Travel & Recommendations

ok first things first: I only saw the sphere three times, twice during the day when it's not lit up and once at night from a great distance when it was on the moon. It’s really only conducive to being seen from Wynn and the upper reaches of the Venetian and Flamingo. That being said hopefully I will not pay one million dollars to get inside of it, like I was almost asked to do later in the week.

Anyway I’m going to organize my thoughts by place here.

The Hotel:

I decided to ball out and get a fountain view terrace suite at the Cosmopolitan. It was amazing. Easily the best hotel room I’ve ever stayed in (easy to be swayed on this one though since I don’t stay in too many hotel rooms). The bed was very comfortable but the seating areas might have been the real highlight: the nice couches with a coffee table art book and huge TV was great for relaxing at during the day, and of course you have the outdoor balcony terrace with one of the craziest views ever. The strip views are immaculate, especially since you see the cool things to look at like the ferris wheel and the Eiffel Tower, and of course, the fountains. The fountains ran a lot less frequently during the day than I remembered, but it was always cool to look out and watch when they went off. Given how late my group went out and ate dinner, I didn’t see too much of the fountains during the night because they stop after midnight, but when I did it was always a treat. The Cosmopolitan itself was also basically a perfect strip hotel: big enough to have a lot of pizzazz, but small enough to be walkable from the lobby to the entrance on the boulevard in about 10 minutes. The staff were amazing and went out of their way to be friendly to you everywhere. As far as the casino goes, there were often shockingly low table minimums (there were half-empty $15 blackjack tables during the day) and they seemed to have a good selection of slots, and the sports book seemed all right if small. I also spent quite a bit of time at the non-dayclub pools, which were both very nice. If you go, I had heard that the Boulevard pool had more of a party vibe than the Chelsea pool, but the former was just bigger and there wasn’t much appreciable difference between the two apart from a slight change in view. The real star of the Cosmo though is its restaurants and nightlife, so let’s get into that.

The Food:

Best Friend: Before we get into that though, a quick detour to the Park MGM. It’s kind of a shame that The Only Non-Smoking Hotel On The Strip is so ugly, but it does have a very good, very pretty restaurant. This is the Roy Choi restaurant in Vegas, and it was very good and also shockingly inexpensive! On each day of my trip I was with a big group so we ended up sharing quite a bit of our food. I got the pork belly hotpot, which did not have as much pork belly as I thought and instead ended up being very tofu-heavy, which is fine, and way too spicy, which was tasty but ended up exceeding my tolerance. When they say something is spicy here, they are not fucking around. Adjust your expectations accordingly. Other things I nibbled on I really liked: the kimchi fried rice, the garlic chicken. My Salty Dog cocktail was also very good.

Jaleo: This place had the best food of anywhere I ate on the trip. Again, we were a large group ordering tapas so here’s everything we ate: started off with the pan de cristal con tomate, which was light and crispy and was crazy loaded with olive oil. Not sure if I would’ve liked it more or less with the tomatoes. We had Idiazábal cheese and jamon serrano, which were both excellent, the cheese being a special highlight paired with apricot jam. Several members of my group had the liquid olives, which are served individually; I did not as a staunch olive hater. The croquetas de pollo got a “holy shit!” from me, it kind of tasted like an elevated chicken kiev but crispier on the outside and creamier on the inside. On the other hand, the patatas bravas were the only ok thing I had here. We ended up sharing a lot of fish and meat: I specifically ordered the pulpo a la papilla because I love octopus. It was super well prepared, along with some scallops I also tried. However, my favorite of the meats was the butifarra escalivada, a sausage with great vegetables and a better, kind of spicy-sweet mustard. I am staring at this menu now and cannot remember much else I nibbled on but everything was delicious. Their gin and tonics are apparently super renowned and I had a classic one which was incredibly smooth and came with a giant ice cube which I always think is fun. (My first glass was cracked, which I only realized after a few sips and they were kind enough to make me another). However, while this was my favorite of the food I had…

Superfrico: …this was probably my favorite restaurant experience I had. Superfrico is the restaurant attached to Opium, the resident Spiegelworld show at Cosmo. The Spiegelworld shows have been around for a while now and are kind of muscling in on Cirque du Soleil’s dominance, featuring much quicker variety-type acts with fairly raunchy humor on a much less grand scale and in a much more intimate setting than the Cirque shows (and from what I’ve seen, Mad Apple, the Cirque show at NYNY that replaced Zumanity, seems like a Spiegelworld clone). Some members of my group actually went to Absinthe, the OG Spiegelworld show at Caesars after this and were underwhelmed. Do this restaurant instead. The performs from Opium come around and do short acts during the meal; you’ll get the dinner and the show. To start with the food: I had the scallops here, which were buttery and pillows, with the actual real star of the dish being the chickpea ragu; I can’t believe I’m saying this about chickpeas in sauce but it was also one of my favorite things I ate on this trip. I also nibbled on the soppressata meatballs, which were not spicy as advertised on the menu but still tasty on their own, a bit of the pizza which was enormous and very tasty, some of the beef cheek rigatoni, which had wagyu that tasted really good as far as I could tell, and a tiny bit of the filet mignon which was also well prepared. The asparagus and rosemary potatoes were very good sides. The brussel sprouts (a vegetable I really like!) made me nauseous somehow lmao. I also got the chocolate crostata for dessert, which was probably my favorite sweet thing I ate on the trip. As far as the entertainment goes, there was a LOT, and it often roams throughout the restaurant, though I think our table had one of the best views for it. Some highlights: a guy who created very impressive clusters out of bubbles, a guy walking around with another guy balanced on top of his head, a magician who at one point pulled out cards from her mouth despite wearing only basically lingerie? Also at the end of our meal there were all these comedic characters coming out which really added to the irreverent atmosphere of the place: a twerking yeti, guys in penguin heads and suit jackets, two fake cops, and a guy literally dressed up as a Dominoes delivery guy on his phone, trying to find out where his order was going to. Very fun, highly recommended in spite of almost vomiting.

