what i learned on my summer vacation.

I’m a bit of a shut-in. I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve lived in Oregon as a kid, in Reno as a student, and spent a lot of time in Southern California; briefly glimpsed Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco, Minnesota and Colorado. Went to Mexico once. That’s it. I’ve tried to figure out how my perceptions are altered or restricted by a life spent in Las Vegas without a lot of comparison. It’s hard to assess because, hey, I don’t know anything else.

Staying in Vegas may have some negative impact or produce some inefficiency in my development as a writer-human, but there’s at least one awesome upside: when I do go somewhere, I'm wide open. It’s like outer space travel. If it isn’t my beloved dry desert, my brain and body don’t know how to react. Super-cold temperatures inspire fear. Inches of snow might be a natural disaster. Sky-high mountains, thick rows of forest green, rivers and oceans are fantastic things straight out of the movies. Maybe I’m being a little dramatic.

In July, I was in Chicago for the first time ever. I crashed with and was guided around the city by family, a couple of jazz musicians/personal trainers. Seems like a perfectly normal dual vocation for people who live in Chicago. We walked a lot. We didn’t drive much. We rode a train. That was some outer space shit; in fact, moving from the subterranean airport corridor straight to the train made me feel kinda Total Recallish. We saw some touristy stuff and some art museum stuff, a really old and beautiful church, and some amazing, never-ending cityscapes. We ate deep dish pizza, great burgers from Kuma’s Corner, and jicama salad and duck enchiladas at Frontera. I fell in love, with a bar. It was five days and it went by too fast. But it was long enough to see a city, a real one, and long enough to gain a bit of that perspective I’ve been missing. And I return refreshed, with a healthy dose of appreciation for what we’ve got here that you just can’t find anywhere else. It’s also very easy to see what we don’t have in Vegas, but exploring this issue through comparison is a slippery and senseless slope.

There’s a lot of discussion going on these days about the state of Vegas, the culture and community of this place, and where we are headed. Our backbreaking shift from ultra-growth mode to cover-up-and-hide recession fuels the conversation, and conceals the fact that despite its size and population, this city is an adolescent. So Vegas cannot be legitimately compared to New York or L.A. or this crazy Chicago place I just discovered, or even to metropolitan areas with closer population like Houston or Philadelphia. We are just a baby, or maybe more appropriately, a whiny preteen.

One publication I write for recently did a package called What Las Vegas Really Needs. All the usual suspects were rolled out: A pro sports team. Cultural and economical diversity. Walkable, urban areas full of retail, restaurants, museums and fun shit. Public art. Public transportation that actually works and makes sense for the region. (A Vegas L-train would totally be like Total Recall.) In a demonstration of egotastical laziness, I declined to contribute to this package of articles. I didn’t want to beat a deaditorial horse. And I was disappointed, but not at all surprised, to see the vast majority of these suggestions are less What We Need and more Ways Vegas Could Be More Like Other Cities. That’s the way the collective Vegas brain operates because almost all of us are from some other place, and what we really want is all the convenience and sunshine of Vegas with the best amenities from back home. All we want is everything. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think that’s fair. If you spend a lot of time wishing for these kind of things We Need, I think you should ask yourself why you want so much out of Vegas, which has done nothing but entertain you and make your life easy. Hasn’t it given you enough? I think so.

I’m going to go see more places. I don’t want to be such a shut-in. Other cities may expose the shortcomings of my home, or they might make me love Vegas more, but those are just instinctual, superficial reactions and they don’t mean anything. A larger understanding, a wider perspective … that’s the plan. My Vegas is going to grow up to be whatever it wants to be. There might not be a consciousness, a spirit or soul of this city that’s driving its development, steering growth and change, and that’s fine with me, too. Maybe Vegas doesn’t want. Did you ever consider that?

INTERVIEW: Alexandra Epstein

Alex Epstein is assistant general manager at the El Cortez Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas.


Downtown redevelopment is characterized by a mix of old and new, vintage Vegas and the thought that new Vegas is old Vegas. The El Cortez is so well positioned for that growth. Do you feel that way?
Yes. I think we embody that whole idea. We have been around for 70 years, this is our 70th anniversary, and we are experiencing a surge, a growth in our demographic. I think that says something, a testament that old Vegas is new again. I think people want to be around here and be part of the changes that are happening. The concept of what we want downtown to be is also not a new concept. Any city that's been around for a while has a cultural core that is their downtown, and now there is this demand for that here. We want Vegas to be an institutionalized city, an actual city that has some history and culture to it, and think there is a demand now to build that into this idea.


Is it difficult to celebrate the history of a place like the El Cortez and yet still appeal to a new, different audience?
I think a big part of looking forward is celebrating that culture and that past. I think it goes hand in hand. Any city's cultural core is forward thinking but celebrates its past, and Vegas just has a different past to celebrate. We have the Mob Museum coming in, we have the Neon Museum, we have Las Vegas' original casinos here, and those things just happen to be our past and our history, and the "cultural class" likes to celebrate that. They like it, and they get it, and they don't really want to escape from that. So I don't think those two concepts are warring with each other. I think it grows quite naturally together.


