As Kelly wrote about last week, we all took a trip to Vegas to attend a wedding a couple of weeks ago. After the wedding Cliff and I moved to a hotel on the strip, The Vdara, to spend a few days with Cliff’s Dad and Stepmom from Arizona. For the first time I used Priceline to bid on a hotel for Vegas. You give them parameters and then you bid “blindly.” Kind of scary, but it turned out really well for us. We really enjoyed The Vdara.
The view from our room!
When most people think of Vegas they probably think of gambling or drinking. Not me, I think of food. Vegas is a great place for foodies. I knew that I wanted to go to a high end buffet. I have heard that the Bellagio and the Wynn have the best buffets. But we decided to try the new “hot” buffet, The Wicked Spoon at the Cosmopolitan. It was soooo amazing. I highly recommend it. Usually at buffets they have huge vats of food and you get yourself a big scoop and load up your plate with way too much food. At the Wicked Spoon they serve most everything in individually sized portions. You still go up to the buffet but instead they have little sauce pans and fry baskets with small portions. I had shrimp, cheese, salami, crab legs, risotto, cauliflower gratin, truffle potatoes, beignets, chocolate covered strawberries, gelato, and little pastries. It was all excellent!
Cliff’s plate
The next day we went to visit the Neon Boneyard. This is a place that Cliff actually found. It was really interesting. You have to sign up in advance for tours. I think they are twice per day. You get a guide that takes you around the “boneyard” and gives you all kinds of historical information about Las Vegas. The boneyard is full of old neon signs from the hotels.
That evening we went to downtown Las Vegas to check out the Fremont Street Experience. I had been to Vegas before but never downtown. We first ate at an Italian restaurant at The Golden Nugget called Grotto. It was excellent. I had lobster bisque, my fave, and shrimp scampi. Both were really good. Unfortunately, we forgot to take pics!
Chocolate fountain at Jean Philippe Patisserie at the Bellagio
Later that night we met up with our friends Amanda and Kyle aka the bride and groom. I bought 3 little cakes from Jean Philippe Patisserie at Aria to share with them. Amanda and Kyle live in Virginia and every time we get together all we do is eat (and drink)!! Even though I always say that I wished they lived closer, I think I might be in trouble if they did! Ha! They have Jean Philippe Patisseries at Bellagio and Aria and they serve pastries, crepes, gelato, sandwiches, coffee and I don’t know what else. But everything looked so good it was hard to decide what to order. All three cakes were good but we especially liked the hazelnut mousse cake. Let’s just say we made 3 trips to Jean Philippe Patisserie in the 3 days we were there! It was bad!
Cakes! I got the fourth and sixth ones from the left.
More cakes! See those round brown ones towards the right? That is the third cake that I bought, and our favorite!
On Wednesday Cliff and I walked around the strip and visited The Venetian and Caesars. It really made me want to go back to Italy! While at Caesars we found thick Italian hot chocolate. OMG! It was sooo good. Almost as good as Italy!
Forum Shops at Caesars
For dinner we went to The Henry at the Cosmopolitan hotel. When we went to the Wicked Spoon we had truffle potatoes for the first time. It is now Cliff’s favorite way to eat potatoes. So, when we went to The Henry, we again ordered truffle potatoes. This time it was truffle tater tots. They were amazing. We’d been eating all week so we decided to split a burger and an appetizer. It was a good decision because we could barely finish all the food we got. Again, excellent! Afterwards we did a little gambling. Neither of us are big gamblers but we enjoyed playing Jacks or Better on the video poker machines. At one point I was up about $2 (on my $5 bet) and I cashed out. That was it for me! Clearly, not a gambler!
Fried macaroni and cheese balls
On our last day we headed over to Aria to do a little bit more gambling. Let me just say I love the way Aria smells! A lot of the hotels have signature scents and Aria’s was my favorite. I went to the gift shop and bought the Aria scent! It is vanilla, which I do not typically like, but it smelled so good. Now my house smells like Aria! We decided that the best way to end our trip was with gelato! So, we visited Jean Philippe Patisserie once again! Cliff and I got a scoop of lemon and a scoop of coconut. It was the perfect ending to our trip!! And now we are on diets!!!!!! Hahahaha!
