Not every trip in Roger’s archive needed a passport. Between 2012 and 2013 he went to Las Vegas twice and spent plenty of weekends around Southern California, and the posts from those trips have a different energy: big portions, bargains and a few verdicts.
The June 2012 Vegas trip produced one of the archive’s great bargains. After a long night at the Electric Daisy Carnival, the Coronado Cafe at South Point served a New York steak with eggs, hash browns and toast for $3.95 — one of the cheapest late-night menus ever, Roger wrote. The same weekend he went looking for Northern Thai food and wrote out every dish: yum nuea, khao soi and rice vermicelli curry with pork blood.
A few days later, at the steakhouse inside Pechanga in Temecula, came the biggest plate of all: a 40-something-ounce ribeye that Roger finished like a champ, followed by half of someone else’s filet mignon. The photo of the clean bone is the proof.
The June 2013 Vegas trip was more polished and more critical. Wicked Spoon served its buffet as small plates, Botero delivered a full steakhouse dinner, and The Neapolitan’s Cap’n Crunch–topped ice cream cocktail was damn tasty — and crept up on them. Gordon Ramsay BurGR, though, was way overhyped: great presentation, subpar food.
Closer to home, Southern California filled the gaps: all-you-can-eat Gyu-Kaku in Huntington Beach, Peking duck at Duck House, chicken and waffles at Roscoe’s in Long Beach, a crème brûlée waffle at Bruxie in Orange and, in Glendale, a first visit to Porto’s to see what the hype was all about. So far so good.
These are dated records. Menus and prices — especially that $3.95 steak — belong to their moment.
The frames in this story
