The Better Side of Vegas!

Vegas is a trying place. But we saw, did, and ate some amazing things. Here's a medley of the our time in this odd yet appealing city.

TV Heaven (just as good as purple)

A few months ago, my counterpart discovered that when he wanted to avoid something we were discussing, he could simply distract me by talking about something purple.  Now, I know that sounds insane and doesn't present either of us in a particularly flattering light, but when a man who never notices things like fresh flowers or when my shirt is on backwards (that story is forthcoming, I promise) starts to notice and mention your favorite color, it is very distracting.  The first time he used this technique it bought him an hour or so until I realized what he'd done.  And like a smooth criminal, he only used the technique every now and again, so it continued to work for about a month.  Fast forward to Vegas. Casino living is hardly in my normal wheelhouse; however, my counterpart and I decided to wander through a couple of his favorites places.

Our first stop was the MGM Grand where he would spend a couple of hours playing poker while I explored solo.  Unfortunately, the lion that is kept on premises was no where to be found. But who comes to Vegas to see live animals anyway!?  As he guided me through the casino, I was quickly growing exhausted and could feel my patience evaporating yet again.  That is, until he played his magic card and brought me over to the Sport Book. What's a Sport Book? Well, I would call it TV Heaven (especially if it mixed a few episodes of Buffy or Gilmore Girls in with the sports programs airing). But 40+ flat screens focusing mostly on baseball and NFL preseason games was close enough. And that was it; I was done. And he knew it, the bugger. He knew when I saw the pretty, shiny screens he could add another hour to his poker time without much protest. So I sat down and finally understood what kids with ADD feel like.  It. Was. Just. Too. Much.  I watched about 30 minutes before deciding to leave while I still could.

Of course, before I left the MGM I encountered a group of waiters dancing on a bar.  At first it was just two women dancing, and I thought, Here we go again with this crazy place's sex-selling culture! But then something weird happened: three men joined them.  And wait, what's this? The women were wearing a lot of clothing.  Color me thoroughly confused! I had to stay to watch.  One man was the lead dancer and the other four people coupled up to accompany him.  The music was a loud, cheesy mix of several pop songs from the past couple of years, and I couldn't take my eyes away.  I wasn't enthralled because it was enticing or the people beautiful. In fact, none of them were particularly attractive or skilled. It was simply fun to watch these performers have a good time.  I could feel my attitude about Vegas start to shift.

  

The Morning After

Since my counterpart stayed out playing poker until the wee hours of the morning, we didn't exactly hit the ground running the next day.  By mid-morning, we checked out of our hotel, loaded the car, and set off for quality time together in LV.  What does "quality time" mean?  To me it meant exploring the city together.  Brunch, shopping, maybe a little BINGO! (don't ask).  To him it meant entertaining ourselves in the same place.  Fortunately for him, I didn't really want him to follow me around as I shopped, so I agreed that he could play more poker while I shopped.  So we headed to Caesars Hotel where there's a SWATCH store (I've been very excited about adding to my obscenely large collection) and plenty of distractions for him. But first brunch.

While trying to find a place to eat, we had to negotiate our way around the enthusiastic tourists, early morning gamblers, and obnoxiously wealthy shoppers. And this is when we struck GOLD! Accidentally, I made eye contact with the host of a restaurant and he tried to charm us in with relentless excitement.  Above his head, we saw the tagline "A LOVE AFFAIR WITH CHOCOLATE" and I thought, there's no way I'm ever going to convince my counterpart that we should try this place, so we told the host we'd think about it and proceeded to continue our lap around the mall.  Coming up short (there was only one other restaurant and it was engrossed by at least 50  tourists waiting for the robotic sculptures to come to life for the hourly show), we found ourselves at Max Brenner's. And our lives will never be the same again.  Seriously. In fact, we've talked about this meal no fewer than six times since then... And I just told my counterpart that we're going to the NYC location for every major celebration between now and the end of time.  His response? "That's a lot of celebrations." (He also wanted me to tell all of you that there's a location opening in Boston some time in November.)  So what is this place that has rocked our worlds?

