Eating Las Vegas. Or maybe that should be “Drinking”…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. There’s only one reason for that – I’ve had an incredibly busy summer. Currently, I have about thirty potential blog posts floating around in my head, and if I were to actually try to catch up on them, it would take me the better part of a month. So instead, I’m just going to jump right in with the most recent fun activity in my life – my whirlwind birthday trip to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas. So many love to hate it. Doug and I, on the other hand, love to love it. We have had many fun jaunts to this decadent desert city over the years, and this past weekend’s trip stands to be remembered as one of our very best.

It was a quick trip – we arrived at the Venetian on Friday and headed back home on Sunday – but though it was short in duration, it was very long on memorable experiences. Friday, after checking in to our hotel, we headed out to grab a burger for lunch, and as “i love burgers” was just a short walk along the indoor canal, that was where we headed. It was a reasonably good experience, but frankly, not because of the burgers. Doug and I are burger aficionados and we are always on the quest for the perfect burger, a task that is thoroughly enjoyable in beef-rich Texas (Tim Love’s “Dirty Love Burger” ranks high on our list of favourites). But living in a state that has such fabulous beef has made us a tad more discerning than most, we find… especially when we travel to other places. Still, ever-hopeful, I plunged in and ordered the ” i love bacon” burger – I mean, bacon, folks! With fried onions! How bad could it be?

“Fairly” was the answer. This was just a mediocre burger at best, hidden under way too many pieces of deep-fried onion. Not even the bacon could rescue it.

Doug, quite sensibly as it turned out, ordered “The Oregon Trail”, which was actually a buffalo burger, and it was much better.

These hand-cut chips were actually very good.

But the highlight of the meal turned out to be the beer. Yeah, we’re beer aficionados too… The beer was a local brew, Tenaya Craft IPA, and while I wouldn’t rank it as the best I’ve ever had, it was pretty good. So, always happy to find a new beverage, I considered the meal a success.

After lunch, it was off to the casino. I’m not much of a gambler, and for a very good reason – I ALWAYS lose. Well, frankly, I think that most people do, and I’m just more honest than most. Either that, or I’m just really cheap, because I really hate giving my money away. Doug, on the other hand, enjoys a certain limited success, and so I watched him for a while. After I’d blown my whole twenty bucks (See? Cheap!)

The man and his favourite Wheel of Fortune machine. He actually won a lot, but of course, he just kept playing til it was all gone...

We took a tour of the hotel after that, and as I had never seen the Palazzo addition, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, it’s all fake, and yes, it’s tacky-glam, but Vegas is so much fun if you can let go of pretensions and snobbery, and relax into the moment. After all, this is really just Disney World for adults. I love it! Even the super-fake water features…

Why no... I didn't safari to Victoria Falls in a sundress and heels...

... I merely accompanied this man to a much tamer version. Complete with lily pond. (Love the purse, Doug...)

We headed back to our room. Well… there was a stop at Sin City Brewing Company to quaff a quick one… okay two. Gotta count the traveller. These were also IPAs…  not nearly as good as the Tenaya, but they hit the spot. Afterward, we relaxed for a bit before venturing out to dinner.

Okay. Above I just recounted how, living in Texas, we enjoy an elevated standard of beef, and how that can make us picky when we travel. So, with the sheer number of Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants we frequent at home, you wouldn’t think we’d pick a place called “Dos Caminos” for our first dinner of the weekend, would you? Wrong. But this place came well recommended by multiple ‘foodie’ sites, received high praise from local Las Vegas food writers – with Hispanic surnames – and even looked elegant and promising when we checked it out earlier in the day. And our meal actually started out well.

First, we had a tequila tasting, anejos in a flight, and it was a great way to start a meal. With it, we ordered the signature guacamole trio, and it, too was wonderful. But the accompanying chips were just plain awful. They were tasteless and insipid and seemingly stale, and so we sent them back. The replacement basket wasn’t any better. I guess we should have paid the extra charge to have raw vegetables as an accompaniment, instead. But ever optimistic, we enjoyed the end of the guacamole and tequila, ordered a margarita (quite good), and waited for dinner to arrive. What followed was a prettily arranged meal that looked much better than it tasted. Oh, it was adequate, but certainly nothing to write home about.

My "Cochinita Pibil". Slow-roasted suckling pig, sauteed plantains, habanero pickled onions and achiote sauce. Billed as Hot! (two flaming skulls), but believe me, it wasn't.

Doug's "Dos Enchiladas". Chicken in corn tortillas, with mole poblano and tomatillo verde (at least I think that's what he had...)

It was an average meal, watered down for the average indifferent eater, but priced at a level that only an enthusiast wouldn’t mind paying. I couldn’t help but compare it to a recent meal of pit-barbequed pig at Baja, a pretty little restaurant near us, in Southlake. The food at Baja, authentic Mexican, was three times as good as this, and the price was less than half. Sigh. But they say travel broadens the mind, so I decided to just chalk this up to experience. And the amount of tequila I’d ingested certainly helped

So at the end of day one, we certainly hadn’t hit any home runs with the meals we’d had – and not even the decent quality of the beverages really made up for that. But our luck was about to change – though not in the casino! Day two was about to give us pay-back for our optimism.

But that’s a story for tomorrow.

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Tagged: Beer, Birthdays, Food, Restaurant Reviews, Restaurants

Posted in: Uncategorized