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Bentai posted:I wish the history event would drop some hints on what kind of items to expect. It’s lot of dosh for a big question mark. Your wish is their command. Sarah Lohman posted the menu on her IG account, including many of the original sources. My comments in []: quote:Stationary table - appetizers The IG post also says "the food & alcohol is all you can eat!" which seems pretty dangerous and I look forward to getting into trouble. I think they underestimate my capacity for shrimp cocktail. e: the event website now says Chef Adrian Garcia will be preparing everything, so apparently we don't get a final round of Munster before he leaves. bartolimu fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Sep 27, 2023 |
# ? Sep 27, 2023 18:08 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 08:05 |
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Just wanted to say thanks again for the food recs earlier this month. Wife and I had a BLAST, and ate extremely well. Another great set of pies at Yukon, pretty sure that we liked the breakfast pizza at Red Dwarf, but got pretty blasted on tiki drinks. Solid brunch at Bouchon, and thanks to the premium wine pairing, had the most expensive meal of our lives at Partage. Partage was very, very excellent. We normally don’t go crazy for tasting menus, because a lot of them are more focused on being interesting than being good. Every course except the little starter ravioli was both interesting, and super delicious.
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# ? Sep 27, 2023 20:55 |
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Any trip with a scale from dwarf to Partage is a good trip.
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# ? Sep 27, 2023 23:04 |
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Any trip with a scale from dwarf to Partage is a good trip. Seriously! And thank you, glad y’all enjoyed the pizzas.
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# ? Sep 28, 2023 01:52 |
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I'm going to post my thoughts on the run up to Vegas Unstripped, primarily so I can do a postmortem followup to see whether I'm being too negative. Background: last year, one of my friends was working for Feast of Friends, the company that runs Unstripped. Between tidbits I heard from them and things I heard from chef friends, it became pretty clear to me that FoF did a kind of lovely job of setting up the event. In fact, it almost didn't happen at all - according to several sources, they didn't apply for the street closure permit until days before the event (possibly the day before, I don't remember). They'd planned to take up a full block of Main Street, and instead had to settle for a half block plus the use of a luckily-available parking lot. Things weren't exactly cramped, but I wouldn't call the space ample. And the setup was wonky in that the booze stations were right next to the music stage. It was impossible to communicate with the bartenders because the stage speakers were pointed directly at a building 50 feet from the stage and the resulting back-and-forth noise overload was undoubtedly above safe limits. Participating chefs didn't get nearly as much communication and support from FoF as they expected, and a few of them I talked to were hesitant to participate again because of it. Despite all of this, the chefs and their food were brilliant. I posted afterwards I hoped FoF had learned a few things from the event and would make refinements. I'm not at all certain that's the case in the final run-up to this year's Unstripped. Details about the event location were sent to attendees today. Yeah, a major street party finally let us know where to show up the day before the event. The email says they're on California between Casino Center and Main. That space is maybe half the size of last year's area. I'm not at all certain how they'll fit in a supposed 27 chef stations (the sales pitch, btw, said "30+ chefs") and four booze spots. And they don't plan to take up the sidewalks - the email specifically says we have in/out privileges and encourages us to visit the businesses on California because they'll (probably) be open. I'm hoping they plan to run the event down the alleyway next to Esther's Kitchen, maybe even wrapping around into their parking lot where the first Unstripped took place. But I'm not sure that can happen without cutting off the sidewalk. If not, they're going to be very hard pressed to fit in what they say they have. But they may not have that much. I ran into James Trees last weekend at Liquid Diet and said I was looking forward to seeing him at Unstripped. "I'd better be there," he said, "otherwise who will be?" Cryptic, but concerning to me given the size of the announced venue. And then there's the bar squad - my sources at Jammyland say they're doing the after party, but they're not sure they'll be at the event. Unstripped still lists them on the website as pouring at the event. And of course, there's the entry situation. The first tickets sold - with an advance notice for previous attendees - were First Entry tickets. The implication was they'd be selling a certain number of tickets for entry every 15 minutes to ease crowding. Whether they kept that plan or not I don't know, but there are only two admission times - First Entry, and 15 minutes after. It's all a lot of vague signs and inferences on my part, I know. But given what I know of Feast of Friends, I'm very concerned for this year's Unstripped. And future ones. Fingers crossed. Hope to see some of y'all there so we can experience the whatever-it-is together. At least we know the after party will be great. bartolimu fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Oct 13, 2023 |
# ? Oct 13, 2023 19:32 |
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Wild. I've had fun at this before, but this year I'm too involved with Renfair to make it. If you get in, have a booze for me and I'll look forward to the after action report.
