Just wrapped up a long weekend in Vegas. It was Red's birthday wish, and I was happy to comply.
At the end of last week I drove out from Denver to Salt Lake City---all in one go, a rarity for me---and left the Bimmer in long term parking there, the third different airport where I've done that in the last few months. After a fifty-five minute flight in perfect weather, allowing a great view of the Grand Canyon, we touched down at McCarran. Back in Las Vegas.
At the airport, I wanted to text Red to meet me at the bar in the terminal, so we could pretend we didn't know each other, but my plan was thwarted because we arrived at different terminals. But that was about the only thing during the weekend that didn't go splendidly.
I'd booked our place at the Aria, the nearly-new resort in the middle of the Strip. During my visit here last February, when I stayed at the Elara, I had spent a bit of time staring down from my room at the Aria, thinking how beautiful it looked in all its postmodern metallic glory.
It didn't disappoint. The Aria is one of those all-inclusive resorts where you hardly have to leave, unless you want to go to a show, which we did, on Red's birthday. She's a big fan of Cirque du Soleil and had bought us tickets to Le Rêve, which is technically not CdS, but was created by Franco Dragone, who is the genius behind many of their shows.
Among the highlights of the trip were dining at the Barrymore, a quaint and elegant steakhouse located just off the strip in an old resort, and which hearkens to the old era of Hollywood. Of course, Lionel is one of my favorite actors and it gave me a chance to wax about my appreciation for him over dinner.
Neither of us gamble, so we spent much of the daylight hours poking around the inside of various casinos---including the Bellagio and the Cosmopolitan---admiring the decor and the themes, as well as simply people watching, which is probably my favorite pastime there. I had particularly fun examining the layout and design of the many hotel bars, since that too has become somewhat of a hobby of mine.
We also slummed it by taking the Deuce bus downtown and eating at the famous Heart Attack Grill. I managed to finish my double cheeseburger and thus avoid getting spanked by the nurse-waitresses there, but for the rest of the day, I hardly felt like eating. Nevertheless we later managed to split most of a huge of pina colada at Paris, comically delivered in an enormous plastic Eiffel Tower, and then went up to the top of the tower for a nice view of the Strip, almost exactly facing my hotel room at the Elara from last year. I felt like I'd stepped through the looking glass of my life somehow.
But the event that truly defined this trip was certainly on Sunday, when we gave ourselves a self-guided taxi tour of the local bars featured on our favorite television show, Bar Rescue. Back in Portland, I'd made a map of all the locations of the bars (five of which were still open at the time), and we used spent the entire afternoon and evening going up and down Decatur Avenue, hitting one place after another while catching snippets of the NFL championship games. In the spirit of appreciating the cocktail menus of these places, both of us wound up drinking far more than we had in a long times.
We found Bar 702 on Spring Mountain to be a nice little dive bar a block off the strip. It wasn't fancy, but they seemed as if they were trying to keep up the pace of renovation from the show. We kibbitzed on a staff meeting in which the owner (whom we recognized from the show) was training the bartenders on the proper way to cut lemons---a good sign for management that it cares about such things. Before we left, I made Red take my picture in front of the "Locals Only" mock police line-up sign. "I hope that's the only time I've ever in front of a thing like that," I said.
On the other hand, Hammer and Ales, a taproom on Russell, appeared to be sliding back to its old bad pre-Taffer ways. Many of the beers were unavailable, with plastic cups placed over the tap handles. The bar tender served me a Guinness and then let me sit there for a half hour after it was empty. Worst, it's owned by a pair of chefs, yet they had the simplest of bar food menus and had no cook at all for the first two hours that we were there (on a Sunday afternoon with the big games on the tube). At the least the burgers were decently cooked when we finally got them.
The Bacon Bar on Rancho Road, by comparison, was certainly a triumph of Taffer's effort. It was smartly designed, well run and stuffed with locals watching the game. We greatly enjoyed the bacon-themed Bloody Marys as well as the "Man Candy" appetizer, which consisted of carmelized bacon and a maple syrup dipping sauce.
Our last stop of the evening was The End, a zombie apocalypse bar along Decatur. At first we thought it had closed, and we were greatly disappointed, but it turns out it simply moved next door because the roof of their original place collapsed. We had a great time sampling their apocalypse-themed cocktail menu, including the blue syringe-delivered "Zombie Antidote" ones.
Our visit there was made perfect by the fact that we got to meet the owners, who were dressed exactly on the show. We spent much of our long visit chatting with them---about the show, about Taffer, and about the vagaries of dealing with the Nevada Gaming Commission. It felt surreal to be talking to them.
Alas the fifth bar on our map, the Garnet Lounge, a locals-oriented "cougar bar" on North Decatur, had shuttered permanently after New Year's Eve.
During each leg of our journey, we informed the taxi driver about what we were doing. All of them had heard of the show, and a few of them even asked us about it spontaneously while picking us up. The one who picked us up at the Bacon Bar was even planning his own "Bar Rescue Tour" with a set fee charged to visit all the places in the show.
It was a fantastic way to see the "real Las Vegas," gritty and often less-than-glamorous. There is something about doing that allows one to better appreciate the fantasy version on the Strip. Of course if we were really locals, you never would have found us down there people watching in the casinos.
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