with the chords in MY muscle memory. Somehow after battling with my ring finger to do more than just hold my wedding ring, I am now suppose train it to stay home when we play the "cool guy" chords. Wasn't it obvious from the beginning that I was only going to want to play the cool guy chords. Sheesh!

And don't even get me started about Black Sabbath. I asked if I could play Iron Man, and he said that their guitarist didn't play a guitar that was tuned traditionally. He said that the rest of the bank must have tuned their instruments to his lead guitar. Appears to be a progression from cool guy chords that bread a few rules to the bad boy chords that have no rules. Which, of course, makes me want to learn the bad boy chords even more. Rock on!

Learning to Make Your Own Graphic BLING

I have been reading Seth Godin's blog. Marketing has always seemed like Voodoo to me. So not only does he put up interesting and useful stuff, but I feel like he is beginning to demystify marketing for me. Especially, internet marketing.

Today's post I thought was particularly interesting because many of us are trying blogging or other internet ventures and I notice that everyone wants to add "BLING" to their site. Well Seth has put together a reading list for do it youself graphic BLING BLING. Check it out @ http://www.squidoo.com/become-a-really-good-graphic-designer.

The Silmarillion

I found a used paper back copy of the The Silmarillion and I could not resist buying it. It is a collection of some tales that J.R.R. Tolkein had never finished and that his son published posthumously. Apparently, Tolkein had written these stories first beginning in the early 1919 and had presented them for publication, but had been refused. After reading them, I must say that their greatest value was that Tolkein already had developed this entire Middle-Earth when he went on to write The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and could draw on this deep historical context when giving birth to his new works.

For fans of The Lord of the Rings series, The Simarillion is definitely worth the read for a better understanding of what is going on between the characters and races and the historic precedent of the areas in Middle-Earth. Some of the tales are very interesting and captivating. Don't get me wrong, there are some wonderful parts such as the creation of Ea (the World) and how it was sung into being and the tales of Hurin. But even with a map of Middle-Earth and a table of Elvish words, sometimes it was just hard to follow the who, what and where.

That said, I did learn the some cool facts:

• Who and what Sauron was


• Who was the Balrog Gandolf fights in Moria


• Who made the 3, 7 and 9 rings (we already new who made the 1 ring to rule them all)


• Why Aragorn lives longer than other mortals


• Why Aragorn's crest is a white tree


• Why Elrond was leaving Middle Earth


• How Elrond, Arwen and Aragorn are all related (Aragorn is Elrond's nephew (just like 50 generations removed)


• Who Gandolf and Saruman are and where they came from


• And just a better general understanding of who built what and lived where

So if you are a Tolkein fan, it is a fun read without taking on the entire 12-volume history of Middle-Earth. It has some shining moments, but is more like background reading than a classic Tolkein epic.

So there you go. I think it was worth the $6.99 I paid for it and was good reading for my BART rides.