Lucky in Vegas

When I woke up yesterday morning, I had no idea that it would be the day I experienced the best lunch ever. Let me tell you, I have had many lunches. Some of them were darned good. But there can be only one Best Lunch Ever, and I’m sure I already had it. Allow me to set the stage.

I had just completed my speech to 2,000 technology professionals, and I had several hours to kill before my wife’s flight arrived. I decided to take a long walk and stop somewhere for a quick bite. After about 45 minutes of walking, I decided that my hunger and energy curves had crossed, and it was time to pick a pleasant eatery. As luck would have it, I was standing in front of a well-lit, new place that promised to have the variety of food a vegetarian requires. Lucky!

I walked up to the hostess stand and noticed an unusually large number of employees. There must have been thirty servers and only a handful of customers. Vegas was packed with people, yet I could sit wherever I wanted. Lucky!

One of the four hostesses acknowledged my presence, and I said in my most confident, non-loserish voice, “One for lunch.” But she balked, for reasons that were unclear. She looked to the taller hostess for guidance.  The tall one seemed to be some sort of manager. She said, “We’re a new restaurant, and not open to the general public yet. We’re just training the staff today. But if you want, you can eat here. The only catch is that it’s all free.” Lucky!

One of the smaller hostesses showed me to a seat at the bar. I noticed that no one was smoking in this restaurant – a rarity in Vegas. Lucky!

There were about eight bartenders for only four practice customers. The service was terrific. Lucky!

The menu was an abbreviated version, presumably for training reasons, but it had some excellent vegetarian choices. They were delicious. Lucky! And free. Lucky!

There you have it. That was the best lunch I ever had.

Oh, wait, I forgot one thing. The restaurant is the new Hawaiian Tropics restaurant. And all thirty of the servers looked like supermodels, wore bikinis, and acted extra nice to me because their managers were watching. That part was okay too.

Comments

[tech guy]

How can the best lunch ever have been vegetarian?

[Jim Winnie]

I've been to the Hawaiian Tropic, at Planet Hollywood. I was just there on vacation during the hotel's grand opening a couple of weeks ago. My 6 year old son got a beachball from one of the hot waitresses you're referring to. I asked him where he got it and he said "the chick-girl gave it to me." He is my new hero...

[Suzy Pierce]

By the sounds of it, your dreams have already come true! Lucky!
Great work! Laughing is the worlds best medicine!

[Amit]

Lucky.. Fine. Quality.. I doubt. Thinking how can a restaurant really allow you a free lunch? Even if thats just for training? You yourself own few. Would you take some step like that just to train few Hawaiian supermodels? I doubt...

[wauter]

Pulling the ol' Steve Jobs on us eh?

[John]

one time I got lucky on vacation too! I saw a dead badger that looked exactly like a dead rabbit! like, exactly! ...sadly, it turned out to just be a dead rabbit, that looked much less like a dead badger.

http://awritersblock.com

[Gene]

Wife reads the blog finds out about the Hawaiian supermodels - Unlucky!

[Chuck Kreiter]

I was among the technology folks you spoke to and throughly enjoyed your talk. It is a shame it was your last public appearance. Thanks for sharing with us as so many of your Dilbert strips are issues we go through every day in the world of the evil, soulless corporations.

[Davebert]

It was interesting that two of the main blogs i regularly read changed their RSS feeds at about the same time, but in opposite directions.

You might dump the Typepad, and get something else. Take a look at the feeds from www.dooce.com. The blog is their primary source of income, and ad's DO show up in the full RSS feed.

[mnuez]

I'm sure someone else must've mentioned it already but there's zero chance that I'm going to read through all the comments to find it. Of course this leaves me wondering as to why I'm WRITING this, but that too will take too long to figure out. Anyhow -

Since last year's elections no restaurants in Vegas allow smoking. They all fought against this initiative but amazingly (it happens only 1 in every 10 times or so) the true feelings of the people beat the masses of advertising money with the result that you enjoyed yesterday.

mnuez
www.mnuez.blogspot.com

[some dude]

Your karma turns around after a $4 coke into the best lunch in the universe???!!! That's like your karma turning around after a few years of bad work into a 7-figure, 2-hour workday .

Man, would I really want your bad luck.

[Kris]

hey scott...i guess i'm not the only one who's missing the good ol' blog. if it's gone anywhere, i hope it's not for good.

ah and bring back the full rss feed, please! i'd hate to forget about your blog just because it's too much trouble to remember :(

oh and congrats on finding the perfect place to eat at! i guess you won't be seen eating at stacey's that often anymore :D

[brian]

Damn you and your perfect life!!!!!!!

*shakes fist*

[Vishal]

Correction...200 somethingth comment...still a relatively slow day though

[Bruce Harrison]

I won't tell your wife. What happens in Vegas, after all, stays in Vegas.

