What do I like to do on my summer vacation? I eat. A lot. I am solely responsible for eating more food in a few days than one family will consume during a two-week stay at ‘Bunnell’s Pond Resort’ in the Poconos.

My eating exploits don’t measure up to the 44½ Nathan’s Famous hot dogs that champion Takeru Kobayashi devoured in twelve minutes this past July 4 at the annual hot dog eating contest at Coney Island. But on my summer vacation I do put away a few Kosher franks and the odd dill pickle or two.

If you are planning to do something specific during your vacation, say surfing, you jet off to the North shore of Oahu. If eating is the preferred method of relaxation while on vacation, you must choose a spot that will provide you with a virtual feast at your doorstep.

And there is only one city in America that can deliver that to you -- Las Vegas, the site of my summer vacation.

Las Vegas is not the best choice for a summer vacation if you prefer cool climates. The day I arrived, the temperature was a brutally intense 114 . On the pool deck, the temperature rises to about 120 . The mercury in the thermometer goes down to around 90 by 4:00 a.m. in the morning, about the time the last hardcore blackjack players stumble back to their rooms.

In a few days I literally ate my way through Las Vegas. The odds on eating well in Las Vegas were stacked in my favor because finding a good restaurant is an incredibly easy bet in this city of entertainment.

For those of us who live for food, who think about food every waking and sleeping moment of our lives, Las Vegas is about as close to heaven as one can imagine.

In just a few miles, the Las Vegas Strip bulges with the highest concentration of restaurants in the world. The strip is peppered with food emporia from the family-oriented “Rainforest Café” with its fake sounds of monkeys leaping through the trees to the chintz-draped and gilded Le Cirque, (one of the few places which still requires that gentlemen wear a jacket and tie). Las Vegas has food for all tastes and budgets.

Arguably, this desert oasis has more five-star restaurants than San Francisco and New York combined. In the past ten years, a chorus line of television celebrity chefs have danced into Las Vegas, lending their names to restaurants on the strip: Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, Todd English, Charlie Palmer, Mary Sue Miliken and Susan Feninger to name just a few.

In Las Vegas, you can order everything from sautéed California pink abalone to gargantuan five-pound Maine lobsters. You might fancy a chocolate bombe filled with pistachio mousse from the famed Lenotre bakery of Paris, or a bowl of spicy stew made from braised Argentinean baby goat. Finding a good restaurant in Vegas is as easy as walking down the strip and reading a posted menu.

Back in 1970, Las Vegas was littered with neon signs advertising $2.99 plates of steak and eggs served twenty-four hours a day. Although perky little Ms. Rachel Ray ate in Las Vegas for “$40 a day” on her program for the Food Network, eating for just a few bucks in Vegas is rare today.

There is no such thing as a ‘free ride’ in the gambling capital. Never has been and never will be. If the casino host calls your room and says “Mr. Ross we would like to welcome you to a complimentary dinner at ‘Les Artistes Steakhouse’ this evening,” don’t think for a moment that the $50.00 ‘bone-in prime rib’ is free. It isn’t.

That free beef cost you hundreds of dollars on the “Wheel of Fortune” quarter slot you played. And lost.

How does a restaurant in Las Vegas justify charging $65.00 for a plate of Dover Sole Meuniere? Because nine out of ten patrons of the restaurant are being ‘comped,’ which means their meal is free compliments of the casino. The poor sap tourist from Texas who plunked down $65.00 for whitefish fried in butter is subsidizing the kitchen’s costs and the cost of those other high rollers that are eating for free.

Trust me, restaurants in Las Vegas have no problem finding customers who will pay $130.00 for “Kobe Beef Sukiyaki.” Apparently tourists fall under some sort of spell and lose all touch with reality when they come to Las Vegas. “If it is expensive, ridiculously more expensive than a meal for four back home at Mrs. Tibbs Cafeteria, then it MUST be gourmet” seems to be the typical assumption of most people when they think about food in Las Vegas.

People lose their senses in other ways too.

Witness the woman who, at 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday night, is sitting down smack dab in the middle of a raging casino reading “Tommy’s First Truck” to her toddler son. She is totally oblivious to the eardrum splitting sounds of the song “Lady Marmalade” that are screaming out from the live band in the bar. Thank God a four-year-old doesn’t understand lyrics like “on the black satin sheets where he started to freak,” and “itchi, gitchi, ya, ya, da, da.”