The El Cortez has been growing and renovating for a while now, huh?
It's a 70-year-old building so we have to do a lot to keep it up. But there really has been a big push in the past five years to renovate. Between our Jackie Gaughan Parkway, our porte cochere, and our Cabana Suites, there has been a lot going on, and quite a strong push in conjunction with the East Fremont development.


Have other organizations and businesses sought out El Cortez as a partner in these downtown developments are have you been more active?
It's been a mix of both. There have been people that have approached us, like the Cornthwaites with the idea of Emergency Arts in that building, and we worked together to make it happen. It's been a great collaboration and a great product we've been able to come out with. Other people have approached us, too, but it's just a very collaborative neighborhood in general. We work together with others like the Ogden across the street. We have welcome packets for their new tenants. We also go out and approach others, like we did with our design competition. We approached World Market Center to work together to do something for the Cabana Suites. So it's a give-and-take.


The restaurants at the El Cortez are pretty classic, your coffee shop and your steakhouse, The Flame.
It's pretty standard but the quality is definitely above standard. You don't really know until you come to the El Cortez what a gem it is. We could put more into marketing our food, and we are actually renovating our steakhouse now, but the food is actually outstanding. We have a great food and beverage director, and we are a family of foodies. This is a family business and we are all about food. We wouldn't want to not be able to eat here.


The coffee shop is really a Vegas institution that seems to be disappearing, and the El Cortez version is one spot that is kinda keeping that old school thing alive.
Our waiters and servers know all of our customers by name, there's that familiarity there. And the quality is there. I will stand by this: our matzoh ball soup is the best in Las Vegas. A lot of people say "Is it as good as Bagel Cafe?" I tell them it's better. And we have a Chinese kitchen, which is kind of a strange and random thing, but it's very popular. Everything at the steakhouse is fresh, never frozen, all of our fish and meat is flown in fresh. The steakhouse really is a gem, too. The service is great, we have a really great wine list with extremely reasonable prices, and that's something we've got a reputation for. Our specials do really well. The stone crab, when it's in season, we fly it in and serve it every week and we usually sell out. For our anniversary, we are putting together a vintage menu, with menu items you can't find anymore like oysters rockefeller. It's really old school stuff. You can ask for the vintage menu now even though we're not advertising it yet. And we're open to suggestions, too. We really researched it. We went to UNLV and looked at all these old menus and then went through all these rounds of tasting to see what we did and didn't want to do. It was pretty extensive.


On East Fremont, there are so many great bars now, and it's really a great crowd down there. But food-wise, there still isn't a lot right around the neighborhood that this group can find.
Not yet. We have great food at The Beat. And Le Thai is going to be a great Thai place when it opens across the street. But we definitely need some more variety. This is going to be a part of town where people come for a great night, for food and drinks, and it just makes sense.


So as someone who is here a lot, and has been to other cities, and as someone who is a foodie, what would you like to see down here?
All kinds of things. I lived in New York for four years and Los Angeles for a year and was very proactive in seeking out great food in those cities. There's a place in L.A. with all different kinds of bratwursts and all different kinds of beer, and really good fries, and that's all it is. In the back is picnic seating, kind of a like a beer garden, with a DJ in back. I thought something like that could work great in downtown Vegas. Any kind of gastropub would be great. But I think we should leave the real high-end stuff to the Strip. A great pizza place, like Settebello, I would love to have that down here. More outdoor cafe-type places would be great, since we have perfect walking areas down here. There are so many things that we could do.


I don't think anyone thinks of downtown as being a great food neighborhood in Las Vegas, and I think the reputation of the El Cortez is more about its history than its restaurants. But what you have done is pave the way for some very significant food and beverage developments downtown, specifically allowing one building your company owns to become Emergency Arts, which houses The Beat Coffeehouse, and also allowing your space to host the Vegas Streats festival every month.
It was a very lucky thing how that worked out. It just made perfect sense. There was no reason for us not to be doing it. We has the perfect space to let these food trucks do what they do. I think Vegas Streats is huge for downtown Vegas. In my mind, it goes beyond just food, because to me food is the most important part of culture. But it's really just about how people live, and food is such a big part of that, so it makes sense for downtown to be where people recognize that it doesn't have to be fancy food to be good. Vegas Streats has exposed thousands of people to really talented chefs and cooks, and if they associate they can come down here and have this great experience with food trucks and really cool old hotels and great bars, that's what we're trying to do -- change people's perspectives.


I'm sure you have a lot of ideas how to change and grow Vegas Streats, but do you think the following is already there?
Yes. The first one, we had so many people we just didn't know what to do with them. We didn't advertise anything and there was no press coverage, so it was all social media and word of mouth. And everybody was asking, when's the next one? The second time we had a lot of questions, a lot of press, a lot of emails after. And now different vendors and artists want to be involved, so we don't know what to expect looking ahead. But we plan on keeping it up, and this is something that downtown really needs. Everyone is working hard down here and really good food is the next direction.


You are a real Las Vegan and you know your way around town. Where else do you like to eat?
I love Sen of Japan and Raku and Monta for Japanese, those are all classics. For Italian, we're big fans of Cafe Chloe on Flamingo and Buffalo. It's been around for a while, and the chef has been here forever. It's Chef Piero, from the original Piero's. It's all homestyle cooking, the portions are huge, the pasta is piping hot when it comes out, there's a lot of garlic and it's just great. And the people are great. It's my favorite Italian place in Las Vegas. I do think the best pizza in the city is at Settebello. I also really like Nittaya's, which is a new place in Summerlin. Every time I've gone there I've had a good meal.


