Nomadic Foodie » Las Vegas

What We Ate in Vegas, My First In-N-Out, and Trying to Maintain Healthy Habits While Traveling

doniree — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Every time I travel, I learn a little bit more and more about how to maintain healthy eating habits and keep feeling GOOD while on the road. It started when I figured out that I had to pack my own snacks, in order to prevent any convenience-store binges on chocolate-covered pretzels and questionable hot dogs. In my last couple of trips though, I’ve learned that what I pack is just as important as packing anything at all.

Before we left Portland on Saturday, we made a quick stop at the Portland Farmers’ Market and picked up six Honeycrisp Apples from Sun Gold. I had a brand-new jar of Trader Joe’s Almond Butter (the best almond butter), so I stashed that in my suitcase. Those apples came in handy! We snacked on them as soon as we arrived in Las Vegas, in the mornings and as snacks.

When we picked up the rental car in Nevada and before we started the drive into Arizona, we hit up a Whole Foods for even more apples, some granola bars, a kale salad, water bottles, and kombucha.

Whole Foods' Kale & Apple Salad

I was sooooo excited to get that kombucha.

We ate decently well while in Vegas, in the splurge-sense and in the healthy-attempt sense. Warning: a lot of these photos were taken with my iPhone, in low-lighting. So, they’re not perfect, but you’ll get the idea.

Breakfast

I had a great breakfast wrap at the Sugar Factory (which you #BiSC’ers will remember from last year’s amazing chocolate martini + fondue party).

One morning, we ordered breakfast (eggs, bacon and toast for me) via room service so that we could work without having to leave the hotel and set up shop somewhere else. That worked out pretty well, especially because the whole wheat toast proved to be a pretty decent vehicle for getting more of that almond butter into my mouth.

Lunch

The thing about lunch in Vegas is that it’s actually really just brunch, because by the time we’d wrapped up our morning work, gotten ourselves together and made it out of the hotel, it was late morning. I think we ate two meals each day, mixed in with some snacks like apples and almond butter.

Dinner

Dinners were mostly late-night affairs, since it is Vegas and for some reason everything happens a little later: wake-up times, lunch times that are actually brunch times, dinner time, and calling-it-a-night times. The first night we were there, we sat down to dinner at 11PM. I chose Serendipity3 at Caesar’s Palace, because I’ve been there every year during Bloggers in Sin City, and just had to go back.

Truffle Mac & Cheese | Tuna Tartare Fish Tacos

I opted for the fish tacos (tuna tartare!), though I did sneak a bite or four of Chris’ truffle mac and cheese! The tacos weren’t exactly nutritious, but I made the choice based on the protein and omega-3′s in the tuna, and the sweet, freshness of the mango salsa that topped it.

The second night we were there, I splurged on some chicken wings. I mean, we were staying at Hooters (that’s where you end up when you tell Priceline you want a 3-star hotel in Vegas, just for the record). Also, for the record, it was a totally alright place to stay. Not glamourous, but comfortable, super cheap, and a half block off the Strip). You can’t stay at Hooters and not get their famous chicken wings. I mean, that’s what they’re known for, right?

We also managed to get off the Strip so that I could try my very first In-N-Out Burger.

It was a decent burger, sure, but I’m not quite sure what all the hype’s about (sorry!). The best fast food burger I’ve ever, ever had was at either Rally’s or Checker’s in Memphis, Tennessee, at Backyard Burgers anywhere in the South, and at Burgerville in Oregon/Washington. In-N-Out just wasn’t as awesome.

But, being a food blogger who’s never had In-N-Out — well, that was a must on this trip. I got the tip to try the Animal-Style Fries after I had already ordered, so I’ll make sure to get those next time I find myself at an In-N-Out!

You win some, you lose some

We’ve had a decent mix of “splurge” meals and healthy choices, but by today my body’s just been craving food that hasn’t been battered and fried, wasn’t meat, and had some nutritional benefits. Today’s meals included soup and salad at Panera, and this fine little collection of sides from Denny’s (because nothing else in Flagstaff is open on a weeknight after 9PM, and we were hungry travelers!). I ordered three sides, at $1.79 each: green beans, broccoli, and vegetable rice pilaf.

My 9 year-old self wouldn’t recognize the girl that goes to Denny’s and doesn’t order pancakes or a club sandwich or macaroni and cheese. But here she sits, in Flagstaff, AZ, craving veggies so hard that she makes her own meal out of veggie side dishes.

I think we’ve got road trip healthy snacks down to a science. Granola bars, apples, almond butter, kale salad, olive and goat cheese dip, water bottles. Check, check, check, check, check, check. But dining out is hard. When you don’t know a city well and aren’t sure what the local eats can offer, it’s challenging to know what you’re getting before you get there. The biggest lesson here is this: I’m going to have to do some research before getting out on the town.

Any other tips or resources you can share that might help me find healthy food options while on-the-road in the future?

doniree

Doniree Walker is the Nomadic Foodie. She loves the exploration and community of food, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and loves the region's focus on local and seasonal food, daily farmers' markets and food carts at seemingly every turn. She's on twitter as @doniree and @nomadicfoodie, and blogs her adventures and life in general at doniree.com.