Yardbird: Went here for brunch. Was a little hungover this morning and the food here was good but this is a place that really needs a warning for how big the portions are. Our group started with the blueberry fritters, which were good, and a truly massive cinnamon roll that gave everyone in our party of 10 a decent portion (hated the cream cheese frosting though). I ordered the chicken and waffles, one of my favorite dishes, and uhhhhh it was a half chicken with one waffle. It came to the table and I felt like Mel Giedroyc in Taskmaster being told she needed to eat the insane 20-layer chocolate sandwich she had just made. I ate about half before I had to stop, which I hated because it was such a waste. The chicken was crispy but delicate and the waffle was good too. Definitely for two people only. The rest of the brunch was decent for the rest of the group apparently, I don’t drink them but apparently the bloody marys were quite good.

Wynn Buffet: $65 at breakfast but hugely worth it at least once imo. I had the last of my truly special foods here, a seafood risotto with mussels on top, and also had a truly bizarre one I liked with a giant tater tot that came in a sweet sauce (?). Also had: chorizo scrambled eggs (good), potatoes au gratin (good), pork buns (good but while picking it up at the buffet I squeezed it and broke it in half, which sort of ruined the experience of eating it later), hamachi and ebi sashimi (surprisingly good!), crab legs (cold and I didn’t see crackers anywhere so I didn’t get much out, if they had crackers and I didn’t see them I would’ve probably had a better time), lobster eggs benedict (delicious!), lava cake (very good), a kind of s’mores-y bread pudding (pass), flourless chocolate cake with raspberry (very good as well).

Milk Bar: The cakes and pies are made fresh (and apparently they ran out of cake slices by 3PM on one day), pretty much everything else is not. Be advised. The cereal milk White Russian was fun.

Secret Pizza: Ate here at 3AM. Pizza was very good, very greasy, very cheap. You will have to wait 45 minutes at that time frame. If you’ve been day drinking go during the day imo.

Bars: The good - The Clique/Chandelier Bar in Cosmo were both great. At Chandelier, the Verbena drink’s flower does make your mouth buzz as advertised and does enhance the drink. I also had the Pisco punch, which was served in a disco ball and got me very drunk lol. The okay - The Garage, gay bar off strip near Gogo Karaoke, a very great Korean karaoke place we went to (we didn’t order food but the menu appeared to have good options). Fun decor, big beers, not a lot going on otherwise. The downright bizarre - having a drink at the Excalibur casino lounge at 2 in the morning. Nothing wrong with the bar, but given how family friendly it is it was empty and weird.

Detours:

Omega Mart - Our group did this and I would highly recommend this in spite of its high price point. Won’t spoil much, but it’s about half incredibly dense story and half fascinating psychedelic art not related to the story at all (a highlight: a fully enclosed room that flashes a strobe light before displaying your picture on the wall accompanied by a loud kick drum which gets progressively faster and faster. Intense but cool.) The story took us a little under 2 hours to complete and wasn’t too difficult to figure out, and there’s plenty of hints on the different computers and from staff at the building. Area 15 was a pretty interesting place, Emporium is a nice arcade bar and there’s some shops with some cool things and a couple other installation art type places that may or may not be worth your time (zipline looked super shitty though).

Drais - Tried going in to see 2 Chainz. Our group was 3 women and me so I thought with the ratio we’d all get in for free. All the women would get in for free, I would have to pay $125 at the door. Hard pass. If you’re a man, suck it up, buy the pass in advance.

Downtown - After Superfrico, several of us went downtown to see a free show by the All-American Rejects on Fremont Street. It was packed but so much fun; surprised by how good the band was! We went inside Circa, the sports book was truly massive but the tables were pretty full so we ended up playing blackjack for a bit at Golden Nugget instead, the dealers are all very fun there and I had a great time (I also hit 3 blackjacks on the first dealing there, which was crazy). Coerced everybody into walking to El Cortez. Bad idea, table minimums weren’t any lower there than anywhere else downtown at night and it’s a much shittier place to hang out. But all the same, downtown is still a lot of fun with cool street performers on Fremont (there was a contortionist that was especially mindblowing) and you owe it to yourself to go there and gamble a bit at least once.

