the red rock resort belongs to me.

Food is important to most everyone, but we all create our own connections to the experience of eating. Few of the most memorable meals of my life have been break-the-bank, once-in-a-lifetime gourmet adventures. Those are usually enjoyable. But the combination of the right environment, the right food and the right company makes for a powerful memory, and in my experience it’s been near impossible to engineer such a situation.

But I’ve done it, at least once. It was a Friday night in December. After a day of drinking and grazing on snacks at home, it was time for a late supper at T-bones Chophouse, a swanky if unfortunately named steakhouse at the Red Rock Resort. We began at the bar, slurping martinis and chewing on pretzel bread as friends began to arrive. I ordered dinner: the signature chopped salad, a shrimp cocktail, a petite filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes. More friends arrived, and we slid from the shiny bar top to a group of high tables in the restaurant’s lounge area, setting up between the long double-sided bar and tall glass doors that lead to a beautiful patio overlooking the resort’s pool.

More arrived, soon we were all drunk, and our group had officially taken over T-bones. This was a gathering of our closest people, siblings, friends from out of town, friends stretching beyond a decade. It was the night before we got married. Drinks were flowing freely and there was an easy happiness floating around, and I seemed to be the only one eating. Somehow that made everything taste better. I took down the chopped salad after my almost-wife munched a couple bites before deciding to focus on liquid nourishment. The shrimp cocktail was quite fine and delivered in a block of oddly shaped ice; my brother examined it after stealing a shrimp and ended up breaking the thing. I continued to share, forking a tender bite of beef into the mouth of almost-wife’s best friend from back home in Colorado. She requested another, this time with a little more of the peppery red wine reduction sauce. I was happy to help. I was happy to be surrounded by my favorite people in one of my favorite places, and enjoy a simple, classic steakhouse meal. That doesn’t mean this restaurant is average, and definitely not mediocre. T-bones is one of the better steak joints in Vegas, which may be hard to believe considering there are so many, and so many expensive ones on the Strip. But know the food is almost always the same at these places, and a little extra luxury, creativity and convenience goes a long way. I’ve also had a terrific Scottish salmon at T-bones, and we returned for an anniversary dinner and feasted on a supreme foie gras appetizer, another steak with a gorgonzola crust, au gratin potatoes and some of the best short ribs I’ve ever had.

The Red Rock Resort is my favorite hotel-casino in Las Vegas, and I’m not alone on this one. A great steakhouse is just the beginning of a solid, occasionally spectacular restaurant lineup. The hotel rooms, casino design, bars, pools and lounge spaces are equal to or greater than what we see at the big properties on Las Vegas Boulevard, and the whole place has a casual, easy-access feel that creates exactly the kind of comfort I desire. It feels like it’s too nice, yet welcoming. When I check in at the Red Rock for a completely unnecessary fake vacation weekend, when I waddle into the fancy, central, rose-red Lucky Bar in tacky green-and-white swimming shorts and order a gin-and-soda, when I cap off the night before my wedding with a 3 a.m. stroll to the food court for a Fatburger with my almost-wife and two best friends from high school, I feel like I’m a bum who hit Megabucks. I feel like some bozo who lucked into some really sweet surroundings. And really, feeling like that is my objective. I don’t know if that’s the exact vibe the guys at Station Casinos were going for when they spent a billion dollars building this place, but that’s what they got. And I’m happy about it, and grateful.