The best lunch I ever had wasn't free. As a matter of fact, it cost me $3,000. No, it wasn't at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai (that's the one that looks like a sail; it costs you 60 Euros, which is about four million dollars with the present value of the dollar, just to go into it for a look around). A lunch there probably costs about ten times that much.

I should say the lunch only cost me $750, as it was a lunch for four, but since it was my bid at a charity auction, I claim the whole amount. In any case, the lunch was at Chateau St. Jean winery in Kenwood, CA.

We arrived at the winery around 11 AM, and were given a barrel tasting of the upcoming vintages (this was the year that Chateau St. Jean's "Cinq Cepages" was awarded the title of the "number one wine in the world" by Wine Spectator Magazine, so they were pumped!). We tasted all their upcoming vintages, which were fantastic.

With half a buzz on, we received a tour of the mansion in which the winery resides, and then were taken to an ante-room where we began to be served some of the most incredible food I had ever had, accompanied by CSJ wines paired appropriately. We ate until we were ready to burst, thinking this was the lunch -- we were wrong. They then escorted us into the dining room, where we were served the actual lunch -- I had the roast duck, which was absolutely the most incredibly delicious fowl I had ever had. Again, they paired each course with outstanding CSJ wines. The winemaker even joined us, so we had a wonderful discussion about his winemaking techniques.

I don't know who the caterer was, but I've never had a lunch like that, and probably never will again (that was the only year CSJ put anything up for auction). We were overwhelmed with the hospitality, food and wine. The only thing I would have done differently was arranged for a limo -- we were smashed by the time the lunch was over. The nice people at CSJ even allowed us to buy a bottle of the Cinq Cepages that had been selected as world wine #1 -- I still have that bottle of wine -- I haven't had the heart to open it.

I suppose when you finally invite me to the Stacey's you are now managing for one of the many dinners you owe me, you might talk me into bringing that bottle along with me. Of course, you'd have to waive the corkage fee, but you'd get a glass to taste, so it would be worth it. Just let me know when, Scott.

And again, don't worry about me telling your wife about the bikini-clad waitresses. Mum's the word. I promise.

[Ben]

I had a pepsi the other day that cost £2.60, which works out at around $12 these days

[Joshua Jacobsen]

My day so far... Wake up to a dog's fart at 4:00am. Yes... so bad that it woke me up. I search the room for crap, being absolutely certain that a fart can't smell that strong... but don't find any. I let the dogs out for a few minutes, certain that feces are about to pop out of one of them. I lie back in bed. One dog (~ 50 lbs) jumps into bed and lands squarely on my balls. I roll around for about five minutes of agony before the stomach ache kicks in. The dogs start wrestling on my bed, and the big one (~70 lbs) freaks out and bites me on the neck. I kick them out of the bedroom and lock the door. They start barking. I decide to get up. For the first time in 8 years of living in this house, I slip and fall in the shower, gashing my head open. On the way to work, the DJ's are playing each other's favorite CD's, but talk over every single song. As I step out of the elevator on my floor, a coworkers standing next to the elevator, looks at me, frowns, and says "where's the donuts?"

Thanks for your blog. I'm glad that you're having a great day.

[Mark]

Scott,

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your talk Tuesday morning. The comic that you put up about underpants and sandwich bags had me laughing for about 20 minutes straight. I think that's my favorite Dilbert cartoon of all-time.

-Mark

[miles archer]

Damn. I am one of the few thousand technology workers who decided that I had too much fun Wed night to go to another function on Thursday. I'm sorry I missed your presentation, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it.

[Okgenuine]

It's like Highlander. There can be only one.

[jerry w.]

Hey,

Is "Lucky" the word that you used to put me into the trance,

or is it the "Wake-Up" suggestion from my own dream state.

Let me know soon, this semi-induced coma feeling sucks...

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[BobNL]

Well...

I miss the old style blogs. This is so ... family-compatible. The sharp edges are gone. I mean, it is still entertaining to read, but it doesn't make me think about things.

The most satisfying part of blogging was the fact that you could communicate directly and uncensored to your audience. And now your past few posts seem very self-censored to me.

There you go, you just can't please everyone.

Anyway, if I could do it better, I would start my own blog, but since I can't, I won't.

BobNL

[eD]

yeah, right Scott,

I had my BEST drive into WORK this morning too.
Aliens abducted me out of my bed, but they were the good aliens who look just like super models, but just as nekkid as the typical alien.

Then they drove me to work in their ufo, but they drove so fast I got to work yesterday and was able to correct a problem that had been bugging me all night.

Then I bought a lottery ticket (knowing the winning numbers for today) so now I'm a millionaire.

There, top that.

[raj]

that sounds like fiction!

[James]

Meh, it's still a grazer resturant.