Salad Is Slaughter

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We had eaten those crappy Nathan’s Famous hotdogs as a late lunch and weren’t famished, but we knew we needed to eat something before the LOVE by Cirque du Soleil show or we would be drinking on an empty stomach. We dropped by Il Fornaio in New York New York again, this time for a couple of appetizers. I remember that they were good, but I don’t recall what exactly we had. Oh well.

We took a cab from our hotel down to the Mirage. We didn’t want to deal with either I-15 or Las Vegas Blvd during rush hour. When you walk in to the theater lobby you find usherettes dressed in their ‘60s-style dresses and English bobbie hats. You feel like you’ve fallen in to an Austin Powers movie. The seating for the show surrounds the stage - it is completely encircled by the audience. The performers can arrive on stage via several entrances between seats, up from the floor, and from the roof.

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Friday was a wander around town day.  We wanted to see a show on Friday night so needed tickets.  We’d heard good things about LOVE by Cirque du Soleil at The Mirage and off we went.

One of the first things I notice about The Mirage is that they’ve completely redone the restaurants and shockingly Renoir isn’t there any more.  Renoir was one of the first high end restaurants I tried in Vegas.  At the time they had five Mobil stars but I heard that a couple of years ago they lost one.  None of the new places they put in really jumped out at me as a “must try” but that could just have been my disappointment at Renoir’s disappearance.

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In The Know: New Iraqi Law Requires Waiting Period For Suicide Vest Purchases

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Rick couldn’t join us for dinner but a friend of his thought highly of Diablo’s Cantina next door at the Monte Carlo, so we thought we’d give it a shot. We walked in to find the place pretty crowded but they did give us a seat at a bar area table. Unfortunately the tables in the bar are packed so tightly together that if anyone even flinched, you’d get smacked in the head by their elbow. We decided to that huge amount of noise, the scarcity of a wait staff, and the crowded conditions didn’t make Diablo’s Cantina a good choice for dinner. We figured we’d try it another day and went to New York New York’s Gonzalez Y Gonzalez.

We’ve both eaten at Gonzalez Y Gonzalez on previous trips. It’s a very good buy not quite outstanding Vegas Mexican restaurant.  We both independently decided on similar dishes; Janet had the carnitas dinner while I had the carnitas tacos. The carnitas at Gonzalez Y Gonzalez are good; not the best I’ve ever had but perfectly acceptable. They had a nice flavor but could have been a tad crispier.

We also ordered the salsa trio to go with our chips while we waited for our orders to arrive. The guacamole was very good, as was the chili con queso. I did wonder what the point of the sour cream was. It was tasty, but didn’t seem to go with the other two items.

Gonzalez Y Gonzalez in New York New York is a good place to go if you want good food and don’t have the time or the inclination to take too many chances. On my next trip I think I’ll try the red chili pork tenderloin. It looks pretty interesting.

We were tired so we made an early night of it and vegged in front of the TV watching Survivor.

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The weather was far better on Thursday than it had been on Wednesday which was a good thing since our plan was to head to Valley of Fire and drag brother Richard with us. We stopped off at a deli in the casino and got three minimalist sandwiches - ham, roast beef, and turkey, no condiments to go bad - to bring with us for lunch. We met Rick in the parking lot and headed up I-15 to the park.

We were last in the Valley of Fire about 4 years ago and it’s as spectacular as I remembered. Our first stop was at The Beehives where a film crew was setting up equipment for a movie or commercial or some-such-thing. Valley of Fire is a popular place to film; they were shooting a car commercial last time we were there and the information brochure lists other movies filmed there. There was still room to park so we could get out a walk around a bit and see the beehive-shaped rocks.

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