Vegas is well known for its endless buffets, celebrity chef restaurants, and culinary diversity. Unlike the "old days" though, that all can come at a hefty price.

There were far too many people and too much going on to get pictures for a proper review via Tasteem.io, so these are some of the "greatest hits" from the trip @mrsbozz and I recently took.

Black Bear Diner

The last time I was in Vegas was for my brother in laws bachelor party. At some point my other brother in law and I found ourselves at a Black Bear Diner. I knew if possible I wanted to return to one on this trip.

Black Bear Diner is a relatively expansive chain in the US West of the Mississippi river and there are about five or six locations in the Las Vegas area.

If the picture didn't give it away already, we did make our way to one of them on this trip and here is a run down of what we all got.

The picture above is the omelette loaded with just about every kind of breakfast meat you can imagine. My friend got that and he also agreed to the gravy for his biscuit.

His wife got their take on French toast which she enjoyed, but she said it was exceedingly sweet. She wasn't able to eat half of it due to the intense sweetness. She said it was more like a puffed pastry than actual toast and it was filled with something almost like a French toast doughnut I think.

@mrsbozz went with the vegetarian omelette which didn't surprise me at all.

As you can see each meal comes with your choice of toast or a biscuit the size of a softball. I am actually not a huge fan of biscuits, I usually find them too dry, but these ones are fantastic. Looking back I should have just ordered three of the biscuits and I would have been set for the day.

Instead I ordered the corned beef hash with two soft(sunny side up) eggs. It was as fantastic as I remembered it from the last time I visited but sadly it was just too much food. I only ate about half of my plate. The waitress was concerned that there was something wrong with it. I let her know it was fantastic, just more food than I could eat.

You probably wouldn't know it by looking at me, but my stomach has shrunk from when I was younger. I just can't put the food away like I used to and if I try I am miserable the rest of the day. If only the fatty part of my belly could reflect the change in my eating habits!

Black Bear Diner was by far the most food we got for the lowest price on our trip. It is a bit off the strip though, so that makes a huge difference.

Grotto

On several occasions during the trip, my wife and I found ourselves dining alone. We all had certain things and places we wanted to visit, so it wasn't a huge deal to us. Neither @mrsbozz nor I enjoy sushi, so while our friends ate that one night, we went to a fantastic Italian restaurant instead.

Grotto is located inside the Gold Nugget casino in the downtown area near Fremont street.

We didn't have a reservation and we didn't feel like waiting so we took one of the small tables in the bar area as opposed to the dining area.

Knowing that the prices were going to be pretty substantial and the portions are generally big we decided to split a couple of items.

We started with the Grotto salad.

It reminded us a lot of the chopped salad from Portillo's in Chicago. The dressing was not too heavy and the fresh vegetables were bright and refreshing tasting. There was also a distinct fennel taste that might turn some people off (like black licorice) but we enjoyed it.

I got a bit ahead of myself... while we were waiting to place our order, there was a bit of a ruckus at a table two over from us. Security had approached a group of men who were being quite loud and obnoxious. In the end the got kicked out of the restaurant for being too intoxicated. Security told them they didn't care where they went they just couldn't stay.

As this was happening our waiter apologized for the disruption and invited us to enjoy the show :)

After they were kicked out the manager had some pretty heated words for our server. Apparently he was upset that he had served them in the first place.

As we were waiting for our entree to arrive, a couple of men walked up to the bar and had a seat. I noticed the one man's phone in his pocket had the flashlight on. I tried to get his attention to let him know his flashlight was on (I didn't want his battery to die) when @mrsbozz with her keen eye said I think those are two of the guys from that table...

When our server brought our main dish she said "hey, aren't those the two guys from over there". He said "yes they are, thank you". About five minutes later security showed up again and after a brief exchange of heated words about how terrible the food and service were, they left.

As for us, we thought the food and service were fantastic. We shared the Paglia E Fieno Con Pollo which was fettuccine, chicken, mushrooms, prosciutto, peas, and Parmesan cream. It was fantastic and probably one of the best things I had to eat our whole trip. @mrsbozz is a bit of a pasta connoisseur and she thought it was fantastic as well.

The cream sauce wasn't too much like some places serve where you are basically drowning in butter. That isn't to say it wasn't rich and decedent either, it was just the perfect mix.

Our server again apologized for the rucks and mentioned that now we had a fun story to tell when we got home. Little did he know I would be blogging about it for all the world to see. Thank you Jay for the great service!

After proofing this, I have made the decision to stop there for the day and split what was originally going to be one post into two. I know my followers have a lot of stuff to do on Steemit and since this is already 1100 words I am going to be respectful of that.

Stay tuned for the second part of my food feature probably early next week!

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