In Las Vegas, all bets are off, so to speak, when it comes to basic manners and treating ones fellow man with courtesy. The words “excuse me” are rarely spoken, especially when it comes to crossing the street. The normal course of pedestrian traffic along the strip is for one to purposely cut in front of someone just as you are about to pass by: “O.K., I can see this woman coming, she’s going to cut in front of me but I’m going to stand my ground, I will not move, she’ll have to be the one to get out of the way!”

POW! The crash between two humans is over in a flash, the sunglasses are picked up, the souvenirs put back in the plastic totebag and everybody keeps on walking.

Jaywalking has become a game of cat and mouse in Las Vegas. Mom and Pop from Arkansas have no concept that a ‘DO NOT WALK’ sign is flashing red for a reason -- their safety. “Sure, the street looks empty now, so let’s jump off the curb and go for it.” As soon as they do, that produce delivery truck comes screaming from behind the hotel, hell bent on notching another tourist on the front grill.

According to the best source of inside information about goings on in Las Vegas (the taxi cab driver) there are about 25 pedestrians killed on the strip every year.

I should have placed money on that bit of local lore, for the next day a tourist was laid to rest after playing chicken with a police car that was responding to an emergency call at one of the big hotels.

There are still bits and pieces of old Las Vegas to be found amidst the new mega-resort hotels.

Fans flock to the Barbary Coast every afternoon at 3p.m. to catch Pete Vallee, the ‘Big Elvis.’ Mr. Vallee is one of many, many Elvis impersonators who work the rooms of Las Vegas. I must say he actually looks a little like Elvis, all 500 loveable pounds of him, and he sounds like Elvis too.

Mr. Vallee’s latest press release says that he has told his legions of adoring fans that he is willing to undergo DNA testing to determine once and for all that he is in fact the lost son of Elvis.

That quintessential symbol of old Las Vegas, the showgirl, is also making something of a comeback, fueled in part by the success of the reality show “Vegas Showgirls, Nearly Famous,” on the E! Network. The show follows the travails of the cast of “Skintight” at Harrah’s Hotel.

Mistinguett, the choreographer of “Skintight,” says that “the size of the breasts are not important, it is the shape and if they ‘match’ or not. Someone who is an A or B can be a Vegas showgirl.” And I thought it was all about silicone and saline. ‘Bottoms Up’ at the Flamingo, ‘La Femme’ at the MGM and ‘Skintight’ at Harrah’s are just three shows where you can see pair after pair of “matched” bouncing breasts.

But I am not in Las Vegas to slake a lecherous appetite. I am here to eat food and eat I will.

Las Vegas is the ultimate restaurant city for the single diner. On any given day, upwards of 100,000 conventioneers descend on the city that never sleeps. One recent convention, The World Shoe Association, welcomed 35,000 attendees to preview the newest and most exciting styles in footwear.

A large percentage of the people who attend conventions in Las Vegas are travelling alone. And they have to eat. As a result, Las Vegas is the most accommodating city I know of when it comes to serving single diners. The hostess, the maitre’d, the bartender, the busboy all welcome the single diner with open arms.

That one shoe salesman’s dollar is just as welcome as the party of twelve dental hygienists ordering bottles of Dom Perignon (well, almost).

While it can be a little intimidating when you first walk up to the entrance of a nice restaurant alone, simply request a “table for one.” You will be whisked into the dining room, your chair will be drawn, a menu placed in your hands, and your beverage order will be taken. Now you can take a deep breath and relax and enjoy a sumptuous meal.

You no longer need to fear being relegated to a table in the back by the kitchen door only to be forgotten by the waiter.

Should you prefer a less formal dining experience, single diners share a secret for having a wonderful meal at a fine restaurant -- sit at the bar. I start by ordering an expensive glass of wine, a key to the bartender that I’m willing to pay for something good, then I ask for a dinner menu.

