International Pizza Expo
The reason we were in Las Vegas was to attend the International Pizza Expo, the annual conclave of pizza store owners and the people who sell to them.
The trade show actually runs 4 days, and includes many excellent seminars and classes to improve the way you run your business and increase the bottom line.
We went just for the exposition–the trade show with hundreds of booths selling everything from huge automated pizza ovens to magnetic advertising signs to frozen pizza dough. There were many point of sale computer systems, people selling kitchenware, a few massage booths for the footsore, tiny craft beer manufacturers and huge cheese conglomerates.
We walked for miles, up and down the rows, looking for a few specific items but mostly trying to keep our minds open to new ideas and possibilities.
After hours of purposeful trudging, we left with a bag full of swag (I even scored the rare and valuable Tabasco Apron), tired legs and plenty of things to thing about and implement to make Fat Slice run better.
Here is a gallery of photos of the fun and variety of the Pizza Expo.Click on the photos to see them larger.
This could be dicey
I left Dallas and flew to Las Vegas, checking in at the Las Vegas Hotel.
FIRST: This isn’t a complaint about the League tournament planners, especially Wendy. Contracts are signed years in advance, and I think this hotel has plummeted very recently. I expect that she will do everything she can to improve the situation before July.
NOW: This used to be the Las Vegas Hilton, but the clerk at the front desk told me the Hilton dumped them and ran away the moment their contract was up. I’m starting to see why.
We’ve all been here before–I can recall at least 3 NABC’s in this same hotel. Remember how the place used to be? Well, not a damn thing has changed–and I don’t mean that in a good way. The elevators were slow and insufficient 20 years ago, and they haven’t gotten any faster or more plentiful.
The first bad sign was the front desk. Besides the fact that there was a long line to check in and too few room clerks to do the job, the staff just doesn’t look good. Most hotels keep the front desk staff in natty suits; these people looked like they were hanging around the bus station this morning, got an LVH tee-shirt to wear and were put to work. Not a good first impression at all.
I got a room in the center tower, which is a bad thing. They offered me a “renovated” room for $20/night more, but we’re only here for one night and I’m cheap. When I saw the rooms (we have 2, Kate and Brad are on this trip too), I changed my mind and asked for the better rooms but was told the hotel is sold out and there are no more rooms. When you can’t even pay for an upgrade things they must be jammed.
Finding the elevators on the ground floor is difficult, finding the room on the 20th floor was a maze worthy of B. F. Skinner. Then I got there, and the adventure kicked into high gear:
Your basic room. Notice the light not working over the bed on the left.
The room is plain. The beds are old, the carpet is ancient, the furniture was on the Ark.
Sterile is supposed to refer to the sanitation, not the decor. The dark area to the left is the toilet/bath–the light is on, it just isn’t very bright.
The bath has minimal amenities. There is a blow dryer, iron and ironing board in the closet.
Functional but not pretty. At least there are 4 bath towels,
The TP is thin and cheap–but it isn’t any worse than I had yesterday at the Sheraton in Dallas. The toilet/bath area is also exceptionally dark–there is one tiny, under powered light. It looks like there used to be a retractable clothes line over the tub but it has been removed and the holes in the tile patched.
Wallpaper peeling away next to the tub. That grout looks pretty groady, too.
The housekeeping isn’t anything to speak of–I found these behind a chair while I was scouting for an electrical outlet.
Not quite my style. Or size.
I also found a plastic stencil one might use to draw on eyebrows, carelessly dropped on the floor and not found by the maid. . I wouldn’t have know what it was for if it didn’t say “Savvy Beautiful Brows” on it.
A man I was speaking to in the elevator said his room hadn’t seen a maid in 2 days.
Times have changed and this hotel hasn’t. There are nowhere near enough outlets for your computer, iPad, phone charger, etc.
Internet service is $14/day, and for only 1 connection. The Sheraton allowed 3 connections, the Hyatt in Phoenix allowed 5. The service is very slow. Download speed is 0.8 mps, upload is 0.3. My phone is faster than that.
There was a woman in the gift shop searching for a toothbrush. I said that most hotels would provide those, but she had called and was told “we don’t do that anymore”. Neither of our rooms smell great, and one is pretty poor. I found a maid and asked for some air freshener, but she said I had to call downstairs, they don’t give her any for her cart.
There are 3 towers here–Central, North and East. The front desk told me that the North and East towers had been renovated, but that renovation for the Central tower was “on hold”. I don’t like the sound of that word–it isn’t like Vegas is hurting, the joint is sold out on Wednesday night. There are at least 3 conventions in the place today, and they are still pinching pennies. I was not able to see a renovated room, but I don’t think they are remodeled, just some new curtains and beds.
