PHOTOS
Lisa Sokolowski
Outside of Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, there was lots of talk about tribal counsel.
Jeff Probst wasn't around and no one was getting voted off the
Survivor island. Instead, the talk was about the Mohegan tribe in Connecticut - the group most known for operating the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn.
The tribal mentions came during the Thursday, July 17 opening ceremony of Project Sunrise, which was highlighted by a traditional smudge ceremony, a prayer recited over a wooden flute playing.
Maybe that was the highlight for the higher ups, the men and women in suits who have been walking the casino's circular perimeter in hard hats for weeks. But for the crowd - the ones who looked like perhaps they were waiting for a Gladys Knight and the Pips reunion - were more interested in what was smoking in the new restaurants' grills than the sage that was burning.
The mob flooded the doors when they were officially opened, getting a glimpse of what only insiders had seen.
They stopped momentarily for pins commemorating the grand opening before they found their ways straight to the glowing and ringing casino machines.
Instead of wresting the silver-haired women for their slots, fearing getting hit with purses or sprayed with mace, we decided to check out the restaurants to see how far they had gotten from the support beams we had seen just a few weeks earlier.
We quickly found our favorite restaurant is owned by our new best friends: Betty the baker and Joe the coffeemaker. We didn't meet them, but after tasting one of the coffee shop's delicious cheese Danishes (which was the best pastry we've ever put in our mouths), Betty and Joe were added to our Christmas list for sure.
Betty and Joe's is in the food court, the same hub where Wolfgang Puck Express is located. The chefs were making pizza dough when we caught them. They make 95 percent of their product on site, said general manager Jack Godwin.
The high-end fast food restaurant serves free range meats, including Nieman Ranch raised beef.
"They hug those cows," Godwin joked.
The restaurant has an open kitchen policy. Not only does the glass give customers a view into the happenings of the ovens, it also allows for questions. That's encouraged, Godwin said.
Where people should take advantage of the open question policy is at the Crossing Vineyards Wine and Cheese shop. We chatted with
igourmet.com's Paul Kemp, who is the director of product development (igourmet, by the way, is the cheese half of the shop). You're probably going to need people like England-born Kemp to help you maneuver through the cheese. This is not prepackaged processed slices of American sitting in a freezer. It's freshly cut and packaged items like England's White Stilton cheese, made with mango and ginger. "It's like cheesecake without the crust," Kemp said.
Or the famous Boschetto al Tartufo Bienchetto from Tuscany, made with white truffles and a blend of cow's and sheep's milk.
But less about cheese and more about dough, right?
It seemed that almost everyone at the casino was hitting, walking their tito tickets with small jackpots from one machine to another. The tito tickets, for those slightly unaware, stand for ticket in, ticket out. Instead of tokens or nickels in overflowing baskets, you need to just carry around a small slip of paper with your winnings printed on it. It's not nearly as fun as a bucket of quarters, but you sure need a lot less muscle to carry it around.
The casino wasn't packed when it opened, surprisingly, but it was sure a lot busier than the interim casino, which has been reduced to one floor for crickets and those whose nearsightedness prevents them from locating the huge escalator leading to Project Sunrise.