If you don’t specifically request a dinner menu, you may be given the ‘bar menu,’ usually an assortment of appetizers and snacks. There is no reason why, when the kitchen is a step away from the bar, that you should ever be told “we don’t serve the full menu in the bar.” You should expect that a placemat and full set of cutlery are set before you, along with a basket of warmed breads -- all the same accoutrements afforded those eating in the dining room.

It doesn’t matter whether I am with a group of ten or alone, I still enjoy a fantastic meal. Just because I am by myself doesn’t mean I should feel guilty about splurging. I will have an appetizer, entrée, dessert, maybe a cocktail, appropriate wines, after dinner liqueur and coffee. You are on vacation, rewarding yourself for your hard work throughout the year so enjoy yourself.

Bars in Las Vegas can be quite interesting. One often strikes up conversations with fellow single diners. During my vacation I met people from Cleveland, Maine, Missoula, Montana and San Diego.

Las Vegas bartenders always seem to have some good gossip to share -- like the little tidbit I overheard about the latest plastic surgery that Roy of ‘Siegfried and Roy’ fame had done to preserve his image. You know the one I am talking about, that large photo image which gazes out onto the strip from a giagntic sign at the entrance to the Mirage, (photographed years ago and retouched over and over).

Chefs don’t get too comfortable in their surroundings in Las Vegas. Restaurants in the big hotels change nearly as often as the towels in the rooms. The competition among the hotels is cutthroat, and the way to differentiate your hotel from the competition, (to lure more gamblers), is to constantly change things around. Hotels want to create the impression that they offer the ‘latest, greatest and biggest’ of everything-‘a bar made of a solid block of frozen ice serving rare vodkas’ is an example courtesy of the folks at Mandalay Bay.

Armed with a huge appetite, I set out over the course of the next three and a half days to sample a few of the best restaurants Las Vegas has to offer.

Day One
Lunch: Ah Sin at Paris Las Vegas
The restaurants at Paris are just mediocre -- not the advertised fine French food experience that the travel brochures tout. I suppose the tourists think it is funny when they hear the waiter force out a horrible French accent when he serves the ‘Moules Marniere.’ Listen buddy, don’t kid me, I know you are from Bakersfield so just put the plate of mussels down already.

The term 'fusion cuisine' was born in the past few decades and owes its roots to the combination of French and Vietnamese cuisines. I was never much of a fan of fusion food because I think chefs took the concept to the extreme, marrying things like grilled eels with foie gras butter. For the most part, I’ve always gone with the thought that if lychee fruit grows wild in Borneo, it won’t taste very good served with Charlais beef from France.

Still, fusion cuisine has always been popular with the masses and Ah Sin caters to those who like to start with a little Japanese sushi, move on to Chinese barbecue and end with French pastries.

The hostess led me out to the covered patio to a table that overlooked the strip. Dining al fresco in Las Vegas is a unique experience. While the pedestrians were sweltering a few feet away, I was sipping a ginger-peach iced tea, staying cool under the slight breeze of a tropical fan and the ever-present water misters that border outdoor restaurants in Las Vegas.

I was looking forward to the ‘ceremonial hand-washing ritual’ that I had read about in the guidebook. Alas, it didn’t appear when I was seated. I started with the ‘Shrimp Har Gau’ dim sum-3 large steamed dumplings, each filled with a large, fresh prawn and what appeared to be turnip paste. The dumplings were served with a garlic soy sauce for dipping, accompanied by a salad of julienned carrot and radish. We were off to a good start.

I attempted to order the ‘Ranikhet Roast Suckling Pig,’ but was rebuked by the waitress who said the “pig too fatty for you.” I was taken aback by her refusal to honor my request, but rather than tell her that I myself make a mean roasted pig, I acquiesced and ordered the ‘Crispy Roast Duck Ped Makham.’

I don’t know what the Ped Makham was, but the duck was rich and sinful --crispy red skin covering sweet, gamey meat and served with a sweet and sour plum sauce.

When there were about 20 patrons out on the patio, the waitress came through with the previously mentioned ‘ceremonial hand washing.’ What a joke, she looked as if it was painful for her to go through the motions. The hand-washing ceremony was anything but personalized.

She went table to table carrying a wood bucket filled with water. She instructed us to stick our hands in the bucket, then she slogged a ladle of the water over our hands. She said ‘this bring you good luck,’ then immediately plucked down the bill for lunch. I guess there wasn’t time to try the Green Tea Ice Cream.

