Viva Las Vegas, Part 2
Get Them Doggies!
Say, why not buy me a coffee? -> https://venmo.com/u/Kevidently
I gotta tell you about Omelet Place.
Jeff had heard it was this happening place where real locals on the scene go to, presumably especially if they’ve had their first tiki cocktail before 11 and are in desperate need of sustenance. We ambled in and were eventually sat in the corner, where a gruff waitress explained that they didn’t really have anything totally gluten-free, but she’d see what she could do for me. The eggs and bacon didn’t actually have gluten, so maybe they’d be fine. Sometimes you pick your battles with celiac. It might make me sick but it won’t actually kill me. (PS If it happens enough, it will kill me! Life with diseases! Hooray!)
She came back with the delicious eggs and bacon with … you know, like a generous portion of toast draped over some of the eggs? The way that celiacs like? Eating around the toast was a choose your own adventure of intestinal distress, but I persevered because that Frankie’s drink was just coursing through me. I texted my Dad and he was like, “Glad you’re having fun. PS why are you drinking before 5?” And I was like, “DAD IT’S VEGAS IT’S BEFORE 10!” Dad’s concerned.
Even more of a concern? The water. It was set before us in plastic glasses and neither Jeff nor I had wanted or needed a beverage more. We guzzled. Turned to each other.
“Is this water?”
“Why does it taste like sugar?”
“Why is this sugar water?”
“Are we too drunk to taste water right?”
These were all valid questions, as the liquid sloshing in our mouths felt both thick and sweet, like clarified treacle. It was all we could do to gag it down. The worry here is that all of Las Vegas was as full of treacle water as it was divorce and neon. But I remembered our Princess Pub lesson. When Jeff and I went on our last cruise ship, we stopped by the Irish pub place to have some vittles before setting sail. We noted with alarm that they had no gluten-free anything, which of course led to terror that I wouldn’t be able to eat for the whole week we were on the shit. As it turned out, it was just the Irish pub with its beer and Scotch eggs and fried potatoes that had nothing for me. Most of Vegas’s water would prove just fine.
Not great? Our attempt at a gluten-free bakery next door. It looked awesome and retro and Very Vintage Vegas, but piling gobs of sugar on top of grease and alcohol (and treacle water!) did not sit entirely well. Such predicaments, we must forge ahead!
Would you believe that other than San Francisco, Las Vegas has the largest concentration of Tiki bars in the US? Jeff and I were determined to try them all, even if they were a little shy about calling themselves Tiki bars. The one that really caught our imagination when we first heard of it was Stray Pirate, whose theme was pirates that had crashed on a mysterious island that turned them into dogs. Into dogs! Jeff’s favorite thing! Barely recovered, we piled into another Uber and headed toward those scurrilous pups.
It was closed when we got there, which meant we got to wander around the quirky neighborhood and look at tchotchkes and buy nothing. I have spent the last two years crawling out of debt and building up savings and I’m finally start to grow my wealth in a real way. Breaking my obsession/addiction to buying stuff has been part of that. I wasn’t about to start now.
As time approached for Stray Pirate to open, we spotted a group of four people ahead of us, dressed in tropical gear, clearly heading to where we were heading. I nudged Jeff.
“OMG that’s Otto Von Stroheim.”
“Who?”
“He helped like invent the Tiki revival! He’s a legend!”
“Oh.”
“You can’t just oh Otto Von Stroheim. He … oh wait that’s not him.” As it turns out, there’s more than one bald man wearing a trilby hat and an aloha shirt in the Tiki scene. As it turned out, this was Armand; he and his wife Mari (and their two other companions) would be our first Vegas Buddies.
We’d run into this concept on cruise ships in the past, especially most recently on our Magic Castle cruise. You hang out accidentally with people on the first day, and then you see them again and hang out again and soon they’re cruise friends. Armand and Mari and the other two whose names are escaping me right now fell into an easy camaraderie with us as we stepped through the door of Stray Pirate and goggled.
We’re in the hull of a ship sunk into the water. Portholes everywhere showing fish and whales and sharks swim by. Portraits of pirates changed into dogs hang at intervals. Exotica and surf and theme-appropriate Disney music drifts in from everywhere. No smell of smoke, no gambling machines anywhere. It’s the polar opposite of Frankie’s, and I couldn’t have been happier to pull up a seat and settle in.
We drank. We made friends. We headed into the bathroom where there was different music playing (the original soundtrack to the Enchanted Tiki Room!? Yes, please!) The whole dark vibe was like a hug; if Frankie’s felt Ultra Vegas in the way you’d think of Vegas in the 90s, this felt both like a thesis statement on current Vegas and an escape from current Vegas. Deep theming, clever ideas, a stellar drink menu, friendly folks. We couldn’t have asked for anything better after our ramshackle morning.
As it turned out, every single Tiki bar (and one non-Tiki bar) we visited had a different character, a different aesthetic. Every one made you feel a new and unexpected way. Most were positive. A couple were negative. The whole trip was still ahead of us and the midday beckoned us back to its harsh, somehow cold environs. The night beyond was to be a cavalcade of bawdy dance, punk intensity, and the accidental theft of the best pizza in the world. Get ready.
Kevin Quigle
