Wednesday, February 19, 2014

In Vegas: Gulf Coast seafood, Tito's and, now, Blue Bell ice cream

It's easy for an Austinite to feel at home in Las Vegas. I kept running into food and drink from the homeland.

At Tom Colicchio's's Heritage Steak at the Mirage, my beautifully tender filet was accompanied by a plump, perfectly fried oyster.

"This is a Gulf oyster, isn't it?" I asked my server, who was from Oregon but, nonetheless, knew that it was.

A day later, the star ingredient in my Shrimp Saganaki at Estiatorio Milos at the Cosmopolitan was Gulf shrimp. They don't come any better.

That night, I attended a grand opening party for the new ESPA at Vdara, the resort where I was staying, and our goodie bag included not only ESPA products (yes!) but also a little bottle of Tito's vodka. Every party is improved by Tito's vodka, which I've seen in bars all over the world now. Guess it would be unusual if I DIDN'T run into Tito's here, but I didn't expect it in a spa goodie bag.

Next up: Blue Bell ice cream is arriving on Vegas shelves the first week of March. Vegas is a great home for Blue Bell. It gets seriously hot in summer (112 last June when I was around), and it needs Blue Bell. Eat up, Vegasites.

Along with the food and drink, of course, I ran into plenty of Austinites, because Dell was having a 4,000-person training dealie at the Mandalay Bay. There were other meetings in town that probably drew Texans as well, including a convention of vacuum cleaner dealers. As I was walking to the Mandalay to get my Michael Jackson ONE tickets, I strolled past one guy out on the sidewalk outside New York New York (which is under renovation renovation) whose name tag read BOMB. Not sure which convention he was with, but he was wearing a suit, so, obviously, a convention. He was saying, "I could cover all over South Austin." With what? Blue Bell ice cream would be nice.

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