[I just looked up to see what was blowing in the air conditioned breeze and it’s the tatters of the curtains. The sheers have been removed completely but the tracks are still there on the ceiling.]
These belong in the Bates Motel, not a supposedly 4 star resort hotel
Just looked at the coffee maker–the cups with the coffee pods are sealed. It costs you $3.50 for every cup you open. That’s dreadful, and I don’t even drink cofffee.
For this price I want a barista to come to my room and brew it.
Spending 11 days here in July might be an adventure. I suppose they will charge more for the renovated rooms, but it will probably be worth it. On the other hand, I doubt that they are significantly remodeling, so bring an extension cord and power strip. Consider getting a mobile internet device–it will be cheaper and faster than the pig slow service they offer here. Don’t lose your toothbrush. Bring your own air freshener and coffee maker. If you really want a first class hotel, this isn’t it. The MGM Grand is at the other end of the light rail, the Venetian is in between. I’d consider them.
Wrapping up
Packing to leave, but yesterday was too eventful not to mention.
I played with Sally Woolsey, who is just delightful. We had a decent first game and a not so decent second game. Mike and Linda are in the National Mixed Pairs, had two good games and qualified for the finals.
Bob Etter gets a ton of accolades for coming over to me at the start of the second session and saying he thought I had mis-scored one board against him in the afternoon–I played 2♠ and scored it as making 2 (110 points) but had really made 3 (140 points). He insisted that I tell the director to make the change, which lowered his afternoon score and raise us by almost 1%, so we placed a bit higher and scored a few fractions of a masterpoint more. Bob has always been a decent and honorable guy; this is just further proof.
Dinner was exceptional. Sally was afraid of the cold, so it was just me with Micky and Linda. We went to the Dallas Fish Market. The menu is fish, obviously, with a raw bar and a sushi bar as well as full entrees and, this being Texas, some big slabs of beef.
The staff brought over the amuse, and it was a devilled egg just like at the Dallas Chop House–yes, they have the same owner. Except at the Fish Market there is no glass of sparking wine and the egg doesn’t have the white truffle. Prices here are better, too.
I ordered a salad and sushi, the Bandlers both had more traditional entrees. Luck prevailed when the the waitress came to tell us that the hot dishes were ready but the sushi wasn’t–they didn’t want to serve only the two of them, but they didn’t want the food to get cold, either. Would I accept a complimentary bowl of the lobster bisque? Why yes, indeed I would. Turned out to be the very best lobster bisque I have ever had the pleasure of slurping down.
Then my sushi came. I have complained about both high prices (Dallas Chop House) and tiny portions (Porta di Roma) on this trip, and saw the complete reverse here. My meal was a “Bama Roll” (crab and tuna) for $10 and a “White Russian Roll” (yellow tail, crab and escolar) priced at $14. Not only were they spectacularly good, albeit the Bama Roll is quite spicy, but the portions were enormous.
I’m not a guy who leaves much on the plate, but I was begging Mike and Linda to have some because I just couldn’t finish it all. This very excellent sushi, served in a beautiful modern facility in the high rent district, was actually cheaper than what I get at my local grocery store to take to bridge on Tuesdays and easily the biggest bargain I’ve ever seen in fine dining.
Micky and Linda went exploring after dinner, so I was walking back alone, stuffed and sated, and lazily decided to take a cab when one stopped right in front of me. Another adventure–I noticed that the driver didn’t cancel out the last passenger from the meter, just let it run. So when we got back to the Sheraton, he wanted $7.75 for the half mile ride. I wasn’t having any of that, gave him a fin and walked away. I guess I look like a rube.
Dallas has been fun. I won a little, lost a few, ate some very good food and some not so good food and always had fun with my friends from around the country. The Sheraton is an old hotel badly in need of renovation but the internet is free if you join their affinity program.
Now I’m off to Las Vegas to meet Gail, Kate and Brad and go to a pizza trade show. We’re staying at the Las Vegas Hotel, which used to be the Las Vegas Hilton–right where the next NABC will be in July. Doesn’t everyone want to go to Vegas in the 109° summer?
Keeping the options open
Just because you have a plan doesn’t mean it will happen. It’s best to stay flexible.
We planned to win the compact KO today, but lost the first match so the plans for the rest of the day went out the window. In a compact, the matches are only half of a session, so we still had one more utterly meaningless match to play, which we managed to win because the other team cared even less than we did.
