‘Las Vegas’
Las Vegas (and particularly The Strip) is a place of excess, and sometimes this only translates to excessive prices for subpar food. Yet, if you know where to look, you can find hidden gems much more common than winners in Black Jack. Fat Choy is one of these, located in the classic Eureka Casino, which seems to be a place made only for locals.
Sitting by the pool and soaking up the sun is pretty much what you do in Las Vegas in between gambling with fun games, buffets and whatnot. But what the hell do you do when you get hungry and don’t want to give up your prime seat? It’s a real issue and Vegas knows it, which is why they offer food at insane prices. The Bamboo Pool at the Cosmopolitan was no different.
Many people wake up in the morning craving breakfast food. Not me. Just like any other time of the day I crave burgers. It could have something to do with the fact that I try to wake up more around lunch time than breakfast time, but that’s beside the point. Thus, I found myself at Blondies in Las Vegas’s Planet Hollywood ordering a burger as my first meal of the day, I’m not going to play the victim here, I only do it because I know I’ll spent way too much time playing with the digitaledge casino games so I’ll probably won’t catch up on lunch later on.
When it comes to late-night snacking, it can be tough to find a good spot after 1 am in Las Vegas. It’s surprising, because I would assume places would make bank with the after-club crowd, but alas, Gordon Ramsay’s BurGR (see what they did with the G and R there?) was one of the few spots open near my hotel. I had never given much thought to visiting a Gordon Ramsay restaurant, but I supposed there was no better time than the middle of the night.
I don’t know about other people, but when I tell someone I just went to Las Vegas, the first question is “Where did you stay?” The next question, though, is “Which buffet did you eat at?” Perhaps it’s because I’m a food blogger, but I tend to think it’s because the buffets are just so damn good that gluttony in Vegas is just a more interesting sin than gambling. Plus these days, you can gamble on sites like www.boomtownbingo.com/high-life-bingo-review on your phone and so you can have your cake and eat it too. Thus, on my most recent outing to Vegas the buffet of choice was Wicked Spoon in The Cosmopolitan.
In my mind, no trip to Sin City is worth it without committing the sin of gluttony. There are many outlets for said gluttony, but none better than one of the city’s amazing buffets. And perhaps there is no better buffet than the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace. As an added bonus, for brunch they throw bottomless mimosas on top of their mess of food. And what a beautiful mess of food it is. The place is simply huge, with each station being big enough to house an entire buffet at any lesser establishment.
EDIT: Fuku Burger made a move, hopefully it hasn’t changed for the worse.
Amidst the new Linq in Las Vegas is a little spot called Fuku Burger. While the Linq is new, Fuku Burger certainly is not. It started as a food truck in Vegas a few years ago, became a short-lived restaurant in Hollywood afterwards and then found this new permanent location within a cool new food court type of thing. The menu is nice and small and priced right, just like a food truck should be, even if it’s now brick and mortar.
I usually prefer not to wake up early in Vegas, but when I do it is either to hit the pool or to find some awesome food. Fortunately we found the latter with Hash House a Go Go. Located in The Quad (some confusing newfangled hotel/casino), Hash House is some sort of farm fresh. This I don’t quite understand because I feel like there aren’t any farms anywhere within a 200 mile radius of Las Vegas, but I digress. Whatever you want to call it, it looked good.
Las Vegas in unquestionably a land of excess. So not surprisingly there is Guy Fieri restaurant on The Strip called Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen + Bar. It’s not exactly the most inspiring name, but it was enough to pull me in from the street when I was on my way to eat elsewhere. The menu was not far from this, but seemed somewhat more edible. The prices were a bit high, but I figured in the land of excess, this would result in an excessively large meal.
2014 is here, but my 2013 may have been the best year of eating in the history of the world, so it’s time for another Unvegan Best of. The past year included a honeymoon, an epic month-long road trip and a move from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh, so my list has broadened beyond LA and narrowing down the awesome was quite the process. Nonetheless, I encourage you all to go back through my Reviews section to see what didn’t quite make the cut. Remember that the list only includes places new to The Unvegan and bear in mind that Honorable Nods this year would probably be winners any other year. Without further ado: