So I hadn't seen my buddy Alex in a few years - he's one
of the people whom I've tutored over the years regarding
fine food and wine; Annie and I started him off when he
was still a teenager and watched with satisfaction and
amusement while he climbed the ladder, becoming the front
desk manager at the Ritz in Phoenix and going on to being
in charge of food and beverages at the Tuscany, where he
is now some kind of high muck-a-muck executive. We went to
Prime Rib Loft at the Orleans, because the current food and
beverage director at the Tuscany is married to her
counterpart here, and Alex was curious to see if he was
as good as she is. Also, I'd reminded him that Lilli is a
very meat-and-potatoes kind of gal, and this was one of
the finalists in the Lilli-appeasing contest, the others
being the Del Frisco Double Eagle Steak House and an AYCE
Korean BBQ called Master Kim's, which offers interesting
lesser cuts of meat and quite low prices; the former offers
a steak-and-cake with starter and dessert for the relative
bargain price for $59, It was decided that we should go
with the most conservative choice this night.

Here you get salad or corn chowder followed by a slab
and a side, the price being reasonable but not hopping up
and down with glee cheap - running $2/oz or so.

They had salads, quite ordinary; my chowder was bacon soup
with a few corn kernels, which was okay except that it was
majorly salty. Followed by two 14-oz pieces, ordered rare
and extra rare and for Alex a 24-oz bone-in cut rare, The meat
was pretty good, actually, tender with just enough fat to
please me and just little enough fat not to displease others.
The 14-oz rare was probably 16 oz, medium-rare; the 14-oz
extra rare was maybe 12-13 oz, medium-rare to rare. Alex's cut
had a bone but otherwise was not much bigger and was likewise
a hair past rare. Baked potatoes were surprisingly enormous
and not overcooked - some might have thought them too rare.
I asked for mine without sour cream and chives and got a big
knob of real butter, which helped the thing go down. I didn't
have room for the skin, which I usually eat for the roughage
and chew and nutrition factors.

The jus (as always characterized as "au jus") was oniony and
almost completely unsalted, which displeased Alex but pleased
me. I ordered a bottle of Klinker Brick Old Vine Zinfandel 15;
it was full of berries with a bit of cedary minty something,
not too sweet, fairly engaging for not too much money and
went very easily with the meat.

--
One of the eateries listed for the Tropicana is Red Lotus,
which advertises a dish called heart attack fried rice, with
Chinese sausage, Chinese ham, and pork belly, so I decided
we should go down and give it a try.

It's set up in a fast-food way - you order at the counter, you
get a number, and they bring our order out when it's ready.

I got the aforementioned dish and an order of pork potstickers
for insurance and for Lilli. The fried rice was almost exactly
what I expected it to be but with less fat and a little less meat
as I'd hoped. It was okay, better with the now ubiquitous Huy
Fong sriracha. The meats were in about 1/8" dice, the sausage
bits tasting just like the char-siu-ized pork belly, the ham
less sweet but mostly rind, which of course bothered me not at
all. Lilli had a couple tentative spoonfuls, and so I had the
rest of the enormous (about 1 1/2 times a regular Chinese
restaurant) serving, which I felt obligated to do as it cost
$18. At the bottom there was virtually no oil. The potstickers
were foodservice, such as you'd get from Trader Joe's.

Sapporo Premium was available as a 22-oz can for $13 or a
21 1/2-oz bottle for $11. Duh.
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