Hello, Best Friend at the Park MGM on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

No matter how strong my love is for Las Vegas, one of the things I adamantly hate about it is how it is commonplace and acceptable to smoke cigarettes inside casino buildings on the Las Vegas Strip. Basically every other area of the United States has justifiably banned smoking inside buildings (and even within a certain distance of the entrance of buildings), but casinos seem to be be the anomaly and are okay with jeopardizing the health of their visitors in order to satisfy smokers.

Fortunately, there is one property on the Strip that has banned smoking indoors—Park MGM. (As a side note, the Vdara also bans smoking, but it is just a resort and spa and doesn’t have a casino, and it also doesn’t have a Las Vegas Boulevard address.) In the spirit of voting with my wallet, I like to support businesses that support my beliefs, so for dinner, I decided to dine at Best Friend, a restaurant inside Park MGM.

I dined with two friends, which made us a group of three. All three of us decided to get the chef’s tasting menu for US$75.00 per person.

The first round of food came out, and as expected from a Korean restaurant, it consisted of a lot of 반찬, pronounced as “banchan” and meaning “side dish.” In addition, it also came with a side of buns, which is less common for Korean cuisine.

One thing that you might notice is that the buns came out as a set of four instead of a set of three. This is going to be a recurring theme that you’ll notice on an ongoing basis throughout this meal, which I will point out during my review whenever it was relevant.

As the first main entrée, we got slippery shrimp. This had a great balance of crispiness and tenderness. The flavor of the sauce was great, and it had a relatively light and reasonable amount of breading, which meant that the shrimp flavor was not overpowered. This was my favorite dish of the meal.

The slippery shrimp came out as two plates instead of three, so we thought that one plate was missing. However, when we pointed this out to the waiter, he replied that the chef’s tasting menu at Best Friend is more of a communal, family-style situation, as opposed to the neat, well-presented, singular dishes that you might find in a traditional chef’s tasting menu or omakase experience. Thus, he said that the slippery shrimp came out in a way where it was intended to be shared by the entire table.

Although that was unusual compared to what I am used to or was expecting, it was understandable, and it made a decent amount of sense considering that the family-style sharing of food is indeed something that is common in Asian cultures.

On top of that, the waiter said that a group of three is a fairly unusual group size for them to see, and that their tasting menu is often sized to be compatible for pairs. Thus, he said that, in situations where they can accommodate a portion size for three people, they would do it, but otherwise, we would end up getting portion sizes intended for groups of four.

Now back to the slippery shrimp. With all that being said above, there was another funny facet to this situation. In our group of three diners, we had one person who does not eat fish or seafood. This meant that this slippery shrimp entrée, which I now noticed was definitely intended for a group of four, is now being split between only two people. Luckily, it was very delicious and I was happy to eat a large portion of it, but it was quite satisfyingly filling.

Next up were Kogi tacos from Roy Choi’s Kogi BBQ Taco Truck. Because these were individual tacos, we got our proper serving of three tacos. I thought these were solid tacos, and I was not surprised when I later found out that they were made to resemble food truck tacos, as it definitely gave off that impression.

Next up was the meat. One of the plates was garlic chicken; the other was 갈비, pronounced “galbi,” which is Korean barbecued short rib.

These were gigantic portion sizes, and again, I think we got the amount of meat that was supposed to go to four people instead of just three. The galbi was good, albeit a bit heavy on large chunks of fat. The garlic chicken was passable, with decent flavor but a bit dry in texture.

With that being said, this is the point where I was getting extremely full and realized that I was getting some amazingly great value for my money, considering just how much food I was getting and the fact that I was on the Las Vegas Strip where everything is upcharged for tourists. Even though the meat wasn’t the utmost highest of quality, I couldn’t really complain about it, because it was still tasty meat, and I felt like I was getting it for way cheaper than it deserved to be.

Along with the meat, we also got kimchi fried rice. I left most of this for my friends to eat, especially the one who wasn’t quite as full as I was due to him not having eaten any of the slippery shrimp dish earlier in the meal.

Finally, it was time for dessert. I believe this is another area where we got four people’s portions instead of just two, as I think each dessert dish is designed with two people’s portion size in mind, and our waiter gave us one of each.

The first dessert was date cake. I couldn’t really tell that it was date cake; to me, it just tasted more like a chocolately cake with some good ice cream on the side.

The second dessert was what they called a “strawberry shortie,” though from what I could tell, it looked like a generic grocery store ice cream pop adorned with some sorbet and cream on the side.

Both of these desserts were fine, but at this point, all three of us were struggling to keep eating, as we were all very full.

From the outside when walking through the casino, the restaurant looks tiny because the only area you can see from the storefront windows is the front “retail and bar” area. However, once you go through a hallway, there is a much larger dining area.

