Place: Wicked Spoon
Lunch: Weekend brunch buffet, Coke, water
Wicked Spoon is the house buffet at the Cosmopolitan. It's a unique place. The food ranks right up there with the Wynn and Bellagio buffets and includes the usual breakfast suspects, a Kung Pao chicken that had a sauce that was a near clone of PF Chang's, a fried chicken called "Wicked Chicken", a cut-to-order slab bacon (really a seasoned pork of some kind), and I can actually say I've had Ratatouille now. I'll never have it again, but I've really tried it. Oh...and don't even get me started on the gelato bar. That alone may well be worth the $32.00 per person admission.
What makes it unique is lot of the food is served in little cooking pots pre-portioned. So you typically drop about four pots on your plate. Presentation-wise, nobody tops Wicked Spoon. Style-wise either, really. This is a gorgeous space. Modern, nice accent lighting, and arty. And it hasn't been noticed by the masses yet...you can usually get in pretty quickly, unlike the Wynn or Bellagio, where you might be in line for a couple of hours.
(Don't ask my advice on all the full-service places to eat in Las Vegas. I'm pretty much just at the buffets or at fast food joints. I don't know anything about the fancy sit-down joints. What? Stop looking at me like that.)
I'm book-ending the summer season where I began it. It's hotter this time...it was 89 degrees when I got up this morning around 6. It was about that last night at 10pm. The high today is predicted to be 103. But it's nice because the humidity level is only about 10-15 percent.
The night heat has had an odd effect on me. I'll be comfortable outside, then go into my hotel where the air conditioning is around 70...and I'll be freezing. As in shivering. Which NEVER happens to me. And I love it.
If I were rich, I'd totally move here and become a night owl.
(Who am I kidding. I'd miss the Midwestern winters.)
Another discovery I made while getting hotel snacks at Vons...a new fruit. Raspberry Jewel Pluots. Looking very much like it comes from the plum family, it's a plum-apricot hybrid of some kind. A well ripened one is ridiculously red and ridiculously juicy inside. It's wonderful. I hope I can find these back home.
I think I'll wander the Miracle Mile shops after brunch. Short of that, my weekend plans are playing pinball over at the Pinball Hall of Fame and catching up on movies.
"The Help" is a four-star movie.
Go see it.
Really.
