Monday, December 29, 2014

Our Christmas Eve: Vegas Style

Late afternoon on Christmas eve we headed to the airport.  We made sure to upgrade our seats to first class, because we were feeling sassy.


We arrived in Vegas around 6:00 p.m., and headed to our hotel, The Cosmopolitan.  This hotel is ridiculously beautiful, and super modern. 


It's right between The Bellagio and Aria.

I loved the chandeliers by the elevators  ...


Our room was a one-bedroom suite, with a balcony looking out onto the strip.  It was a beautiful view, especially at night.


The bathroom was fantastic.  You could look at the strip from the tub ...


Or you had a view to the bedroom from the tub or shower ...


Or you could close the blinds and have no views at all, or more privacy.


We got dressed up a bit ...


And then headed to our favourite restaurant ever - Lotus of Siam.

We've been to this restaurant twice before, and I've raved about it both times.  It is the restaurant that the celebrities and celebrity chefs eat at when they are in town.  Proof of that is all over the walls, with pictures of the celebs with the chef, and words of praise for her incredible cooking.  This restaurant is a hidden gem.  It's off the strip (about a $15 taxi ride), and you definitely need reservations.  It's huge, yet always packed.

We started with one of our all-time favourite dishes, nam kao tod.  It is crispy rice with sour minced pork sausages, green onions, chilies, peanuts, ginger, lime and cilantro.


We also shared a wonton soup.

What might surprise people is that Lotus of Siam has probably the most extensive wine list I've ever seen.  This entire book is the wine list:


For main courses we ordered crispy duck on drunken noodles & khao soi braised short rib (northern Thai egg noodle served in curry sauce, coconut cream and braised short rib).


They were both painfully good.  I think most of our conversation over this dinner consisted of, "I can't even ...", "I just can't even ...", and "I literally can't even ...".  We had no other words.

Christopher told the server he wanted to go back to the kitchen to applaud the owner, and head chef Saipin.  The server just laughed (he probably knew Christopher would try to kidnap her).


Compared to other restaurants in Vegas, this one is very reasonably priced.  For two appetizers, two of the pricier entrees, a bottle of sake, a glass of sake, and a glass of wine, the bill came to $110

The only thing about eating at this restaurant is that we always leave sad ... sad that our food is all gone, sad that we can't eat there every week, and sad that Saipin is not our mom*.

* Don't worry real moms, we'll keep you too!  Saipin just might be our other, more Asian mom ;-)

After dinner we did what most people do on Christmas eve ... lost some money in roulette.

This was definitely the most different Christmas eve we've ever had, but it was pretty great!

How did you spend Christmas eve?

1 comment:

Lisa's Yarns said...

Wow, that meal sounds amazing. I know you two have high standards, so if you are raving over it then I KNOW it is good! And that is a very reasonable price for such an amazing meal!

Your hotel room was so awesome - I love the look of that hotel!