Las Vegas
The usual noon-ish flight to Las Vegas, with a bit of extra time thrown in to wander LAX and check out how construction is progressing on the automated people mover, which is supposedly around 90% done. Then a quick fried rice from Panda Express to go with the chicken I'd packed, and a complimentary sparkling wine that the crew brought over from the first class cabin for me as a pleasant surprise to start off this weekend's trip. Plus this recently delivered, 11-month-old 737 (N37548) had United's current 737 interior complete with Bluetooth at each seat, which was a nice touch, although it already had some damage to the cabin armrest...
Once in the air, noticed we had a parallel take-off with Flair Airlines in an identical Boeing 737 MAX 9. And barely 45 minutes later on landing in Las Vegas, saw that the Luxor hotel now has a giant Michelob Ultra ad painted on its side, while you could see Las Vegas Sands' private jet fleet a bit closer at the airport itself. These last few thoughts occurred while sitting on the U2 fan Vibee shuttle bus going from the airport to the fancy hotel included with the Vibee-package. Such a dichotomy of perceived class or at least obnoxious spending... aka welcome to Vegas!
Predictably, with 20,000 in attendance at each U2 show at The Sphere, plus Twitchcon, Kick, When We Were Young festival, Money 20/20, and whatever other events were happening in Las Vegas, check-in at The Venetian and Palazzo was a bit busy. Fortunately the Grimaldi's location in Palazzo is still worth a stop, with an excellent pepperoni pizza more than making up for the lousy caprese, and the key pick-up line actually moved quickly (less than ten minutes) despite its massive length.
Did some work, took in the view of The Sphere and the airport, fixed the badly out of adjustment sinks in the bathroom (way faster than waiting for maintenance to come...), and then by the time Pearl and Simon showed up, it was practically dinner time. They had picked up a Dennis on the way, and then we were off to Shang Artisan Noodle to wait for dinner.
Shang Artisan Noodle may be over an hour's wait, but they are one of the few places that is absolutely worth it if you love noodles. Even the tomato and scrambled egg noodle, which I am usually completely indifferent too, was top-notch here. Just make sure to eat the beef noodle soup (aka Shang Beef Noodle) as soon as it arrives, less the noodles get too soggy (any noodle soup, really). Dan dan mein was pleasantly spicy and delicious, half the group found it spot-on, the other half found it just a bit too spicy. Chicken with hand pulled noodles was solid but perhaps the least memorable dish alongside the Beijing pies (beef pancakes), while the cold cucumber with sesame sauce was just not interesting. Finally the pot stickers were disappointing in presentation with the promised perfectly crispy round bottom coming quite broken.
Wrapped up the night wandering the strip. The construction for F1 remains ongoing (yay American inefficiency), Bally's-becoming-Horseshoe continues, the depressingly usual bunch of anti-democratic, anti-rule-of-law ***holes making themselves known, and the ending the night on a slightly more positive note by stopping at Bellagio's conservatory.