Nick and I ventured to the strip yesterday with Travelzoo vouchers in hand for a new sports  exhibit at the Luxor called SCORE! Thank goodness for the discounted price. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We parked at Bellagio and checked out the latest flower decorations inspired by Chinese New Year. It was a pretty solid “meh” compared to some of the other awesome ones they do throughout the year.

Then it was on to lunch at Todd English’s Olives. It was surprisingly loud inside the restaurant and we were sitting for a good 10 minutes before anyone even brought us water. Eventually, a bread basket and a choice of tapenades was placed on our table and our order was taken. I started with the wild mushroom soup, which was by far the highlight of the meal. Nick started with the Greek salad, which to his horror included some type of feta cream on it (not mentioned in the menu description).

For entrees, we went with the Crab Stuffed Jumbo Prawns (with saffron rice pilaf, yellow and green squash, orange beurre blanc and micro pea shoots) and the Shaved Roast Beef Sliders with mixed greens instead of fries. Unfortunately Nick’s beef was cold around the edges and the greens were dressed in a lemon vinaigrette Nick described as “9 parts lemon juice, 1 part arrogance and 1 part oil.” Overall I was pretty disappointed in this restaurant from a four time James Beard Award winner. Definitely would not recommend it to anyone.

Then it was off to SCORE! at the Luxor. (No photography allowed.) The first stop of the exhibit included listening to a spiel about athlete’s contracts and earnings – which I guess is fine if you know absolutely nothing about them to begin with. Then we each had access to an iPad station where we entered our names and chose our favorite sport, team and number. At the end of the exhibit, you get to find out how much your contract was worth. Nick and I were under the impression that meant the interactive portions of the exhibit had a bearing on your final results. That was not the case, and it ending up being a randomly generated number – how is that any fun? The exhibit itself was mostly an array of signed memorabilia. Nick was not impressed with the amount of typos on the description plates accompanying the memorabilia. The interactive portions weren’t even entertaining. There was a broad jump, some peripheral vision/speed test, hockey skill test (?), and a NASCAR pit stop. Nick’s assessment: “The best part was definitely the signed Walter Payton jersey, football and windbreaker.”

We ended at The Cup, a cute little coffee shop inside Crystals at City Center and were dismayed when we saw a Starbucks was going to open soon just steps away from our little gem that is hidden by the valet entrance. I doubt The Cup will be able to survive much longer, but hope for the best.