Dinner: The Buffet at Bellagio
As a precursor to dinner, I decided to step up to the bar just off the Sports Book in the Bellagio hotel. Knowing Bellagio is one of Las Vegas’s truly five-star hotels, I wanted to put them to the test, to see if the bartender could make the perfect Old Fashioned cocktail. Any bartender attired in white waistcoat and black bow tie just has to know his stuff.

He didn’t disappoint. He made my cocktail the way it should be made, one cube of sugar in a crystal highball glass, a dash of Angostura bitters on top of the sugar cube, then in went a slice of fresh orange. He mashed this into a paste, then in went a few ice cubes, a good measure of Kentucky bourbon, and a splash of soda. He garnished it properly with one maraschino cherry. Would dinner be as good?

The Buffet at Bellagio puts all the old memories of Vegas buffets to bed. Imagine ordering a custom menu of the most exclusive gourmet foods suited to your own personal tastes -- sushi, wild game, King crab, French pastries, plate after plate of beautiful food just for you. That describes the Buffet at Bellagio. Some people might wince at shelling out $27.95 for a buffet, but trust me, order an entrée of any kind of wild game and it will cost you more than $35.00 just for the meat.

I have a plan when it comes to buffets. Sit down, wait for the server to come and take your drink order, then attack. But don’t gorge yourself on the first run, take small bites of this, a little of that, pace yourself lest you will get filled up with salad and bread and miss out on those luscious desserts.

I usually start with cold seafood and salads, then move on to the hot foods and finish with dessert. That sounds pretty basic, but the list of foods I ate at Bellagio were anything but ordinary.

Herewith is the feast I gorged upon, but my no means does this describe the full breadth of the offerings at Bellagio. Every ingredient was fresh and cooked to perfection, from the pencil thin, tender asparagus to the medium-rare elk.

The perfect ending to this day was the display of dancing fountains in front of the Bellagio. What better way to end day one than to the sounds of Frank Sinatra singing “Luck Be a Lady Tonight.”

Day Two
I usually don’t eat breakfast in Las Vegas. Not because I sleep late or because there is a lack of good smoked bacon to be found, but because I tend to save myself for lunch and dinner. A cup of coffee and croissant is enough this morning.

I needed a fix to start the day. Not an illegal one, but something to satisfy my craving for a taste of the campier, kitschier side of Las Vegas. While Las Vegas is now the home of treasured and expensive artworks shown in galleries like the Guggenheim Las Vegas at The Venetian, Van Gogh in Nevada seems oddly out of place to me. There is really only one museum that is pure Las Vegas -- the Liberace Museum.

Liberace was known for his flamboyant prescence onstage, but his legacy is a bit more serious than the 200lb. Rhinestone studded capes that hang in the museum. The Liberace Foundation is endowed with dollars from Liberace’s estate and each year they fund scholarships for students to pursue their interests in the arts. It’s nice to know that there is a serious and compassionate side to Las Vegas.

Lunch: Spago at the Forum Shops at Caesar’s
Wolfgang Puck is a rare celebrity chef. Television appearances, frozen pizza and airport cafes aside, Chef Puck does what many of his counterparts fail to do -- consistently serve great food paired with exceptional customer service. Most celebrity chefs are absentee-owners, their contract spells out that they only need to tour their kitchen in Las Vegas maybe once every three months.

While Chef Puck may not always be present at Spago, it is obvious his love of food and the customer service training of his employees lives up to his high standards.

I struck up a conversation with the bartender the moment I entered into Spago. She asked if I would like to try one of their new summer cocktails. I ordered the ‘Blueberry Mojito,’ described on the menu as ‘mint infused limon vodka muddled with fresh blueberries, soda, lime juice and garnished with a mint sprig.’ It was puckery and delicious, light and lip-smacking cool.

As I was waiting for lunch, the bartender asked if I “preferred red or white wine with salmon?” Ah, the old-fashioned method of customer service -- anticipating what your customer would like, making an offering, giving options. She then served a basked of warmed fresh breads along with crocks of both unsalted butter and cream cheese.

