another try at ti.

It's easy to shit talk a joint on the Strip and say there's no reason to go, especially if it's older and less hip and not overflowing with exciting restaurants or clubs. But when you want a mini-vacation and you don't want to pay $300 a night (or when the economy sucks and every hotel is reducing room rates, and you want to find the best value), you might find yourself doing a weekend in a place just like that. A place you just shit talked.


But even though we had a lot of fun with our two-night stay at Treasure Island, the original assessment still holds true. Most of that fun was spent roaming, drinking, shopping and eating at Encore, Wynn, Palazzo and Venetian, TI's superior neighbors. Although it was beautifully sunny and probably warm enough, the TI pool was closed. A Friday night dinner at Isla was once again reliably good, but outdone by a Saturday night dinner at Palazzo's Dos Caminos Mexican restaurant. The standard king bed hotel room was nice enough (the bed was great), but obviously an old room with a few modern touches (flatscreen TV) and not really a room renovated. Skipped room service, didn't do the spa ... because we were too busy enjoying the amenities of better hotels within a short walking distance.


There is something to be said for TI's steakhouse offering, however. Boringly named The Steak House, we paid it a visit for a late snack Friday night, crashed the bar and received superior service from our barman. He let us sample wine, speedily brought more plus martinis plus a shrimp cocktail, garlic whipped potatoes and a delicious endive salad with slab bacon, and capped it off by advising that the best dessert in the house was actually served at the coffee shop next door. Then he sent somebody to grab one. (It was chocolate cake, not that special. But it's the effort that counts.) Let this be a lesson: When in doubt, head to the hotel steakhouse bar.


Perhaps the best example of TI's stature is its respected but now sleepy sushi restaurant, Social House. Buzzed about for months when it opened in 2006, the place seems to be a shell of its former fast-paced self. (Full disclaimer: I've never eaten there. I'm sure it's great. But it looks like it's been forgotten completely.) Last year you couldn't squeeze your way in to get a drink in the lounge downstairs. That lounge was crickets Friday night, and the staff was slow, too.