Hello, The VIP Experience at Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, California

by   •   Tourism
 

For part 3 of 3 covering my visit to Universal Studios Hollywood, I’ll be giving an overview and a bit more insight into their VIP Experience. In case you missed it, I already posted some photographs two days ago from Universal CityWalk Hollywood, which is the free-to-access area outside Universal Studios that is lined with shops and retail attractions.

Yesterday, I shared my thoughts of the Studio Tour, a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at Universal Pictures. The VIP Experience was split into two portions—the Studio Tour and the theme park. My tour started with the Studio Tour as the first portion, and then we moved on to getting expedited access to rides for the second portion.

Even before that, the VIP Experience started with priority admission by way of a side VIP entrance with no line. I was greeted and specially escorted to the VIP lounge, in which there was a selection of food and beverages comparable to that of a premium continental breakfast. After finishing check-in and having a chat with our dedicated assigned tour guide to get an overview of what we can expect from our day, we gathered out on the balcony with this nice view of the park entrance to group up and walk towards the Studio Tour.

After the Studio Tour, we walked back to the main theme park and started with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

After sightseeing the architecture, we were taken to our first ride, “Flight of the Hippogriff.”

… It’s time for a story.

I am very prone to motion sickness. As a kid, I would get motion sick pretty much everywhere. Every time my parents brought me somewhere in a vehicle, I would get car sick. Every time I rode on a plane, I would get airsick. Even when I play first-person perspective video games, I’d get motion sick.

I’ve solved some of this in my adulthood. I found that I get less carsickness in larger body-on-frame vehicles, so I drive a pickup truck (among other reasons, the primary of which is just the versatility and capability of pickup trucks). When I’m riding with friends, I usually sit in the passenger seat and recline all the way back. When I call rideshare services, I usually call a “Black” or other premium-tier service to increase the chances of me getting a large SUV with captain’s chairs in the second row so I can recline back. On aircraft, I try my best to book business or first class tickets so I have a more comfortable seat with greater recline.

In general, I get more sick when I’m upright, and my motion sickness diminishes when I’m leaning back or laying down. Another strategy I’ve used to help with motion sickness is to eat a lot. I noticed that I get worse motion sickness on an empty stomach, so if I eat enough to refuel my body and give myself enough energy, that usually helps. (I still haven’t found a solution for FPP video games, though.)

Even then, things sometimes catch me off guard. As part of the VIP Experience, I agreed to go on this Harry Potter ride because I figured that I had a hearty breakfast that morning and assumed I would be fine. However, I was horribly mistaken, as Flight of the Hippogriff triggered an intense sense of motion sickness that kept worsening.

At first, it was a bit jarring and I felt a bit dizzy, but I was mostly fine. I got off the ride (which tilts you at an angle at high speeds and, I presume, makes the blood rush down and away from your brain) and walked it off. However, as time passed, I got increasingly dizzy and my urge to vomit got worse and worse. The VIP Experience was less than halfway over though, so I decided I would power through it and assumed that I would start feeling better soon.

The next ride was “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.” For this ride, the tour guide specifically pointed out that a lot of people get motion sickness and have sometimes even had their days ruined from it, so I wisely opted out from the ride. I was still able to walk through the castle though, which was nicely decorated.

While the rest of the tour group was on the ride, I sat on a bench off to the side. I was still feeling worse and worse, and after staying seated for a while and standing up, I had a fairly severe and lengthy bout of orthostatic hypotension where everything in your vision flashes white for a while before gradually going back to normal. Still, the VIP Experience had a lot more to it, and I kept hoping that I would soon start feeling better.

I was so confident in my ability to slowly get better that I even agreed to go on “The Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash” because our tour guide said that it is a very mild ride and it barely goes five miles an hour. I agree that it normally would’ve been perfectly fine, except the fact that my motion sickness had already been triggered meant that even the slightest movement and spinning of our seats meant that I felt even more sick.

Regardless, I thought the ride was enjoyable and heartwarming. It tells the story of two sheltered puppies that get adopted, and the ride brings you through the process scene-by-scene until you’re at the end in your new home with your new family.

It was time for lunch. The VIP Experience comes with access to a private restaurant with a premium buffet with an amazing selection of food. However, by this point, I genuinely felt like any kind of sudden motion would make me vomit. Even turning my head too quickly made my stomach lurch. At this point, I could do nothing but sit rigidly still and just enjoy the comedy of the fact that a roller coaster that took barely over half a minute to finish managed to absolutely knock me out for a few hours.

I ate nothing during lunch, but at the very least, managed not to vomit. At this point, I realized that I was most likely not getting better anytime soon, especially if I were to remain upright and keep moving around. I decided to make the call that I should head back to the hotel and lay down for a bit.

