Las Vegas is, in a word, immense. Everything is larger than life, from the sprawling Strip, with one gargantuan Vegas block the size of several regular city blocks and lights that can be seen from space, to colossal resorts like Caesar’s Palace which span I don’t know like five blocks? I shit you not, you kinda walk along Las Vegas Blvd and oh, we’re still at Caesar’s Palace. Ten minutes later, oh look we’re still at Caesar’s Palace. It’s really like that.
The life is big, the food is big, the people are big (no doubt a consequence of the big food) and the Grand Canyon, well that’s just f**king mammoth, so mammoth that it deserves its own post. Las Vegans (I know, ironic because they are anything but vegans) know not of portion size, be it in relation to blocks or food. I didn’t so much mind ginormous blocks but the food. I had to re-learn how to not complete my meals, for fear that I would be rolling (and not high rolling, which would also have been ok) out of Vegas.
Anyway, after flicking through my hundreds upon hundreds of photos from Las Vegas, I came to the disturbing conclusion that I don’t want to waste time and precious real estate posting photos of all the crap we ate. I know, disturbing because (a) I said food was crap? really? me?! and (b) this real estate, it’s free.
So ok fine, you got me ~ we’ll talk a little bit about food.
The Vegas strip is so littered with greasy fast food joints that the only remotely healthy thing is Subway, and who are we kidding here, Subway is not healthy. I mean, it wasn’t like I was out looking for chicken-breast-salad-hold-the-dressing, the greasy burgers weren’t even good! But heck, we had some greasy burgers anyway, the worst of which was from New York New York, which *ahem*, it is not like New York at all.
So once I got my head around the fact that I wasn’t going to eat anything remotely kind to my waistline, life got a little easier cos I just looked for yum. And yum there was plenty of.
Aside from this Bellagio Pool Cafe heart-attack-on-a-plate white chocolate brioche french toast with cinnamon butter which was the size of my goddamn torso…
… and the Bellagio buffet that was less buffet and more a display of crab legs (Atlantic crab, Snow crab, Alaskan crab) that are seriously two feet long (I’m being 100% honest, can you imagine the size of the actual crab??) and desserts from here to neverland…
… we also found some delumptious food at First Food & Bar at the Palazzo.
Hidden in a bizarrely subdued corridor where the Palazzo meets the Venetian, First is a funky personified. Dark and sexy, but in a rockstar sorta way with booths that overlook the Treasure Island pirate show (great seats, crap show), the restaurant’s dinner menu offers a surprisingly vast selection of sharing plates (that’s how I like to eat because umm, I get to eat more) with a distinctly American diner yet funk-quar feel.
We shared a few small plates, including these things that looked suspiciously like gyoza, which were actually philly cheesesteak dumplings. I’m starting to get used to cheese with steak, a combination which was not so long ago lost on this unsophisticated palate of mine. These days though, I’m appreciating the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle blue cheese) cheese flavour complementing my steak, and these little dumplings were divine!
The famous lollypop buffalo wings I could leave or take. In case you didn’t know, I’m now an authority on buffalo wings, having had the Johnny Rockets wings for breakfast (oh yes), lunch, dinner and every meal in between. First‘s buffalo wings are coated in a very tangy marinade, which to me was not so appetising. I mean, refer to my said unsophisticated palate ~ just douse mine in barbeque sauce, please.
The mini burgers were another win, with soft little buns and juicy juicy beef patties with traditional fillings, including pickle *love* and “special sauce”. What is special sauce? Don’t know, don’t care.
The desserts made my tummy dance with glee, as it often always does. The little strawberry cheesecake in a jar ~ I mean, too cute, right? ~ and mini donuts topped with a dollop of cream, and my most favourite thing of the night: an individual bomb alaska, because Sugar. Eggwhite. Meringe. Raspberry sauce. I WANT YOU NOW.
Anyway, I’m not sure if it’s either healthy or clean, but aside from our crazy fabulous pan-Asian meal at Wazuzu, our late dinner at First (after watching Cirque Du Soleil’s ‘O’ at the Bellagio ~ which I loved but honestly, it made me feel really stupid because I still cannot, for the life of me, work out how they actually physically work with that moving-water-tank-stage-thing) was my favourite meal in Vegas, a town which seems to live on greasy burgers, greasier fries and $1 cocktails.
First Food & Bar (The Palazzo)
3327 Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV, 89109
(702) 607 3478
website
PS: There is so much more I actually want to say about Vegas, but ok I can’t blame the real estate. I neither have the energy or time to write the gargantuan post that I need to, so you know, I wrote about the food. Cos priorities, they rock.