Well, it's by far the most innovative culinary experience we've ever had. And it's all chocolate-based!  And good chocolate. Like the stuff that makes Ghirardelli taste like the generic store brand you'd never buy.  For reals.  It's THAT good.  Of course it helps that I had a mix of PMS and trip exhaustion to fuel my love of the restaurant. It turns out, the host was not the only enthusiastic staff member.  In fact, we had at least four servers checking in on us and the manager even sent a free dessert because our food took "too long."  By talking to all of these people (and as those of you who know me or, god forbid, have traveled with or been on an adventure with me know, one of my favorite things to do is talk to strangers. I love asking them questions about all sorts of stuff.  And I usually learn some cool facts.  At Max Brenner's, we learned that the owner is from Tel Aviv and started the store there a while ago.  Apparently, it started as a small stand. And now there are locations in Singapore, Australia, and the U.S.  Some of the products (like the ice cream) are shipped directly from Tel Aviv. Apparently, it's easier to procure high quality, hormone-free dairy in Tel Aviv, so the only ice cream they use must travel first to NYC then to LV.  The problem with this is that they haven't worked out the kinks yet (the LV restaurant has only been open a couple of weeks) and I was unable to have my first choice in desserts because of the ice cream's second flight was less than good.

So, what did we have? Well, we started with drinks. I had a Swiss hot chocolate with a shot of hazelnut flavoring and my counterpart had a banana split latte (in the coolest Alice in Wonderland cup... more on the ceramics in a minute). 

 

Since it was brunch, we had many options for our meal.  My counterpart chose the Lazy Breakfast which included scrambled eggs made with chorizo and ham, fancy home fries with peppers and a variety of seasonings, and a country biscuit which was sprinkled with a little sugar.  While this may sound like something you'd find at IHOP or any local diner, I left out the key detail: the dipping sauces. That's right, the Lazy Breakfast comes with a ramkin of a creamy melted butter (perhaps also from Tel Aviv? I forgot to ask!) and another filled with a yummy melted milk chocolate.  We think the desire was to have us dip the biscuit in the dreamy liquids, but it's hard to tell in a place that is all about tickling your fancy.  And boy do we love to be tickled!

Unlike my counterpart (and despite his efforts to change this), I'm not a big fan of eggs, so the breakfast offerings were not calling me.  There was a Belgian waffle on the menu, but it didn't inspire me, so I went another direction.  Instead, I chose what I would come to learn is one of the
restaurant's most popular dishes (and every person on the wait staff who stopped by pointed out how much they loved it, too). 

The dish is actually the combination of my three favorite things: chicken, cheddar cheese, and bacon.  But the key is in the combination.  The sinful treats arrived on a long, rectangular glass plate with eight peg holes the size of quarters. In each hole, a small piece of chicken stuffed with cheddar and wrapped in bacon was held together by a toothpick. As if this wasn't enough, the toothpick gently rested the food in a dressing that was somewhere between ranch and bleu cheese.  And the magic detail? The chipoltle and chocolate seasoning that Brenner uses in many of his dishes.  I've never been much of a spicy food eater (in fact, my counterpart thinks I frequently imagine spices in dishes) so I was a little shocked by the fact that these little treats meant I had to toughen up a little.  And toughen up I did! As you can imagine, these chicken-cheddar-bacon balls were not light. In fact, I needed to rest between each of them.  Even with the rest, I could only eat four of them.  But fear not, I will meet these good friends once again.

While we were enjoying our food, our waiter came over to tell us that they were very sorry about how long our meal had taken to prepare. To apologize, they presented us with a riduculous dessert. The treat featured a warm Belgian waffle topped with bananas that were sprinkled with carmelized sugar. Oh, and there was a scoop of the straight-from-Tel-Aviv ice cream on top.  

Free Dessert!!!

And if that wasn't enough, fresh caramel was drizzled over the whole dish. Since I'm not a banana lover and I had my eyes on a ice cream fondue creation for dessert, I let my counterpart enjoy the freebie.  Don't worry, I checked to make sure it wasn't poisonous. And it wasn't. The waffle was bizarrely amazing. I didn't know a waffle could taste so flavorful. Since the most recent shipment of ice cream had suffered in the Vegas heat, I was unable to have the dish that would allow us (read: me. I don't think I would share well on this one.) to dip the sinful ice cream into melted chocolates and chopped hazelnuts, so we went with our waiter's recommendation: the S'MORES SUNDAE!

