China Plus

This place has become such a strange legendary part of my husband and my Vegas experiences that I can’t believe I haven’t reviewed it before. We first came here almost immediately after getting engaged (he proposed at the top of the Stratosphere after riding the Big Shot), and in my strange excited haze I agreed for us to buy a hanging scroll of a tiger… only to hang it in our apartment a few weeks later and see the tiger’s giant balls staring at me. Yes, this was one proud male tiger.
And so with an experience like that, how could you not return? We go back at least once a year, usually in the fall around our wedding anniversary, and we always buy something to keep the tradition going. My husband has started to believe that going here before playing the tables makes him lucky — like the time we bought a small clay teapot which I had to hold the whole time his craps table was dominating with a single roller for over an hour. That was a good night, and apparently we have that teapot to thank.
Besides the tiger’s balls and the purportedly lucky knickknacks, one of the great charms of this places is the proprietress, a sweet lady who frequently laughs like she has just told a dirty joke. After five years of going there we are slightly convinced we are her only customers, but of course she doesn’t recognize us — she just does her usual schtick of asking what year we were born and telling us our zodiac symbol, all the while laughing «heh heh heh» and telling us things are lucky. We love her.
A few years after our initial visit, when I think we were buying chopsticks or something else small and meaningless because I didn’t want more Chinese import crap in my house, we noticed that the tiger scrolls they sell now are neutered (or perhaps they’re all ladies). And, five years after our initial purchase, my husband has agreed that good olé tiger balls doesn’t have to live on our wall forever.
Thank goodness.
Until next time, China Plus! We love you, but can’t quite explain why.