AdamWe had a great time in Vegas during our mid-December trip. The NFR was in its final days, so the Strip was actually quite lively. After landing, we went to Gordan Ramsay’s Burgr in Planet Hollywood for an early afternoon meal:
Most burgers (burgrs?) will cost around $15. It’s hard to miss with any choice. My brother had the Hell’s Kitchen burger, while I enjoyed the farm burger pictured below. The farm burger was topped with duck bacon and a fried egg and cooked to a perfect medium rare. It was one of the best burgers I’ve had in a long time. Be sure to grab an order of the sweet potato fries. They come with an aioli sauce and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Incredible.
We walked around a bit to check out some things new to some of us. We all really like the style and atmosphere of the Cromwell.
It’s not an incredibly bright gaming area, which I like. Plus, the minimums were low when we strolled through that Friday afternoon. I was seeing $10 blackjack and $5 carnival games. Craps had a $10 minimum, but their shoot-to-win electronic craps game required only a $3 minimum. I’ll have a review of their lobby bar, Bound, soon.
We also walked down the Linq promenade for the first time. While none of the shops really appealed to me, I do like how they’ve developed the area. There are a number of new bars to check out. We stopped by BLVD Cocktail Company on Saturday night. I’ll have a review in episode 17.
We ended the night by heading to the Mirage and checking out the NFR after party. We had a great time mingling with the contestants and fans. We met affable cowboy Rocky McDonald (I mistakenly called him “Randy” in the show). Our night cap came at dive bar Dino’s on the north end of Las Vegas Blvd.
It was quite a day and we had a ton of fun. Our Saturday consisted primarily of checking out different bars up and down the Strip. I’ll discuss those in the next episode.
If you have a trip report you’d like to share, please let me know. I’d be happy to put it up on the blog for everyone to enjoy.
We started out when we both to Vegas together that my wife was not into gambling near as much as I was. We spent more time wandering and people watching as well as shopping (clearly the last activity was her choice. Over time and multiple trips, she has reached a point where her interest and skill at video poker matches mine. The thing we do less of now is aimless wandering. Our wandering is now more purposeful: to get to the next bar, next casino, or to find a specific game.
Thanks for the comments, John! My wife is still seeing some of Vegas for the first time on certain trips, so we are still wandering somewhat. I did notice that when we were playing VP at the D, she was getting more and more into helping me with hands. Especially considering I had a few “Dr.Peppers” and was making a few mistakes.
Dino’s is featured in Sam Smith’s Stay with Me video.
Dino’s featured in Sam Smith’s Money on My Mind video along with lots of great Vegas footage. The video is required viewing on the flight to Vegas!
I actually had never seen this video. Thanks for sharing.