I checked in with my tour guide and confirmed that basically the entire rest of the VIP Experience was just going from ride-to-ride and being able to skip all the lines. That was a relief to hear, as I think the rides are the least appealing part of an amusement park for me, so it felt like I wasn’t missing out on much by surrendering and leaving the tour early.

I walked back to the Sheraton Universal Hotel, returned to my room, washed my hands and face, changed into my pajamas, and laid down. After a few more hours, I still had a mild headache but was no longer anywhere close to vomiting. I headed over to the Bonvoy elite lounge to get some snacks and determined that I was back to a level of reasonable functionality.

The great news about the VIP Experience is that it also comes with general admission to the park. My designated tour time was 11:30 AM, and I was out of the park by 3 PM. After resting and recovering for a few hours, I re-entered the park at 6 PM and still had three more hours left before closing time to walk around and enjoy the sights.

The part of Universal Studios Hollywood I was most looking forward to seeing was Super Nintendo World. After having a little bit of difficulty finding the entrance (because it was hidden at the end of a long path that originally appeared to only go to the Transformers area, but in reality, turned off into a large green pipe from Super Mario Bros.), I entered into the magical world of Super Mario.

For a little while, I thought that Super Nintendo World was a completely covered indoor area because of how pure and empty the sky happened to be at that time. I’m sure you can imagine how confused I was when I eventually noticed the moon.

Super Nintendo World is an amazing environment. I tend to be known as someone who doesn’t really consume much mass media, but the Super Mario series is a franchise with which I am very familiar. It gave me a lot of nostalgia seeing everything built life-sized around me, and it triggered one of those “inner child” moments where I just stood there looking around with a gaping mouth and happy eyes. There were a lot of people around who were interacting with the exhibits, and those interactions activated Super Mario sound effects that added to my immersion.

I liked this environment so much that, if this was a publicly-accessible location back in Las Vegas, I would literally come here at least a couple times a week just to look around, enjoy the sound effects, people-watch, and eat lunch. I’ve never really had a “happy place” like a lot of other people do, but I think Super Nintendo World is as close as I can get to something like that (alongside something similar to this, but Pokémon-themed too).

I also took a walk through Bowser’s castle. Normally this is the area for “Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge,” but because of my VIP badge, I was able to just enter the castle on the side and sightsee without having to wait in a long line. Once I got to the end, I was able to turn around and exit without needing to partake in the ride.

After soaking in as much of the Super Mario joy I could, I headed out and towards the main entrance of the park, as it was approaching 9 PM and closing time was imminent. For my last half hour remaining, I walked around Super Silly Fun Land and the Despicable Me area.

On my way to the exit, I walked through Universal Plaza where they had a live DJ and a bunch of costumed characters dancing and having fun with the kids. I thought this was very nice, as it was basically the equivalent of a family-friendly rave for children.

Before exiting, I snapped a photo of the statue at the front entrance. You can see the VIP sign on the right side of the photograph, affixed under the balconies upon which I started my day.

The VIP Experience is very worth it. I paid US$489.00 for my ticket, which seems like a lot, but regular tickets were already US$149.00 per person that day, and upgrading to Universal Express was US$299.00. If you’re already spending that much money, then I think adding on an additional US$190.00 to upgrade to the full VIP Experience is very good value. (Note that pricing is dynamic, and the VIP Experience during the off-season can go as low as US$359.00 per person.)

The number and amount of lines my tour group was able to skip because of our VIP credentials was insane. Out of the rides and experiences that I was there for, I would’ve already saved about two and a half hours of wait time, and that’s even with me having left early and missing out on a vast majority of the rides. The lines for rides are so ridiculously long that it seemed like a no-brainer to get Express or VIP, and it even went as far as to make me wonder whether Universal Studios was overselling general admission tickets.

Also keep in mind that VIP also comes with free breakfast and lunch, and even though I didn’t eat due to my motion sickness, it’s actually pretty good food by the looks of it. It’s also really helpful to have an unlimited stream of cold water bottles wherever you go so that it’s one less thing for you to worry about. Add on the free valet parking that otherwise would be US$60.00, and the VIP package gives you a lot of convenience-based add-ons that makes your trip very comfortable.

Would I go again? Of course not. The VIP Experience doesn’t really make much sense for people who would go on zero rides. If you’re just going there for sightseeing, then a general admission ticket is plenty. But do I regret going? Absolutely not. Even though I wasn’t able to milk full value out of the VIP Experience, I still really enjoyed what I was able to do.

A lot of people are surprised when they hear this, but I’ve never been to Disneyland Resort before. I spend nowhere near as much time in California as I used to back when I was helping set up the Tempo Storm esports team houses, and when I am in California, I’m usually only there for a specific purpose before heading back out and don’t have much time to take a leisurely trip to a theme park. Whenever people have invited me to Disneyland, I’ve been somewhat avoidant in going because it didn’t really seem particularly compelling to stand out in the sun all day surrounded by children. However, after my overall positive experience at Universal Studios, I feel like I’m more agreeable now to visiting Disneyland to see how it compares.

