Because I was born and raised in Los Angeles it was only natural that Las Vegas became my second home. In 2003 I came for a weekend and stayed for a year—producing the “Night Tribe” show at the Rio Hotel and Casino—I love Vegas. So, when my writing career went on to encompass blogging, I started downtownster.com, I was sure that the next city after LA that I’d be blogging in would be Vegas Baby!

Now every good blog needs some regular characters, so let me take this opportunity to introduce Carlos Harper. I met Carlos when he was a young fellow working at the Rio’s pool. He was arguably the best pool guy at the Rio, which meant I was sure to recruit him to do some promoting for “Night Tribe”—he was good at promoting as well. Carlos went on to college, graduated, worked in real estate, and became a VIP host with Pure Group—a star on the rise. As you can imagine he knows Vegas and even though I used to be the boss I’ve come to rely on him to keep me up on what’s going in this great town.

The call went something like this:

“Hey little brother, you up for lunch?” I asked driving towards Desert Inn.

“Sure, where do you feel like going?” he responded.

“Up to you. But first stop Starbucks.”

“Have you ever been to Society?”

“No. Where is it?”

“At Encore. Trust me you’re going to like it.”

“Starbucks?”

“Meet me at Las Vegas Blvd. and Blue Diamond.”

Two cappuccinos in my blood, the top down, and Carlos riding shotgun I was on my way to Encore, which is one of my favorite hotels in the world—particularly the Eastside Lounge.

Funny enough I had noticed Society when I was at Encore’s opening, I thought it was going to be a 24/7 café. As it turned out, it’s not, and upon entering with Carlos I noticed that they added a bar.

 “Mark, this is my friend Stan, he’s the writer I told you about,” Carlos said, introducing me to his friend Mark Steele who happens to be the Assistant General Manager… I remembered seeing Mark around when he worked for Pure…I might have even met him at the Grand Opening, but couldn’t remember for sure, which given the bottle of Blue Label I drank that night, is understandable.

Mark sat us at a prime table in the bar area and the bar itself does really add something to the place—a kind of excitement. Frankly, when I was at the opening I remember thinking that it might look a little high end to just be a café, so the bar is a good move.

“You have to try our Mojito—we have five different types.”

“I’ll take one of each.” Carlos gave me that look. “Just make that one,” I said changing my order to something more respectable.

Let me put this simply: go to Society and order the Strawberry Mojito. I could have put down four or five, but since I was on my best behavior I just drank one…and then finished off Carlos’s pineapple version, which was also a winner.

The Mac & Cheese Ball appetizer went perfectly with the Mojito. And the chopped salad was light and tasty—I ordered mine without turkey. As for the entrée, I had it on good word that Steve Wynn eats the Fish ‘n’ Chips, and I had just written a blog that singled out Fleming’s at LA Live and Chaya Downtown as having the worst Fish ‘n’ Chips I’ve ever eaten. If you browse the dining section onhttp://www.downtownster.com you can read this review for yourself. But to put it succinctly I stated that OPEC had to increase production to compensate for the amount of oil that went into these foul tasting things. So, on a quest for good Fish ‘n’ Chips I ordered.

A nice size portion landed on the table, enough for two people to share—and were clearly made on premise. I liked that they used a high quality Halibut, there was so little oil that they almost appeared to be baked. I asked Mark about this and he explained that they bread the fish and flash-fry it, them bread it and fry it again, which keeps the oiliness to a minimum. Hey I’m sold. I ended with a cappuccino made from a special blend of beans roasted in Seattle for Society. Now if they would just leave this place open 24 / 7 I’d be a happy man.

Blew out of Encore and headed back down to Starbucks. Ran into Dean from Elite Realty, but that’s another story.

<Click Here: To Buy Books By Stan Lerner> 

Enter: Jessie “James Super VIP Host” Gibson now known to all from my previous blog “Tao”…If you haven’t read the back story you’re not getting the full benefit of my debauchery—and I sacrifice for you / your reading pleasure.

“Let’s meet up at the Country Club at Wynn,” said Jessie “James Super VIP Host” Gibson. “You’re going to like it, it has a great view…And I spend my whole life in hotels and clubs, so I can use a view of the outdoors.”

“I’m on my way. Oh, and I’d like to schedule some time with Roberto “Chef Dos Caminos” Hernandez to talk about Dos Caminos and his whole chef story.

“He’s sitting here with Roxy and Armando,” replied Jessie “James Super VIP Host” Gibson, satisfied to have anticipated my desire to get to know the destined for greatness young chef. Discovering great things and great, talented people is my thing. It doesn’t pay cash, but it makes me a happy person.