Here are some photographs I took of the inside dining area and kitchen, which includes its own bar:

And here are some photographs I took of the aforementioned retail and bar area, which does actually seem to sell merchandise, as well as have some bar dining options for people who just want a quick and more casual meal:

If you weren’t able to tell already, I have one very obviously and very important recommendation: if you want to try the chef’s tasting menu at Best Friend, go as a group of three instead of a group of two or four. Surely at some point they are going to address this loophole and figure out a way to not have to give an extra portion of food to every group of three, but until then, I think Best Friend is probably the one restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip where you will absolutely get top value for your money.

With that being said, even if they do patch this loophole, I still think Best Friend is a pretty good restaurant.

For context, I’m personally not a huge fan of Korean cuisine because I usually find it to just be way too salty and greasy for my preferences, and I think Korean cuisine tends to just overload your taste buds with primitive satisfaction (i.e., through egregious amounts of salt, sugar, and fat) rather than focusing more on refined, pure flavors that are considered desirable in fine dining. Also, my parents are Korean and I grew up eating a lot of Korean food that my mom made, but she was not a good cook, so my brain sort of has the idea ingrained in it that Korean food in general is not that good.

With all that in mind, and even as someone who might be biased and predisposed to not liking this restaurant because it’s Korean, I still liked Best Friend.

Now obviously, a US$75.00-per-person meal isn’t necessarily cheap either, but prices have gotten absolutely wild on the Las Vegas Strip lately, so comparatively, $75 is not bad. Considering that they’re basically serving you enough calories in a single meal to last you an entire day (or more, if you do the three-person hack), if you take into consideration the amount of food along with the unique atmosphere and dining experience that comes along with the restaurant, I think it is absolutely worth my recommendation.

 

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Hello, Flamingo Wildlife Habitat at the Flamingo Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip

by   •   Las Vegas
 

Because of some absolutely horrific past experiences I’ve had with the Rio Hotel & Casino back when they were a part of Caesars Entertainment, I’ve been pretty avoidant of Caesars properties in general. However, once in a while, a hotel under the Caesars family will have something interesting enough that it’s still worth making a visit. In my opinion, one of those things is the Wildlife Habitat at the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel & Casino.

The main reason I actually decided to go for a midday walk to the Flamingo was because I heard there were some renovations to their pool that was finally open to the public after a few delays, and Caesars played it up as if it was going to be some kind of revolutionary, innovative, state-of-the-art renovation, so I wanted to see it for myself and find it if that was true.

Funny enough, I could not figure out where the entrance to the pool was. The only entry point I could find had a security guard that said only registered hotel guests were permitted access, and the other meandering path I came across ended up spitting me out at the taxi and rideshare zone. I don’t even like pools, so I wasn’t particularly motivated to keep searching. Instead, I just went to the Wildlife Habitat to see the flamingos.

You need to calibrate your expectations properly when going to the Wildlife Habitat, because if you’re hoping to see a ton of flamingos, you’re going to be out of luck. I think there are fewer than ten flamingos on the property, along with a small, assorted collection of other birds, fish, and sea life spread throughout different sections of the habitat. It’s nothing too crazy, and it’s nothing even close to what you’d find at a zoo or aquarium, but it’s free to go in for a quick stroll, and it’s amusing to see something like this outdoors on the Las Vegas Strip.

I also had an opportunity to see the Garden Chapel. I don’t know if this is usually just open to the public or if I had some fortunate timing, but this back area was very serene and nearly devoid of tourists. There was the occasional sign saying that the wedding coordinator was away and would be returning shortly, which I guess implies that the area is only open during certain business hours, but I was lucky enough to be able to sightsee uninterrupted due to the attendant being busy.

Here are some photographs I captured during my visit:

 

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Hello, Infinity Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada

by   •   Las Vegas
 

On a day that I didn’t really have much going on, I decided to break up the monotony of my work day and spend an afternoon checking out the Infinity Museum at the Boulevard Mall in the unincorporated town of Paradise in the Las Vegas Valley (different from the BLVD on the Las Vegas Strip). This is apparently a relatively new attraction, having opened only about a month ago

The Infinity Museum is a collection of eight rooms using lights and other visuals to create immersive experiences (along with a few more smaller displays in the hallways between rooms), some of which included a simulated starry night, a room with gigantic helium-filled orbs, a walk-in dodecahedron, a mirror maze, and a kaleidoscope.

This obviously reminded me of my visit to Arte Museum Las Vegas, another interactive and immersive light show experience. The Infinity Museum and the Arte Museum are similar, but have a few distinct differences.