 

—§—

 

Hello, The Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, California

by   •   Tourism
 

After exploring Universal CityWalk Hollywood yesterday evening and then spending the night at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, I woke up (relatively) early this morning for my VIP Experience tour at Universal Studios Hollywood today.

I have enough photographs from the tour that I decided it would make sense to split it up into two separate blog posts. I’ll give my general overview of the VIP Experience tomorrow, but for today, I decided to focus specifically on the Studio Tour.

The Studio Tour starts in one of the lower areas of the theme park near the back. We descended down this escalator tunnel towards the entrance.

The wait time for a tour was 25 minutes…

… but our VIP Experience admission allowed us to skip the line and get directly onto a special bus.

One of the first stops was at a sound stage. Although this one was empty and not actively being used to film a production at that time, we were still able to see all the soundproofing and some of the tools they use to hook up the lights, cameras, and other equipment.

Outside the sound stages, we were able to see some trailers where actors, actresses, and other stars are able to rest between shooting sessions and get touch-ups on their hair and make-up.

The next part of the tour brought us to multiple different backlots, which are outdoor locations where scenes are filmed. As expected, they had a lot of backlots, all resembling the architecture of different countries and time periods.

As a quick intermission, we entered a building that was disguised as a sound stage, but was actually a 3D immersive experience based on King Kong.

The 3D glasses made it seem like King Kong and various dinosaurs were jumping right up to our faces. The bus inconspicuously drove up on a track that locked it in place and swung it around side-to-side, so it felt like we were actually being picked up and thrown around in sync with the visuals. They also added mist effects for even more immersion.

I don’t know if this is just because I haven’t really gone to amusement parks or ridden on many roller coasters so I don’t know how far the technology has come, but this was my favorite part of my entire visit to Universal Studios. I thought this immersive experience was amazing. I did not expect the immersion to be this advanced, and if there are more 3D experiences like this, I’d be happy just going on them back-to-back for my theme park trip.

Unfortunately, even though I took a few photographs, none of them were worthy of being shared because they were all very blurry due to the high amounts of motion, and the contents of the pictures were unidentifiable due to my camera lens obviously not having a 3D attachment on it.

After King Kong, we drove past some other sound stages and into even more backlots.

For our second intermission from looking at backlots, we entered another immersive sound stage. Although this one wasn’t 3D, it was still fun—it emulated what would happen during a catastrophic earthquake where the infrastructure fails and we enter a pseudo-apocalyptic state.

I don’t have too many photos to share from this one either, again due to the blurriness from the motion and the bus rocking back and forth in unison with the destruction that was happening around us, but I did manage to capture this one of a tanker truck that had fallen through a collapsed concrete floor and set off a fire.

After coming out of that sound stage, we went through some backlot sets that were designed to serve a greater purpose than just a backdrop for filming. For example, this one was rigged to dump out a substantial amount of water to emulate a flood.

We saw some more backlots and learned that apparently the ground on some of these is fake. Our tour guide said that most of it is just asphalt, and there are companies that specialize in moving in large amounts of dirt, sand, snow, or whatever else is needed for a filming session to cover the ground in the applicable material before removing it when they need to redress the backlot.

Having grown up in the Chicagoland suburbs, suburban neighborhoods are so common that it did not occur to me that they still need to make suburban backlots to have a controlled environment in which to film shows and movies that take place in the suburbs. It was very amusing to see what is basically an entire fake subdivision here.

Here is a collection of some famous vehicles that were used in various different shows and films.

As part of Jaws’ 50th anniversary, they had a fake themed Hollywood sign at the end of one of the roads on the Studio Tour. I don’t think it served any particular purpose; it seemed like it was just there as a decorative piece.

We drove right up to what I believe they referred to as the Chicken Ranch house. I’m not familiar with any of the movies that were filmed on this set, but I suspect they were in the horror genre, as there was an actor with a fake knife there that ran up to our tour bus right as we drove off.

As one of the final areas we saw as part of our tour, we got a close-up look at a plane crash scene used for War of the Worlds (2005), consisting of a real Boeing 747 airliner disassembled and strewn around for the set.

As we circled back to the beginning and towards the conclusion of our Studio Tour, we passed by an area that was closed for active filming. I’m not sure if this meant a portion of the tour was cut short, but even then, the it was already very thorough and comprehensive.

About a year and a half ago, I went on a comparable tour of Sony Pictures Studios. My feedback of Sony’s tour was that it was fairly underwhelming and a bit uninteresting for someone who isn’t really too passionate about movies.

With that being said, and even with the same context, I thought the Studio Tour at Universal Studios was great. It is clear that they iterated on the tour to make sure it is as optimally exciting and captivating as possible. It was also satisfyingly long and had a wide variety of things to enjoy (including some things that were off-limits for photographs that I did not include in this blog post, such as a warehouse of props, some of which were tagged with code names to be reserved for upcoming use in films).

