Friday
We awoke on Friday morning to a gloomy start. The low clouds hung over the strip like a hangover. I'm sure mirroring what many of the visitors were also experiencing. This night we were going to see Ka. A production of Cirque du Soleil that we had seen a year before, but this time my husband snagged us, literally, the best seats in the house. Being married to a former lighting and sound theater guy has its perks. We were excited. So excited, in fact, that we couldn't decide on whether to eat before or after the show and where to go. We made reservations at 3 different restaurants, figuring we'd decide closer to the show.
For the morning we had a croissant and coffee in our room while getting ready. Between buttery, perfectly flakey layers of pastry and showering in our overly large bathroom, the clouds lifted and gave us a lovely blue sky and shinning sun. So we walked. We walked up past the older hotels that have somehow remained on the strip. Past Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Casino, past the Flamingo and the Imperial Palace and Harrah’s. And unlike the behemoths that continue to populate the strip these hotels sit right on the sidewalk and push their faces into yours as you walk past their smell of smoke and cheep buffets. It was at the Venetian that everything changed. It was there I saw the sign. Bouchon. I stopped in my tracks. The Bouchon? Thomas Keller? Kith and Kin to French Laundry? Two cookbooks in my house from two restaurants by one chef who's avoided all pretense of the celebrity chef and remained true to his art? After about a minute of starting at the sign I told my husband that we were going, no matter what. He knew he could not refuse me. Thus reservations were made for Saturday night.
The rest of the day we walked the strip, ate at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Caesar's Palace and ordered room service after being unable to come to a decision after Ka. Not our finest hour, but it was 10 at night and it was the only smoke-free option for eating. Saturday would be better.
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