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# ? Oct 13, 2023 20:18 |
We're going tomorrow as well, I hope it's at least a fun time. There's a lot to look forward to so I hope it can deliver decently!
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# ? Oct 14, 2023 01:43 |
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bartolimu posted:I'm going to post my thoughts on the run up to Vegas Unstripped, primarily so I can do a postmortem followup to see whether I'm being too negative. I was curious how FoF would handle this years UnStripped, we’ve heard things through our grapevines as well about the mismanagement of things. We’re fairly certain the dude who runs it doesn’t like us at all so we never get any invite to run a booth or anything, lol. It’s such a great event and idea when done properly, it sucks to hear that it’s got the same feeling and setup this year :/ Liquid Diet has been so good, glad to see Brett and Patrick settling in and crushing it. We’re talking with them about doing a pizza pop up on their patio sometime soon, do a little cocktail and pizza pairing… ogopogo fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Oct 14, 2023 |
# ? Oct 14, 2023 03:00 |
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ogopogo posted:I was curious how FoF would handle this years UnStripped, we’ve heard things through our grapevines as well about the mismanagement of things. We’re fairly certain the dude who runs it doesn’t like us at all so we never get any invite to run a booth or anything, lol. It’s such a great event and idea when done properly, it sucks to hear that it’s got the same feeling and setup this year :/ It sucks that they don't invite you. Yukon is absolutely a highlight of off-Strip dining, and from the neighborhood to boot. quote:Liquid Diet has been so good, glad to see Brett and Patrick settling in and crushing it. We’re talking with them about doing a pizza pop up on their patio sometime soon, do a little cocktail and pizza pairing… That's extremely exciting. Can't wait to see what you all come up with! I'll be there for sure. My thoughts on Unstripped, as it happened: Check-in starting an hour early was a very smart move by whoever was in charge of access control. Most of us were ready to go when they opened the gates, which was a bit before 7:00. I appreciated that, compared to last Unstripped where we all waited for 15-20 minutes after supposed opening time for the media and social media pass folks to get all their pretty photos before letting us in. As feared, the space seemed a little cramped. During the busiest time it wasn't quite shoulder to shoulder, but at a lot of booths there was barely enough space for the lines forming. Previous years' fun of talking to the chefs or at least stopping to tell them how good the food was couldn't really happen. Food quality was overall great. Highlights: Gina Marinelli's goat pasta dish Jawgogi's loving incredible Korean fried frog legs James Trees personally blowtorching every dish of food leaving his station Calabash African Kitchen - especially the rice dish (very obviously the ancestor of jambalaya, and delicious in its own right), which I waited in line for fifteen minutes to try. Worth. Yaqui Zen Kitchen's vegan oyster mushroom taco, which eclipsed the Soul Belly BBQ taco for best taco of the whole thing The absolute madman whose name I forget who made a liver mousse, pate en croute, AND a pate de campagne and stopped to clap when I took one of each. Twice. Best dish of the night, though, goes to Gio Mauro's octopus and tripe salad. Mind-bendingly delicious, and when I got a change to talk to him later it gave some insight into his creative process. "Why does this dish work?" he said. "It's because the octopus and the tripe have the same texture, but wildly different flavors. It's like having two kinds of gummy bears." And yeah, that was a dish with two difficult proteins, wonderful preparations, dressed with just enough stuff to bring them together. Absolutely phenomenal. The other dish at his station was his bread with toppings, including cacciocavallo cheese hanging over a wood fire, scraped off raclette-style. It was a cool visual and of course his bread is always amazing. Event security was unobtrusive and the crowd seemed mostly fine. Staffing in general seemed sufficient, though the trash cans filled up awfully quickly in some areas and were too widely spaced. We managed, though. The booze stations were far enough from the stage that we could actually talk to each other, and that was nice. I'm not sure what the prep instructions were, but I think every bar ran out of product before the end. Jammyland ran out of both cocktails after an hour and a half. Which was a shame, I was feeling under the weather and needed more Tropical Medicine. Thankfully, I was able to get some at the after party. We had a few last-minute drops from the program. Lotus of Siam didn't show, and they were on the list as of Wednesday. John Arena was the only guy serving pizza, and honestly it was a disappointing bite - one of the few at the whole show. The list on the website now has been trimmed down to 23 chefs, and that sounds like the number we had in the end. It's too bad, but I'm not sure another seven cooking stations would've fit in the area. Don't get me wrong - there was definitely enough food for me to emulate Mr. Creosote, but more variety and more chefs highlighted would have been nice. Hopefully the event was successful enough to come back next year - maybe with a larger space and more chefs participating. Maybe with Yukon there to show John Arena how to do a food fest pizza properly. It wasn't perfect. But if they go again next year I'll definitely buy a ticket. The after party at Jammyland was chill and fun, and we ended the night hanging out at Liquid Diet for way too long. Solid A arts district experience for sure.
