Another quick update from our recent visit to Las Vegas

We were in Las Vegas for an entire week this time over the Thanksgiving holiday. With that said, there was a lot of eating at our son's home on the holiday including leftovers later in the week, but that didn't stop us from hitting up some favorites and trying a few new places.

We had two terrific dinners for our "fancy" nights out returning to both Picasso (https://www.bellagio.com/en/restauran...) and Twist (https://www.mandarinoriental.com/las-...) of their tasting menus. Twist continues to be my favorite restaurant in Las Vegas. The bottom line is that if you like their current menu, you will love the food. It is presented beautifully and the service is terrific. I think the price point is reasonable for what you get. As some of you know, we had a very disappointing meal at Picasso last Christmas, which their staff more than made up to us earlier this year. This visit fired on all cylinders...both food and service excellent.

Because I had a groupon for Hexx (https://www.hexxlasvegas.com/menu/), we returned there for one breakfast. This time, even my husband is over them, not because there was anything wrong with the food, (in fact, it is very good) but because the breakfast menu hasn't changed over time and it's time for innovation elsewhere. Incidentally, Hexx' retail store is no more and is currently under construction to become a Hexx tapas bar with an estimated opening date of end of this year or early January.

We also had a weekend brunch at the Veranda (https://www.mandalaybay.com/en/restau...) which has always been a favorite of ours. Like Hexx, it just seemed a bit tired, in that the food choices in the buffet haven't really changed over time. They did do away with the cute little station for children which used to have things like sliders, brownies, chicken fingers, etc. The setting remains quite pleasant outdoors this time of year. As an aside, I hope some of you grabbed the Veranda's Black Friday offer that they repeated this year...if you made a reservation on Black Friday for a dinner in December, the entire bill would be half off.

Wanting more of an innovative breakfast, we had breakfast one morning at Craft Kitchen (https://www.craftkitchenlv.com). This was a welcome addition to the breakfast rotation and we will return for sure. An interesting menu, comfortable space, and great service made for a pleasant morning. My husband had the short rib hash and I had the butternut squash hash, both topped with perfectly poached eggs. The portions are huge but do consist of ALOT of delicious roasted potatoes that would take a real hungry person to polish off. There are many other yummy sounding items on the menu which will draw us back to try. They also are a bakery with a limited selection of what looked like yummy items. We didn't have time to get back to Kitchen Table (http://www.kitchentablelv.com) this trip but I would put Craft Kitchen in the same type of breakfast category. These two breakfast places along with BabyStacks are now our top three breakfast picks, although all off the strip.

We had another dinner at Chada Thai (http://chadavegas.com) that while the food we ordered was as good as usual, we were very disappointed that they had run out of oysters by 8:30 p.m. as their oysters are some of my favorite eats while in town.

We also tried Table 34 (http://table34lasvegas.com) for the first time after the hockey game (as an aside, the Golden Knights game with the related fan activities/productions was very entertaining and the arena was a fun place to see it). We were very pleasantly surprised by this restaurant. The waitress was superb. The cocktails were well made and the menu, more akin to something like Todds, consisted of "homey" choices that were well prepared. The price point was very reasonable.

Because we had just put a hold at Nora's (http://www.norascuisine.com/www/) for an upcoming family event, we had dinner there another night and the food, cocktails, and service were as good as we remembered from our last trip to Las Vegas. Nothing too creative, but very good Italian food that satisfied on the chilly night we were there.

On our last night in town, after watching a local softball game, we finally got to try Naked City Pizza (http://www.nakedcitylv.com) (the Paradise Road location). This is a no frills pizza joint with really, really good pizza, although heavily oriented towards those with assorted meat toppings. We were also surprised at how good their chicken wings were.

Before I started writing this blurb, I couldn't understand how I gained seven pounds on this trip but after reading what I just wrote, I now know why! Back home to the boring land of salads until the next time....