I think the tour guides were also far better at Universal Studios, both in terms of their knowledge about the topic and the way in which the program was run. The tour guides provided commentary about what we were seeing in a way that catered to people of all degrees of interest.

Prior to the tour, the guides asked us all what our favorite shows were, and it was clear that they remembered our answers because they made sure to focus on and point out those areas of interests on the tour to ensure the tour was made more relevant for that particular set of people. Even for someone like me who doesn’t really watch TV or movies much, the tour allowed me to appreciate the general cinematography, technology, and logistics behind film production without ever needing to be a fan of a particular series or franchise.

I’m not sure how much of this Studio Tour experience was enhanced as a result of having a VIP ticket, and I don’t know what the differences are (if any) between this VIP Experience Studio Tour and the one that is offered to general admission attendees, but based on what I saw, I think this would be a great sightseeing addition to your day at Universal Studios as a break between going on rides across the rest of the theme park.

 

—§—

 

Hello, Universal CityWalk Hollywood in Universal City, California

by   •   Tourism
 

After enjoying Open Sauce 2025, I flew from San Francisco International Airport to Hollywood Burbank Airport so I could be in the Los Angeles area in preparation for an upcoming international trip beginning with a flight departing from Los Angeles International Airport. However, there is a small gap of time between my inbound and outbound flights, so I decided to fill it with a tour of Universal Studios Hollywood.

I very vaguely recall going to Universal Studios Hollywood during a visit to California to see my relatives when I was much younger and still lived with my parents in the Chicagoland suburbs. Back in 2017, a portion of Tempo Storm’s Red Bull staff onboarding (back when they sponsored us as an esports team) was also at Universal Studios. However, I was never really much of an amusement park person, so I was never really too interested in carefully exploring the theme park during my adulthood.

What did recently pique my interest though was the launch of Super Nintendo World back in 2023. I’ve played a decent number of Nintendo games throughout my life, and I still enjoy watching Super Mario Maker videos on YouTube, so I was interested in immersing myself into that in-person. With that acting as a catalyst, I decided to book a VIP Experience tour to really get to know what Universal Studios is like.

Beyond just the tour, I wanted to get the full experience to the extent of also spending the night in Universal City, so I booked an overnight stay at the Sheraton Universal Hotel located within a quick walk to the theme park. This meant that I arrived in Universal City the day before my scheduled tour, so I had an opportunity to take an evening walk around Universal CityWalk Hollywood, a free-to-access area just outside Universal Studios, to prime myself for tomorrow’s main event.

Here are some photos I took around CityWalk and in the stores lining the walk:

 

—§—

 

Hello Open Sauce 2025

by   •   Conventions, Face, Highlights
 

FTC Disclosure: Open Sauce, Inc. did not explicitly ask me to write this blog post, did not pay me for this review, and did not have an opportunity to review or request changes to this piece prior to its publication. However, I did receive material incentive to attend Open Sauce 2025 by way of free admission, the comparable public retail value of which amounts to a VIP ticket worth US$1,499.00. All other expenses were self-funded.

 
After I had a great time last year at Open Sauce 2024, my friend Billie-Rae, an executive of and the head of marketing at the company running Open Sauce, invited me to attend again this year. Open Sauce 2024 was my all-time favorite convention, so I was happy to accept the invitation and head back to the San Francisco Bay Area last weekend, this year to the San Mateo County Event Center.

As a reminder, the reason why I liked Open Sauce so much last year is because it felt more like a large science fair than it did a regular convention. I’ve been to many conventions, both as part of my work at Tempo and for personal leisure, but many of them feel very commercialized. Open Sauce stood out in that it was a collection of people who were genuinely interested in science and wanted to show off and talk about their experiments and creations. Other conventions’ exhibition halls feel like a gigantic collection of advertisements, but Open Sauce’s exhibition halls are filled with passionate scientists and technology enthusiasts.

The advertisers and sponsors that do still go to Open Sauce are integrated very well and showcase their product in a way where it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to get you to buy their product, but rather, they’re demonstrating what their product can do and are leaving it up to you to decide. Sponsors whose primary objective is brand exposure are still integrated naturally; for example, PCBWay was back again this year with another batch of branded metallic circuit board credential badges that people could bring to their booth and personally solder components onto to make it light up.

When I received my itinerary this year, I noticed that there were fewer special experiences for creators and guests compared to last year. These special activities and parties were some of my favorite things from last year, so it wasn’t great news when I found out that there was less going on in 2025. On top of that, the one off-site activity they had was just a repeat of last year—a tour of Adam Savage’s workshop, “The Cave.” With that being said, I think we were just extra spoiled last year; there were still plenty of opportunities for people to congregate and network with each other this year, which I think is the priority for most of the creators and special guests when they attend events like this.