Again, ridiculous seems to be the most accurate adjective to describe this creation.  Marshmellow coats the bottom of the large sundae dish. Next, the walls of the glass are doused with hot fudge and a rich, grainy peanut butter sauce. On top of the foundation comes the ice cream: two scoops of the Tel Aviv vanilla and two scoops of the best chocolate ice cream I've ever had.  During my years in Austin, I fell in love with Amy's Belgian chocolate because it was uniquely rich and never bitter.  Brenner's chocolate has complicated the very idea of chocolate ice cream.  Not only is it rich, creamy,

SMORES SUNDAE!

and chocolatey, but it also includes chocolate shavings that melt in your mouth faster than the ice cream.  The texture reminds me of the mint chip ice cream at Baskin Robbins, only a hundred times better.  Also mixed into the sundae are chunks of graham crackers. On top of the creation is a gigantic marshmallow that has been lightly toasted. As if all of that is not enough, the sundae comes with two ramkins for dipping. One of white chocolote sauce and the other with whipped cream. And adorning the whole masterpiece are two chocolate covered graham crackers. Other than the white chocolate on the side, this dish was perfection. We're unclear why he would even introduce white chocolate to something already so rich, but it was ultimately of no consequence since we were able to simply ignore it. 

I know I've given you a lot of details about this meal, but it was really that good.  I mean, I've never had a chocolate (or any food, at that rate) make my face flush. The textures, flavors, and layers of sensation were simple yet remarkable.  Part of my fascination with Brenner is the fact that he is so creative.  I consider myself a baker who likes to experiment with all sorts of combinations, but he puts me to shame.  While eating the sundae, my counterpart and I discussed how truly amazing everything was. Humbled by Brenner, I started thinking about what I want to learn from him and we started discussing my baking.  When my counterpart reminded me that I'm also making ice cream now, I was doubly humbled because I couldn't place anything I've ever made in the same category as these creations.  Don't worry, this was like meeting Michael Jordan and vowing to practice more; I'll be back in the kitchen with both my ice cream maker and my own mitts at the ready by the end of the weekend. I promise. 

Earlier I mentioned that I'd say more about Brenner's ceramics.  In addition to creating all of the foods, he also designed all of the dishes. While some of the details of these creations were not as functional as we would like, we loved the ingenuity.  For example, the latte my counterpart had came in a tall Alice in Wonderland ceramic glass and came with a metal straw.  The construction of the cup, while novel, made it hard to get to every last drop of the delectable drink.  Don't worry, he's resourceful and was able to finish, but the novelty of the odd metal straw was lost when it didn't work quite as well as it could have.  Anyway, after our long and luxurious love affair with chocolate, we ventured into the store where we found it rather easy to shop for a variety of gifts we needed.  I didn't buy the huge and beautiful cookbook, but hope I will see it again in the future.

Fallen Hero and No Picture!?!

After our long brunch, we were completely stuffed.  Like the type of stuffed that makes it hard to walk or think or do just about anything.  As we wandered towards our separate destinations for our quality time together, we realized that we might not think about food again for a while.  Somehow I managed to make my way through the fancy stores.  It was like shopping in Barbie land.  But then a sign caught my eye: PETE ROSE SIGNING TODAY!  What? The most controversial baseball player of the past two decades? Signing things here? In the MALL? Quickly, I sent a text to my counterpart in case he wanted to join me but he was already lost in the world of poker. So I headed to the store with my camera at the ready.  What would I say to him? I don't even remember watching him play, so that's out.  Surely I didn't want to bring up the fact that he's been denied entry in to the Hall of Fame.... Nor would I want to point out the irony of him signing in Vegas.... But something happened as soon as I entered the store: I didn't want to remember the moment. Why? For starters, he looked old, unwell, and like he had several bad plastic surgeries.  It was "Pete Rose" but it wasn't a baseball player. He sat at a table with items for sale that he could then sign. But no one was there waiting for him.  In fact, there were people scattered around the store hiding as they stared at him.  It seems no one  wanted to approach him.  It was creepy.  Here's a legendary baseball player and none of us could talk to him. 

I wandered around a bit, pretending to be interested in the many over-priced signed items for sale, and then darted out of the store because there was nothing I could say to this man.  And taking a picture of him as sitting alone at the table would just heighten the depressing image.  At the end of our quality time, my counterpart wanted to see the signing for himself, so we walked back to the mall.  We wandered around and watched how everyone was avoiding Rose.  As we made our way out of the store, we noticed an awkward fan who clearly couldn't stop himself. Instead of escaping, the fan stood before Rose and tried to convince him that one day the fact that he bet on baseball and has been kept out of the Hall would be overturned.  The fan was selling a dream and Rose sat there. Bored. Spent.  Indifferent. I imagine he was hoping the fan would stop talking so he could return to the cell phone call he was on when we entered the store. 

Seeing Pete Rose in a memorabilia store pimping signed copies of his book and baseball was the perfect ending for our trip to Sin City.