Las Vegas Trip Report

So, a few weeks ago (yes, I'm delinquent) I went to Las Vegas with my mother for a little mother/daughter adventure. Here's a quick rundown of where and what we ate, along with recommendations for how to increase your winnings by 189%.

Spago - Caesar's Palace in The Forum Shops (dinner)

This one is a mom favorite, I think because it's in the Forum, she's been there, and it's all food she knows. We started with crispy calamari, with a spicy remoulade sauce for dipping. Quite good and not overly fried. For dinner, I had a seared halibut fillet over jasmine rice and sauteed bok choy. It was topped with fried Thai chilis and those were a little bite of hot, salty goodness.

My mom just wanted a salad, so she ordered the Italian Chopped Salad - think provolone, salami, chicken, veggies - and cleaned her plate. Another noteworthy thing would be the bread basket...though you don't actually get one, they came around quite frequently and offered us grissini sticks and foccacia served with a goat cheese puree.

Strip Burger (lunch)

Newcomer to the Fashion Show mall, Strip Burger is housed on the corner near Cafe Ba Ba Reeba and has an outdoor patio. It was SO hot that we ate inside and froze. Either way, we enjoyed the fries and our food. My mom elected to get another chopped salad (more veggies this time) and I went with the California Chicken sandwich (mmm, pepperjack and avocado) which was delicious. I'm super bummed we didn't get shakes because EVERYONE else did and it made me jealous. But, seriously, those are so filling and I need C to be there to polish it off.

Enoteca San Marco (Dinner) - The Venetian

After a rocky start (late seating, triple sat waiter) we sat down at a great table on the "patio" in St. Mark's Square. We were sorta starved seeing it had been about 7 hours since lunch and we'd had a few drinks...there was a special appetizer salad that sounded amazing (and proved to be quite delicious) with fresh ricotta, fava beans, asparagus and radishes. It was the most fresh, Spring appetizer I could've asked for...especially during the heat wave. We followed this up with a braised pork belly ragu with fresh pasta and herbs. Definitely heavier than the previous dish, but it was so tender and tasty, I didn't care. I kept getting these savory/sweet bites, like there was some sort of brown sugar or carmelization that happened there. Yum.

We also went to perennial favorite Nobu (Hard Rock Hotel) which was amazing as always and we had a flirty waiter who made us tipsy and delighted. After we left, we decided that we should gamble. Roulette - no dice (like, literally and figuratively). Blackjack - lost again (x 2). Then we thought, let's stick to slots. Having never seen a 2 cent slot machine, we threw a $1 in.

ONE HOUR LATER...yup, still at the same machine. It was SO entertaining and we were so proud of our accomplishment (tell me you wouldn't be totally hyped if YOU got a 189% return on investment) that we sat and drank beer and laughed at all the cheap skates around us playing 2 cent slots. It was great - highly recommended.

So, as my mother kept announcing to everyone we talked to...this was our first trip of many :)

Viva Las Vegas.