Mike would have stayed and played in the evening loser Swiss if I had really wanted to, but it seemed silly to make him hang around for 3 1/2 hours just to play in an irrelevant side game when he could be spending the evening with the kids and grandkids here in Dallas, so I told him to get out there and enjoy himself. I left our teammates to find another pair or play pairs, and thought I would go visit the Nasher Sculpture Center. Good thing I checked it out online–they are closed on Monday. Another plan dashed.
Monday at a NABC is Goodwill day, so my next idea was to go to the Goodwill Reception. Maybe I could make dinner out of the appetizers they would serve. Getting there late, I missed out on the good food but was honored to be there to give a standing ovation to Kitty Gottfried, a woman who has been a faithful friend of the game for ages, always there to do what is needed. She is tiny, less than 5 feet tall, 87 years old and in very very frail health. Her son flew from Chicago to DC to pick her up and bring her to Dallas for the ceremony, where she was so overcome with emotion she couldn’t even face the adoring throng while she got her award. Being able to stand and give her the ovation she so richly deserves was an honor.
After the Goodwill meeting, I met up with Richard Meffley, a stalwart of the Fresno Unit who has been my friend since we were freshmen in the dormitories of UC Davis. We walked around downtown Dallas, noticing the huge First Baptist complex with buildings old and new covering an entire city block.
I had been talking with a friend at the Goodwill meeting, and she recommended a restaurant called The Woolworth right next to the giant eyeball, so we headed in that direction. In what had become a theme for the day, they were closed on Monday.
I’m getting pretty good at shifting gears by this time, so we decided to eat at Campisi’s, which has been providing Italian food around here since 1946. We got a great table outside, listened to the piped in Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet and enjoyed a simple meal of salad and pasta–I had the angel hair with olive oil and garlic and a link of sausage, Richard had the lasagna.
Campisi’s solved the issues I’ve had at two other eateries this trip–the portions were generous and the prices were dirt cheap. My dinner came to $20 flat, and that included a decent tip–I felt sorry for the waiter, he can’t make much with food that cheap.
We didn’t have dessert because there is a gelato place right next door, where we planned (that word again) to get a cone to enjoy on the walk back. You guessed it–they closed while we were eating.
I gave up. No more planning. Back to the hotel, cower in my room and wait for the tomorrow to come.
Sunday night
When I’m away at a tournament, I expect to write something every day about the game, the city, the food, the entire experience.
Some days, though, the words just don’t come well. Today started slow and tapered off. The kind of day when I’m in the shower, realize I don’t have my new can of shave cream, so I get out of the shower, notice my new toothbrush, get the toothpaste out my travel kit, get back in the shower and realize I still don’t have the shave cream.
We played in the Silver Ribbon Pairs today, a national championship for old folks, except that everyone in the ACBL is an old folk. It isn’t a really prestigious event, since it starts against the third day of a real championship, the Platinum Pairs and just before the Vanderbilt teams, so none of the really great players are involved. It’s still important enough that I’d be ecstatic to qualify for the second day and hysterical if we placed.
Which won’t be an issue because our first round was pretty poor and the second round was just a tiny bit above average and that isn’t enough. Tomorrow we’ll play in a compact KO with friends from home.
Of course there was dinner between sessions, and that wasn’t much to write home about, either.
We went to a place called Iron Cactus, because I thought if you’re in Texas you should eat Tex-Mex. I suppose the really great places are low-class dives with great food. This was a fancy joint with bland, touristy food, neither Tex nor Mex. I tasted like it was planned in the corporate office in Keokuk Iowa.
They also committed what I consider to be the great sin of table service–we were just starting to enjoy, sort of, our first course (I had the tortilla soup, Mike had a salad) and they brought the entrees.
On a less grumpy day perhaps I’d be nicer, but today I just had to ask if we weren’t eating fast enough for the restaurant. Are they really trying to turn the tables that quickly? Do they want to get rid of us already?
Tonight, I was not a big tipper.
Capping off a non-perfect day, I wandered up to the ACBL President’s suite, to cadge a glass of Bailey’s and some guacamole and chips. Except that tonight the suite was reserved for the Patron Members reception, and I have dropped my Patron Membership, so it wouldn’t be right for me to horn in on the goodies.
Instead, I came back to my room, typed up a pouty and cranky blog post, and now I’ll hit the sack and hope tomorrow will be better.
I promise to remember that good bridge or bad, great food or mediocre, I’m still enjoying being at a NABC and living a very privileged existence. Life is good.
Missed it by that much
Not me. I missed it by a mile. Our first two boards this afternoon were both disasters–very good opponents bid a cold slam and a cold game that others didn’t. We were down 14 imps right off the bat, through no fault of our own, and it went downhill from there.