Why It’s Okay to Over-induldge in Las Vegas

JoAnna Haugen — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:00:19 +0000

Last night my husband and I ate at a one-of-a-kind Chinese restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip. The average rating for this particular restaurant on Yelp!, a social ranking site, is three out of five stars. Though I’m not a foodie by any stretch of imagination, my husband has a fairly refined palette and I do know a good deal when I encounter one in Las Vegas.

We decided that the food at this restaurant was fairly priced and actually quite good, but the three-star rating makes sense. In a city like Las Vegas, there’s a lot of competition, so a restaurant that would otherwise be considered a top-of-the-line place to eat in some places is downgraded to just another Chinese restaurant to grab some noodles or rice in Las Vegas.

This is a struggle that restaurant owners and managers have to deal with in Sin City, but the good news is that it makes for plentiful dining options in a city that has lots to offer travelers. As such, you should overindulge in dining in Las Vegas simply because you can.

There are few—if any—other places in the world where you can dine on just about any type of cuisine prepared in just about every style imaginable … all within a few miles of each other. Unlike many destinations that specialize in a particular dish or drink, you really can travel the culinary world in a day with tastes from every corner of the planet.

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Eating in Las Vegas is not a passive experience. If you’re going to visit the city, you might as well make the most of what’s available. Expansive buffets try to outdo each other with creative dessert spreads and impressive selections. If you want quality, pony up the cash and choose one of the more revered options (Carnival World Buffet at Rio and Buffet Bellagio are among the best).

If you want to eat an amazingly high-quality meal in the shadow of a celebrity chef, your options are practically limitless in Las Vegas. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of a restaurant that has won the highest accolades in the dining world from Forbes Travel, AAA and the James Beard Foundation? If indulgence does not equate to a dollar amount for you, then at least skip the chain restaurants and opt for a classic Las Vegas dining experience. If you’re on the Strip, the closest you’ll get to a Las Vegas diner is the Peppermill, located on the north end of Las Vegas Boulevard.

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So how can you top off the ultimate dining overindulgence? With dessert, of course. From chocolate ravioli to every flavor of cotton candy, you can get it all in Las Vegas. You’ll find the ultimate in decadence at Serendipity 3 at Caesars Palace. This is the home of the $1,000 (yes, you read that right) ice cream sundae topped in gold leaf.

Who said dining couldn’t be a beautiful thing?

JoAnna Haugen

JoAnna Haugen is the voice behind WhyGo Las Vegas, a Las Vegas travel guide, with information on where to stay in Las Vegas and how to save money in Las Vegas.. Follow her on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook for the latest Las Vegas news.

What We Ate in Vegas

doniree — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:39:13 +0000

Better late than never, right? To show you gratuitous photos of the food we ate in Vegas? I didn’t think so.

When you’ve collected your winnings from all of the blackjack games you’ve played at the Venetian, stroll through the casino to Otto Pizzeria, formerly known as Enoteca San Marco. We visit this place every year for the cheese plate. OH MY GOD, the cheese plate. Choose three, five, or seven cheese – or get them all! Ask for the chef’s recommendation for the best mix of sharp and mild, creamy, and aged cheeses.

For meeting up with friends discovered on the internet, casinos like the Venetian and Paris are killer spots for great dining. But what about places not inside casinos? Serendpity 3, while on the same property as Caesar’s Palace, is a free-standing restaurant with a patio right along the strip. The best part? MAC AND CHEESE. I think we all know how I feel about mac and cheese. Serendipity’s known for their frozen hot chocolate, but before you splurge on that decadent dessert – get your cheese on.

For other Vegas food suggestions, check out Joanna Haugen’s guest post from a couple of weeks back. She’s got some great suggestions about famous chef places, amazing desserts, and the best views in Vegas.

doniree

Taste & Travel Tuesday: Viva Las Vegas!

JoAnna Haugen — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:35:58 +0000

Low prices on magazine subscriptions with free shipping.

Today’s guest post is from BootsnAll Travel Writer, JoAnna Haugen. JoAnna writes BootsnAll’s Las Vegas travel guide, and offers some culinary insight for one of my favorite, sparkliest cities. And just in time! I leave for Bloggers in Sin City (3) tomorrow morning!

Three Unique Dining Experiences in Las Vegas

With hundreds of restaurants and dozens of celebrity chefs, it’s probably little surprise that there’s something noteworthy about dining in Las Vegas. Though some people pass off the foodie experience as an inconvenience that keeps them from the casino floor, many others embrace the ability to eat in a place unlike any other in the world. If you’d like to take advantage of the unique dining opportunities in Las Vegas, here are three experiences you shouldn’t miss:

Dining with a view.

Some of the best restaurants in Las Vegas are hundreds of feet above the street. Get a view of the Strip when you make reservations at one of several restaurants that offer a stellar view of the night lights in Las Vegas.