While I liked the spicy Oregon Pinot Noir sample, I chose a buttery Ferrari-Carneros California Chardonnay to go with my California cuisine,‘Grilled Salmon with Orzo Salad, Saffron Aoili and Sweet Pepper Nage.’

The salmon was grilled to a perfect medium-rare. Lots of restaurants cheat us when they list saffron as an ingredient on the menu then don’t deliver on the plate. Chef Puck’s saffron aoili was a rich, earthy red with a distinctive taste and aroma of expensive saffron.

While I am sure the desserts at Spago are voluptuous, I chose to walk off my luncheon calories at the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian.

I stopped at Tintoretto Bakery for a Cannoli and a slice of Cheesecake with Fresh Strawberry Sauce. I think the waitress went to the same language school as that guy with the fake French accent at Paris, you have to keep from laughing when an American with a bad Italian accent attempts to say “Ciao.” I guess it’s all part of the show.

Dinner: Craftsteak at the MGM Grand
Las Vegas is loaded with steakhouses. It seems to fit in with that whole ‘Rat Pack’ image: thick slabs of prime marbled beef, single-malt scotch on the rocks and illegal Cuban cigars.

I became familiar with chef Tom Colicchio when I saw a show on the Food Network that chronicled his efforts to open ‘Craft’ restaurant in New York. So I put Craftsteak at the MGM on my ‘must-do’ list of Las Vegas restaurants.

I walked by Craftsteak about three times before I finally got up enough gumption to walk into the bar. I was going to be spending upwards of $125.00 for some serious meat so I had to build up a little courage to enter into this place.

Not to worry, for the moment I sat down at the bar, the bartender asked what I wanted to drink. “A glass of wine and a dinner menu please,” was all I needed to say.

She immediately set out a placemat and silver, then described how ordering from the menu at Craftsteak is unique. First you settle on a choice of steak, and whether you prefer your steak grilled or roasted, and only then do you order from a list of side dishes.

I started with a bowl of buttery-rich Lobster Bisque garnished with fresh tarragon and served in a large white porcelain crock with two pencil-thin breadsticks on the side. The bread basket was filled with fresh choices baked just that afternoon at the Las Vegas branch of the famed La Brea Bakery of Los Angeles.

Free entertainment in the bar was provided by a large group of conventioneers who were ordering terribly expensive snifters of rare cognac.

The bartender then brought out a parade of dishes -- a rectangular white plate holding a prime filet mignon, towering nearly 5” high and served simply with pan juices and two cloves of roasted sweet garlic. There was a small copper saucepan filled with ‘whipped potatoes,’ in the style of the whipped potatoes that Joel Robuchon made famous at his five-star Paris restaurant Jamin. It was nothing more than potatoes, butter and probably a bit of cream, but this was a smooth and silky puree that I shall never forget.

Next came a small copper sauté pan no more than 6 inches in diameter that held a fistful of wild Hedgehog mushrooms that had been slow-roasted in the oven to draw out their natural juices. Hedgehog mushrooms can be a little scary to a mushroom novice because they look just like the animal they are named after, a spiny little creature that looks like a cross between a rat and a porcupine. But wild hedgehog mushrooms taste and smell of the forest and that is worth the price of their appearance.

I must have looked like a spoiled little schoolboy sitting at the bar with my array of dishes. I did get a few strange looks from people passing through the bar on their way to the dining room, but hey, this is Las Vegas and anything goes. I don’t think I looked any stranger than the elderly gentleman with his transvestite ‘escort’ who were also eating dinner in the bar.

I was just too full to try the “Creamsicle Cheesecake” or the “Fresh Charentais Melon” for dessert, (haven’t run across that melon variety), so I took a leisurely stroll up the strip back to my hotel. I stopped off to buy a 2-pound box of Las Vegas’s famous Ethel M chocolates. I had to end this glorious day of eating with some decadent milk chocolate nougats.

Day Three
My third day in Las Vegas and I’m not stuffed yet.

I buy a cup of coffee and a croissant and head out to the pool area to read the morning newspaper. I have decided that I must visit the pool to get a bit of morning sun before it gets too hot, it’s only 95 at 8:30 a.m. this morning.

