Mohegan Sun
The Mohegan Sun Casino and Hotel is a mix between being part of nature and a completely modern complex. The buildings sit alongside the river, and if it wasn't for their gargantuan size, you'd half expect a log cabin to be sitting there. Instead, it looks like large blocks of granite and crystal arisen from the ground. Massive, truly massive.
That massive, but yet intimate feeling pervades throughout the hotel/casino. The lobby has a river flowing into a waterfall running alongside the stairs. The lighting and ceilings give the feeling of trees and caverns, while still containing dozens of stores, clubs, restaurants, etc.
We had tickets for a show, so we dropped off our bags, ran to our room, changed and ran down to the Cabaret to see Mary Wilson.
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The Cabaret is a pretty intimate venue, which was really nice to see one of the Supremes in a setting like this. I mean, Mary Wilson, a nice club akin to a Manhattan jazz club, perfect seats... what more did you need? In fact, the venue is so intimate Mary invited everybody onto the stage to dance with her. Margherita was one of the few brave souls who risked it.
I also liked the idea that I didn't need to drive home after the show... makes enjoying the show a lot easier.
Anyway, after the show ended, we decided to go for dinner and walked across the casino to Rain. Rain is the nouveau-modern restaurant here. There are six other gourmet restaurants, and Rain prides itself on the experience and its nouveau look. The wall has glass paneling with dripping "rain", the lamps are avant-garde structures that seem designed by somebody who has an art degree and charges a lot for such things. In fact, the entire restaurant looks that way.
We started with a red pepper soup, which the chef sent out to every table for everybody to try that evening. The soup was good, but was served in a teacup, which, while pretty, started a small debate on how to drink it. I wanted to drink it like I would tea, but Margherita felt that was entirely rude. About 45 minutes of debating went on before I was able to drink the soup in the teacup "properly."
But that's Rain for you. So high class it makes you wonder about the way to drink soup.
For dinner, I ordered the lobster consomme, which again confused me as they walked over and put two pieces of lobster in a bowl. I didn't know if this was the avant garde method of making lobster consomme, and again the teacup debate began.
"Gourmet restaurants do things differently," Margherita said, while nodding her head in a knowing way, even though I knew she didn't know.
Three minutes later, the waitress came by with the consomme portion of the consomme, pouring it into the bowl and making the mix.
I nodded my head knowingly, as I ate the soup with a spoon.
For dinner, the menu had a number of items, which were also confusing as they came from animals I've never heard of and would surely frustrate the Audubon society. Something endangered died for your meal. Either that or it was written in French, which was a bit confusing.
Since I didn't have my copy of Richard Scarry's "Children's Guide to Animals" or a French Dictionary, I stuck with the animals I knew and grabbed the bison steak, while she went for the Maine Lobster. Both of which were as we expected, very good, and the steak had a nouveau type of sauce I loved although I couldn't pronounce it.
Read part 2