viva las vegas 2025 chapter 2, day 3

LINK: viva las vegas 2025 chapter 2, day 3

This song didn’t have to hit this hard… and I do love me some Ne-Yo. It’s funny watching Jon Knight with women because he’s gay, meanwhile, his brother, Jordan’s looking like a whole snack in this music video. It’s still wild to me that these dudes are in their mid-50’s (except Joey, he’s 51).

Currently listening to: Single – New Kids On The Block feat. Ne-Yo

If you came here by yourself tonight,
Cause he wouldn’t pick up the phone
He was supposed to bring you here tonight
Couldn’t find him so you came alone

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

We woke up later than we planned because we were basically running on fumes and casino oxygen. Unfiltered. I dragged myself into the shower, got dressed, and took a moment to stare out the window to soak in the Vegas skyline.

Five Star and her sister kept hyping up Eataly. I’d never been, so I said sure, why not? We made the trek back to Park MGM, which meant heading downstairs, crossing through NY-NY again, and weaving our way through the crowds.

NGL, Eataly was massive. Way bigger than I expected. It felt like a maze of mini restaurants, bakeries, stations, bars. I guess the best way to describe it was like an Italian food hall? But classier?

The four of us split the Eataly housemade bomboloni alla crema. I wasn’t impressed because it was dry AF inside.

I ended up ordering the crêpe a Colazione—egg, portabello mushrooms, ham, Gruyére cheese, spinach, and tomato. It was very hearty and delicious. And yes, I did pronounce “crêpe” correctly. My ex, Big Bang, would have been so proud of me. Every time I said it incorrectly like an ignoramus, he would let out a huge sigh.

After we ate, we headed back to NY-NY to hit the arcade with her niece. She wanted to flex her zombie-shooting skills for me.

We eventually made our way back to the hotel, fully intending to take a nap… but then Five Star said, “Let’s go see NKOTB again.” We’re here, they’re here, so why not? She immediately went into detective mode and started hunting online for last-minute tickets. Somehow, she found a girl on FB selling her seats for a quarter of the original price because her flight got canceled and there were so many delays with the airlines, she wasn’t able to fly in. The seats were shockingly good and I felt horrible taking advantage of her situation but she seemed happy to at least get something rather than nothing for those seats.

While Five Star was in acquiring tickets for us, she didn’t sleep at all. This is when I noticed her mood changing—she was getting irritable, more snappy, and not looking very good. She’s been doing this cycle for the past three weekends straight—staying at casino hotel suites in California during the weekday since she works remote and then flying to Vegas on the weekends. I think the exhaustion was starting to catch up with her.

Neither of us had on any makeup and I put my hair up with a large hair claw. My fit was leggings, tank top, and a buffalo plaid shirt. No effort was put in whatsoever. A drastic change from last night.

We had dinner rezzies at L’Atelier, one of Joël Robuchon’s restaurants. It has one Michelin star, and we tried (and failed) to get into Robuchon’s 3-star main restaurant. One day, I’ll make it in there, but it wasn’t meant to be this time around.

L’Atelier had an intimate vibe, sleek, with an open-kitchen concept where I could watch chefs work like surgical artists behind a long counter that was very much like a bar-style seating at a sushi restaurant.

We went for the menu découverte. A set tasting menu of nine dishes.

First up was the breads, the baguette was infused with escargot.

Amuse bouche: fois gras with port and Parmesan cheese foam.

Les chou-fleur: cauliflower salad with sweet and sour vinaigrette and almond tuile

Le hamachi: hamachi with citrus vinaigrette, caviar, and radish

La châtaigne: light chestnut velouté flavored with cardamom and lardon

La noix de saint jacques: seared scallop in a kumquat and coconut sauce

By this point, Five Star was on the struggle bus. She was hella sleepy and didn’t think she could push through the rest of the dishes. She even said that she might skip the concert to sleep and that her sister and I should go without her.

She went to the bathroom and splashed water on her and decided to keep going. I told her that if she needed to go to the room to sleep that she should but she didn’t want to since she was already here. Watching her fighting the need to sleep made me enervated. I had to order an Americano so I could get caffeine into my veins.

La morue noire: black cod à la plancha, mushroom velouté and champagne foam

La caille: caramelized quail filled with foie gras served with potato purée. In the cup above was more potatoe purée, which I finished.

La figue: fig sorbet, blackberry panna cotta, fig confit

La citrouille: caramelized honeynut squash, pecan streusel, and cinnamon ice cream

Mignardises: raspberry macarons

By this time, Five Star had gotten her 239842th wind. She was in love with the desserts. Perhaps it was all the sugar that woke her up?

The view from our stroll back to Park MGM.

When I said these seats were fantastic, they really were. I was in the second row, no barricade.

I almost lost my shit when they came down from the stage and were next to me. Don’t ask how I behaved cause it was downright embarrassing. Even Jenny McCarthy showed up to see her husband (Donnie Wahlberg) perform. I’m not a fan of hers but she looks damn good for being in her 50’s.

After the concert, we went to the other side of the casino and met up with other friends to grab a drink and snacks at NoMad Bar.

I ordered an Eastside: Beefeater, lemon, mint, cucumber.

Chips & dip: sweet potato chips with caramelized onion + avo-espelette dips
Gem salad: anchovy crumble parm cream, petite herbs
Truffle fries: black truffle + Parmigiano Reggiano

We stayed till they kicked us out cause they were closing.

We moseyed our way to NY-NY and found a dueling pianos bar and we were going to go in but they had a cover charge. We didn’t wanna go THAT bad, even though they were playing K-pop. Instead, we went to play slots. I tried my hand with $5 and lost it within a couple of minutes and that was enough for me.

Five Star insisted that the next time we were all in Vegas, we needed to go to Magic Mike Live because the last time she was there she had such a great time and to forget about Thunder from Down Under. I laughed. I’ll try just about anything at least once.

Looks like shenanigans to me.

After we left NY-NY, we headed back to MGM Grand for more slots. I watched her play for two hours, chanting our weird little phrases, until eyes started getting heavy and I couldn’t fight it anymore. I told her I was tapping out. At this time, she was up $150 so I went to grab a bottled water and headed walked back to the room to sleep at 03:00. She stayed to play longer. Of course she did.

By the time my head hit the pillow, I didn’t even remember falling asleep.