Are you one of the rare Vegas locals who actually eats on the Strip frequently?
I do. You can't hate it just because it's on the Strip. I definitely appreciate everything there is to enjoy on the Strip. We have the best restaurants in the world. To not take advantage of that would be insanity.


Your Strip favorites?
I've enjoyed everything I've had at Cosmopolitan. They do a great job at Milos, Holsteins, STK, Scarpetta.  We go to Wynn a lot. We just had a really good meal at Lakeside Grill. We love SW Steakhouse. Bartolotta, obviously, is amazing. Those are all just really pricey ones, special nights out. There are so many great places.

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.

golden gate = history.

I'm sitting at the counter in the diner inside the Golden Gate, devouring a wonderful cheeseburger. This is my last meal in the Bay City Diner, but I don’t know it yet. This old, reliable, downtown greasy spoon will become something else, something slightly different and even better.

But let’s focus on this cheeseburger. For months I've been riding a trend, eating and writing about fancy, 12 to 20-dollar gourmet burgers at restaurants on the Strip opened by famous French chefs, burgers with handcrafted, imported ingredients and a custom formulated blend of ground cow, but this thing is making me forget them all. It's a third-pound of chuck off the flat-top, dropped on a butter-toasted bun with extra crispy bacon, sauteed mushrooms and way too much melted Swiss, shredded iceberg, two big tomato slices, four nice dill pickle chips and a full disc of yellow onion. It was cooked by a very tall, very thin, very bald black man who's wearing an impossibly white coat, working hard without breaking a sweat, encased in a shiny, silver, grease-spattered kitchen a few feet in front of me. For a minute, he’s staring out at me through the big open kitchen window. His eyes seem to be asking what I think of this burger. I think it’s great. His nametag reads JOE and he's wearing gold hoop earrings and gold-framed glasses. How is his coat so white? He's teasing the waitresses, occasionally gyrating a little and singing "Freaky In The Club" by R. Kelly. That’s extra funny because that’s not the song playing over the tinny speakers in the diner. It’s “On My Own.” The waitress is ignoring his performance, instead trying to find out who's singing the piped-in song. It's Patti Labelle. High above the counter, mirrored display cases show you which pies and cakes are available today. The old man to my right has a handkerchief tied around his neck and is ordering a ham steak and eggs over easy with a side of sausage and orange juice, but he doesn’t want his juice until the food comes. The guy to my left is ignoring his cheese-covered omelet and calling in NBA point spreads to someone over the phone. This burger is gone. It was delicious, an exemplary, American cheeseburger.

The Golden Gate is the oldest hotel-casino in the state of Nevada. Also, it is older than the Golden Gate Bridge, which is interesting because it’s probably the only Vegas casino that’s been around longer than whatever it’s themed after. (Of course, the casino wasn’t always called the Golden Gate.) Perhaps it’s more interesting that in 1905, the hotel’s prime downtown location at Main and Fremont streets was the site of the land auction that began the Las Vegas town site. There were guests at what was then called Hotel Nevada that May, before there was a building, staying in a tent structure. Downtown Las Vegas was happening before it was downtown Las Vegas. When the mission-style building opened in 1906, people insisted on staying at the hotel before the interiors were completed. Casino action started in the spring of 1907 with roulette, craps and blackjack. The first telephone in Vegas was installed here, too. In the early 1930s, the joint changed its name. For around 20 years it was dubbed, quite ridiculously, Sal Sagev, or Las Vegas spelled backwards. The beginnings of its San Francisco-themed makeover took hold when a group of Italian-Americans from the Bay Area took over in 1955.

The boss of the Golden Gate today, a friendly guy named Mark Brandenburg, is a Las Vegas lawyer who ditched his practice to join the family business. His stepfather was one of those San Francisco guys, and around 1990, Brandenburg and his brother Craig started buying out those other owners. Since then, they’ve added a few hotel rooms and efficiently updated the property, turning it into something of an old-school boutique hotel on the old-schooliest street in Vegas. In 1996, for better or for worse, the classic downtown drag was forever altered when the Fremont Street Experience canopy was finished. This 1,500-foot ceiling of cheesy flashing lights brought some good to the five blocks of Fremont where the Gate, Plaza, Binion’s, Golden Nugget and other casinos reside (it’s much cleaner now and suitable for outdoor concerts and events) but it also transformed a nice chunk of our history into a nostalgic pedestrian mall. Visit and make your own judgments.

Sitting in his small, plain office upstairs from the casino, Brandenburg gives me a quick history of his family and his casino. Mom was from West Virginia. She stopped in Vegas on the way back from California and never made it home. It was the weather. She got a job as a cocktail waitress at the Gate and met Italo Ghelfi, the leader of that group of San Francisco guys, the one who ran the casino for 40 years. There’s a picture frame set on a shelf in this office, a photo of Ghelfi, and the guy looks mean. He’s kinda bald and he’s wearing dark glasses, like a clichéd character from that Vegas era. But Brandenburg assures me that’s not the case; he was another friendly guy, and quite the gaming pioneer. Ghelfi didn’t just keep the casino going. His innovations and ideas established a reputation on Fremont Street that Brandenburg and his co-owners are still taking advantage of today. Not every casino is so open and proud of its history. Most are caught up in making things new again, and again, and the Gate – which is a nice, clean place to gamble and party – is quick to remind you of a bygone era. It doesn’t want to change too much, and I don’t want it to. I didn’t want the Bay City Diner to change, but it did.

