October 20: Damn the Weather

Full disclosure: my entree was comped due to a delay in service. Details below.

I'm back from Vegas, and slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn't eat at any of the fancy places there, like I do when I'm not travelling solo. Really, my worst habit with solo travel is forgetting to eat. Normally, it's even worse, because when I'm in MiddleOfNowhereForest, AR, and it's 11 PM and I realize I last ate 24 hours earlier, I'm out of luck. But in Vegas, at least I have the option of food.

Damn the Weather

So, even though I was out for about a week, my Vegas meal list is short and my reviews are shorter, because c'mon, you really don't care much about that. You can't pop on down for lunch and be back to Pioneer Square in under 60 minutes. It's my blog, though, so I'm going to force you to skip past this list. Excluding bar bills:

• Aloha Specialties, California Casino: Spam, eggs and rice hit the spot
• Perch, Container Park: Chicken sandwich collapsed into a slimy tasty mess
• Tasti D Lite, Binions: Froyo or soft serve or something like that. Nothing special.
• Pizza Rock, Downtown Grand: Pepperoni slice still bubbling on my plate. Too hot to eat. Did so anyway. Ouch. Still worth it.



Spaghetti bolognese, cheesy grin

• Glutton, Downtown: Eggs, hash browns, toast... solidly done, great service
• Lanai Express, Fremont: I ate the 99¢ shrimp cocktail and survived. A meh burger and standard fries, too.
• Carnegie Deli, Mirage: The turkey sandwich was tasty and literally six inches tall.
• Secret Pizza, Cosmopolitan: As great pepperoni slice as always, and got a free white sauce slice from the couple next to me.
• Blondies, Planet Hollywood Miracle Mile Shops: $4.99 breakfast special. Added toast and a screwdriver and made it $17. But the bartender gave me a free mimosa to go, so there's that.
• Jean Phillipe Patisserie, Aria: Basil pesto chicken sandwich collapsed into a slimy tasty mess. But I came here for the key lime tart, which was amazing.

But now I'm back, and -- surprise! -- it's a co-worker's birthday lunch. She chose Damn the Weather, a fine choice for this drizzly northwest day. A couple of blocks away, it's small yet airy, with typical Pioneer Square brickwork and a long bar of which I cannot partake during work hours. Sigh.

Burger

I ordered the spaghetti bolognese. I almost opted for the quiche (but it had kale; ick) or the burger, but all things being equal, I wanted to see how they handled the menu item that seemed to be an outlier from the rest. The other eight people at the table received their food fairly quickly, along with two parfait glasses of french fries for the table. My spaghetti took about five minutes longer to arrive, but I just munched on fries while I waited. The fries were very well done. They offered a curry aoli mustard with it, which didn't have as much of a kick as I'd have expected, but which was very mildly bitter. A co-worker gave me quarter of her burger, which came equipped with gruyère cheese and portobello mushrooms, which made it taste a bit earthy, a little pungent, and, like the mustard sauce, mildly bitter. Five droplets of grease hit the table while I ate the burger; two more ended up in my hand. Seems like a good ratio for a burger, and the fattiness gave it a good mouth feel. Overall, it wasn't bad, but would have been better if I'd been prepared for the unusual flavor.

Reuben

The spaghetti, unlike the dish I had at Fuel, consisted of actual spaghetti noodles. They were just slightly overcooked, not enough to be mushy, but they'd been in the water just a little too long. The bolognese sauce was traditional, with tiny diced chunks of meat and blended in with the pasta. A noticeable sheen of grease glimmered off the stack and pooled along the edge. One co-worker thought it might be too greasy, but it seemed to me about what I would expect. It tasted great.

Word around the table is that their Reuben was also really good, and their Caesar salad sandwich elicited looks and "what the heck is that" when it arrived. And those fries -- everyone liked those fries.

When it came time for the damnage (I see what you did there, restaurateur), they'd knocked the $10 off my bill for being late on my food. For our group of nine, gratuity was automatically added.

Damn the Weather

Caesar salad sandiwch, with an egg in the bread

116 1st Avenue S
Spaghetti bolognese, iced tea, $16.14 (minus $10)