I park myself on a chaise lounge in the shade, fully shielded from the ominous sun looming overhead. Sunglasses are a must while at the pool, not only for eye protection, but so all those young women in string bikinis won’t know I’m leering at them. Even though they do.

For the life of me I will never, ever understand how people can lay out in the sun all day and bake like an Easter ham. With all the warnings about the dangers of direct sunlight, these people swath themselves in coconut butter and fry away. I swear when they are eighty they will look like dried prunes.

Lunch: Border Grill at Manadalay Bay
Since the “Elvis-O-Rama” museum seemed too far to walk and the “Secret Gardens of Siegfried and Roy” weren’t open yet, I decided to head to the Southern tip of the strip to Mandalay Bay, home of the Border Grill.

Mandalay Bay has a true South Seas feel to it with its thick, lush tropical setting and native plants and foliage -- not the fake cement rocks and plastic palm trees one finds at less salubrious properties.

Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger helped launch the Food Network into mass popularity when their show ‘Two Hot Tamales’ debuted in 1996. They have been responsible for bringing authentic Mexican cuisine into our homes with dishes like ‘Fried Eggs on Chilaquiles’ and ‘Guava Empanadas.’ bringing home the idea that Mexican food is more than burritos and cheese. They own the highly successful Border Grill and Cuidad restaurants in Southern California.

It is never too early to order a cocktail in Las Vegas, and seeing that I am experiencing a bit of island paradise, I ordered the ‘Cuidad Punch’ -- a blend of pineapple juice, orange juice, passion fruit juice, and ‘Guyanese Lemon Hart Premium 151 rum.’ Good Lord, if it’s 151 proof rum from Guyana this is going to be a memorable lunch!

The obligatory basket of chips and salsa was brought with my punch, but these were no ordinary chips. Quality Mexican restaurants cut their own chips from fresh corn tortillas, then quickly fry them until they are just crisp, adding a sprinkle of sea salt. The chips were served with three kinds of salsa, one green ‘salsa verde’ and two tomato based salsa’s loaded with fresh lime juice and cilantro.

For lunch I ordered the ‘Pollo con Mole Negro’ -- slow roasted chicken breast in Oaxacan mole with flour tortillas and cucumber slaw. The chicken was tender and moist, sitting under a heavy blanket of thick mole sauce, an authentic mole made with bittersweet chocolate and smoked chilies.

The garnishes were every bit as good as the chicken, fresh, chunky guacamole, refreshing pickled red onion mixed in with the cucumber slaw and 4 small quesadilla quarters packed with melted cheese and red sauce.

By now I was reaching my limit of food and drink. Only one more night and the next morning left before heading home to a week of steamed broccoli.

After three days of endless walking, I had the feet of an old woman. The blisters were plastered with bandages, and the walking socks I had paid $13.99 for didn’t add much cushion, so I decided to decided to take a different path this evening -- have dinner in the cool, air-conditioned comfort of my hotel room where I could gaze out on the neon lights of Las Vegas.

Dinner: Ginseng Korean Barbecue takeout
Las Vegas is the home to many Chinese restaurants, most of which will allow you to order directly off the menu and take your food with you. Whether it’s ‘Sea Cucumber in Black Bean Sauce’ or ‘Pork Balls with Steamed Cabbage,’ most Chinese restaurants will oblige your choices. Except the Grand Wok at the MGM.

The hostess at the Grand Wok gave me a rude response when I asked to order some food to take to my hotel: “No, all of our food is prepared fresh, we don’t do take-out. You can take a menu to your room and call for room service.”

O.K., so wouldn’t any restaurant serve fresh food? Her comments made me want to ask, so do you serve stale food? How is ordering takeout any different than ordering food from a room on the 20th floor? Or for that matter, how is it any different from the people sitting in the dining room carrying out a doggie-bag? Personally I think she didn’t want a man in shorts, tennis shoes and a golf shirt standing at her trendy little sushi bar waiting for his crab rangoon to go!

Not to worry because a few blocks up the street I happened to come upon the “Ginseng Korean BBQ” restaurant in the back of a strip mall.

I knew this would be a good bet the moment I walked in. It was empty, with the exception of one table of Korean businessmen smoking and gulping down Chinese Tsing-tao beers. Certainly this place wouldn’t refuse my request to order takeout, they needed the business.