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# ? Oct 15, 2023 22:22 |
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A good report, and I'm glad it went better than expected.
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# ? Oct 16, 2023 16:37 |
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Real tempted to do one of the chefs table options at monzu now. Have any of yall been?
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# ? Oct 17, 2023 00:39 |
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G-Mawwwwwww posted:Real tempted to do one of the chefs table options at monzu now. Have any of yall been? I haven't been, but my instinct is to absolutely trust Gio to make it a magical experience.
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# ? Oct 18, 2023 21:01 |
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Short notice, but the Vegas Pizza Fest is happening this Saturday. This year's chef list includes Brett Geiger of Izzy's Pizza Bus - that bus left town last year, and to my knowledge this is the first time he's been back to serve pizzas in Vegas. Izzy's Detroit style is excellent, second (IMO) only to Red Dwarf's, so it's nice to see this brief return. Almost all of the really essential Vegas pizza spots are serving, including Yukon (ogopogo & co.), Old School/Monzu (Gio Mauro), Settebello (my favorite Neapolitan in town), Metro, Pizza Rock, Evel Pie, etc. Tickets at this point are kind of expensive, but it's a pretty great time in my opinion. If you've got the cash I recommend springing for VIP - first of all for the hour early access, during which you can easily fill up, and second because James Trees is serving food from ALL of his restaurants in the VIP room, including the "first preview" of La Boheme, which is going to take Esther's current spot when the build-out next door finishes. Tickets at https://vegaspizzafest.com/. Slightly longer notice: The Silver Stamp won a nationwide contest with Entrepreneur Magazine as the Best Mom and Pop Business in the US. To celebrate, they're having a Guest Appreciation Party on Sunday, November 12th from 1-4pm. Of note, this will be an open draft bar event. Expect crowds, but do come down to enjoy!
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# ? Nov 1, 2023 22:27 |
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Going to Vegas again. Will check out the Fountainbleau Casino/Hotel and if I eat there will report out.
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# ? Dec 23, 2023 21:03 |
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I went to HaSalon my last trip. I went mainly because the menu was so terribly written I had to experience it. It ended up being my favorite meal of the entire year. Everything I had was amazing. The charred beets with horseradish snow was a work of art. The enormous lamb kebab was worth ordering, too. We went with a table of 7 and got out of there for 120/pp. If you go to fontainebleau, lmk how mother wolf is.
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# ? Dec 24, 2023 15:52 |
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Went to Fontainebleau but did not eat there. That being said it is a beautiful and large hotel casino. Tall, high ceilings and a nice classy interior with blue, cream and goldish vibes. The bar areas looked nice. I went to check out the prices at Mother Wolf but it was closed and their menu outside doesn’t have pricing so I dunno how to judge.
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# ? Dec 27, 2023 01:51 |
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I am inside the Sphere and whoever decided beer should cost $21 needs to get hosed. A burger is $18 then pay $7 for waffle fries on top of that.
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# ? Dec 30, 2023 04:43 |
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Eat first, drink an expensive beer, drink a bunch of other drinks after. Also, that's just what strip prices are without comps. Mr. Wiggles fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Dec 30, 2023 |
# ? Dec 30, 2023 07:38 |
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Ogo, I heard about that guy fieri bullshit. I'm sorry dude.
