So, you may not have heard, but there are a couple of decent restaurants in Las Vegas. And, one day, I am hoping to have eaten in them all.
OK that’s probably impossible, especially since we keep going back to our favorites. But on this trip, we did branch out a bit.
But before we even got to Las Vegas, we had a couple of hours to kill in SeaTac so we headed on over to our favorite airport haunt, Vino Volo, for a snack and a few wine flights. We were very sad to see a sign on their board informing us that this particular location is closing in less than a month! Although it is going to be replaced by another wine bar, we really like this location, which was the first Vino Volo in the country. Sad to see it go.
To the wine! All of it from Washington State.
Pretty good way to spend an hour in an airport, amiright???
We actually picked up a bottle of the Grenache Blanc to enjoy in our hotel room. Since we were already through security, we were able to take in on the plane in our carry on luggage.
To Vegas now, where we had three wonderful meals, accompanied by some spectacular wine.
Meal 1: Gordon Ramsay Steak, Paris Las Vegas
I had eaten here once, many years ago, and really enjoyed it. This was my wife’s first visit.
It seems like every time to come to Vegas, we have one of the great meals of our lives. This trip was no exception, and this was the meal. It was nearly perfect, from the wine to the staff to the food. Ironically, the only food item that wasn’t perfect was Ramsay’s specialty: Beef Wellington. It was good, but I’ve had better (in fact, I have made better). The rest of the meal, however, was sublime.
This meal, in fact, featured one of the great food and wine pairings of my life.
We started off with a couple glasses of Hartford Family Winery Chardonnay, to pair with our first courses. They were their entry-level Chard, which are always the same year after year and always very good. This one sells for around $45/bottle in stores, which is about 1/3 of what most of their single-vineyard Chardonnays sell for, so there is a huge step up in quality to their best examples. Regular readers of this blog will know how highly we value Hartford’s wines.
For the main event, we ordered this beauty:
What a treat. Glad that we have a couple of these in our cellar!
Earlier I mentioned the most perfect pairing I have ever experienced, and this is the wine. It was absolutely made to go with our dessert, Ramsay’s legendary Sticky Toffee Pudding. PER-FEC-TION.
So, that was a pretty good way to start the trip. I mentioned the staff, and I could not have been more impressed with our waiter and his assistant. Not only were they there when we needed them, friendly and funny, they were efficient beyond belief. There was a table of 12 right behind us; when the guests left, they had that table stripped down and re-set in about 3 minutes. And they did not HAVE to be that quick – there was nobody waiting for that table, which sat empty for about an hour. It was a level of professionalism that enhanced an already fantastic evening.
One down, two to go.
The next evening, a trip across the street to Joe’s Steak and Stone Crab, in the Caesar’s Palace Forum Shops. I have previously eaten here twice, my wife just once, and neither of us have been here in years. We have always had good meals here, but with just SO many great eateries in this town, it slipped through. Until now.
Another terrific meal! My wife had chicken and I had a beautiful Filet Mignon with a lobster tail. Pretty traditional, I admit, but it paired very well with our wine choice.
For meal #3, after a long day at the pool in the scorching hot (115 degrees) sun, we stayed in the Paris Las Vegas and decided to try a little Italian place we had never been to called Martorano’s. Our waiter was a first class wine guy, and he was just as disappointed as we were when the first bottle that we ordered, a lovely 2004 Brunello, was oxidized. So, we went back to a different vintage of a new favorite:
Another great meal and another great wine, although it didn’t come close to living up to the excellence of the ’15.
Well, that’s it, not a bad weekend of food and wine!
Next up! Back to the Okanagan trip, and a visit to Burrowing Owl!
Confessions of a Huge Wine-R 