I have had a craving for Korean BBQ lately and I wanted to see if their short ribs lived up to my homemade version. Along with the ribs I ordered Yakisoba Noodles and Shrimp Tempura.

The ribs were a poor choice, the Yakisoba worse and the Tempura bordered on the really bad.

Koreans use beef short ribs, which are basically the trimmings of the bottom portion of a rack of ribs. Short ribs are just that, stubby little ends of bone with some fairly tough and stringy meat attached.

The key to really, a really good short rib is to first marinate them, which both tenderizes and flavors the meat. Secondly, short ribs must be cooked in one of two ways: grilled quickly over searing hot coals or braised for hours over a very low heat.

If grilled ribs stay on the barbecue too long they become rubbery and you can risk the loss of teeth while ripping the meat off the bones. Alas, my $18.95 order of ribs suffered from far too long on the grill. After some chomping, I pondered whether or not I should wrap them back up in tin foil and take them back home to the neighbor’s dog. Realizing that the foil could potentially fail the security screener’s test at the airport, I chomped on.

Yakisoba is yakisoba is yakisoba. Noodles are noodles, unless they are dolled up with some special sauce or strands of crispy-skin duck. Next time I’ll probably just order up some fried rice.

Although the walk back to my hotel was less than 10 minutes, the Shrimp Tempura did not survive. Tempura is by nature a temperamental dish. Tempura batter is normally made with ice-cold soda water and flour. The icy cold soda helps to create a crisp, light coating around the meat or vegetables when they are deep-fried. And deep-fried foods must be eaten within seconds of coming out of the hot oil. If hot Shrimp Tempura is folded into a foil packet then closed into a plastic food tray, steam envelopes the crispy coating. When I got to the room and opened my plastic tray, the tempura had melted into a kind of soggy shrimp dumpling.

At least the kimchi salad was good.

Day Four
Breakfast: Le Village Buffet, Paris Las Vegas
Since this was going to be a short day (eat breakfast and then head to the airport), I thought I would over-indulge one last time and attack the ‘Le Village Buffet’ at Paris Las Vegas.

The hotel website describes Le Village Buffet as “bringing to life five provinces of France through culinary expertise and visual attention to detail. Each station is themed for a particular province and features an intricate façade designed to replicate the architecture of that region. Meals are prepared as they are ordered to ensure the quality and freshness of each selection.” Not totally true. The mark of a good French place is its bread. Le Village Buffet does have good croissants and raisin brioche, but the baguette was soft and mealy. A good baguette has a crunch crust and chewy interior pocked with air holes.

While the décor mimics regions of France, and there are some vestiges of regional French foods, Le Village Buffet is basically like most other Las Vegas buffets albeit with a few specialty dishes thrown in.

I couldn’t find the ballyhooed new station at the buffet, “La Raclette (which comes from the French word “racler” meaning “to scrape”) featuring melted cheese accompanied by a medley of cured meats, steamed potatoes, assorted vegetables and French bread.” Maybe they were saving that for the lunch and dinner crowd.

But I did load up two plates of breakfast delights-

After all that, I couldn’t take another bite. I had to put my napkin down on the table and walk away. I have had my fill of Vegas.

My great love affair with the food of Las Vegas lives on, however, for like an incurable gambler, I can never get enough of what the city has to offer. Every day a new dish appears on a menu, every month a new restaurant opening is announced, every year a new mega-hotel debuts with ‘twenty fine restaurants.’

I have to keep going back. I just have to try these dishes:

Whole Roasted and Stuffed Rhode Island Black Bass at Bradley Ogden’s place;
Braised Cloverdale Rabbit with Heirloom Tomatoes and Dried Cherries at Andre’s;
Roasted Pigeon with a Crust of Honey, Walnuts and Almonds at Picasso;
White Chocolate Banana Elysee at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant; and
A slice of wedding cake from Freed’s Bakery

The new advertising slogan of the Las Vegas convention bureau really doesn’t apply to me: “What happens here, stays here.” I don’t leave any secrets behind when I depart McCarran International Airport, and I’m not ashamed of the amount of money I put on the table. The dinner table, that is.