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 01:37 |
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G-Mawwwwwww posted:Ogo, I heard about that guy fieri bullshit. I'm sorry dude. Thank you my dude. Woof, we didn’t expect the response that we got from our post, lol. There’s a list of things that went wrong, and overall it just hurt a lot of local restaurants that were a part of the event. When we heard there were other activations in town that pulled similar poo poo, we felt like we had to say something. We understand Vegas, I’ve been here 20 years and have done countless corporate events of every size - we get tourism, hospitality, and what it takes to put on an event of that scale. My wife spent years producing events like this all over the city so it was hard for us to see this one fail so hard. Tons of misinformation, misleading vendors on the realities of the attendance and event, etc. Guy Fieri literally had an entire zone for his restaurants giving out free food all day, not to mention several other massive corporate sponsors handing out free food. No one wanted to pay money for local business vendor food after getting free food, and having to pay a stupid ticket price to get in (it was supposed to be free) it was brutal. These things were never communicated to vendors in regards to free food, ticket prices, and other things. I’ve never gone “viral” or been a lightning rod for anything, but when someone whose reputation is built around supporting the little man doesn’t realize itself, it’s pretty rough. He puts his name on the banner and touts local businesses, but for the 5 hours we were there, he never once visited the booth of a local vendor. He had an entourage of about 30 people cruising through his own activations for photos. We shy away from big events like these because of this reason, but figured Guy would be a real opportunity to showcase what we as Las Vegas restaurants can do. Lesson learned, our customers came out for us super strong on Monday, and I hope the other spots around town get as much love as well. ogopogo fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Feb 14, 2024 |
# ? Feb 14, 2024 02:31 |
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On the other hand those sausage sandwiches were dope.
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 04:02 |
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This weekend will be the first time the wife and I have been to town in a few years, so it'll be exciting to try out some of the places the thread has recommended. First stop will be Yukon since we'll be able to knock out two things to please the toddler after the drive in: a bus ride and pizza.
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# ? Feb 15, 2024 05:56 |
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The Aardvark posted:This weekend will be the first time the wife and I have been to town in a few years, so it'll be exciting to try out some of the places the thread has recommended. First stop will be Yukon since we'll be able to knock out two things to please the toddler after the drive in: a bus ride and pizza. Hell yes! A powerful combo.
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# ? Feb 15, 2024 05:58 |
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Y-Train is toddler approved. Yall were busy! We got a mini since I decided we're going to the Knights game last minute.
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# ? Feb 18, 2024 08:39 |
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So a bit after! Lotus of Siam was good? The khao soi was kinda mid but the hor mok was very good. We will deffo go back to Xiao Long Dumplings, even though we went when there was no chow fun or a beer I wanted. The dumplings and fried chicken in chili pepper were great. And as always, SkinnyFATS was our departure breakfast and did not disappoint. The toddler got us a free balloon! The drive in with a toddler was pretty benign, so we'll deffo be back for more good eats!
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# ? Feb 28, 2024 10:42 |
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Welp. You know that feeling when your favorite punk band announces they're working on a new country western ballad? When the avant garde author writes a romance novel? That kind of thing? I think we might be having a moment like that in the Vegas food scene. The planning company that runs Vegas Unstripped just sent pre-release sales offers to people who've been to the previous events. Vegas Unstripped 2024 will be on May 18th instead of in October. Yeah, that's right, they're claiming to have a major food festival planned with fives weeks of lead time. They've also reduced the sell a bit - last year was, "over 35 off-Strip chefs!" and this year it's, "Over 30 new dishes from Las Vegas’ most acclaimed and creative chefs!" But here's the kicker. Here's the big sellout part. They're doing it at The Palms. Not in the Arts District, not downtown, not on a vacant lot in Chinatown close to the chefs who've always made Unstripped fantastic. The Goddamned Palms. We've gone from "WOOO we're iconoclastic weirdos taking over a city block, snorting foie gras and taking caviar bumps off pigs' heads, gently caress you Strip!" to "please come to our nice food festival at the casino resort, we promise it's still about local chefs for realzies." Just, like....what? Oh also the ticket sale page linked in the email makes no mention of the venue. (Maybe people won't read the whole email and just buy on impulse?) It also gives you the option to buy two different t-shirts, but uhhhhh And there's not a single word anywhere about who's actually participating. My industry and media contacts aren't very bullish on this either. The event planner is known to be flaky always, but he's being especially noncommittal about that whole off-Strip chefs thing that's been the central concept of Unstripped from the time James Trees put it together from scratch in his restaurant's parking lot. This feels very much like a brand being hijacked, either for profit by a bad actor or just by a company that doesn't really understand what it's working with. Either way, I'm leaning strongly toward giving this a pass unless some new info comes out soon.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 17:59 |