In a similar vein, there were a lot more content creators, members of the press, and special guests this year. Last year, there was a fairly limited scope of people in attendance, with a vast majority of the creators and guests being science and technology YouTubers. I liked this because these YouTubers felt, for a lack of a better word, normal. They were all pleasant and approachable people, and none of them had any of the undesirable characteristics that you usually find in Twitch live streaming or influencer culture of being self-centered, arrogant, and out of touch with reality. This year, I think there were more people who extended outside the “normal scientist” bubble and gave off a mild form of the “sheltered influencer” energy. With that being said, I think there was still a solid filter with regards to who was invited, and the spotlighted creators were nowhere near as bad as what you’d find in live streaming or video gaming conventions.

(Random side note: While I was in the creator lounge, I managed to meet Alan Melikdjanian, owner of the Captain Disillusion YouTube channel. I have watched his videos for a long time and not only admire his video editing skills but also his philosophy of exposing and combating misinformation through educating the public. We had a nice chat while waiting in line to get our share of catered lunch. I don’t really get starstruck when meeting people, but I think Captain Disillusion is as close as you can get to getting me starstruck for now, so I’m glad I was able to run into him at Open Sauce.)

No matter what the invited guest experience was like, the most important part of Open Sauce was still the exhibition hall. I concluded that, no matter how many special activities there were or who the special guests were, as long as the exhibition halls were the same as last year, it would still be a great convention. Fortunately, Open Sauce did indeed maintain its core identity, and the passionate energy of the exhibit halls remained the same as last year. I noticed that the convention this year was quite a bit larger than last year, so I was actually fairly impressed that they managed to scale it up to this degree, yet still not lose its charming identity in the exhibition halls.

My credentials gave me access to the exhibition halls across three total days, and I spent a good chunk of time on all three days exploring the halls. I walked multiple rounds through all three halls, made sure to try all the demonstrations I could, and even kept track of which ones I missed due to long lines so that I could go back and see it on a subsequent day. Just like last year, everyone was very welcoming and inviting, and I had a great time hearing about and trying out all the exhibits.

 
I’ll start with my favorite exhibit from this year, four-dimensional Counter-Strike. This little booth was set up with two computers from which you could play Counter-Strike, except some of the weapons were hooked up to real-life stimulants surrounding the gaming area.

Detonating a flashbang within range of your opponent would cause blindingly bright lights to turn on next to their computer station. Getting hit with an explosive grenade would cause the entire table to vibrate and make a rattling noise. Walking into the smoke of a smoke bomb would prompt a leaf blower to blow air in your face while a mist sprayed on you from behind.

My second favorite exhibit was a backpack with a motor inside that would gauge your lean and counter-rotate to balance you. The problem is that the motor is pretty heavy and it takes a split second for it to actually counter-rotate properly, so it perpetually feels like the backpack is both trying to kill you and save your life at the same time, which was a very amusing experience.

Here I am getting convinced into finding a Porygon in a Wii game… and ultimately failing.

Hello egg.

There was a crate with a sign that said “Open the crate… if you dare.” I dared.

Next to the daring crate was a computer with Super Crate Box on it. I don’t really play games anymore, but when I did, I was a keyboard-and-mouse gamer and am notoriously bad at using gaming controllers. Needless to say, I performed catastrophically poorly.

Hello hat.

I’m also notoriously bad at using joysticks because the movement feels vague to me and I can’t ever really tell how far in a direction I have to move the joystick in order for the command to register. … Again, needless to say, I performed monumentally poorly.

What I did better at was Crossy Road, but with real-life physical controls. Every time I jumped, a webcam would detect my movement and advance the bird one lane. I managed to get to the river… before tragically diving straight in and drowning.

This is a game of shuffleboard where the weights have sensors in them so they can detect where it ended up and automatically keep score for you. Unfortunately, they weren’t working that day, so I guess you could consider them to be extremely fragile hockey pucks instead.

This was a game where you had to keep a baby alive. I contributed to the effort by rocking the baby back and forth to relieve it of its tiredness, but then some random guy decided to grief and reached over to light a paper towel roll on fire (in-game), so I gave up and moved onto the next exhibit.

I think the objective of this game was to hack into some girl’s computer and read all her personal information. I couldn’t tell what else I needed to do beyond that, though.

This was a game about sushi where the controller was a samurai sword. You quickly unsheathe and sheathe the sword to slice the fish on screen and turn them into sashimi, and you press a button on the sword to block the aggressive fish from reaching you. This was a rhythm game, but the timing of the music was a bit off, so I didn’t do too well, but I got a hang of the delay later on and compensated, which made things better.

This game helped me discover that apparently I’m not very good at roguelikes either. At this point, it’s a mystery as to how I managed to help run a decently successful esports company several years ago.

Here is another photograph of me struggling with yet again another game.

