off-topics
A Taste of Vegas @ Mesa Grill
The food of Las Vegas is at once awful and awesome, sometimes within the same meal. It is an unhealthy mecca of artery-busting delights.
Yesterday I had the best bite of food I have ever bitten in my life. It was the Rough Cut Tuna Nachos at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill.
I don’t know if I can properly describe the experience to you. The rarest of rare tuna that almost melted on my tongue, dotted with capers and drizzled with reductions of chilis, avocados, and mangos, served on bite-sized puffed corn chips.
I thoughtlessly stuffed my first serving into my mouth and then halted, closing my eyes and sighing deeply as the flavor of it seeped into my tastebuds.
After that, my eating was much more measured. Each chip had to be perfectly arrayed with the correct blend of flavors, less I wind up with a sub-optimal bite of food. Each time I involuntarily closed my eyes once the taste hit my tongue. The experience was downright sensual.
The dish was $16, and included enough raw cubes of tuna for two. I would have gladly swiped my credit card for a $16 charge for every bite.
We will be going back to Mesa Grill.
PS: They also serve Cosmopolitan‘s #1 Must-Drink cocktail: The Cactus Pear Margarita, as pictured above. It was every bit as good of a bright pink drink as that distinction implies (and I don’t even like tequila).
PPS: Actually, we didn’t have a single thing that was less than amazing in the entire meal. Highly recommended.
Vegas is for the birds
high hot pressure
The airplane was a pressure-cooker.
I felt like some sort of crock pot meal in my window seat, gradually stripping off layers of clothing and carry-ons and pressing my arms against the cool metal of the seat dividers. My window onto to the southern sun with was hot to the touch, even with the plastic shade snapped shut. The radiating heat made me feel as though I would brown beneath my v-neck t-shirt.
Our flight was absolutely full with an interesting cross-section of people. Golfers, gamblers, bachelorette parties. A cheerful murmur rose from the collective when we first boarded. Now it was much quieter. Everyone was wilting and dozing.
I hadn’t said anything to E, as she was deep in conversation about javascript with the web developer seated beside her. I let my head nod to one side, half exhausted, half in a meditative trance.
Eventually, E turned to me and said, “it is too warm in here.”
“Yes, I know,” I replied, roused. “Feel my window. It’s hot.”
“I’d rather not. I’m already quite warm.”
“You can have my blower, if you need it,” I said, gesturing up to the tiny air-expelling port in the ceiling above us. I could not feel the slightest drift of the breeze it was supposedly blowing onto my face.
“I already took it.”
“While I was asleep?” I exclaimed.
“Yes.” Well, that would explain why I could not feel the breeze.
“What if I needed that air?”
“Clearly you didn’t.”
We’ve been very aligned this entire time. In Philadelphia, plenty of disagreements – all trivial, mind you, but differences of opinion. Outside of it, we react to all things as one. Things that would fall below most people’s threshold of notice, like poorly phrased directional signage or a particularly cool piece of luggage in a crowd. It’s as if our minds are tethered together, having the same reactions at the same time. One massive game of Jinx! You Owe Me a Coke, except for we do not drink soda.
The last 45 minutes of the flight were a sheer test of endurance. I was so hot I thought I might explode in a seizure of thrashing and cursing. I decided I had to accept the heat rather than resist it. I cracked my plastic window frame an inch and pressed my eye up to the crevice, watching the mountains below us turn from black to brown to sandy foothills until my face couldn’t beat the warmth any longer.
We were relieved to step off of the plane, and were greeted with slot machines all of ten feet from our gate exit.
“Play a slot?” I asked E. “They’re pennies.”
“No.”
“Me neither.” I replied.
Defending Our Ride on CBSLocal Philly!
E and I are sharing a slice of Internet Fame today courtesy of CBSLocal Philly via their auto correspondent @MikeyIl (who you may recall from my epic interview with him last summer).
Shot by MikeyIl for CBS Local.
My only prior auto-related run-in with Mikey was when he drove me to a concert in a pimped out ride he had on loan for a week to write up for a blog. Many months ago, Mikey put out the call for Philly residents with cars they really loved that were less than five years old. Feeling pretty strongly about the utility of our Toyota Matrix, E and I volunteer and wound up with an interview and photo shoot with our car! It’s our first shared press!
You can read the entire interview and see Mikey’s photos at CBSLocal Philly. As a bonus, here are a few exchanges from our interview that got wound up on the cutting room floor:
DYR: Does your car have an nickname?
E: I’m leaning towards Molly, though after Molly Weasley or Molly Bloom, I’m not sure.
DYR: Where did you get your car from? What/where was the dealer?
P: I didn’t even have my license when we bought the car, so a big test for us was if the dealer would actually talk to Elise about car stuff. I didn’t even know which side the gas pedal was on – I was there solely to haggle. I actually staged a walk-out mid-conversation at one dealer who didn’t seem as though he was actually listening to what Elise was saying.
Locally we work with Ardmore Toyota. Except, if you’re me, you sometimes call Toyota of Ardmore OKLAHOMA … which would explain why everyone answered with southern accents for a whole week that one time.
DYR: What’s your favorite or worst part of your commute?
E: I’ve driven it to work a few times. My favorite part is when I can first see the skyscrapers, and my least favorite part is when the radio cuts out in the parking garage. :)
P: I commuted to work once all summer. It was about five minutes shorter than my SEPTA commute but, unlike the El, I was not afraid of catching syphilis during the ride.
Oh, and this non-sequitur:
P: Elise is the best car-packing Tetris player I’ve ever known. She can make anything fit into anything.