Published: August 02, 2006 11:05 pm            

Amey takes aim: Las Vegas offers more than just casinos

It wasn’t long after Jenny and I had arrived in Las Vegas last week and I’d had my usual I-didn’t-bring-enough-money panic attack (which came about five minutes after we’d been dumb enough to tell the cabbie at the airport we were from out of town) that I came up with the perfect solution for my financial future.

I don’t drink coffee, but I more than make up for it in cola consumption. But I don’t drink just any cola. I won’t drink, for example, the sickeningly sweet one that — according to its commercials, at least — makes you spasm uncontrollably in the street after one sip. And for the first couple of days, that’s the only cola I could find being served in the casinos and restaurants we visited.

So here’s my deal (in Vegas you have to have a deal, don’t you?). Give me the grease that was applied to get the wrong cola installed exclusively in those casinos, and I’ll be happy to retire without any other pension or Social Security or any other form of income. How much would those rights be worth, just for one casino? Seven figures? Eight? Ten?

In the land of spectacle and conspicuous consumption and — call me a cynic, but this is what I believe — an awful lot of plastic surgery, the bigger numbers are the better ones. That, I guess, explains why a geoduck clam — a clam, singular — was on one menu for $198.88 (what are the 88 cents for, I wonder?) and Kobe beef filets were in the $170 price range.

We didn’t eat at those places, although I did enjoy fresh canteloupe and pineapple, a spectacular self-designed omelette, corned-beef hash, swordfish with pineapple glaze, Thai barbecued salmon, paella with Andouille sausage, chicken Milanese, roast leg of lamb with apple mint jelly, berries in some kind of light sauce and a raspberry cream dessert with chocolate sprinkles.

At one meal.

At breakfast.

Yes, a lot of people come to Vegas just for the buffets.

Jenny and I generally had more modest dining in mind. The former adage about Las Vegas food being cheap to entice patrons to the casinos is now true only in the downtown area, which is a must to see anyway for the Fremont Street Experience (a light show that’s three blocks long and 100 feet tall). The Golden Gate hotel — the city’s oldest, built in 1905 — is on Fremont Street, and its Bay City Cafe is the home of the 99-cent shrimp cocktail, an exceptionally good strawberry margarita and my personal favorite, a $13 porterhouse. That was our second-favorite place.

Our favorite remains the Florida Cafe, the only Cuban restaurant in Las Vegas — Cuban sandwiches to die for, with crunchy Cuban bread that was the highlight of the trip; fried plantains, Jenny’s favorite; and a steak with a hole cut out of the middle and stuffed with chorizo (spicy sausage). Plus, I can get Jupina there (Cuban pineapple soda, or as the can says, gaseoso de pina).

Our favorite restaurant along the Strip was probably Jean Jaques’ Boulangerie in Paris Las Vegas — nice salads and sandwiches and (if your French is good you’ll know this) some rather spectacular pastries and desserts. Jenny found sugar-free chocolate mousse cake, I found gelato.

We did things besides eat too, of course. We caught the Three Blonde Moms comedy tour at Harrah’s Improv, went to Second City, and on Saturday night we watched Carlos Santana reaffirm his place among the pantheon of guitar gods. I couldn’t get the ladies in front of me to stand up and dance — which would have given me an excuse to do so — so I had to dance sitting down for more than two hours. The young Hispanic man sitting next to me was offended, I think, by my enthusiasm and finally moved to a different seat.

Youth, as they say, is wasted on the young.

By Saturday we knew shortcuts to everywhere and had figured out the city bus schedules so getting around — even, I reluctantly admit, to the outlet malls — was a breeze. Of course we had to fly out the next day.

So we don’t know how the Omaha Crusaders did in the finals of their basketball tournament (those girls, two or possibly three of them soon to play for Creighton, were our neighbors for a few days) and we didn’t win any money (believe me, I would have bragged if we had). We are happy to be home to field Ryan’s questions and have lapfuls of Darcy and Jo Jo and Shakira again.

It wasn’t really necessary, though, to greet us with a stickier version of the weather we had out there.



Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. for comments or news items at 1-800-783-8742 or at (812) 231-4277; by e-mail at andy.amey@tribstar.com; by mail at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN, 47808; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.

        

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