Open Sauce this year had an outdoor section. There was a train out there blowing bubbles, so I decided to take a picture next to it. I didn’t realize how deceptively large the throughput of the bubbles were, and I managed to get soap residue all over my glasses from when the bubbles popped after hitting my face.

This chair is designed to force you to have great, balanced posture when seated; failure to do so will result in the stool tilting and trying to throw you off the edge. As you can see, I did a stellar job and was not at risk of drilling my face into the concrete block next to me at any point throughout the experience whatsoever.

This exhibit tested to see how good you were at balancing; you’d place one foot in the center and then use the other foot to move the gray sliders to match the distances as outlined on the screen beside the device.

Even though you might not be able to tell, I’m in this next photo as well; it apparently uses a camera to see what’s in front of it, but warps the image using circuitry in a pattern determined by which button you press on the controller.

My third favorite exhibit of Open Sauce this year was a robot that tore apart a microwave. As you can see, it was very popular when the demonstration was happening, so I wasn’t really able to get a good photograph of the destruction.

This was an activity where you press buttons to control a robot and attempt to knock out your opponent. I played against my cameraman and defeated him ruthlessly.

This was a modified version of Street Fighter where taking damage causes you to receive an electric shock through the joystick. I figured out a way to cheese it by only controlling the joystick with my fingernails instead of with the fleshy part of my fingers, but switched back to holding the joystick normally for the spirit of fair competition. I, again, played against my cameraman… but this time, I was the one who got defeated ruthlessly.

Here are some more photographs of random things I found interesting around the exhibition halls and stages.

And finally, here is a picture of me with one of my friends in the creator interview area. She agreed to be on my blog, but didn’t want her identity disclosed, so this is the solution I came up with.

Overall, Open Sauce remains my all-time favorite convention, with Open Sauce 2025 joining Open Sauce 2024 as my top two.

There are some elements that I liked better in 2024, and there are other elements that I liked better in 2025. However, the one thing I was overwhelmingly impressed at with 2025 is how much it had grown, yet still maintained its identity as a science fair instead of falling into the expected pipeline of becoming more like a conference. I think a lot of variables had to be controlled and accounted for to pull that off, which I applaud the Open Sauce team for.

I took a lot of pictures with con-goers, some of whom know me from my recent collaborations and guest appearances with some of my friends, while others dated back to my esports years with Tempo Storm; if you’re posting photos of us together on social media, feel free to tag me so I can browse through them.

 

—§—

 

Hello, Kabuto Edomae Sushi in Las Vegas, Nevada

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

After spending a decent and satisfying chunk of time back home in the Las Vegas Valley, my next trip is already underway. Shortly before heading out, I dined at Kabuto Edomae Sushi in the Chinatown neighborhood of the unincorporated town of Spring Valley for one of my last meals in town until my return. I opted for the premium chef’s omakase experience, labeled on their menu as the namesake “Kabuto course.”

The meal began with an assortment of appetizers. Out of these appetizers, the tofu particularly stood out—I think this is the best tofu I’ve ever had in my entire life, and it tasted like they had compacted about five times the normal tofu flavor into a single slice.

Next was the warm dish, chawanmushi. Japanese steamed egg custard is usually the color of scrambled eggs, so it was interesting to see it come out very dark brown.

This was a traditional Japanese omakase experience, so while we were eating, we were able to watch the chefs prepare food for us and the other diners.

The following course was a trio of sashimi. This sashimi was exactly as you’d expect from a high-quality sushi restaurant—thick, fatty, and rich in flavor.

Next up was the seasonal grill item, fish with asparagus and ginger. The fish was remarkably tender and took “melt in your mouth” to a whole new level, while the vegetables had the perfect balance of crunch to add some variety to the texture of the fish.

By this point, the chef had finished preparing the slices of fish for our nigiri.

After finishing our grilled fish, the premium selection of nigiri service began.

Each piece had a very generous portion of fish. It is often considered to be Japanese etiquette to consume each piece of nigiri in one single bite. I managed to do this and get an abundantly pleasurable mouthful of fish each time, but I wouldn’t blame someone if they had a smaller mouth capacity and need to eat each in two bites.

After five pieces of nigiri, we took a quick break for some ikura and uni.

Shortly afterwards, we finished nigiri service with our final few pieces.

The subsequent course was a hand roll. It was just a regular roll with some cuts of tuna belly inside, which we had already eaten earlier during the dinner, but I still appreciated the added variety of style of preparing the items.

As a bonus after the conclusion of the sushi items, we got a prism of tamago. I don’t know if it’s because I just finished eating a large portion of amazing sushi so it was just a matter of bias through comparison, but this tamago was somewhat underwhelming and didn’t taste special at all.

There were two different omakase experiences—the full Kabuto option and the abridged Yoroi option. I saw the chef preparing some more sea urchin and salmon roe, and my guess is that this was for the diners on the opposite side of the sushi bar who had opted for the Yoroi course.