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Yeah, not going.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 20:50 |
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IMPORTANT UNSTRIPPED UPDATE! The website has been touched up a bit. They now have a list of last year's participants copy/pasted from that page, including the "Subject to change" disclaimer, presumably in case any chefs want to invent time travel in order to disassociate themselves from the brand. Last year's list is followed up by a link for chefs to apply to participate this year. I don't know about you, but 31 days before a major event is my favorite time to be looking for talent! The tickets link on the "About Unstripped" page still points to the 2023 ticket sales. The previously blank images for the two t-shirts being sold with 2024 tickets have been updated! It's now clear there is ONE t-shirt and ONE poster, and they're both from the 2023 event. The actual Merch page itself says "We don't have any products to show here right now." Apparently it, at least, has some sense of shame. On the plus side, James Trees is still associated with Unstripped and posted about it on FB three days ago. So there's some hope. But I'm still pretty far from being convinced the guy actually planning the event can pull it off.
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# ? Apr 15, 2024 23:07 |
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In true Vegas fashion we should just blow it up and start again.
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# ? Apr 16, 2024 02:32 |
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A small contingent of old-school GWS crew is coming to town this week. Yukon Pizza is on the list (fair warning ogopogo!), probably for lunch. Also planned: Lotus of Siam, an Arts District bar crawl, lunch at Carson Kitchen, brunches at Esther's and Red Dwarf. Early arrivals have already enjoyed a breakfast at Eat. and Evel Pie for dinner. Looking forward to showing off our city to these distinguished guests!
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# ? May 7, 2024 18:30 |
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oh god am i old school GWS crew
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# ? May 8, 2024 02:56 |
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Already saw Bart, can’t wait for the rest of the goon fools to come through…
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# ? May 8, 2024 05:21 |
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Back in town tomorrow for another business trip. Thanks for the amazing recs for the last two trips. Monta, Lotus, Bouchon brunch, Partage, all stellar. Definitely planning on hitting Yukon for a third time and China Mama, but looks like 2 nights we aren’t getting done with work until 10pm or later. Any recs for late night food, ranging from strip mall with fluorescent lighting to midscale bistro? Main criteria are “won’t feel like a dick walking in 30 minutes before close at 11pm”, not insanely far from Caesars, and able to absolutely gorge ourselves for under $100/per person. Fukuburger looks great. Going to try to hit Big Dan’s on the way(ish) outta town. Edit: waking back up at 6am to work another 14-16 hours, so any place drink-focused is not ideal. Otherwise Dwarf would probably be on the list. Doom Rooster fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 13, 2024 |
# ? May 13, 2024 18:35 |
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Herbs and Rye is open until 3am. I'm not sure when the kitchen closes, but probably not until at after midnight. They're a cocktail bar with a focus on historic cocktails, but they do great steaks and have a wide variety of other food too. Decent amount of table seating available. If you want to go downtown, Evel Pie is open late and you can buy a slice or order a whole pie. It's cheap and good. Many of the pho places in Chinatown are open late or 24 hours. Pho Ga Bac Bac is 24/7 and especially advertises chicken pho; I haven't been there. Pho Kim Long gets a lot of mentions and is open until 2:00. Pick any, really, they're likely to be decent or better on average. The Tacos el Gordo location on the Strip (just north of Desert Inn) is open until 2:00. I haven't been to that location, but the original one on Charleston is still my favorite quick taco shop in town.
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# ? May 13, 2024 21:12 |
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Pho ga back back very good. For late night diner food go to the Peppermill and have a giant plate plus a gigantic cocktail.
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# ? May 15, 2024 07:10 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 08:05 |
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Friend and I hit Calabash African Kitchen last week. Little hole in the wall near Rainbow and Oakey that serves outstanding “Senegambian” cuisine. Highly recommended. https://www.calabashafricankitchen.com
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# ? May 19, 2024 08:18 |