The ones who were close were Don and Linda. They had two good games today, and ended up less than 2 imps out of the overalls. Don hit the overalls a few years ago with Mike, and had grand hopes of doing it again with the better looking Bandler, but it was not to be. Quelle domage. At least we got to play the finals of a national event, and that’s an honor all by itself.
Dinner was a highlight at least. We went to the Dallas Chop House, a very high class beef joint just 4 blocks away. I knew it was classy when I saw a banquet table with one of the big, rich clients, her team and their spouses. We were definitely in the tall cotton.
Lots of fine restaurants begin by bringing the diners an amuse bouche, a little gift to brighten the event. I’ve never gotten a glass of sparkling wine, too.
Sparkling New Mexico wine and a white truffle devilled egg with caviar
I don’t know about the wine, but the egg was phenomenal. Where they find white truffles this time of year I can’t imagine, I just know I appreciate it.
After the amuse, we were served marvelous, fresh popovers with rosemary butter. It reminded me of The Rotunda at Neiman Marcus–and that may not be a coincidence. Neiman Marcus is across the street.
Instead of a salad, I had the tenderloin tartare. This could easily have been an entree:
As upscale as hamburger gets.
Raw chopped tenderloin of prime beef, a quail egg, chives, capers and Dijon mustard. It was great, and the only affordable beef on the menu. I’m not capable of spending $52 for a rib eye steak.
Instead, I opted for the scallops, served with sweet potato puree, vanilla braised fennel, charred pineapple and “chili strings”.
The scallop dinner
Linda had the same thing. We both liked it, but she didn’t care for the fennel and didn’t think it fit with the rest of the plate.
Those tiny red things are the chili strings. They have no flavor that we could discern and seemed more like stiff dental floss.
Back to salads–Linda had the roasted beet salad. The beets were intriguing–we’ve never seen anything quite like them.
Very interesting treatment of the beets.
The service was very, very good. There were so many staff taking immediate care of our every tiny need, it made me wonder if Texas is one of those states where the minimum wage is as low as $2.30 an hour for employees who get tips. In any case, I made sure to tip well.
Tomorrow Mike and I start the Silver Ribbon Pairs. Wish us luck.
Q at last, Q at last, Praise God almighty we Q’d at last
That’s us, with a great big Q by our names.
I couldn’t tell you how many times Mike and I have flown halfway or more across the country in March to play the IMP pairs and not made the cut. It feels like dozens. But not today!!
We were plus 3.5 imps in the first session, and plus 20 in the second session so we not only qualified but with a decent carryover; we have a decent chance of placing in the overalls tomorrow.
Linda B. played with Don Mamula and they had a great first session and a so-so second session, meaning they will be in the finals tomorrow as well.
Dinner was at some pretty second rate Italian joint named Porta di Roma. The food, what there was of it, was mediocre. The portions were miniscule. They don’t have any decent sweetener for the iced tea. If you’re in Dallas, eat somewhere else. You might even try Lee Harvey’s. Yep, there’s a bar in this burg named after the assassin of JFK. No, I don’t understand it. I guess it’s popular with the Tea Party; I don’t think I’ll be going there.
Out for a walk last night, I saw this:
A monument to the NSA perhaps?
A vacant lot, completely fenced in, with a nice lawn and a 25 foot high eyeball. No signs that I could see explaining it. Just art for its own sake, I guess.
Wonderful Wendy Sullivan put on a spectacular opening reception this evening, which is why I’m typing so late. I’m not one to pass up an opportunity to dance, I even had my “Born to Dance” suspenders on all day. I could live without the bar soaking me $4.50 for a Diet Coke, but that’s the hotel, not the league. The music was wonderful. I told Wendy to just send a wheelchair up to my room in the morning because my knee will probably be complaining–and it was worth it.
Living the high life
Dallas is flat. Real flat. Flat like a dead pancake, flat like a month old glass of soda.
And the downtown closes up shop at 6 pm. There is just nothing going on in this area. I went out for a walk and to find something to eat to be met with a void that not even Stephen Hawking could explain.
Finally, in the bowels of an enormous office complex, with a fabulous 15 story atrium, I found three pitiful tiny fast food joints, and decided on my exquisite gourmet repast for the evening.
Can’t get any finer than this.
I wanted the original recipe, but they didn’t have any more dark meat, so I got the extra crispy. It’s that kind of on-the-spot decision making that exemplifies a great bridge player.
The Colonel’s biscuits have always been a great part of the food, but the bean counters have gotten into the cookbook and cut costs:
Even Mrs. Butterworth would be ashamed of this.
Diet Pepsi is $3.01 in the gift store but Diet Coke is $2.00 in the vending machine. Tomorrow I hope to find a drug store and get a 12 pack for something more reasonable.
