Home of Elton John, celebrity chefs and many a Greek statue, Caesar’s Palace is the most iconic property in LV.  It’s huge casino floor and the Forum Shops give plenty of space for eating, drinking, walking-it-off, and shopping.   Gordon Ramsay opened Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill directly off the casino floor, and is probably our favourite restaurant on the Strip, for so many reasons.  But let’s start with the others.  

Staying true to our celebrity chef love we had dinner on my birthday one year at Bobby Flay’s MESA Grill.  This was one of the first celeb-owned restaurants and by that I mean the chef that got famous from being on Food Network (LV has always been home to famous chefs, Flay wasn't the very first).  I did think to check the menu before we left and I thought it sounded good!  Steaks for me, spicier things for M.  Should be good.    We did call ahead to get a reservation, but we probably didn't need one in hindsight.  Because I like to eat dinner at 5pm.  LOL.  Turns out other people, especially in Vegas, don’t usually dine until seven, eight pm.   Not this girl.  I’m 30 years away from a seniors discount but I can’t wait for the early-bird specials.  We had a seat at the bar, because we were early, and had the bartender pour us a drink.  Before he was even finished we were escorted out to the dining room.   Nice view, great for people watching actually with huge open windows.  

Because this was a few years ago, please pardon me as I've forgotten a few things.   I do recall though that I wasn't feeling too hot, so a rye and ginger was trying to settle my stomach.  Once seated we noticed that our section had one gentleman whose sole job was to refill water glasses.   When we sat down he was filling our glasses and we asked him a question about the drink menu; he sort of looked at us like we had four heads, and said your server will be able to answer you.  Whoops.  Our bad.  We then spent the rest of the night following his movement and commenting on how that’s a strange job to have, wondering if he had a second job, or a family, or…anyway, back to dinner.  We had a ‘queso fundido’ appetizer, its cheese, melted, but this was spicy!   I did attempt a few bites and washing it down I was able to get through it.    My meal was a steak, imagine that, and it was okay.  I always feel that when a steak costs $40+ dollars that it should be memorable.  In this case it wasn't.  I usually prefer a sirloin or tenderloin and MESA only serves a NY Strip, a coffee- rubbed filet mignon or a chipotle rib-eye.   Seeing as though I’m not a fan of coffee or chipotle, I was left with the NY.  It was cooked perfectly, and to be totally fair it was a huge cut.  Must have been 14oz, maybe 16 even.   No piddly 8/10 ounces here.   We chose a selection of sides to go along with dinner and nothing stands out as being amazing.  Granted it was a few years ago, but I've remembered other meals.  

What does stand out is M’s side dish, Blue Corn Tamale with Sage Butter, and he was not impressed.   He ate out the good bits but overall felt that it was too strange to finish.  I want to say he thought it tasted like dirt?  (What the heck is a tamale anyway?)  I feel like this wasn't enough detail for ya’ll, and I shouldn't have waited so long to post about this one, because I’m forgetting half of the meal.   Let’s chalk this one up to: Go if you like spicy; go anywhere else if you don’t.  We definitely won’t be going back to MESA.  Not when there are so many other choices in Caesar’s.

If you wander through the mall, more commonly known as the Forum Shops, you’ll see the handful of upscale restaurants alongside the upscale stores like Louis Vuitton, Prada and of course, Burberry.  If you were paying attention you'll remember that Wolfgang Puck's Spago is also in Caesar's Palace.  Great restaurant, highly recommended.   The restaurants range from sushi to Italian and most everything between.  For us one of our favourite stops is the movie themed Planet Hollywood.   The first time we were there we only has some drinks and a plate of nachos.  There isn't too much to say about that really, good drinks, food is decent.  It was probably most memorable for M though.  He’s the movie buff in our family and so he was a bit like a kid in a candy store.   If you are a movie lover you’ll probably be distracted by all of the memorabilia around, pictures, costumes, etc.  Even the drinks are named for movies:  Terminator, Indecent Proposal, The Green Mile etc.  We really enjoyed ourselves the first time, so much so that we went to go back on our next visit to Vegas.  But it was gone! 

Phew, it just moved to a new location in the Shops.   It’s quite a bit more hidden away now, way up on the third floor near the winding escalators.   The decor is still full on movies, but they've updated it a bit, newer costumes, and a cool feature wall right across from the bar.  This visit actually takes place at Christmas a few years ago.  Now, we've been going to Vegas every year over Christmas for 5 years now and even though we boycott the usual traditions, I still want a semblance of the holidays.  And for me that’s a turkey dinner.  We usually find turkey dinner at the Golden Nugget hotel on Freemont.  It’s a good spread, and it’s only like ten or twenty bucks.  It did the trick but once we learned that Planet Hollywood serves a turkey dinner we opted to try that out. It’s a fair bit more expensive than the Golden Nugget, but it’s worth it (and much closer to any strip hotel, as the GN is a 20 dollar cab ride away).  We sat at the bar and were thoroughly entertained by the bartender the whole meal.  Lots of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberries (yuck).  The works.  And it’s pretty fun too when you’re drinking giant slushy drinks in take home glassware (and then you get a little tipsy and pay for shots in the take home shot glasses).  We left hours later, drunk and happy.   We will for sure be back, no matter if it’s for Christmas dinner or just for a post shopping beer. 

I’m going to wrap up right now, as my next entry will go into great detail about our favourite pub on the strip.  Come back next time when I get into all the details about the time I ate Oysters (so what if they were deep fried); the first time I had duck confit (so what if it was on a poutine); the first time I had sticky toffee pudding (Oh. My. God.) and how delicious a cider is with a shot of fireball!