But wait, we’ve moved past something very important. The Gate’s casino is just fine. It feels like downtown, it’s kinda dark and whisky-friendly, and there’s a nice long bar resting beside the main stretch of table games. Some new bells and whistles have been added in the last year, including go-go dancers on busy nights and a frozen beverage bar in front of the main entrance on Fremont Street. As a hotel, I have no interest in the Gate because the accommodations don’t converge with my primary hotel principle, which states: If I can afford it, I don’t want to stay there. But I’ll allow some secondhand description from my kid brother: It’s tiny. I heard some of the rooms are the original rooms from when it was built, and I think that’s the room I got. It’s so small that the TV is on the side of the bed because it wouldn’t fit anywhere else. It’s so small the bathroom door won’t open all the way because it hits the toilet. I was terrified to walk in and out of my room because I kept thinking there’d be creepy twin sisters at the end of the halls. You get the picture.

Casino, hotel, diner … these are not the things the Golden Gate is known for. For most, it always has been ground zero for the shrimp cocktail. This is another Ghelfi innovation, obviously, coming from the Bay. It began in 1959 and it hasn’t stopped. As long as I can remember, the price was 99 cents, but today it’s $1.99. That gets you a tall, cool parfait glass, “the tulip,” overflowing with chilled, firm, large shrimp, doused in spicy cocktail sauce and served with a lemon wedge and as many Saltines as you need. There’s no lettuce. Who needs lettuce? I’ve brought a handful of people through here, some out-of-towners and some just out of touch with downtown, and everyone thinks the shrimp cocktail is a joke. But they try one, just for kicks, and they’ve all admitted: This thing is pretty good. The shrimp bar is at the south end of the casino, in the back, right down the stairs from Brandenburg’s office. He told me they’ve been going through about a ton of shrimp a week for a long, long time. I asked him how many times a day he asks his assistant to run down and grab him one. “I go down and get my own.” Yes. I would, too, many times a day. In the pantheon of Vegas novelties (and they are harder to acquire or experience than they used to be) the shrimp cocktail is one I refuse to go without. In any steakhouse, you can get a good one, but here, it is tradition. That’s what makes it taste so good.

But everything changes. Like the diner, the shrimp bar was the target of a subtle upgrade recently. There always was more than shrimp on the menu; hot dogs, deli sandwiches, surprisingly tasty, spicy vegetable soup and standard slices of pie were among the popular items. Now, the pie is way, way better. This is because of Du-par’s. Here’s the crazy connection that brought a famed L.A. coffee shop to historic downtown Vegas: Du-par’s owner Biff Naylor built the original kitchen in the Golden Gate diner. That’s because his dad, Tiny Naylor, was a former partner in the casino. The Naylors are a legendary California restaurant family, in case you haven’t heard, starting when Tiny opened up his waffle shops in 1926. They bought the 70-year-old Du-par’s chain in 2004 and kept things the same, particularly the restaurant’s famous, buttery pancakes and fresh-from-scratch pies. And so when Brandenburg went hunting for improvement, it was natural to transform my beloved Bay City Diner into Du-par’s Restaurant & Bakery. And I can’t complain, because the place looks exactly the same: the long, dark wood counter I call home, windows peering out to Main Street, red leather booths, the dining room in the back. The cuisine is mostly the same, classic breakfast, lunch and dinner at the diner. But now, everything is a little bit … better.

There’s no sign of JOE back in the kitchen, but many of the servers are still here. The cooks’ coats are still immaculately white, and now they’ve accessorized with a red handkerchief knotted around the neck. Those mirrored cases up above are now densely populated with pies, all kinds of pies, and they look and taste so much better than the Bay City Diner’s dessert offerings. On the counter, there are more cases, big round glass ones, holding gigantic, shining doughnuts. It’s difficult to get past the baked goods, to not order a sweet almond bear claw or mountainous muffin. But if you do move beyond breakfast – and know that those buttercrisp-edged pancakes live up to every ounce of their reputation – you’ll find some stellar throwback food, hearty all-American stuff like yellow split pea soup, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy and tuna melts. But I needed the cheeseburger to be great in order to properly put things to rest, so after I tried all that stuff, and a few different flavors of pie, I went back for more. I sat at the counter. I considered the patty melt, a beautiful thing on grilled rye bread with just the right amount of caramelized onions, but I decided to stay pure. Bacon and Swiss burger, still all chuck, still with a pile of fries. It came out quick, and it wasn’t the same burger. It was probably better. The bun was great, fresh and soft. The bacon was smokier. The meat quality was several steps up, and not over-seasoned. Everything was right. I killed it with speed, and I left feeling satisfied and guilt-free. Change must be good, because I still have never left the Golden Gate after lunch feeling anything other than happy to be in Las Vegas.

let's just get roberto's.

Everyone eats at Roberto’s.