Red Rock opened in the spring of 2006. It cost around $925 million. It resides in the heart of Summerlin, one of the country’s biggest master-planned communities and, up until this whole shitty economy stuff, the fastest growing suburban neighborhood anywhere. Red Rock marked Station Casinos’ next step up from the Green Valley Ranch Resort, another upscale neighborhood casino in another suburban community on the east side, in the city of Henderson. GVR opened with much excitement at the end of 2001, considered as the evolution of the neighborhood or off-Strip casino. (George Maloof’s Palms, famous for attracting celebrities, also opened that year and also was considered part of this new wave of hip joints beyond our most famous street.) Before the Green Valley resort, Station Casinos had upgraded and expanded its brand with the Texas Station (1995 in North Las Vegas), Sunset Station (1997 in Henderson) and Santa Fe Station (acquired in 2000 in northwest Vegas), all shiny, fancy casino-hotels with family-friendly amenities such as bowling lanes, food courts and movie theaters. These places became one-stop entertainment destinations for the thousands of families who had flooded the valley since the mid-1980s, places where the younger set could have fun while the adults would gamble. Their huge success built Station into a dynasty, a gaming company that would spar with and eventually overtake the other locals, Boyd and Coast, and join the conversation with the heavy hitters on the Strip. And when things were going great, brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, leaders of the Station family, decided to do something kinda crazy and build a new flagship, something that would rival those big dogs, only it would be way out west, in the shadows of the brilliant Red Rock Canyon. It would have a much more modern design, with rich colors borrowed from those vaulted desert mountains, chandeliers with millions of crystals, miles of onyx lining the walls, gold-leafed ceilings, and a shitload of other fancy stuff. It would have a giant casino with plenty of machines and tables, a massive sportsbook, and an intimidatingly cool high limit room. It would have awesome accommodations, unique penthouse suites, convention spaces, swimming pools, nightclubs, a movie theater and the nicest bowling lanes in Vegas. It would be the kind of place the Fertittas themselves would hang at, and so it was.

I’d like to write there will never be another place like the Red Rock Resort, that because of the recession that will forever change the way Las Vegas works, no one will ever spend many millions of dollars to build a supercasino in our neighborhoods. But it has happened. The $600 million Aliante Station opened in 2008 in an even more distant community, and at the southernmost tip of town, the billion-dollar M Resort came to life in 2009. In my world, those places don’t matter, because the Red Rock is mine. I grew up on the west side of the valley, I ran around the suburbs of Summerlin, and when I made my post-college return to Vegas in 1999, my ‘hood was still without a truly great place to play tourist, eat, drink and party. There were casinos: the Suncoast, and what is now the JW Marriott resort, living uneasily next to each other just off Summerlin Parkway. Both are an ill fit, a little low-rent. Then Red Rock came along and blew everything else away.

When the Station guys started thinking this over, design came first and food came second, and that’s right on the money. All those little (expensive) touches add up to create that too-nice vibe, and the details are everywhere. These are nicest movie theaters around. This is the nicest spa. These are the nicest bathrooms. This is the nicest hotel lobby around, especially because they don’t build hotel lobbies like this anymore, with grand circling staircases and a 30-foot-tall crystal chandelier hanging above the tiny lobby bar.

I’ve seen every type of hotel room and suite in the building, and I’m perfectly fine with the standard. It’s pretty badass: 42-inch plasma, Bose soundsystem with iPod dock, 15-inch LCD screens in the bathroom, one of the greatest beds of all time, and of course, robes and slippers. The colors are chocolate with some greens, oranges and reds, and your view is either the breathtaking canyon or the distant, shimmering Strip. But the suites get ridiculous, easily setting a new standard away from that Strip. Take a step up and you’ve got a couple 65-inch plasmas, big party-ready bars, private bedrooms, marble bathrooms with huge soaking tubs, all spread over about 2,500 square feet. If you manage to score one of the seven penthouse suites, you are a special person. Private elevator. The black, brown and blue one is called the One 80, because the view affords both the canyon and the Strip. The TV is only 103 inches. The sofa rotates. The green one is called the Canyon. It’s a bit smaller at 4,000 square feet. It has a private massage room. The white one has a pool table and two bedrooms, one of which has its own balcony and jacuzzi. The red one is Cherry, and it has survived the vomiting heathens of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, season one. The shower is in the middle of the master bedroom, which seems about right. The TVs are not that big, but there is a 20-foot projection screen. The purple one is Lucky. There are more. Why are they here? So the Station guys can throw awesome parties up on the top floor? Unnecessary awesomeness is how you set new standards in Vegas. The centerpiece of it all is the “backyard” area. There is a large round swimming pool with a playful fountain in the middle, several smaller, rectangular pools branching away and a large shaded bar with blackjack tables and sexy cocktail servers. How can I describe a day at the Red Rock pool? It’s like you went to one of the hip hotels on the Strip and they didn’t let any assholes in. Even though marketing has tried to make money and douche it up out here, things have stayed relatively peaceful. Evidence: the Cherry nightclub closed down to make way for the more easygoing cabana club. Good move.

