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Neighborhood Epicurean
Buried Treasure
Digging for gems on the edge of Chinatown
Our Chinatown is a touch different than that in other cities. We don’t have the history of mass immigrants arriving in the 19th century and forming sprawling, multigenerational cultural communities on the level of San Francisco or New York City. Indeed, you really didn’t see a vibrant C-town (my nickname) materialize here until the last 15 years, when that swath of Spring Mountain Road from just west of Interstate 15 became decidedly more lively with retail shops and markets dovetailed with Chinese aesthetics.
Read More »An Eclectic Crossroads
Southeast outpost delivers fusion, fast and fresh
The outsized Foothills Plaza is strategically placed at the confluence of Stephanie Street and Horizon Ridge Parkway (1450 W. Horizon Ridge) in Henderson, adjacent to the upscale development MacDonald Highlands, and is home to a rich diversity of dining options.
Read More »A Taste for the Understated
Several remedies for all that ails you near UMC
I’ll say it proudly. I’m a fan of low-key strip malls. After all, for so much modern progression around them, they’ve proven their staying power. In a (very) circuitous way, they bring out the Las Vegas historian in me. The best of their kind have an element of community support and are offbeat and inspired enough to handle the modern chains, and they also give you a taste of the commercial and cultural clusters of Las Vegas long ago.
Read More »City of Taste
With its sights and flavors, The District creates an experience to remember
When I was 10 years old, my family headed south to Arizona for the holidays. The highlight was our walk around Scottsdale’s outdoor mall. I was shocked that such a place could exist: trees and grassy quads and stores and restaurants strewn about like islands. “I hope we get something like this in Las Vegas,” I said.
Twenty years passed before we got The District at Green Valley Ranch in 2004.
Read More »The Spice of Chinatown
The little Pacific Asian Plaza offers an impressive variety of cuisines—and some serious deals
Imagine a place where you can eat six—count ’em—diverse types of Asian cooking, all done extremely well, without leaving a mini mall. That is exactly what you can expect at Pacific Asian Plaza, 5115 W. Spring Mountain Road. The two-story structure is nondescript, another Las Vegas strip-mall blur, but the diversity here may be greater than any of the other plazas that comprise the three-mile stretch that is our Chinatown.
Read More »The Quiet Funk of West Sahara
Yes, there is life along that slight stretch of Sahara Avenue just past Palace Station, so stop with the eye-rolling. If you’ve bothered to study beyond the low-rent, mason-bricked apartments, fetish shops and the interesting fashions of those hanging out at the bus shelters, you could be in for a lively time. Beyond the odd bar and coach deli in a parking lot, there’s an undercurrent of odd personality that surrounds the perks in this neighborhood.
Read More »Our New Frontier
Fremont East is finally living up to the hype
It’s easy to overindulge on East Fremont Street. Despite a naysayers’ reputation that the area is more talk and less reality, the nascent Fremont East entertainment district—the three blocks between Las Vegas Boulevard and Eighth Street—has evolved into a small but effective collection of unique bars and the closest thing Las Vegas has to a proper pub crawl. In fact, forget pub crawl; with art, poetry, live music, food and independent shops, Fremont East is becoming a bona fide culture crawl.
Read More »Eclectic Avenue
The University District has a lively combo of quirkiness and tastiness
Here is a district that is often overlooked by most travel guides and those weekend reporters who parachute into town to report on the latest openings for the idle chic. In a way, you can’t fully blame them since our University District doesn’t have the green-friendly flair of the University of Texas’ The Drag or the studied commercial suss of UCLA’s Westwood. Heck, you might even say we’re pretty darn ramshackle in the way we lump eateries, bars, pastry shops, clothing and comic book shops together. But here is my question: Why is that a problem?
Read More »The Unsung Center
Paradise Road offers the full gamut of dining spots, and you can even walk it
Paradise is the great in-between space in Las Vegas. Linking the airport, UNLV, the convention center and the Hughes Center, it stands in the center of town and yet remains a step or two outside the spotlight.
Read More »Abundant Choices
From soul food to shawarma, there’s a satisfying mix at D.I. and Durango
If you were to drive by casually, it would be hard to guess that the sprawling mall anchored by a Vons at the intersection of Desert Inn Road and Durango Drive housed a wonderful diversity of fine restaurants. But as the French say, plus ça change. The mall just lost Bamboo Bistro, a Vietnamese place, but is gaining Moretti’s Eatery, a new Italian concept, across the parking lot. In the meantime, these five places offer far more than cold comforts.
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