I started writing about Vegas food and restaurants right around the dawn of the new millennium. It was part of my job as a community reporter to profile new businesses in my area, which at the time was the far western portion of the valley, primarily the gargantuan master planned community of Summerlin. There were many new businesses to profile in those days, and restaurants quickly became my favorite feature. The research required speaking with owners and chefs, discussing their concepts, and trying to see their vision for their businesses. It was vastly interesting, allowing me a quick glimpse beyond the counter and the kitchen and into these microcosms of the off-Strip food and beverage industry. Despite my complete lack of business training, many times I wanted to discourage these entrepreneurs, often families leveraging their collective futures in pursuit of this crazy dream because somebody told them their ribs and chicken are bomb at some backyard barbecue. I wanted to tell them it wouldn’t work, tell them no one would want to eat their food or peruse their massive, overzealous menus. But I didn’t. Frequently I was proven right and the place didn’t last six months, but such is the case in the restaurant industry. It’s a tough gig, and I always rooted for success and survival even though it didn’t happen most of the time. But my puffy, friendly feature stories provided a bit of a boost in their early days and weeks, and sometimes I think a small profile in a weekly newspaper direct mailed to just about everybody in Vegas may have made the difference for some of these restaurants, may have somehow pumped them through that first impossible year. Maybe not.

My first real restaurant review was published in January 2005 in the Las Vegas Mercury, a now defunct altweekly from the same media company where I worked as a reporter. I got to offer my opinions on the Canter’s Deli that had opened in Treasure Island on the Strip, a reasonable facsimile of the iconic L.A. eatery. When I first read it in print, two things became clear: first, it was fitting that my debut as a food writer involved a delicatessen, since my deep love for such establishments trails back to my parents creating a small chain of sandwich shops (The Giant Grinder) in my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, in the early ‘70s; and second, I knew I wanted to do more of this. I knew I would be writing about food now.

But not like everyone else. My interest in this subject is very specific. Vegas is possibly the greatest restaurant city on the planet, but it is far from a great food city. Because of its unnatural origins and design, the fact that 100 years later it is still an oasis of decadence and fun in the middle of an empty, harsh desert, Vegas also is the most unique restaurant city of all. It really is not even a city. It’s a fabrication. It’s one big flashing sign that reads: Come. And so everything you know about this place is somehow part of this unending invitation, and that is why there are so many world-class chefs and restaurateurs with their own stake in Vegas. At some point, if you’re in this business, you’re gonna have to be here. Vegas is too young and too fake to be a classic American city, but in many ways – always changing, always new, bigger, better, more, too much – it is the most American of cities. And as a dining destination, let’s call it a showcase. The best of everything will be distributed from this location, a true one-stop for all your culinary needs. And if this was all you knew, your perspective would be wildly and permanently skewed, like mine. So my interest is in Las Vegas restaurants only. I don’t travel much, but when I do, I don’t eat at that city’s great restaurants in order to compare them to mine. I don’t care. I don’t want a global frame of reference. For my pursuits, there is only Vegas. Of course, this place attracts much more than French culinary legends, TV celebrities, corporate troopers and up-and-coming kitchen stars ready for a big payday. There is life off the Strip. Everyone who has come to Vegas to snatch their own piece of it has settled somewhere away from the neon, and we all gotta eat. There are lots of regular-old-neighborhood joints that do well, some deserving and some capitalizing on the terrible taste of our large middle class. But as far as I can tell, everyone eats at Roberto’s.

There are almost 50 Roberto’s Taco Shops in the valley. That's roughly one for every 40,000 people. Now, I have my own personal Roberto’s Taco Shop and I don’t share it with that many people. In fact, it’s never crowded when I walk in. The cheap, pink booths usually are empty. There are never more than three guys in the kitchen, blasting Ranchera music and not really paying attention to huge crocks on the stove simmering chicken parts. And that’s the way I like it.

The story behind the Roberto’s dynasty is typical, akin to the tale behind so many enchiladas-beans-and-rice Mexican-American restaurants all over California and the American Southwest. It started in 1964 when Roberto and Dolores Robledo started making and selling tortillas in San Ysidro, a community on the southern tip of San Diego. Things tasted good, people wanted more, and their first taco shop soon opened. I’ve been told the first Roberto’s is the red-and-yellow shack right on Mission Beach, but I kinda doubt it. But I have been to that Roberto’s, and it is good. Today the family-operated company runs these small, casual restaurants in California, Nevada and Florida. You can’t go far in Vegas without seeing Roberto’s, and they are in all kinds of locations: in suburban strip malls, next to video poker-laden neighborhood watering holes, inside gas stations or food courts. Roberto is everywhere. How did this happen? His tacos are outstanding, and cheap.