As our second-to-last course, we received clam miso soup. We had an option to pick between mushroom and clam; it’s rare to have a non-vegetable version of miso soup, so I opted for the clam.

To accompany our dessert, we received some tea.

Dessert was an assortment of three sweet and fruity dishes.

All the fruit was explosively packed with flavor. The sweetness also had an interesting phenomenon where it had very high intensity of sweetness, but that intensity didn’t come with any of the usual downsides of excessive sweetness that makes it overwhelming and “too” sweet.

Chef’s premium omakase ×2$ 350.00
Sales tax (8.375%)$  29.31
Gratuity$  50.00
Total$ 429.31
The table to the right shows how much we paid.

I thought this was a very well-rounded traditional Japanese omakase experience that perfectly captured what you’d expect from high-quality Japanese fine dining, both in the cuisine and in the impeccably attentive service.

There was nothing particularly innovative or revolutionary about this dinner, but that’s okay—sometimes you just want a predictable and straightforward Japanese meal, and Kabuto Edomae Sushi satisfyingly fulfills all those checkboxes.

My friend and I were seated at the edge of the sushi bar, which made for a nicer experience—we had an effortless view of all the chefs in the bar area, and it made for a slightly more private meal as a result of not being surrounded by other diners.

With that being said, Kabuto also has regular tables set up behind the sushi bar, and the isolation of those tables from the chefs means that diners seated there will just chatter among themselves. I think I just got unlucky, as there was a particularly loud group of young adults at one of those tables that came in about half an hour into our meal. Hopefully this doesn’t sound too bratty, but I think the omakase diners would have appreciated it if the wait staff asked that group to avoid yelling and keep their voices at a volume suitable for indoor dining in order to maintain the classiness of the environment.

Overall, this was a fantastic experience. Japanese is my favorite type of cuisine, and it was great having this meal be one of the conclusions of my stay before heading out for my next leg of travels. Paying over US$200.00 per person for a meal is a sizeable amount, but if that is within your budget, I think Kabuto Edomae Sushi is a solid option if you’re looking for a great traditional omakase restaurant.

 

—§—

 

Hello, A Different Beast in Las Vegas, Nevada

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

After finding it on a list of recommended and relatively new tasting menus in the Las Vegas Valley, I decided to dine at A Different Beast, a Spanish restaurant in the Chinatown neighborhood of the unincorporated town of Spring Valley. I opted for their ten-course chef’s tasting menu without the wine pairing.

The tasting menu started with the pintxos trio. The first item was octopus tapenade with Ibarra chili, piquillo pepper, and house-marinated olive.

I couldn’t really distinctly identify the octopus flavor in this; instead, it tasted more like a seafood and vegetable mixture. It had a good balance of savoriness and tartness, and the texture of the bread was firm enough to hold everything up, yet still delicate enough to be soft.

The second was buñuelo de alcachofa atop some Ibarra amarillo aioli.

I think this was a little bit too fried for my personal preference. Flavor-wise, I still thought it was fine. However, texture-wise, it was very fun to eat—it had a nice balance of both crispiness and softness.

The third small bite of the trio was seared gamba with confit cherry tomato and paprika vinaigrette.

This was fantastic. The shrimp was tender and had the perfect amount of intensity of flavor; the cherry tomato was mild enough that it didn’t overpower the shrimp, yet wasn’t so mild that it watered down the bite; the vinaigrette added a nice depth to the flavor, but wasn’t too sour like other vinaigrettes; and the bread was neither too firm nor too soft.

Next up were our tapas. The first one was pan con tomate, containing heirloom tomatoes and jamón ibérico bellota.

I’m usually not a fan of jamón ibérico due to the extreme fattiness and intensity of the flavor, but this was very mild and subtle. I had originally thought the purpose of this dish was to showcase the jamón ibérico, so I actually mentioned how it was so mild that the flavor of the tomato was overwhelming it. Then my friend pointed out from the menu that this was actually intended to be a tomato dish, and not a jamón ibérico dish.

With that additional context in mind, I thought this was great. The jamón ibérico served its purpose in adding an additional dimension to the tomatoes, and the tomatoes were rich and flavorful. I am sometimes wary of tomatoes because of how sour they sometimes are, but these had no sourness whatsoever.

Next came vieiras crudas with royal ossetra and mango caviar, almond milk, and crispy jamón.

The fish was fantastic and resembled sashimi I would normally get at a Japanese restaurant but with two additional dimensions of flavor. The crunch of the jamón and the pop of the caviar accompanied the experience of biting into the fish very well. My favorite part about this dish was the sauce; it was light and smooth, and I ended up drinking the remainder as soup after I was done with the crudo.

The friend with whom I was dining loves foie gras, so we of course added in the foie gras supplement with frisée, peaches, peach caramel, MitiCaña goat cheese, and walnuts.

