Save up to 75% on reservations at The Mohegan Sun.

The ingredients for a promising if marginally dismal short story? No, an intriguing cultural artifact from an otherwise potentially humdrum commute. A snapshot of an exotic life worth reflection and a flash of emotion. A micro-journey out of myself and into the unknown. A brief adventure packed into the interstices of everyday life. Long chided by family and friends for an overly developed (or possibly just undisciplined) curiosity gene, I suggest that maybe we should all be a little more alert, a bit more receptive to the characters and stories which flit past our busy lives every day.

But a soap box is a lonely, drafty place, so my flâneur's manifesto is best shelved for another day. Instead let's unravel a yarn less preachy and more compelling to other wandering souls!

Boasting over 300,000 square feet of gaming, The Mohegan Sun is first and foremost a casino. Their website, MoheganSun.com, invites web surfers to "Come play" and offers the ubiquitous snapshot of happy gamblers (winning perhaps?). But this clever site seduces visitors with a dreamy audio visual collage touting:

• Legendary events and entertainment (10,000 seats of pure exhilaration)
• A sixty foot waterfall
• A 34 story luxury hotel
• A crystal mountain
• Over 30 distinctive shops
• Over 30 different dining options

It was this last bragging point that impressed me. I hadn't come to The Mohegan Sun to gamble away my life savings or to attend the Cher and the Village People concert. I was attending a three day trade show which meant I spent most of my waking hours in the convention center, dwarfed by over-scale architecture and dazzled with tens of thousands of boating products and services being exhibited in the 40,000 square-foot grand ballroom.

Save up to 75% on reservations at The Mohegan Sun.

Can you say "sensory overload"? I mean, the showroom was roughly the size of an indoor soccer arena, and just about every inch was packed with boating goodies for us to ogle and drool over. Come lunch time and dinner time I was more than ready for some culinary escapism. Among the thirty plus dining options available on-site at The Mohegan Sun, three registered high enough on my gastronomic barometer to be mentioned here.

The first evening, following the welcome cocktail party for marine show guests, I made it off to the Bamboo Forest for a late supper. Featuring a virtually all-inclusive Asian menu (Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Malaysian cuisine) and one delightful Taiwanese waitress, the food was pleasing and the service memorable. The interior of the restaurant was decorated a bit garishly – a bit more stereotypical caricature than necessary – and the front is open to a sea of slot machines blinking and whirring away, but the meal was nonetheless pleasant. Ongoing banter with the witty server was without doubt the highpoint of the evening. Her discourse was engaging, peppered with humor and totally congenial.

Less affable and considerably less attentive, my waiter at Michael Jordan's Steak House Michael Jordan's Steak House (or MichaelJordanSteakhouse.com) the next night was nonetheless a good food and wine guide. (He admitted to working as a wine salesman by day.) When at a steak house, eat a steak, he reminded me, and recommended the dry-aged Kansas City strip. I agreed and was rewarded with a sensational cut of beef, perfectly cooked and admirably complemented with a well advised Amarone. Michael Jordan's menu claims that its meat is "the finest U.S.D.A. prime available; hand selected for proper marbling and aged a minimum of four weeks for flavor and tenderness." No doubt. But my crab cake appetizer with frisée salad and caviar remoulade was also delectable, so premium ingredients are apparently not the only explanation for their palatable fare.

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