Food may have been ranked second in the grand scheme of things, but Red Rock’s restaurant offerings are definitely first among neighborhood casinos. Besides the exemplary T-bones, you have other standards that are quite serviceable (the Grand Cafe coffee shop, Cabo Mexican restaurant, Terra Rossa Italian restaurant, LBS burger joint, Yard House beer and food depot, and the Feast buffet), you have a miniaturized version of one of Vegas’ best deli-style restaurants right next to the sportsbook (the Bagel Cafe), and you have quite possibly the best casino food court of all time. Here’s the lineup: Fatburger, one of the best hamburger chains of all time; Capriotti’s, Vegas’ favorite sandwich shop gone global; the respectable fish tacos of Rubio’s; and then, you can’t win them all, so Villa Pizza, Panda Express, Ben & Jerry’s, Tropical Smoothie and Starbucks. Very formidable, all next door to the movies, bowling and bingo.

The best restaurant here is Hachi, billed as modern Japanese. It is criminally under looked in the local dining scene, reliably pitch-perfect and therefore more than deserving of my constant affectionate raves. The chef, who was recruited from New York specifically to open an off-Strip pan-Asian concept in Vegas (this is something that has never happened before) is Linda Rodriguez, a very nice lady from the Philippines who just happens to be the first woman to train under Nobu Matsuhisa. She has cooked in Brooklyn, Mexico City, London and Louisiana, and we are lucky to have her, and her partner/husband, Martin Swift. Their restaurant is edgy and awesome. Its main dining room is walled by a Murakami eyeball piece opposite a wispy, peaceful image of cherry blossom trees, and it feels good to eat sushi here. But the menu boasts so much more. Most people know Hachi for its LSD roll, with spicy shrimp and crab, tempura flakes and avocado, or its incredible 38 for Under $8 menu, which offers great small plates like veggie fried rice, spicy kabocha coconut soup, barbecued ribs and kushiyaki meat skewers for low prices. I love the four varieties in the sashimi sampler, especially the fluke tiradito, the perfect little square of braised short ribs on top of roasted apple puree, the kobe beef potstickers, the light, sweet crab salad with cilantro vinaigrette, and the tempura’d pumpkin. Everything is good here, creative, refreshing and delicious.

Hachi is my favorite place to eat at Red Rock, and my favorite place to drink is … still up for grabs. It might be that quiet, throwback lobby bar. Just upstairs, the amber Onyx Bar is a nice little nook, too. It’s exactly the kind of casino bar that is lacking in the other spots in our neighborhood, a comfortable place to sit and pay a few dollars too many for a good stiff drink while trying to talk your way into something you probably shouldn’t do. Maybe the best spot is back at T-bones, out on that nifty patio, sitting on a big circular couch swigging Hendricks muddled with cucumber and lime and making fun of the Summerlin cougars and their shiny-shirted husbands/male mistresses. It’s very nice out here, when things cool down at night and they’ve closed the pool for the day, and you could drink a little too much and start thinking about how nice it’d be to have a room tonight. It’s happened. When I visit the Red Rock now, and do stuff like this, I start thinking about living here. Permanent room service in my Presidential Suite … yeah, I don’t need the penthouse, I’ll stick to the one with his-and-hers bathrooms and just a 42-inch plasma behind the bar. That’s where I’ll have my final nightcap each evening, after my penultimate whisky in the lobby. Bagel Cafe for breakfast, then I’ll hit the pool. On a Tuesday. Fantasies are fun, but the reality is: this joint is 6 miles from my house, it’s one of the biggest and beautifullest resorts in Vegas, and it’s far more accessible than anything on the Strip. These are the reasons why it’s mine.

the definitive vegas pizza.

One of my earliest Vegas food memories is munching on two slices of New York-style Verrazano Pizza, a tiny shop on North Rainbow Boulevard. It's pretty straight-ahead pizza, wide slices of cheesy, thin-crust goodness. The place was mostly oven, always hot as hell with a frequently broken soda machine, but located conveniently within a quick bike ride for an 11-year-old trying hard to get acclimated to desert life. There had been plenty of pizza before Verrazano, and even more after, but that slice was genre-defining. So it goes with childhood, no?

