Las Vegas Trip 2022
/We decided to take another friend trip to Vegas in celebration of me having my first free December since 2016.
Day 1
We started off our travel day at SEA and decided to visit Sam Choy’s Poke to the Max. It’s a nice place to sit down and have a tasty meal while waiting for your flight. I had the garlic fried chicken and Jeff had the spicy chicken sandwich. Mine was great (as always), but Jeff’s sandwich could have been better - the bun wasn’t connected which made eating it a bit of a mess.
Once we landed in Vegas, collected our luggage, and dealt with shenanigans at Hertz getting the rental car, we stopped by TK’s Boba & Creamery for a post flight snack. Jeff and I had a Thai milk tea with boba and banana cream pie rolled ice cream. They were both excellent.
We headed to the Vdara next to check in and get unpacked before dinner. Jeff and I were delighted to have a partial fountain view room!
Jeff had made a reservation at Momofuku in the Cosmopolitan for dinner since we had never been for a full meal (it was on our 2017 food tour). I had read about an unlisted tasting menu on Yelp so I asked our server about it. He indicated it wasn’t a traditional tasting menu - instead it gave the server the opportunity to choose menu items for your group for a price point that you choose (between $75 - $150 per person). Jeff and JL did some menu and price analysis and decided we would select our own dishes. The feast included pork belly buns, shrimp buns, spicy cucumbers, Hokkaido pumpkin, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower, chili butter lobster and shrimp, crispy lamb ribs, and green curry rice cakes. The food was great and worked out just as well as a regular tasting menu in my opinion.
We took a walk after dinner and ended up at Taco Bell Cantina for a boozy berry slush. It was really tasty and probably would’ve been dangerous in a larger quantity since you couldn’t taste the alcohol.
The walking continued all the way to illy Caffe for some gelato (which seems to be in great supply all over Las Vegas and I’m not mad about it). I was already stuffed, but thankfully good gelato fills in the cracks. This concluded day one.
Day 2
The second day of our trip started at Proper Eats Food Hall (it replaced the buffet on the second floor of the Aria). I am a lover of food halls and had been watching the website like a hawk for a few weeks in hopes it would be open. Luck was on my side as we visited the morning of its opening day. Only a few restaurants were open for breakfast: Easy Donuts, Egghead, and Wexler’s Deli. We grabbed several items from Egghead (the Soho, the Midtown, the Chelsea, a crispy hash brown, and a cheesy hash brown) and a donut from Easy Donuts(not pictured). The breakfast sandwiches were tasty, but I don’t think we enjoyed them as much as the ones from Eggslut. The hash browns get a thumbs up of approval from me though. The donut was also good, but could have had the filling more evenly distributed. We decided we’d come back later to try the other restaurants that weren’t yet available.
I can’t help myself when I’m in walking distance of the Cosmopolitan and therefore had to drag the group to the Block 16 food hall because I wanted something from District Donuts. We got a brown butter drop, buttermilk biscuit with butter and house jelly, and a Vietnamese iced coffee. The brown butter drop was exactly as crunchy and delicious as I remembered. Jeff enjoyed the biscuit, but prefers the ones he makes himself. (Shocking, I know.)
We had done plenty of eating for the morning and decided to walk it off. One stop on our walk was the Bellagio Conservatory. The display was Christmas themed and super neat! Highlights include a giant gingerbread house and Coca Cola polar bears.
After our walk and a short retreat to the room, we hit up Magic Noodle for dinner. This spot has been on my radar for a few trips, but we never managed to fit it in previously. We ordered various appetizers, a beef brisket noodle, and shredded chicken in garlic sauce noodle. Everything tasted great, but in the end we decided we preferred the noodles we’d had previously at Shang’s.
After dinner we scooted a few doors down to Blue Bubble. They had a display case of very cute mousse cakes in addition to a whole menu of dessert items. We ordered a bear mousse cake and “beef belly” ice cream. The bear tasted great, but had clearly been frozen at some point since its center was still a bit stiff. The “beef belly” appeared to be some type of strawberry fruit roll on ice cream - very different and very good.
We visited Sorry Not Sorry Creamery for second dessert since their list of classic flavors was really appealing. We ordered a scoop of O.G. Buttercake with a waffle cone on top and a scoop of brown sugar milk tea with boba. Both of these were excellent - the buttercake tasted exactly as expected and I was delighted that the boba were not frozen to the point of having a weird texture. This may become one of the places that is a must eat in Vegas for us moving forward.
After dinner and desserts, we drove back to the hotel to drop off the car and walked over to the Mirage to see Shin Lim. The show we saw was titled Limitless and included Colin Cloud (a mentalist) as a guest. When we arrived, each seat contained a pack of 4 sealed playing cards that Shin used to walk us through a magic trick. It was a fun way to get the audience warmed up and involved in the show. I enjoyed the storytelling aspect of the show and found that it kept my interest for the full 1.5 hours. There was quite a bit of audience participation so I’d recommend sitting closer to the back if that’s not your thing.