They are so simple, and probably not the most authentic, but to me: joyous. Corn tortilla, fried into explosive crunchiness, packed with shredded beef, stupid iceberg lettuce and plain old yellow cheddar cheese. That’s it. A couple of bucks for purity. I’m going to hit them up, of course, with some of the red chile salsa, pureed smooth and drizzly, with just enough throat heat to do some damage. I’m going to get some of that stuff in the little plastic cup, and I might pour it down the taco so the hot sauce can mingle with the lettuce and cheese, or I might dip the taco’s meat-filled edge into the hot sauce. For so long, if I could actually choose what I was going to eat at any given lunchtime, if there were no obligations to fulfill or maybe it was a Saturday and I had nothing to do, if I actually asked myself What sounds really good right now?, the answer always was a No. 4 plate. That’s two beef tacos, rice and beans. I have eaten a lot of food, I have tried many things, I have taken many bites wealthy and poor, and I still don’t know if there’s a single one more satisfying than this, the combination of that skull-shaking corn crunch and the tender, savory, meaty mouthful you get from a simple, perfect taco. That’s just me. Maybe I’m nuts. Maybe the fancy amuse bouche at Robuchon is better. I like Roberto’s.

There is more to it than that. Roberto’s is just a small, possibly dirty, not necessarily English-friendly joint if it’s not familiar to you. Return visits with dad are the genesis of all this affection. Like my loyalty to the taco, he used to stick with a few things: taquitos smeared with zingy guacamole and absolutely covered with shredded cheese, a big plate of fresh fried chips with the same toppings, or maybe a couple of saucy tamales, unwrapped from husks and enclosed in the old school styrofoam tray for easy transport. He sent me on more than one late-night mission for tamales, on weekends when I was home from college and he was up too late. It was the worst kept secret in the house. Deep fried goodies, stewed meats and cartoon-sunshine orange enchilada sauce can produce some strong smells, and so he got caught in the act frequently. Besides mangling the Spanish language and likely offending everybody in the kitchen with his goofball gringo routine, the most ridiculous Roberto’s behavior revolved around refried beans. Sometimes, not every time but sometimes, your Roberto’s beans will have a grayish tint to them, scarier than that typical dull brown color. It’s called lard. My dad spent a few years managing an El Torito restaurant in Oregon, where he learned to cook decent Mexican food, and he always fell back on that experience when trying to convince anyone that the best refrieds were full of lard. It’s certainly up for debate. But he loved him some Roberto’s beans, and he proved it every time he’d cook up a Mexican feast for the family. He’d snag a Tupperware container – or in one memorable, embarrassing, ghetto-ass episode, an empty plastic margarine drum – and head up to Roberto’s, and have the guys fill it up with refried beans. I theorize that every time he went on these missions himself, instead of sending one of his five children to do the dirty work, he probably crunched up a three-pack of taquitos in the car on the way home.

I’ve gone through stages … when I shared an apartment on West Desert Inn Road, I frequented the store right next to the Durango Lodge, and I got into eating chicken and rice burritos, monstrous and packed with pickled vegetables, cheese and those lardy beans. There can be slight menu variation from shop to shop, but mostly you’re dealing with tacos (beef, chicken, carne asada, carnitas, adobada or fish), tostadas, burritos (machaca, chorizo, breakfast, or variations of the taco ingredients), enchiladas, tortas, chimichangas, and perhaps something ridiculous like carne asada fries, subbing crinkle cut spuds for chips in a nacho mountain. The breakfast burritos are pretty good, too, if you’re into that sort of thing. The cooks will throw anything lying around into an extra large flour tortilla with scrambled eggs and cheese and feed it to you. And of course, Saturdays and Sundays are for menudo. Of the everyone who eats at Roberto’s, most know that a stomachache may follow. Of the weird newspaper jobs I’ve had, keeping tabs on the Health District’s regular restaurant report is one of the more entertaining, and I should be ashamed to admit that one day, after lunching at Roberto’s on Rancho Drive near Charleston Boulevard (I had a No. 4) I picked up that naughty list and quickly noted the very same restaurant had just been demoted to a C grade. But I’m not ashamed, and I won’t tell you the exact infractions that caused the downgrade. I am never ashamed of Roberto’s.

I’ve moved all around the west side of Vegas and claimed new locations as my own. But now I am back home, in Summerlin, a few minutes from my parents’ former house from which those tamale missions began. It feels good to go back to my first Roberto’s Taco Shop, and it looks exactly the same, resting up against a dry cleaner and a PT’s Pub. I don’t eat this food anywhere near as much as I used to, because I have discovered so many other great things to eat. I’ve even found other sensational tacos that, if judged by a rational mind, would be found superior: those at Los Tacos on East Charleston, which are soft and stuffed with whole pinto beans and guacamole in addition to the usual suspects; the chicken mole tacos at the super tiny, super authentic Mexico City-style Los Antojos on East Sahara Avenue; and the delectable smoked brisket taquitos at Border Grill on the Strip. But I am not a reasonable man. I am an emotional eater, just like dad, full of nostalgia and questionable judgment. And so Roberto’s it is. I will defend this taco.

when life gives you leftovers.

We don't like Thanksgiving dinner as much as we pretend. If dry turkey, weird stuffing, lumpy mashed potatoes and canned cranberry is so good, why do we only eat it once a year? Why aren't there crowded, expensive restaurants that specialize in turkey dinners? Because it's not that good. Because it's tradition to eat this stuff, but no one really enjoys it that much. Your own personal experiences with the holiday, with your family and this food will determine how true this harsh statement is. But you have to admit it's a valid point, which is why the friend who offered this enlightenment days before the big weekend roasted a prime rib for his family this year. I hope it turned out tasty.

