WEEKEND ESCAPE | SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Shades of Las Vegas at Morongo Casino
Morongo Casino looks like something from Sin City. But the action isn't quite the same.
The burly bouncer whisked us off the casino floor and up the high-speed elevator to the 26th-floor Space Bar. The manager waived the $20 cover — it was still early — and we quickly got drinks from the Jetsons-esque waitress in the silver miniskirt and platform boots. The DJ was spinning hits from dance-floor royalty — Prince, Queen — as we looked out the windows with a 360-degree view.
Darkness.
There is no neon in Cabazon.
I'd been skeptical about the Morongo Casino, Resort and Spa since I first heard about its mammoth construction next to Interstate 10. It was completed in December.
"Whatever happens in Vegas
Also happens at Morongo," the roadside billboards said. Still, I imagined dropping $200 on a room just to lose my nickels alongside busloads of Leisure World gamblers.
But when I stepped away from the viewless windows and slipped back down the elevator, I felt as if I had walked into Palms, the ultra-hip Las Vegas casino by the Maloof brothers and recent site of MTV's "The Real World" series.
Belly Italiano, the casino's boisterous two-story restaurant decorated with color-shifting chandeliers and Renaissance art projected onto flat video panels, was mobbed by 8 p.m. A Saturday night throng of older couples and large parties of twentysomethings overwhelmed the place, which was why my boyfriend, Joe, and I spent 90 minutes in the Space Bar waiting for a table.
Our waiter tried to make it up to us with complimentary glasses of sparkling Italian wine, a mini crab salad and a basket of focaccia, olives and chunks of Parmesan cheese.
Joe's Caesar salad, hand-tossed at our table, was so good that he admitted considering licking the plate. My salad was also divine: roasted tomatoes, basil and fresh Italian mozzarella that practically melted in my mouth.
We grudgingly passed on the $125 1 1/2 -pound Sicilian lobster tail. Joe — half-Italian and picky about his pasta — proclaimed the linguine in a white clam sauce a tasty $19 substitute. I couldn't finish my huge portion of chicken Parmesan, but we splurged on dessert anyway — chocolate, caramel and vanilla gelato topped with nutty toffee.
Dinner was nearly a two-hour affair, but our friendly waiter provided excellent service. The couple to our left, however, complained at volume about the wait and left in a huff.
In the casino, Joe tried his luck at craps and was surprised that there were no dice. The dealers pulled cards from decks stacked with aces through sixes.
*
California-style gambling
"California Craps" — a fact of life when it comes to gaming here — took some getting used to. "It's just so weird not to have dice," Joe kept saying. The action didn't seem quite as fast-paced as Vegas to him.
 Should we take offense, order a drink, or what? That depends, of course, on where you think these words turned up. |
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