PCA/NYC 2010 Trip Report Part III (More Pics!)

PCA - Eating and Drinking

Food

Food at the Atlantis does not come cheap, but if you're willing to splash out (and not think about your health too much) there's definitely some really good stuff on offer.

Fine Dining

For fine dining options, my favourites were Nobu, Mesa Grill and Mosaic. We had Nobu on the last night and after a week of cheeseburgers, steaks and Philly cheese steaks it was simply a godsend. I managed to get dealt three Aces at Three Card Poker and win $500 while waiting for our table so we also nearly freerolled the meal :).














I didn't try Mesa Grill last year but heard everyone talking about it so this year I thought I'd try it out. It ended up being unbelievably good and we returned for a second helping the night after. Here's a picture of the pork tenderloin I had on the first night - it melted right in your mouth!



Mosaic is a slightly upmarket buffet at the Cove which offers, among other things, unlimited sashimi (mmmmmmmmmmmm...), an on-the-spot pasta chef, great grilled meats and a decent selection of cheeses. Its desserts are surprisingly disappointing but on the whole I highly recommend it.



If you go to PCA next year, other places worth checking out are the Seafire Steakhouse and Marketplace.

The Marina Village

If you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the casino and hotel, the Marina Village is the place to go. It has a very laid back atmosphere and feels almost like a sanctuary compared to the surprisingly intense hotel and casino.





At the end of the Marina is a Johnny Rockets which we had a couple of times.





There's also a place called Bimini Road which apparently offers traditional Bahamian fare. I had the steak sandwich...





Finally, we tried a place called Murray's Deli which was pretty terrible but provided great entertainment value. The clown there (Bozo) was completely off his face and between scaring the shit out of children and making rude comments about his fellow employee's boyfriends, we're pretty sure he is now unemployed...


Drinking

Truth be told, there really isn't that much to do at night at Atlantis. On one side of the casino is the Atlas Bar and Grill, on the other is Dragons Bar, and that's basically it. Fortunately, in addition to meeting Sam and Lisa, we also met three girls from San Diego who were pretty cool so we were able to have a pretty fun week. I also managed to catch up with Boston Lisa (a girl I met at PCA last year) so that was pretty neat.

The San Diego girls at Atlas



The girls at Dragons



Boston Lisa and me at Dragons


Everyone's last night at Dragons








The Player Party

On the Saturday PokerStars held a Player Party with Kelly Rowland featuring as the special guest. I felt kind of bad for her because no one was really into it so whenever she shouted "lemme hear you say 'ohhh ohhhhhh'!" she was simply met with silence and a flash of cameras.




Overall though the party was surprisingly good. The food was decent (though sparse), there were unlimited drinks (including cocktails), we had a nice chat with some Latin American PokerStars pros (and their pretty-on-the-eyes ESPN presenter friend), and I even managed to run into a Scandi I final tabled an APPT Sydney side event with (shout out to you Hienrich!)! Fraser also got to have his photo taken with Daniel Negreanu which I think made his week or perhaps even year :).



Aura

After the Player Party we hit up Aura, Atlantis's nightclub. It reminded me a lot of Jet in Vegas, the only other nightclub I've been to in America (and let's face it, Atlantis is basically American). Though I don't remember much of the night (damn, those Bahamians like their drinks strong!), from what I do remember the night was a lot of fun.





Our tequila "shots" (more like cups!)


Conclusion

So that brings me to the end of the PCA portion of my trip report. It was loads of fun and I'm pretty disappointed that I can't go back next year. For those who haven't been yet, I highly suggest you do. You won't regret it :).

To finish, I thought I'd leave you with this pretty hilarious video of Lisa dancing with some guy at the Player Party. The guy was quite the chick magnet, and as soon as she saw him, Lisa made a beeline directly for him!