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Last Minute Deals To Las Vegas
Las Vegas is convention central. Orthodontists go there as well as architects. Computer geeks and gynecologists, TV preachers and township clerks, postal workers and pathologists. There's an abundance of good hotel rooms, cheap eats, agreeable weather. Coming and going is reasonably painless. There's golf and gambling and ogling girls -- showgirls of unspeakable beauty -- and, of course, the mountains and the desert and the sky.
The National Funeral Directors Association advertised its 116th Annual Convention and International Exposition there in the trade press as "A Sure Bet." Debbie Reynolds was talking to the Spouse's Luncheon. Neil Sedaka was singing at the Annual Banquet. There was a golf outing, a new website, the installation of officers. I called the brother and the brother-in-law and said, "Let's get our funeral homes covered and go out to Vegas for the convention." Pat and Mike agreed. All of us are funeral directors. All of us were due for a break. Here's another coincidence: All of our wives are named Mary. The Marys all agreed to come along. They'd heard about the showgirls and high-stakes tables and figured Pat and Mike and I would need looking after. They'd heard about the great malls and the moving statues and the magic shows.
My publisher paid for my airfare and our room at the Hilton. "A Sure Bet" is what they reckoned, too. My book, The Undertaking -- Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, was being featured in the Marketplace Booth at the exhibit hall. The association would be selling and I'd be signing as many copies as we could for a couple of days. So there I sat, behind a stack of books, glad-handing and autographing, surrounded by caskets and hearses, cremation urns and new computer software, flower stands and funeral flags and embalming supplies. Some things about this enterprise never change -- the basic bias toward the horizontal, the general preference for black and blue, the arcane lexicons of loss and wonder. And some are changing every day. Like booksellers and pharmacists and oncologists, many of the small firms are being overtaken by the large consolidators and conglomerates. Custom gives way to convenience. The old becomes old, then new again.
Five thousand undertakers made it to Vegas -- the biggest turnout since the last time here, in '74 -- and 2,300 sales reps and suppliers. It was bigger than Orlando or Kansas City or Chicago, or next year in Boston.
Las Vegas seems perfect for the mortuary crowd -- a metaphor for the vexed, late-century American soul that seems these days to run between extremes of fantasy and desolation. Vegas seems just such an oasis: a neon garden of earthly delights amid a moonscape of privations, abundance amid the cacti, indulgence surrounded by thirst and hunger.
Or maybe it's that we undertakers understand these games of chance -- the way life is ever asking us to ante up, the way the wager's made before the deal is dealt or dice are tossed, before we pull the lever. Some people play for nickels and dimes, some for dollars, some for keeps. But whatever we play for, we win or lose according to these stakes. We cannot, once winning is certain or losing is sure, change our bet. We cannot play for dollars, then lose in dimes or win in cash when we wager matchsticks. It's much the same with love and grief. They share the same arithmetic and currency. We ante up our hearts in love, we pay our losses off in grief. Baptisms, marriages, funerals -- this life's casinos -- the games we play for keeps.
Oh, we can play the odds, hedge our bets, count the cards, get a system. I think of Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century French mathematician who bet on heaven thus: "Better to believe in a God who isn't than not to believe in a God who is." Figure the math of that, the odds. Pascal's Wager is what they called it. All of us play a version of this game.
I came downstairs in the middle of the night and lost 200 bucks before it occurred to me that this is how they built this city -- on folks like me, on what we'd be willing to lose. The next night my Mary won 800 on one pull of the lever on the slots. They paid her off in crisp C-notes. We laughed and smiled. She tipped the woman who sold her the tokens. She went shopping the next day for a pair of extravagant shoes and came home, as they say, with money in her pockets.
We undertakers understand winners and losers. Our daily lives are lessons in the way love hurts, grief heals, and life -- always a game of chance -- goes on. In Vegas we get to play the game as if there's no tomorrow. And after a long night of winning or losing, it's good to have a desert close at hand into which we wander, like holy ones of old, to raise our songs of thanks or curse our luck to whatever God there is, or isn't.
-- Thomas Lynch
Thomas Lynch is a poet and essayist and a funeral director in Milford, Michigan. The Undertaking -- Life Studies from the Dismal Trade won the Heartland Prize and the American Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His latest work is Bodies in Motion and at Rest: On Metaphor and Mortality.
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A number of celebrity chefs are cooking in Vegas, awakening us to the opinion that Vegas's rep for lackluster restaurants is no longer deserved.
Best All-Around: Given our druthers, we are hard-pressed to choose between Alizé (tel. 702/951-7000), at the top of the Palms, where nearly flawless dishes often compete with the sparkling view for sheer delight, and Rosemary's Restaurant (tel. 702/869-2251), a 20-minute drive off the Strip and worth twice as much effort, for some Southern-influenced cooking. Each of these may well put the work of those many high-profile chefs, so prominently featured all over town, to shame. Lastly though, speaking of high-profile chefs, we have just sworn allegiance to Thomas Keller's Bouchon (tel. 702/414-6200) in The Venetian's expansion, Venezia. Keller may be the best chef in America, and while this is simply his take on classic bistro food, you should never underestimate the joys of simple food precisely prepared. We also never ever turn down a chance to eat what Julian Serrano is making over at Picasso (tel. 702/693-7223), nor what Alex Strada is cooking up at Renoir (tel. 702/791-7223).
Best Inexpensive Meal: The beautiful, fresh, monster submarine sandwiches at Capriotti's (tel. 702/474-0229). They roast their own beef and turkey on the premises and assemble it (or cold cuts, or even vegetables) into delicious well-stuffed submarine sandwiches, ranging in size from 9 to 20 inches, and none of them over $10. We never leave town without one...or two.
