Vegas is for Eating

So most people assume that when you go to Vegas, you do the following things: Night clubbing, day clubbing, and drinking your brains out while probably wearing small little hoochie dresses. This time however, we decided to take the trip up to visit a friend and spend a whole weekend eating instead. Worth it.

Friday night: Before the drive, we decided to grab a quick snack at Lawry's The Prime Rib. Ordered mine a medium rare on the rare side. Their spinning salad was great, and their prime rib was great. Most people in the restaurant left with to-go boxes, but not us. We're champions.

Saturday morning breakfast: A Pink's chili-hot-dog burrito. I've never had one before this, but I'll guide you through my steps of discovery.

Step 1: Acquire burrito

Step 2: Open burrito

Step 3: Burrito explodes in hands while I eat it because that's what happens to every burrito I touch. True story (It was still really tasty though).

After that we took our traditional trip to Bouchon to buy macarons. I tried the salted caramel, chocolate, and coffee ones. My friends also tried a raspberry. Their cookies are very pleasantly chewy, but the filling was a bit thin.

As no dessert is complete with coffee, I also ordered an espresso which came in a paper cup WITH A PAPER HANDLE. If you can't tell, I was very excited. Made my day.

Saturday night dinner: Steak frites at Mon Ami Gabi. Their steaks are pounded super thin, so you can't really get quite as rare a steak as you might with a thicker cut, but they're so soft it hardly matters. 

Also, their fries are just as thin and just as delicious. They're more like closet potato chips.

Ok, so we can't go to Vegas without a LITTLE drinking, so we stopped at the Chandelier Bar in the Cosmo to try their funky drinks. Their expensive, funky drinks. We got a few different ones, but my favorite by far was the Dante's Inferno, a concoction of pineapple and cilantro with a wonderful ancho-chile salted rim.

Sunday morning breakfast: Adobada fries at Tacos El Gordo. No better way to energize yourself for a day of outlet shopping than with a mass of cheese, fries, pork (the color reminiscent of that of the chinese 'Cha Siu'), and a generous slathering of guacamole and sour cream. Be warned, some of the other customers who are also trying to obtain some delicious Mexican food goodness are terrible drivers, and you may be stuck in that parking lot for a while surrounded by the sound of angry drivers honking at one another. 

After shopping, we had an early dinner at Bouchon's at The Venetian. 

Their bread was amazing. I'm rarely impressed by restaurant bread because oftentimes the crust is hard or chewy, but theirs was crisp and pleasant.

An appetizer of salmon rilettes (my parents love this).

And a main course of glorified liver and (fried) onions on a bed of mashed cauliflower. It was delicious.

 Vegas is actually an incredible place if you want to try some neat restaurants, especially on the Strip. There are so many choices, many within walking distance of one another. Some of them can get very expensive, but there are plenty of eats that aren't. If you have time in between parties, it's definitely worthwhile to check out some of their culinary options.

Photographs and title inspiration by Jimmy W., my food co-adventurer.