The outside tables had all been taken, the weather in Vegas is gorgeous this time of year, and Jessie “James VIP Host” Gibson, his sidekick from LA whose name I can never remember but he knows a bunch of people or something, Roberto “Chef Dos Caminos” Hernandez, Roxy, and Fat Andy, who I brought along to keep me company, all sat in a large round table in the far corner. But of course there is no table far enough to keep a group like this from clearing the place.

I should mention here that Roxy is attractive, not textbook attractive like most of the girls I sleep with, but there is that something special about her. And she is way smarter than the average person. And her wit, though not quick as mine, but whose is, her wit is keen. And I like that. So when she said to Fat Andy, “I want to teach second grade, but I don’t think I want to have kids.” I said, “You’ll change your mind about that once you get to know me.” She retorted, “I’ve changed my mind already.” Jessie “James Super VIP Host” Gibson’s friend whose name I can never remember with a sweeping motion of his arm cleared the dishes to the floor. “Just go for it!” And for a moment I seriously contemplated having intercourse with Roxy on the table. But then it dawned on my that she was probably just kidding about having my children, which made for a good laugh for all…And some explaining about the dishes—the old allergic reaction excuse came quickly to my tongue.

“Have any of you accidentally smoked PCP?” I asked, a little too loudly. This cleared out the nice family at the table next to us. And I imagine by now you’re getting that this was a zany fun lunch. In fact so zany and fun I forgot to order and had to settle for eating everyone’s left over French fries before leaving. The food looked great. And even though I might possibly be a little in the doghouse at the Wynn these days everyone should do lunch at the Country Club at least once.

With lunch at an end, and this is really funny, Jessie “James Super VIP Host” Gibson, having to go throw up—the night before of drinking with me at Tao had caught up. His friend texting some girl, like a girl, I managed to talk Roberto “Chef Dos Caminos” and Roxy into going to Don Vicente’s Cigar factory (624 Las Vegas Blvd.). Roxy attempted to smoke her first cigar and Roberto “Chef Dos Caminos” Hernandez was a perfect fit with my boys Downtown. And there is a responsibility incumbent on old school Vegas veterans such as this humble writer to properly educate the next generation.

Wow, I’m not going to fit the whole weekend into one blog…This has just occurred to me and I like the idea of including my readers in a real time artistic decision so I’ll just keep this blog to Prive Las Vegas.

I sat at the bar of Strip Steakhouse drinking alone, waiting for Jessie “James Super VIP Host” to arrive with the rest of the gang, all of whom were already feeling the effects of hanging out with me in Vegas—an experience that should be sold for big money. But I like drinking alone, so this was a good thing…The three girls at the end of the bar were spectacular. And when I say spectacular, you know I mean SPECTACULAR! Of course a bit later Jessie “James Super VIP Host” informed me that they were the three stars of “Peep Show”. This was just after introducing me to Joe “VP” Eustice. Joe’s a great guy and I’m always appreciative of executives who have a sense of humor about my antics. At some point I’ll write about what an improvement Planet Hollywood is over the former Aladdin.

But what I have to say as time runs short and word count runs long is that Prive Las Vegas is a huge, huge improvement over Curve—the club that formerly occupied this space. And while Prive Las Vegas is not a brand new club, a lot of Vegas veterans, like yours truly, just haven’t gone to see what they’ve done with the place—this is a mistake. Prive Las Vegas is not a reprocessed Curve as I had assumed, it really is a new and redesigned space, so my bad for not going a long time ago. Also, I should mention for people in the know that while Prive Las Vegas had been shut down by the powers that be for being lax with respect to some security / patron behavior issues, there was no evidence of this while I was there—they definitely seem to have it together. And I did notice that Joe “VP” Eustice stopped by to make sure everything was going the way it’s supposed to.

Our bottle table, well come on, I was with Jessie “James Super VIP Host” Gibson, you can imagine. Bottles and bottles, dancing on the couch, and Jessie dancing on the table—he has an amazing ability to navigate crowds and jump over things. The crowd was big, in no small part due to Jermaine Dupre being there to DJ. I’m all about House and Dance, so Jermaine isn’t my cup of tea spiced up with Jack, but the crowd was loving him. And he did play some tunes worth grinding on Roxy to—so thanks for that JD.

“Will you drive me home?” asked Roxy, who had very cutely gone home after Don Vicente’s and gotten all dolled up for the night out—a sure sign that having my children was becoming a better and better idea.

“Of course I’ll drive you home.” Thankfully she only lived a ridiculous number of miles away and not California.

I would love to give you all of the details surrounding the events of the rest of the evening, but I need to get to the Palm for a meeting and then hit the town and see what’s going on, on Sunday nights in Sin City. This will just have to be continued… And wait til you hear about Saturday night and what I term a Vegas Grand Slam!!!

<Click Here: To Buy Books By Stan Lerner>