Resorts World - This is really a side note but this place was such a bummer to walk through. This is the newest hotel on the strip (and the first that opened since Cosmo did in 2010) and it is essentially a giant mall that happens to have a casino in it. Was reading about it on Wikipedia and it seems that throughout most of the planning process, it was going to have a Chinese theme, would have been fantastic. The only remnant of that is its food court, which looks like a crowded East Asian street and is visually the most appealing thing inside the resort. Instead, you have bright lights, towering 3-story shopping when you enter off the street, no shade outside, and a giant, rectangular gaming floor with no curb appeal and incredibly boring looking restaurants on either side. It seems like themed casinos are going out of fashion and this is the future of big hotels in Vegas, which is a huge shame because this place was utterly charmless and devoid of anything interesting outside of a giant ball that displays emojis on it and also having a new video sigma derby, which was to play. Caesars and Venetian and Luxor and Excalibur and all those are other places are huge and kitschy but they’re fun and what you come to Vegas to see. Hell, even the other non-themed places clearly have a point of view: Wynn is flowers and whimsy, Cosmo is dark and has a shockingly sexual vibe in all of its decor (naked bunny-man bronze statue with a heavily rubbed penis on the second floor with a giant framed corseted lesbian do not disturb sign a few hundred feet away being especially a big tell). Resorts World is nothing. There’s nothing much there to worry about for now, but I just wanted to rant about that. Overall though…

…great trip! Love Vegas! Hopefully Cosmo sends me a nice offer to come back after spending a shitload of money there so I can see Kylie Minogue in the winter.








EDIT: forgot to mention I also spent yesterday in Phoenix. I went to the much-hyped Pizzeria Bianco. Anything that's as well-reviewed as this (especially in a place like Phoenix) can only let you down, but in the end I liked it quite a bit. I had a bit of the Margherita, which had amazing basil, and a lot of the Wiseguy, which did have the best onions on a pizza I've had (the huge sausage chunks were good too). Because it's oven made, the crust was a bit charred which I didn't like as much but it's clear there's a lot of dedication and craft in it and it really shows by the fact that they strongly encourage you to eat an entire 6-slice 12" pizza by yourself. Still, highly recommended. 

Yeah the aesthetic at Superfrico is a *lot* more psychedelic; I've heard the food at Superfrico can be a bit more hit or miss but as I said my food was very good but it was way more worth it for the show imo. And you'll definitely find some of that advanced type stuff at Jaleo too - the liquid olives being the best example of it but I'm sure you can find other stuff. 

I also really like the Wynn even though I think you're right that it's the most "mature" of the Strip hotels, but I also like its aesthetic as well too - if Cosmo is dark and sexy, Wynn is bright and floral and whimsical. I think I also have a soft spot for it because when I lived in Vegas when I was younger it had recently opened up and it felt super advanced at the time. I just have bad feelings about what's coming next since it doesn't look like anything is going to be in line with Wynn OR Cosmo - I kept seeing it in the distance but I guess Fontainebleu is opening this year and its website is primarily advertising its ability to host conferences and weddings so I am assuming it will be incredibly boring, and while Rio is a disaster rn I have a bad feeling the renovation is going to take away anything interesting it used to have. I think the idea of there being an explicitly Hard Rock Cafe themed hotel on the strip is a bit silly but I am counting a lot on the proposal to build an insane guitar shaped hotel to jazz things up.

edit: otoh, we'll always have the Sphere.

if you are an art person, it is def cliche but i enjoyed seeing monet's house/gardens in giverny outside paris!

Need some dining recomendations for Newport Beach and the surrounding area. We will essentially have all day Friday and all day Sunday to eat and drink to our hearts desire. Also, bonus if there are any good spots to watch some NFL games on Sunday.

I went to Nice last September! It was such an amazing city. Definitely try and take bus to Monaco and not the train. The views are stunning. Make sure to wander around old Nice. I splurged and ate at JAN, but it still lived up to the price tag. Congrats on the marriage!

My mom and I will go to Hawaii this month and then we will go to California next month.

Yes?

Yeah. It’s on the list and Open Oven. I don’t even eat breakfast but I will when there.

My partner and I are both going to Austin for the first time at the end of the month for the DCFC/Postal Service show. What's good in Austin that weekend? (Sept. 28th-30th) Restaurant recs?

anyone ever been to ottawa, canada? going solo for 4 days for a work trip/conference. I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed but maybe it's a cooler city than my totally baseless preconceived notions.

Go see where Alanis was born.

Do they (Uchi people) still have that joint venture restaurant concept I think they opened with Franklins a few years ago?  Maybe began with a "K" but that was really good too - just hard to get in unless you wanted to wait or else sit at the bar.  Also, Casino El Camino's burgers were always awesome.  They had quality burgers with excellent toppings available.  

Oui!

which language?