Post #350327 by MeneLooie on Wed, Dec 19, 2007 6:36 AM

I was at the TVLV a couple weeks back and being that I've been out of touch from Tiki culture for some time raising two little girls, I didn't even know a TV was going in in LV. I walked in and thought, "Hmmm. This is Vegas Tiki? OK. I think I'll have a Mai Tai." I didn't think that it was anything other than TV doing a Vegas thing and disconnected TV as we know it from creating a bar/restaurant/lounge/nightclub experience. That might have helped me accept it but there's another reason I accepted it and I'll make you hang on for that.

We were staying at Paris next door and I think I stopped and had a Mai Tai each time I walked by and after two and a half days came home with 10 Menehune sticks. So that's my Mai Tai total. I talked with different bartenders each time about the concentrated mix vs. the retail mix vs. the "old way". I didn't call the rums and just let them use the TV rums for the drink. I should've had them make one with the Appleton 21 year rum, it was two and half bucks more ($12). I only had one made the "old way" and he told me it wouldn't be as sweet as the mix but if I wanted rock candy syrup he'd put it in. I know the original recipe called for rock candy syrup but the "old way" that he was taught didn't. One bartender also said that the test to memorize all the drinks was pretty tough. Another bartender and I were talking about the original recipe and how the rums have changed over the years when I told him to grab his bottle of Appleton Extra and read the bottom of the label. "J Wray & Nephew. Huh. Well I learned something new today." Glad I could help. Good service each time in.

I didn't eat anything but I sat at the bar next to a couple that ordered calimari. Plenty o' rings of calimari but not much by the way of tentacles...I love the tentacles.

The one cool thing that allowed me to accept it that I alluded to earlier...2 for 1 drinks!!! Saturday afternoon I was returning to Paris from playing Pai Gow poker all day at Bellagio before heading to Morton's for dinner and I saw a couple little banners hanging off the rail on the patio that indicated the 2 for 1 drinks. It was raining and about 50* but I had to stop and have a couple even though I had to stay outside on the patio for the deal (or, to be inside, get some ticket from a hostess that I couldn't find). I bought a glass (the 60th Anniversary one with the original recipe on it) so I could take the second one back to the Paris with me.

2 for 1 TV Mai Tais!!! Enough to bring me back...but I probably won't grab a glass every time. BTW the Mai Tai glass cost $8.

Loo