Eating my Way Through Vegas

• February 12, 2015
• Mari Bickmore
• no comments

“I stay out too late…got nothing in my brain. That’s what people say.” I can’t get that song out of my brain…it’s like I got this music in my mind saying “it’s gonna be alright.” Silly, right? Kind of perfect for Vegas though. Five days and four nights in Sin City! I am pretty sure you can cover the seven deadly sins in Vegas: Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride. Think about it. Sad. But all that does make for some great people watching, if you are into that sort of thing. Just being away from winter weather and waking up every morning and thinking how glorious the perfect blue skies, sun and 75-degree weather must be some kind of sin.

I am definitely a high roller. I set aside $20 for gambling. Since $20 wouldn’t get me far at the Blackjack table with a $10 minimum, I was relegated to the one-armed bandits. I was up at $27 and cashed at at $24.75. I am thinking that gambling is not in my blood. HOWEVER, there is sooo much more in Vegas. The shopping is phenomenal. I have to think that just about any brand you need, crave or want is there. The Forum Shops, the Grand Canal Shoppes, Fashion Show Mall, Town Square, Shoppes at the Palazzo, Miracle Mile, Crystals at City Center, Doges Palace, Desert Passage, and others, not to mention the Premium Outlets. The premium outlets here have a good selection and some high end stores too. The only better one I’ve been to is Camarillo in California. Make sure you bring your walking shoes. If I’m going to “lose” any money in Vegas, it is going to be at one of these shrines to excess (or possibly to a shrine of gluttony). I’m pretty sure my daughter and I walked four or five miles a day in this quest.

Back to the gluttony notation: Vegas has to be one of the best places to eat ever. Many great chefs have restaurants here. There are just a very long list of fabulous places to eat and, admittedly, they are very pricey. You get what you pay for. Four nights in a row I overate, and not in a small way. Yet, I didn’t even think about not doing it. I mean, I knew it would be over quickly. Wagyu beef that you could practically cut with a fork, foie gras, lobster in mashed potatoes, lobster pie, bone marrow (my new favorite appetizer), beef wellington a la Gordon Ramsay, black truffled everything and desserts to die for. We ate at Mastro’s Ocean Club, Sage, Gordon Ramsay’s and Michael Mina. All of them are excellent. The Warm Butter Cake from Mastro’s was hands down my favorite dessert. Someone told me the Havana Dream Pie at Joe’s Stone Crab would make me spit out the butter cake, so I tried it for lunch and they were dead wrong. The dream pie was a tres leches cake, albeit a fantastic tres leches, it was no where near Mastro’s butter cake. Mastro’s bone marrow was the best, but their main course presentation left something to be desired.

Sage was overall a more than very nice dining experience, but nothing sticks out as the best of anything, although the ambience and food presentation was sensual.  Gordon Ramsay’s Wagyu American Filet was absolutely the best steak we had, although their sides were not. Someone told us to get the Sticky Toffee Pudding, so we did. While it was, indeed, very good, I’m still comparing to the butter cake. It reminded me a bit of a very good figgy pudding. Now for Michael Mina, OMG on the lobster pot pie!….and the foie gras….and the short rib ravioli….omg the butter was the best we had all trip and I always eat bread just so I can have the butter. When I lose the weight from these four days, I will be ready to come back. I usually have to wait a whole year to dine like this again, but my nephew is getting married in Vegas in June. I had better start playing tennis five days a week!

If you’ve been to Vegas you know there are some amazing hotels lining the Strip, and probably some that aren’t on the Strip. Unfortunately, my hubs’ convention was at The Mirage, which isn’t the best hotel on the Strip. Next year we are staying somewhere else and he is taxiing to the show. I have decent list of hotels to choose from that I think are pretty fabulous: The Wynn, Cosmopolitan, Aria, Venetian or the Palazzo, but never again The Mirage. I wish I could tell you about some shows, but we didn’t see any on this trip. Our dining lasted late into the evening and after shopping all day for the girls and working all day for the hubs, we rolled ourselves into bed and crashed.

Let me know your favorite restaurants, shows and  hotels in Vegas so I can use that info next time I go!