Best Buffet: On the Strip, it's the Paris, Le Village Buffet (tel. 888/266-5687), where the stations break from standard form by adhering to regional French food specialties (from places such as Provence, Alsace, and Burgundy) and the results are much better than average. Though not cheap, this is a reasonable substitute for an even more costly fancy meal. Mirage Buffet (tel. 702/791-7111) remains our favorite midrange choice. The salad bar is loaded with countless possibilities, including a variety of cold salads (when was the last time you saw gefilte fish on a buffet?). And the gigantic mountain of shrimp is the right sort of decadent touch you want in a Vegas buffet. The Palms Festival Market Buffet (tel. 702/942-7777) offers the best of the more budget-oriented options, with an array of Middle Eastern goodies and some eccentric additions to the ubiquitous carving stations. Downtown, the Main Street Station Garden Court, 200 N. Main St. (tel. 702/387-1896), has an incredible buffet: all live-action stations (where the food is made in front of you, sometimes to order); wood-fired brick-oven pizzas; fresh, lovely salsas and guacamole in the Mexican section; and better-than-average desserts.
Best Sunday Champagne Brunch: Head for Bally's, at Mid-Strip, where the lavish Sterling Sunday Brunch (tel. 702/967-7999) features tables dressed with linen and silver. The buffet itself has everything from caviar and lobster to sushi and sashimi, plus fancy entrees that include the likes of roast duckling with black-currant and blueberry sauce.
Best Group Budget Meal Deal: Capriotti's again -- a large sandwich can feed two with leftovers, for about $5 each. Or split a bowl of soup at the Grand Wok (tel. 702/891-7777) in the MGM. This pan-Asian restaurant offers a variety of soups in such generous portions that four people can make a decent meal out of one serving.
Best Bistro: We ate nearly the entire menu at Bouchon (tel. 702/414-6200), from Thomas Keller, in The Venetian, and didn't find a misstep, just what you might expect from one of the most critically lauded chefs in the country. But don't overlook Mon Ami Gabi (tel. 702/944-4224), in the Paris Las Vegas hotel. Offering lovely, reasonably priced bistro fare (steak and pommes frites, onion soup), it may be our new favorite Vegas restaurant (at least of the non-celebrity-chef variety).
Best Restaurant Interiors: The designers ran amok in the restaurants of Mandalay Bay. At Aureole (tel. 702/632-7401), a four-story wine tower requires that a pretty young thing be hauled up in a harness a la Peter Pan to fetch your chosen vintage. The post-Communist party decor at Red Square (tel. 702/632-7407) is topped only by the fire-and-water walls at neighboring rumjungle (tel. 702/632-7408).
Best Spot for a Romantic Dinner: Alizé, at the top of the Palms, has windows on three sides of the dining room, with no other buildings around for many blocks. You get an unobstructed view of all of Vegas, the desert, and the mountains from every part of the restaurant, not just the window seats. Seriously, aren't you in the mood already?
Best Spot for a Celebration: Let's face it, no one parties like the Red Party, so head to Red Square in Mandalay Bay, where you can have caviar and vodka in the ultimate capitalist revenge.
Best Free Show at Dinner: At Treasure Island's Buccaneer Bay Club (tel. 702/894-7223), everyone rushes to the window when the ship battle begins outside. And then there is the vista offered by the restaurants in Bellagio (Picasso, Le Cirque, Olives, and Circo), which are grouped to take advantage of the view of the dancing water fountains.
Best Wine List: It's a competitive market in Vegas for such a title, and with sommeliers switching around, it's hard to guarantee any wine list will retain its quality. Still, you can't go wrong at Mandalay Bay's Aureole (tel. 702/632-7401), which has the largest collection of Austrian wines outside of that country, among other surprises.
Best Beer List: Rosemary's Restaurant offers "beer pairings" suggestions with most of its menu options, and includes some curious and fun brands, including fruity Belgian numbers.
Best View: Alizé wins with its floor-to-ceiling window views, but there is something to be said for seeing all of Vegas from the revolving Top of the World (tel. 702/380-7711), 106 stories off the ground in the Stratosphere Casino Hotel & Tower.
Best Eclectic: Many celebrity-chef or other high-profile restaurants in Vegas are disappointments, because said chef isn't in the kitchen. But Charlie Palmer's Aureole, in Mandalay Bay, hits all the right gourmet notes with its clever, sophisticated cuisine.
Best Italian: For a Mediterranean angle, head to Todd English's Onda (tel. 702/791-7223), in The Mirage, which is quietly but swiftly heading to the top of the "locals' favorite" list. For Tuscan cuisine at slightly less dear prices, Circo (tel. 702/693-8150), in Bellagio, is terrific.
Best Deli: The Stage Deli (tel. 702/893-4045), in Caesars, will give no cause for complaints (your mouth will be too packed with out-of-this-world pastrami to say much of anything).
Best New Orleans Cuisine: Emeril's New Orleans Fish House (tel. 702/891-7374), in the MGM Grand, and his Delmonico Steakhouse (tel. 702/414-3737), in The Venetian, bring the celebrity chef's "Bam!" cuisine to the other side of the Mississippi, and we are glad.
Best Red Meat: Lawry's The Prime Rib, 4043 Howard Hughes Pkwy. (tel. 702/893-2223), has such good prime rib it's hard to imagine ever having any better. If you want cuts other than prime rib, Charlie Palmer's (tel. 702/632-5120) in the Four Seasons has some of the best steaks in town, though the more budget-conscious might want to either split the enormous cuts or try the very popular Austin's Steakhouse.
