Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
worth shelling out for, should you decide to do a blowout night on the town.
One
note:
If you read other guidebooks, they'll tell you to make an early dinner out of
late lunch seatings at buffets and restaurants around town. This is a tip whose
time has passed, unfortunately, as the powers-that-be have gotten wise to this
strategy and are now moving the start of dinner earlier and earlier (at the Paris' Le
Village buffet it now starts at 3:30 in the afternoon!).
Have a Strip Picnic:
Yes, the temperatures can get downright Satanic come sum-
mer and it can get pretty chilly in December and January, but the rest of the year,
the weather's, well, a picnic. So don't feel like you have to have a sit-down-meal,
or even a stand-up-and-graze-buffet for every meal. Instead, grab some food on
the run, a sandwich perhaps from 'wichcraft (p. 68) or Capriotti's (p. 87), or a
sausage from Jody Maroni's (p. 69), and stroll with it down the Strip. Or if you
need to sit, plop down in a keno lounge. The play's slow enough that you could
sit there for about an hour for just a buck or two's worth of play.
If you're gambling, make sure someone knows it:
Okay, I know I said in the
introduction to this chapter that there are few free lunches in Vegas anymore . . .
but hey, if you lose enough of your money or time, you may just qualify for one.
So do sign up for the players-and-slots clubs at the casinos you plan on frequent-
ing, and let the pit bosses know how happy you are to be losing your money to
them. You're most likely to get fed off the Strip, though it's been known to hap-
pen even in such posh casinos as Caesars Palace, the Venetian, or Wynn Las Vegas.
A lot depends on your stamina, how busy the casino is, how generous the pit boss
is feeling, and sometimes the cycles of the moon . . . you just never know. And if
you're going to be gambling anyway, you may as well try to gamble for grub.
Follow Mom's advice and eat a big breakfast:
In terms of bang for your buck,
there are few better investments than breakfast in Vegas. Breakfast will usually cost
half of what lunch does, and a third of what you'll pay for dinner, and the por-
tions in Vegas are massive (see p. 70 for more on that). So eat up, skip lunch, and
use what you've saved for a splurge dinner.
If you prefer hooting with the owls, have dinner at 1am:
While “graveyard spe-
cials” are not as prevalent as they used to be on the Strip, some of the downtown
and off-Strip eateries slash prices dramatically in the wee hours of the morning.
Go to the Gold Coast coffee shop and you can score steak and eggs for just $3.45.
At the Triple Seven in Main Street Station, the cost of one of their famed micro-
brews drops to just $1. And at the Barbary Coast, an on-Strip property, $3.50 will
buy you a swell helping of hot cakes and sausage once the clock strikes midnight.
Go “ethnic”:
Every major casino on the Strip has a Mexican restaurant, and its
menu is always about half as pricey as the restaurants that surround it. The same
can be said for the Asian noodle places that have wiggled into many of the Strip
casinos. Off Las Vegas Boulevard, most of the better restaurants are owned and run
by immigrants, who bring all of their skills, exotic spices, and outsized ambitions
to make it in America. So you're not only getting a great meal, you're helping some-
one's “American Dream” come true. (Sounds hokey, I know, but it's a fact.)