Having ingested my upscale dinner, it about time to wander downstairs and kibbitz. No partner tonight–Mike is with his family in the ‘burbs. I’ll just socialize and try to learn a thing or two. Probably will need that this week…….
I think this will be huge.
I just arrived in Dallas for the Spring nationals. Checking in at the Sheraton, I find the longest line I have ever seen in my life to get a room. I hope I don’t end up in a manger with two sheep and a cow
I’m scheduled for four days playing with Micky, Linda is playing with our friend Don Mamula. Then I hope to have one day playing with Sally Woolsey if her husband Kit stays in the Vanderbilt.
After that, I head to Las Vegas to meet Gail for a pizza convention. This should be a busy and exciting week, stay tuned.
Lunch at Al the Wop’s
When it’s a perfectly perfect spring day, what better than to put the top down and go cruising in the delta?
We motored on up to the historic city of Locke, about an hour’s drive from Lafayette. Locke was created by immigrant Chinese just after the gold rush: that’s when the levees were created to reclaim fertile farmland from the waters of the American river.
Main Street in Locke, mostly unchanged in a century
The proverbial other side of the street
Riding atop the levees on a warm day is just a joy, and if it’s nice in a convertible, it’s fabulous on a motorcycle, which explains why you see some many of them. These aren’t the rat bikes the Hell’s Angels rode, nasty retired CHP bikes that you could pick up for a few hundred dollars, strip down, modify and roar around town. No, what you mostly see are brand new $30,000+ Harleys, covered in chrome and embossed leather and driven by rich guys who want to seem like tough guys.
As the motorcycle gang becomes more like the Kiwanis.
The place to eat, to see and be seen, the hot spot in town, is Al the Wop’s.
It isn’t hard to find
Okay, it isn’t a chic boite, it’s a bar, and a dive bar at that. The music is loud, the customers are louder, the bar stools are worn and the place is famous for offering grilled bread served with Jif peanut butter and a jar of jelly, make your own sandwich. They do seem to be trying, in a spirit of political correctness, to change the name to Al’s Place.
Al’s also serves steaks, and burgers. Gail and I had burgers, which seemed appropriate for a Saturday afternoon. They come on the same huge, thick slabs of grilled bread, accompanied by fries overcooked in oil that needed changing 3000 miles ago.
The burger was good, the fries not so much.
Being one of those boring non-drinkers, I don’t spend much time in bars, but I think this is one of the good ones.
This is what a bar is supposed to look like, I think.
It continues
Even the ceiling is appropriate. I don’t know how they get those dollars up there, or why.
The entire ceiling is covered with money. How do we get people to do this at our house?
Even the bartender (who may well be the boss) looks the part:
Bubba, the bartender. You just knew he would be named Bubba, didn’t you?
Besides Al’s, Main street has a couple of antique stores, two museums of the Chinese history of the area, a Chinese medicine office, and empty storefronts. It’s more than sleepy, it’s comatose. One of the antique stores had a “back at 3” sign out, except it was almost 4. If you aren’t open on Saturday afternoon in Locke, there’s no point in ever being open.
Leaving Locke, we motored north on Hwy. 160 towards Sacramento. We passed through Courtland, and noticed this building:
Some old bank.
An amazingly incongruous building in the middle of nowhere, towering over the miniscule burg of Courtland.
This part of the delta is pear country–we passed miles and miles of the gnarled trees, bursting out in unseasonable bloom. Gail, the classic farmers daughter, kept wondering why we saw blooms but not leaves on the trees–an observation that would have escaped me entirely.
Well, it turns out that if you want to know something local, find an old man walking his dog and make sure you have the time to listen. We were very fortunate to stop and ask this man about the state of the world, and pear trees.
Walking wisdom, with blooming pear trees behind him.
The answer seems to be global warming–it’s so warm out that the pear trees are in blossom before they are ready to open their leaves. We learned about the “tunnels”, the latest scheme to take water from the delta and give it to southern Cal. It isn’t popular in the area–there is water in the delta is already unacceptably salty in too many areas, and shipping more water south will perniciously worsen the situation.
Back to the pear trees: here’s a photo where you can just see a couple of leaves trying to unfold which the blossoms are already full:
Too much blossom, too few leaves.
After all that adventure, we cut over the Interstate 5 south, then took highway 4 and Marsh Creek Road home. A great big circle with only a short jaunt on the freeway, the whole trip was about 4.5 hours. Not exactly an adventure in Cuba or Ethiopia, but a wonderful, interesting, educational and tasty way to spend Saturday. Go see for yourself. Tell Bubba I sent you.
Totally Unauthorized 