The original pizzerias of Las Vegas were all from New York. There were three: Villa Pizza started in 1976, Verrazano in 1978, and Metro Pizza in 1980. All three grew into multiple locations around the valley, some of which are still operating today, and many more similar and different pizza shops soon followed. For Carmine Vento, the man behind Villa, selling pizza by the slice turned into a mammoth operation, a national franchise he sold in 2000. Vento still works in the restaurant biz in Vegas, licensing his brand to some and operating others (Carmine's Pizza Kitchen). Verrazano is still around in various forms, perhaps adrift in a sea of pizzerias pitching the ubiquitous New York slice. And of course, we've got a new breed of pie in Vegas, gourmet coal-fired pizzas and certified Neapolitan pizzas and all kinds of stuff. I've been eating them. They're all delicious.

But if there's a pizza shop that is truly Vegas' own, it has to be Metro. It's not because this is the best in town, though it certainly needs to be part of that conversation. Metro Pizza is simply tied to this city in a way very few restaurants are, linked to the families and people who work and grow up in Las Vegas, connected to a community and culture that so many claim doesn't exist. I remember trips to Metro's Flamingo-Decatur location, in all its 1980s, teal-pink-and-checkerboard glory. This is the oldest of its five local stores now. This was special occasion pizza when I was in middle school, when delivery from Domino's or Pizza Hut just wouldn't cut it.

But others have deeper, stronger connections. "Vegas was still small in 1980. Back then kids would ride horses to our first shop at Flamingo and Sandhill." Riding horses to pizza! You never thought that would happen in Las Vegas, did you? John Arena, co-owner, co-founder and overall pizza guy, has so many stories like this. "We changed that crazy decor at the Flamingo-Decatur store a while back, but people didn't recognize it anymore. They thought there was a new owner. So we changed it back. We have customers that came to us when they were in high school in 1980, and they're coming in with grandkids now. It's a very unique responsibility, to be here for multiple generations, and to live up to those expectations. If you ate this pizza as a kid, you're expecting a certain level of quality and service when you come back as an adult."

If you haven't figured it out yet, these people keep coming back for reasons other than nostalgia. The love of longtime Las Vegans, though powerful, is not what makes Metro undeniable. It could be that they put bacon on their Hawaiian pizza, or the eggplant calzone that's named after George Steinbrenner, or the fact that one slice of the Skyline stuffed pizza with sausage, onions, peppers, pepperoni, black olives and mushrooms is enough for two tasty meals. But it's not any of those reasons.

Arena, from Brooklyn, loves pizza, and he understands why and how everyone else loves it, too. He's traveled the world learning as much about this perfect food as he can, and he teaches a class about its history at UNLV. "In Las Vegas, you have customers from all over the country, all over the world, and they're not tourists. That's who lives here. You've got all these different people, and all these different opinions about pizza. I call it the Cognitive Theory of Pizza - what you're given as a child shapes your vision. People will say only pizza from Naples is true pizza, but the people of Rome would disagree. Purists say pizza shouldn't have to adapt, but there's a long tradition in Italian food of just that. We realized you could have endless debates depending on the current circumstances of pizza, so what we decided to do is embrace it all and find some common ground. We changed our name to Metro Pizza in 1986 to reflect that philosophy, and try to reflect the great pizzas of many different metropolitan areas, because in Las Vegas, everybody is from somewhere else." Could anything possibly make more sense? So when you order a Modesto or a New Haven off this menu, that's because Arena found something like that in that city, and he thinks you'd like a taste. At the Metro store on Tropicana near UNLV, there's a big map of the Pizza Hall of Fame, different cities with famous pizzerias marked. If you go eat at one of them, and then come back and talk about it, Metro will hook you up. Arena wants you to eat other pizza. He wants to teach you to make your own pizza. And yet you likely will return to eat his pizza. (It's good.)

"When you're putting a pizza on the table, you're not just competing with other pizza places, you're competing with all those childhood memories and all those associations. When it comes to pizza, there's a lot more going on that what's on the plate." I tell Arena about my associations, my slices of Verrazano, and how the mayor of Las Vegas once told me he couldn't find anything close to his back-home stuff so he called Metro and asked them to figure out how he could eat Philly pizza in Vegas. "His favorite pizzeria back home was using a very particular cheese blend, and that was his touchstone pizza. It's just like you, riding your bike to Verrazano. You probably got your first taste of personal freedom along with that pizza. It's the same way everyone's grandma makes the best food they ever had in their life. That's how people feel about pizza, and that's the responsibility I have ... to live up to all of that." I'm glad this pizza guy is taking his responsibilities seriously.