In my world, Thanksgiving is an odd occasion. Yes, there is food, too much of it, some delicious. Turkey is quite dry and bland by nature, which is why I prefer the moist, fatty dark meat of the bird. Never been a fan of stuffing/dressing, which presented an interesting challenge when I was assigned to make it for this year's rather large family gathering. It was okay; I found a pretty standard recipe and twisted it to include garlic-rosemary bread, slab bacon and apples. The texture was very un-stuffing like, light and approachable instead of the congealed slop people inexplicably rave about. And it tasted like bacon. So it deserved to be universally loved. Also never enjoyed the strange green bean casserole that involves crispy onions and cream of mushroom soup, yet there it was, on the table again, once per year. Mom says she has to make it, people want it, but I'm not convinced. So there is good and bad. Thanksgiving also is the gateway to the wildly emotional, unnecessarily stressful holiday season, and peering into a long December with a tryptophan hangover is not the most pleasant thing.

Perhaps that's why, in my family, we have another Thanksgiving tradition, and it's called turkitos. Years ago, my father decided the best thing to do with the leftover bird is to tear it apart, roll it up in corn tortillas and deep fry to your heart's content, serving up refried beans, grated cheese, fresh salsa and guacamole alongside. It's simple. Anyone can do it. I can't think of anything that provides a more satisfying bite after minimal effort than a fried tortilla. In my world, Turkito Day has replaced Thanksgiving in the pantheon of food holidays. (I have more: The New Year's Meatdown, Borracho Day, the annual Fall-B-Que, etc. Trademarks are pending so think up your own stupid names, please.) This year's event was long in crunchy goodness but short in attendance. Final output: approximately 75 turkey taquitos on Friday, none left standing by Monday. The backyard barbecue was transformed into a factory. You've got your shredded meat station, your cast iron skillet warming tortillas, your rolling station, your deep-fry station of vegetable and canola oil bubbling away on the grill's sideburner, and finally the paper towel-covered paydirt, the last stop for turkitos before munchdown. Freshly mixed guacamole with a jalapeno influence was waiting. A huge block of colby jack was shredded and resting in an orange bowl. We bought the good, drizzly Mexican sour cream. Several salsas, refrieds spiced with habanero hot sauce, and a head of shredded iceberg upon which to rest your bounty. I raced the clock of booze, speeding to roll and fry the last one before many early cocktails would have made me unfit to handle hot oil. I made it. All was good.

A successful Turkito Day, less than 24 hours after one of the better tasting Thanksgiving meals I can remember, will stand out in a long weekend of good eating. (Saturday, there was pizza, and Sunday, a visit to a solid Vegas steakhouse, Envy.) Definitely got the food part down. Then there's the family. These are the two splitting branches of the holiday stress tree. Both can be great fun, both can make you insane. One of them, you can always order takeout. Me, I spent an hour tearing apart turkey meat in my kitchen Friday morning, hand shredding it piece by piece, my dog begging uncontrollably just inches away. Grab a drumstick, rip it up, good meat in the bowl, bones and yuck in the garbage. Hands shiny with fat, tiny bits of bird clinging to fingers, just like I watched my dad do years back. I remember trips home from college for Thanksgiving, waking up on the couch, seeing him sitting at the dining room table doing this. Getting ready for the fry. This is our collective holiday experience, traditions we carry out whether we love them or not because they are laced with memories. We take the bitter for the sweet.

locals don't go to the strip.

This is flank steak, fried eggs and oyster mushrooms on a roll from 'Wichcraft in MGM Grand. It's pretty awesome. This is the same luscious beef they're dishing up at Craftsteak just a few steps away, and it's not even the best sandwich at 'Wichcraft. But it is further proof that the best friendly little neighborhood gourmet sandwich shop in town just happens to be on the Strip.

Let's extrapolate that last sentence.

I'm asked often, by those new to Las Vegas, just visiting or contemplating the city from afar, how much time I spend on the Strip. The answer is: not as much as I'd like. Living in Vegas and keeping to the suburban cityscape is an interesting concept to outsiders, especially when they learn how common it is. You can have a perfectly normal life here. I don't have to go to the Strip if I don't want to. Locals say things like this all the time, with an odd amount of pride. Not me.

Don't misunderstand. There are great benefits here that have nothing to do with tourism and the wondrous amenities the industry provides, with convenience at or near the top of the list. But if you take the Strip out of Vegas, where does that leave us? Phoenix? That glimmering four miles on Las Vegas Boulevard contains some of the best hotels, entertainment, food and shopping in the world. Why wouldn't you go there as much as you can?

For my part, I can't get enough of the Strip and its insane restaurant offerings. It's more difficult to find great food sprinkled around the Vegas Valley because everything is so spread out, and rarely do you find a true jewel in the neighborhood. The impossibly dense concentration of fantastic dining on the Strip can't be replicated anywhere else in the world, and even the majority of older or lesser known restaurants are above average at worst. Any local who doesn't take advantage of these offerings is simply missing the point. Come on ... it's not that far. It's not cheap but there's something for every wallet, and these days there is tremendous value to be found. Just walk through one of the big casinos and marvel at all the affordable, limited-time prix fixe menus. If it all feels too fancy for you, hit a mid-level joint like TI or New York-New York; the food and fun is still better than the Chili's around the corner from your house. Get in your car, valet it, and act like someone who's in Vegas, for fuck's sake.

