Hugo's Cellar, Four Queens, Las Vegas - Royal Flusher Restaurant Review

We ate at Hugo's Cellar at the Four Queens twice during the No Kickers Las Vegas trip so I thought I'd describe one visit and include details about the food from the others, all together into one review. I also visited Hugo's Cellar (and ate there too) during my summer trip with Kenny and LuLU, so I'll include some of that info.

As I left the Four Queen's casino floor with it's gaudy buzz and carnival atmosphere and descended about a floor down the gently curving steps into Hugo's Cellar. Boisterous shouts from the casino faded away and I felt myself relaxing. Hugo's ambiance coddles you as you make your way in, as if you were entering a velvety, muted chamber. It's comforting and elegant. Hugo's is almost out of place at the Four Queens, it's such a cut above. But it's well regarded, well established, traditional, classy without being pretentious, and there are many (like me) that hope that it never changes.

I pondered the name.Hugo's Cellar. Part of it was obvious, since someone who really likes faux red bricks would obviously be named Hugo. But why the cellar?

Chart House, Golden Nugget, Las Vegas - Royal Flusher Restaurant Review

The Chart House is a seafood and steak restaurant plunked off the chic Rush Tower lobby at the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas. It's relaxed, modern dining room is a little oasis from frenetic Fremont Street. There are many iterations of Chart House restaurants in the Landry's chain, but you don't get the sense that this is a formula place or a franchise.

We've eaten a number of times at the Chart House, and looked forward to returning.

I'd made a reservation (which really wasn't need considering the early hour we'd chosen to dine, around sixish) and when the appointed time (sixish) came, I threw on a sportcoat and we headed down for a nice relaxed dinner, taking a well-deserved break from our fairly degenerate gambling activities.

Royal Flusher's Cycle of Life

When you leave Vegas are you already planning the next trip?

How do you get through the PVD (post-Vegas depression), get yourself moving, and get on with life?

As I walk through those factory gates (in the rain) every day at North American Veeblefetzer (where I make ten thousand rubbery size 7 grommets a day, many of which are not sub-standard factory rejects), I ask myself, 'What are you doing here?'

Royal Flusher's Strict Rules of Parlay

In my Las Vegas Trip Reports, I often write about employing the Strict Rules of Parlay and its variations. Here is an explanation of what it's all about.

Strict Rules of Parlay

Pick your denomination (25 cent, for example) and game of Video Poker. Insert some amount, $20 for example.

Riviera World's Fare Buffet Dining Tips

When you are a savvy Las Vegas gambler like The Flusher, part of it all is doing things the Royal Flusher Way.

And part of the Royal Flusher Way, besides traveling with the scientifically proven minimum possible (but still biologically safe) number of pairs of underpants for the trip, is to enjoy what has to be Las Vegas' biggest draw - low end, inexpensive buffets which surf the fine line between potato and ptomaine.

I had been pondering various professional buffet techniques for my upcoming trip, and what should fall out of my research portfolio but a very handy reservation card from the somewhat decrepit yet classy Riviera Hotel and Casino. And on the back of said reservation card are what every buffetnomist needs - a ready to roll set of buffet tips. I hesitate to say 'rules' because for me, anything goes at the buffet, including my soon-to-be-patent-pending office chair 'rolling trough' technique for which you never need carry food to your table.

The Riviera, for me, is immortalized in a couple of ways. For one, it is the only hotel still open that was hit by Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra and those other possum pack guys in the original 1960 classic movie Ocean's Eleven. The line-up was the Sahara, the Sands, the Riviera, the Dunes, and the Flamingo. And they hit the buffets in every one of 'em. They even cut the line.

Secondly, the Riviera figures prominently in a more modern movie, Casino with Robert de Niro and Joe Pesci. There's a great scene by the Riviera pool and some other ones where they walk in the south doors. They are probably headed straight for the buffet.

So let's get down to business here and take a look at the savvy advice from the Riviera Reservation Card Production Team.