On the walk back from the Mirage after the show, we stopped to see the Bellagio fountain show. It was set to Christmas music, but I think it was a huge miss that it didn’t include Trans Siberian Orchestra music (though I realize that may be for legal reasons).
Dinner had been early, so it was time to have some more snacks. We stopped by Milk Bar to see if we could finally get cereal milk soft serve (the machine had run out or completely stopped working the past 3 times we tried - both on this trip and the previous one). This visit was finally a success. Surprisingly, Jeff and I decided we prefer the grocery store version of cereal milk ice cream.
Our next stop was Bang Bar back in the Block 16 food hall since it’s one of Jeff’s favorites in the Cosmopolitan. He ordered a spicy pork u wrap and devoured it.
Our final stop of the night was Secret Pizza. I love this place because it’s always around for a late night bite and you never know what’s going to be available. We got a slice of something cheesy with garlic, and something meaty with peppers. The line doesn’t lie - the pizza here is tasty.
Day 3
Our day began at Pink Box Doughnuts. This was another spot I’ve seen on Instagram over and over while researching food in Vegas. I was impressed with the selection available since this was not a standalone location - it was a small stand inside a bagel shop. Our order included a plain face (glazed croissant doughnut), a porky face (maple & bacon croissant doughnut), da apple fritter, a banana puddin’, a maple bar, and a buttermilk bar. I was so pleased that this wasn’t one of those donut shops that has pretty donuts with neat sounding flavors that aren’t great when you actually eat them.
Next up was a new to me attraction: Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart at Area 51. It looked really neat online, but I didn’t find it that exciting in person. Getting into the place was a hassle if you failed to purchase tickets in advance and a bit anxiety inducing since the security felt like going through TSA at the airport. Once inside, we purchased the boop card for $3 to get the story behind it all. The store front was pretty neat to browse and there were some interesting parts to discover in the back as well. We found the boop card experience a bit annoying since things needed to be booped in a certain order for the most part and we didn’t enjoy waiting in line to do this (which was the main reason we went on a Tuesday morning in the first place - I can’t imagine how bad this gets during busier times). Overall, I think this is a fun place to get some neat pictures for social media, but I don’t think I’d return.
We left Area 51 and returned to the strip to visit the Proper Eats food hall again to catch some of the restaurants that weren’t open during our previous visit. This included a pepperoni slice from Pizzaoki, a kimchi chicken sandwich and K-tots with chopped fried chicken from Seoul Bird, and a chicken shwarma pita sandwich from Shalom Y’all. The pepperoni pizza was good, but I think I prefer Secret Pizza. The K-tots were tastier than the kimchi chicken sandwich, but I’d happily eat either again. The star of this meal for me was the chicken shwarma - I nearly devoured it without sharing equally with Jeff. Oopsie.
For lunch dessert, I went back to Milk Bar to get some pie. There was a holiday flavor available, but I think it had mint and that’s just not my jam unless we’re talking Girl Scout cookies. Milk Bar original pie is the way to go - it never lets me down.
After a post lunch nap, we went to Japaneiro for some small plates to share. The items we ordered included yellow tail sashimi, rock shrimp, beef kushi, shrimp kushi, chicken kushi, scallop lotus chip, tuna lotus chip, salmon tacos, tuna tacos, and beef tacos, gyoza, New York strip steak, Jidori chicken, and Japaneiro special fried rice. Everything was fresh, came out quickly, and tasted delicious. My favorites of the meal were Jidori chicken and the fried rice. This was a nice spot to take a small group - I would definitely go back.
Another spot I’d seen often on Instagram that we wanted to check out was Chu On This. We got a few items including a croissant boong filled with red bean, churritos, ssodduk, an upside down ah boong with ube ice cream, and a rice cake corn dog. The place was fairly busy so we waited a bit, but all the items were quite tasty. We especially enjoyed the rice cake corndog.
After dinner, we went to check out Resorts World since a few of our friends hadn’t been there. It was fun to wander around and see what all had changed since our previous visit in August 2021. Things seemed more filled out and a few of the restaurants in the food hall had changed. I was also delighted to introduce everybody to the club atmosphere bathrooms in the food hall that I find hilarious. We also got a brief glimpse of Enchant - a holiday light show located in the outdoor space.
Day 4
We started our final day at Eggslut because no visit to Vegas is complete without it. We got our usual Fairfax sandwiches with added bacon and an order of truffle hashbrowns. I wasn’t sure if I was hungry enough for a whole sandwich to myself, but I devoured one anyway. The truffle hashbrowns were tasty and thankfully not overly truffle-y.
After packing up and checking out of the hotel, we made a final food stop at Raising Cane’s before heading to the airport since one of our friends had never been. My unpopular opinion is that the chicken is fairly flavorless and not nearly as good as Ezell’s. The bread, fries, and fry sauce are great though.
All in all, I think we had a great trip. It was really nice to get away during a month that was very stressful for me in previous years and to be able to bring along some friends. See you next time, Vegas!