I've lived here for years, but I still understand that for those of you who don't, Vegas is a dream. For most of the people who call this place home, it's unrealistic, overwhelming or just too strange to attempt to live in that dream. But for others, it's too powerful to ignore. What a waste, to have total access to an experience so many others clamor for, travel for, save their shrinking paychecks for, an experience you can customize to your own personal perfection, but you just let that experience pass you by on a daily basis. Why fight gravity?

I'd like to point out that this blog entry was once about a sandwich.

the mirage.

"The Mirage was the first of its kind in Las Vegas and heralded the era of megaresorts along the Strip. Its November 1989 opening preceded the early nineties building boom and, with its $630 million price tag, it was the most expensive hotel/casino in the world."

This blurb comes from the Las Vegas Sun's history web site, which has a super awesome hotel-casino map that traces the changes across the valley through the years. The Mirage is particularly relevant today, for a number of reasons. It is celebrating 20 years on the Strip, and it is rumored to be the next MGM-Mirage property that could be sold, following TI's movement to Phil Ruffin.

But that stuff doesn't matter much for our purposes. Here at MenuVegas, the measure of a hotel-casino is a simple series of questions: Is it awesome? Where can we eat? Where can we drink? Can we get happily lost and sloshed in here? And, is it awesome? If you check out that cool Sun map, it's easy to measure the resorts of the Mirage generation: Rio, Excalibur, Luxor, New York-New York, Monte Carlo, MGM Grand, Treasure Island, Hard Rock, Stratosphere, to name most. (Bellagio and Mandalay Bay opened in '98 and '99, respectively.) Out of these, the only ones that come close to providing similar top-flight amenities today are MGM Grand and Hard Rock, which opened four and six years after Mirage, respectively.

If this is confusing, here's the point: the Mirage today is better than the resorts of its generation. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it's enjoying a resurgence right now -- that's an unacceptably positive label in Vegas today -- but it deserves one. It remains a beautiful property with plenty to do, 20 years later. Gone are Siegfried, Roy and Danny Gans. In their place are this Terry Fator guy and the popular Beatles-Cirque mashup Love. The buffet, Cravings, is probably the best in town, pound-for-pound, because the food is great and the design is very anti-buffet. I actually don't mind eating here, and I hate buffets. Other restaurant highlights include BLT Burger, Chicago/NYC transplant Japonais, cute wine bar Onda, high profile Chinese at Fin and fun steak and snacks at Stack. In addition to reputedly delicious fare, Stack and Fin are among the most strikingly designed dining rooms on the Strip. The Light Group nightclub JET is still top 5, and the brand new Rhumbar boozehole is surprisingly cool and dedicated to classic cocktail creation. The casino layout is comfortable enough, with lingering touches of the tropical theme that made its first impressions so long ago. The western portion of the casino, which winds around the theater, spa, and quaint Revolution Lounge, is modern and relaxing. The Bare dayclub provides the only topless pool experience that doesn't charge admission, last time I checked.

When Ruffin took over the TI he said he wasn't going to change anything. As nice as the Mirage is today, I would think any potential buyer would maintain that philosophy. It wants for nothing.

pop's.

Weeks back I caught a Food Network show that was illustrating the great rivalry between Pat's and Geno's, warring cheesesteak factions of south Philly. They're across the street from each other. Pat's is pretty much credited with inventing the cheesesteak and stays true to the belief that Cheez Whiz is the way to go. Geno's chops its beef a little differently and touts Provolone or American as more authentic. If you watch the show, or if you know these joints, there really isn't a big difference between them.

I've never been to Philadelphia, but when I do, I plan to eat one at Pat's and then walk across the street and eat one at Geno's. That'll clear up a few things around here.

Above all else, the show made me want to go for the best cheesesteak I can get my hands on in Vegas, and there's really no competition. Pop's can be found on the corner of Decatur Boulevard and Alta Drive. The building (It looks like a fucked up barn and there's nothing in it but the kitchen; all eating is outside) was constructed in the '60s as a WeinerSchnitzel, and it's gone through several owners and versions. It's been a cheesesteak joint for at least 15 years. As Pop's, it's open 24 hours, every day, all year.

The nine-inch rolls are baked by the Amoroso Company in Philadelphia. The meat is thinly sliced, marinated sirloin. The cheeses are from the East Coast or the Midwest, but I don't really care about that because I believe a cheeseteak is steak, peppers and onions, and Kraft fucking Cheez Whiz. Sure, you can get mushrooms on it, or Swiss or Provolone or whatever. Chicken instead of steak. Bacon. Chili. There are options at Pop's. There's a pepperoni pizza cheesesteak. I'm sure it's awesome. I'll stick with mine.

So I was waiting for my sandwich, nibbling on fries, watching the cook chop shit up on the big flat top. It was damn cold outside, and I wasn't a bit worried about perching on a plastic stool and freezing my ass while I devoured this thing. There was a group of five pseudo gangsters behind me, wannabe-thug high school kids smelling of weed, ordering up all kinds of shit and taking some grief from the cooks. Traffic flew by on Decatur. I could have been anywhere else, a real city instead of Vegas. It could have been Philly, I guess. The cheesesteak was better than I remembered.