Top of the World at Stratosphere, the Eiffel Tower Restaurant at Paris Las Vegas, Nove Italiano at Palms Casino Resort and Veloce Cibo at M Resort are among the best places to dine while looking out over the Strip, but for a good view of Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas, check out Firefly Tapas & Kitchen Bar.

Over-the-top desserts.

Whether your sweet tooth is jonesin’ for chocolate or looking for something much fancier than the average Hershey’s bar, Las Vegas serves it up. Several places in Las Vegas make their own gelato, and the pastries in Sin City rival what you’ll find in Europe.

Mint soup. Chocolate toffee cake with layers of dark chocolate cake, hazelnut crisp and milk chocolate espresso mousee smothered in chocolate glaze and sprinkled with 23-karat gold leaf. Jelly-filled donut holes. Frozen hot chocolate. You’ll find it all in Las Vegas.

Oh … and if money isn’t an issue, consider splurging on the $1,000 ice cream sundae from Serendipity 3. Dessert doesn’t get much more extravagant than that.

Accessible—and affordable—celebrity chef-designed meals.

Las Vegas is packed with culinary schools, and chefs from around the world flock to Sin City to show off their skills. Wolfgang Puck has several restaurants in town and Emeril Lagasse runs several restaurants as well as one of the most popular sports books in the city. Joel Robuchon, Kerry Simon, Bobby Flay and Mario Batali—among dozens of others—have also left their culinary footprint in Las Vegas.

What is really fantastic about the culinary fame of Las Vegas, though, is that it’s completely accessible to the masses. Though some celebrity-run restaurants are a bit pricey for the average person, many of them fall somewhere in the mid-price range, which means that just about everyone can enjoy dishes designed—and possibly prepared by—the same people you might see Iron Chef. Many of the chefs themselves are also very accessible as they stroll around their restaurants, visiting with guests.

[Photos used with permission. Credits: Stratosphere photo; Desserts - M Resorts; Michael Mina - MGM Resorts International]

JoAnna Haugen

Brandied Cherries

doniree — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:51:02 +0000

It was an adamant priority, a couple of weeks ago while we were in Vegas, to get back to Enoteca San Marco for a cheese plate. CHEESE PLATE. This is the place that really introduced me to this amazing dish, and I’ve been on sort of a mission ever since to find others and sample as many cheeses from as many places with as many flavors as possible. Sometime, I’d like to take a class – a cheese-tasting class, much like a wine-tasting class, and learn of the different regions and types of milk and textures that makes my favorites my favorites.

This restaurant in the Venetian opened my eyes to the idea of not simply cheese on a cheese plate, but the accompaniments that, well, accompany, the cheeses. These side dishes of sweet and savory, light and textured, bring out the flavors and really highlight the different inflections in each of the cheeses.

My favorite pairings ever have been Truffle Oil Honey (OH MY GOD) and these beautiful brandied cherries. BRANDY. They’re sweet, but not too sweet. They’re rich, saucy, and for a dessert wine-lover like myself, the brandy flavor is decadent.

And they photograph well, don’t they?

doniree

Bloggers in Sin City – The Foodie Files 2009

doniree — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:01:20 +0000

On the eve of the second annual Bloggers in Sin City, I thought I’d look back at last year and share a couple of the foodie finds I fell for in Vegas. I’m stoked to check out new places this year and have promised Nico that the 6lb burrito will find its way to Nomadic Foodie here. I don’t know what a SIX POUND BURRITO even means, but I trust he’ll lead us there.

Cheese Orgy

My cheese cherry was popped at Mario Batali’s Enoteca San Marco in the Venetian. We had the server choose the best 7 cheeses offered and were given this platter with the accompaniments that included Honey with Truffle Oil, Brandied Cherries, and Apricots. I remember falling absolutely in LOVE brandied cherries and the honey. OH MY GOD. I’ve seen this done other places since and it’s always the fruit jams and honeys that are my favorite pairings with the delicious cheeses.

Caesar’s Palace

A GREAT spot for a group of nearly 30, this buffet was the perfect answer. More food than we knew what to do with and pescetarian and vegetarian options for the non-meat-eaters (like myself) on the trip. AND BUCKETS of crab legs.

{ Photo credit: racheliza }

Where do you recommend eating in Sin City? Best deals? Best flavors? What shouldn’t we miss?

doniree

Enoteca San Marco

doniree — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:13:16 +0000

The best food memories I have of Las Vegas happened at Mario Batali’s Enoteca San Marco. Why?

Because there was a cheese plate.

And we like cheese plates.

My initial reactions, as I wrote back on June 8, 2009:

One of the highlights of this past weekend’s trip to Las Vegas was the formaggi at Mario Batali’s Enoteca San Marco in the Venetian. We had the server choose the best 7 cheeses offered and were given this platter with the accompaniments that included Honey with Truffle Oil, Brandied Cherries, and Apricots.

Absolutely amazing. Oh, and then I followed this with an amazing Margherita pizza and paired it all with a pretty Friulian white wine

Delish!

(via my personal blog)

Their Margherita pizza was incredible also, but this marked my Real Good Cheese Plate De-Virginization, so that’s what I’m focused on here.