This is literally the best foie gras dish I have ever had in my entire life.

The flavor of the foie gras was very strong and pure. There was a generous portion of salt on it, which extracted and enhanced the foie gras flavor even more.

Everything surrounding the foie gras served as a perfect compliment to it. The frisée and peaches were refreshing and absorbed some of the intense fattiness. The peach caramel and walnuts added an additional element of savoriness. The goat cheese was relatively mild and didn’t have a moldy taste to it.

Our next dish was a croquetta de jamón with jamón ibérico bellota and garlic aioli.

Although it was still good, this was the dish that I was least impressed by. It had a somewhat generic hearty flavor profile to it that I didn’t find to be particularly unique or memorable. However, on the grander scale of things, I think it still played its role well as a component of the overall tasting menu.

Next up was wild mushrooms with truffle powder and 63-degree egg.

I don’t really have much commentary or feedback on this dish—it just felt like I was eating very high-quality mushrooms covered in egg yolk. However, my friend is a big fan of mushrooms and has a far more refined palate when it comes to mushroom flavors, and she thought these were some of the best mushrooms she’s ever had.

Last on the set of tapas was wagyu bocaditos with machego, ibarra amarillo aioli, petite watercress, and fennel slaw.

Although I find burgers with ketchup, mustard, and cheese to be somewhat nostalgic, I personally prefer them with pickles, peppers, and a spicy mayo sauce, so these wagyu sliders fit my preference perfectly. It had the rich fattiness you expect from wagyu beef, and the accompanying vegetables were pickled just enough to help pierce through the fattiness without being too sour and without overwhelming the flavor of the meat.

We were able to pick one item each out of a list of platos. I opted for a bacalao Pacífico with basque salsa verde, lemon, and yellow fingerlings.

This was a very interesting flavor profile that I had not ever experienced before, and I still have no idea how to even begin to describe it. It had a degree of bitterness to it, but it was just salty enough that it counteracted the bitterness before it actually became an entirely negative characteristic.

The fish was strangely somehow rubbery and tender at the same time. Cutting and biting into the outside of the fish was tricky because it was chewy and gave a decent amount of resistance, but once you actually got into the fleshy center, it was still soft and somewhat flaky. Even the vegetables had a somewhat comparably interesting texture phenomenon—the outside was gummy, while the inside was soft like normal boiled vegetables.

My friend’s plato was Spanish octopus with Yukon Gold potatoes, frisée, and lemon paprika vinaigrette.

By this point, I was getting pretty full, but I still sampled a small portion of the octopus so I could see how it was. The octopus was a little bit crispy on the outside but very tender on the inside. I also appreciated the char, as it added a degree of depth to the octopus’ flavor as if it was a natural seasoning.

The postre, i.e., dessert, was a crema Catalana congelada with brûléed frozen custard and lemon curd.

This had everything you’d expect from solid crème brûlée—a satisfyingly crispy top, a delicate inside, and an overall sweet-but-not-too-sweet flavor profile.

Normally the tasting menu comes with the crème brûlée as the designated dessert, but instead of giving us two of the same dessert, the chef swapped out one of them for a cheesecake.

I’m usually not the biggest fan of cheesecake, but this one wasn’t too bad. I much prefer the fluffy Japanese-style cheesecake over the thicker and heavier cheesecake that I often see in the United States, and this cheesecake more resembled the Japanese version.

Our reservation was booked right at opening time, so after we were seated, I was able to get some shots of the empty restaurant before other diners arrived.

The bathroom had a comically high-tech toilet and bidet system attached to it—something that, to my knowledge, you would normally only find in countries like Japan, and not in the United States. I thought the bathroom was very clean and it had a nice theme to it, so I snapped a photo of it while I was in there.

Chef’s tasting menu ×2$ 178.00
Foie gras supplement$  23.00
Plato enhancement$   6.00
Sales tax (8.375%)$  17.34
Service charge (20%)$  41.40
Total$ 265.74
The table to the right shows how much we paid.

I think this is some of the best value I’ve gotten out of a chef’s tasting menu in a long time. The food was all prepared very well, and the portion sizes were all reasonably large enough that each item completed its chapter in the flavor storyline, rather than leaving me wanting a few more bites of the dish.

I don’t find myself consuming Spanish cuisine too often, so I’m glad that this positive experience was my introduction to Spanish fine dining. The theming of the restaurant was nice, and I appreciated the commitment to demonstrating Spanish culture both in the food and in the environment.

Without any supplements or enhancements, the US$89 meal comes out to just shy of US$115 after sales tax and a service charge in lieu of gratuity. That is still on the higher end of cost for a single meal, but if this is within your budget, I highly recommend giving it a try—I don’t think there are too many other restaurants in Las Vegas where you can get this amount of value in terms of food quality, portion size, and service at this pricepoint.

 

—§—