The Best of Las Vegas
I have a love/hate thing with the Review Journal’s Best of Las Vegas that they publish every year.
On the one hand, you can find some really great stuff (you really should try the Bobbie) that you normally wouldn’t have, but on the other hand you have to wonder if the readers even try (Taco Bell was voted best tacos for 12 years. No joke. And P.F. Chang’s apparently has the best Chinese, and Olive Garden has the best Italian. Just… no.). At least the RJ staff manage to scope out restaurants without a dollar value menu.
Some of it’s pretty humorous too: Gee, I wonder who got picked for best local publication? Britney and KFed as best celebrity tourists (their past and future contributions to the wedding industry will be appreciated greatly, I’m sure). And I have to admit these two newscasters are great fun to watch during their New Year’s Eve telecasts (”How many do you think he’s had now?”).
The Best of the Worst is fun to pick through:
Most Irritating Thing Tourists Do: JAYWALK
We’ve pitched it before and we’ll pitch it again: Why not just let us hit a few of them, just to show it can be done? That way, maybe they’ll grasp the notion that jaywalking is a bit stupid in a city where drivers already are bewitched by passing human and architectural scenery cooler than anyplace in the world. On the other hand, your second-place vote, “drive,” pretty much would prevent tourists from doing much of anything while they’re in town, and … oh, now we see where you’re going. Brilliant!
There’s also the worst buffet, which is really saying a lot. The worst place to take visitors is the Strip, which I completely agree with, but then there’s not much you can do when it’s where they want to go.
Other sections include entertainment, shopping (a treasure trove of readers just not giving a damn), locations, people, sports, and hotels. The full list can be found here.
2 Comments
Even though the Strip is considered the worst place to take visitors, I can’t imagine anyone going to visit Las Vegas and not going to the Strip! Since you agree, maybe you can enlighten us as to why that may be!
Hi Lynn! It is weird, isn’t it? I think “worst place to take visitors” is the locals’ small, unheard plea for visitors to stop asking to be taken to the Strip, haha! Part of the reason locals dislike it so much is that it just becomes a non-issue “big deal” kind of thing and we tune it out, thinking ‘why would you want to go see fake and gaudy when we have this beautiful scenery just a few miles out?’ Also, it’s a horrible place to try and drive through!
But on the other hand, unless you know about anything off-Strip, it’s the easiest place for visitors to be since anything you may need is right there – constant entertainment, good food, a place to stay, even a couple of pharmacies and gas stations. Regardless, whenever someone who hasn’t been here says they want to go to the Strip, you gird up your loins, grit your teeth, fake a smile and say “Sure!”