It feels like the Infinity Museum wants to focus more on pushing boundaries and setting records, by way of designing things that haven’t been made before and being more innovative with their rooms. For a lot of the rooms, it also made me feel like I was basically a doll in a dollhouse—the rooms are large and spacious, so it almost gives the impression of there being a giant peering in through the ceiling and watching as you interact with their creation.

On the contrary, the Arte Museum had smaller rooms, which had the effect of feeling like the walls were pushing into you; this made it easier for you to get “lost” inside the immersion and truly feel like you are in the middle of what’s going on around you. Also, I personally like having multiple senses stimulated at once, so the fact that the Arte Museum integrated scents and aromas into their experiences made them very pleasant and memorable.

I personally liked the Arte Museum a bit better, but I enjoyed the Infinity Museum as well. I would recommend both; but, for different kinds of people who are looking for different things, I think one option will be notably better than the other.

I recommend the Arte Museum if you are an adult going alone or with a small group of other adults and have the patience to really take in what’s around you and want a multi-sensory experience (because remember, Arte Museum has a café too). I would recommend the Infinity Museum if you are going with children, or if you are big on taking cool-looking pictures to post on social media that will give a nice visual pop to your feed.

I personally paid US$29.00 for admission, but I think there was something bugged with the online booking system at the time of my purchase (I checked again just now, and it seems like the point-of-sale platform is fixed). When I went to buy my ticket, there were around three or four adult general admission ticket prices listed that made it seem like you were allowed to pick how much you wanted to pay (and I obviously picked the cheapest option). With that being said, I am a Las Vegas local and went during off-peak hours, so I feel like I deserved the cheapest ticket price anyway.

It looks like tickets are currently in the $40s per adult if you want to go on a weekend during surge hours, and they cost a little bit more if you also want to add on a VIP package.

Here are some photographs I took throughout all the exhibits:

 

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Hello, Zoox Explorer at Resorts World Las Vegas in Nevada

by   •   Face, Las Vegas
 

I haven’t been as diligent about keeping up with new technology as I was when I was a kid. Young Adam used to be pretty dedicated to reading tech news and trying to adopt as much of it into his life as quickly as possible, but current Adam only notices these things if they are either locally relevant or have advanced to a stage of development where it’s about to have a big impact on society.

Self-driving cars have hit both of those metrics.

With Tesla and Elon Musk having local ties to Nevada and Las Vegas, I’ve noticed them as one of the pioneers of self-driving technology. I’ve never really liked Tesla ever since around 2017 when I took a ride in my aunt and uncle’s Model X and realized how poorly it was built. Although I have not been particularly vocal about my dislike of Tesla ever since Elon Musk’s involvement in politics because I don’t want to be mistaken as some leftist Democrat who is just jumping on the Elon Musk hate bandwagon, my opinions of Tesla are still generally the same. I’ve always thought that Tesla should’ve just been a technology company and not a car manufacturer. With that being said, to my understanding, the work that Tesla conducts in Las Vegas is heavily focused on that technology aspect, which I think is a good thing.

Other companies, like Waymo, have joined in on developing self-driving technology and have outpaced Tesla. When I took a trip to the Phoenix Metropolitan Area in Arizona, I rode around exclusively in Waymos instead of using human-driven rideshare services. This is obviously a big change to society.

I am looking forward to self-driving technology becoming good enough to the point where people won’t have to drive their own vehicles anymore. I still drive my 2018 GMC Canyon gasoline pickup truck; once that breaks down or otherwise becomes inoperable, I expect to buy an electric pickup truck to replace it. I anticipate that to be the last vehicle I buy that I need to drive myself; I think that if I keep my Canyon for a handful more years and then drive my new EV for a decade and a half, self-driving cars should probably be the norm that far into the future.

With all that context in mind, along with knowing that I am optimistic about the future of self-driving vehicles, I’m sure it’s not surprising to hear that I was one of the first people to join the Zoox Explorer program as part of their partnership with Resorts World Las Vegas. Zoox is a company that is also working on self-driving technology like Waymo, and they are at a phase of development where they’re able to test their vehicles on public roads. For the past few years, I have seen quite a few supervised Zoox vehicles driving around Las Vegas for testing; I was excited to hear that they were now ready to be tested fully autonomously.

Zoox had a little booth set up in front of the southern entrance off Goh Tong Way. From here, people who were interested in taking a ride in a Zoox were able to scan a QR code, register for an account, and join the waitlist.

Right around 20 minutes after my friend and I signed up for a demo ride, a Zoox arrived to pick us up. As you can tell from the photographs, the interior of these vehicles are designed to not have a driver at all. There is no driver’s seat or front passenger’s seat; there are just four seats for occupants.

They also don’t look like a normal vehicle with a tapered hood area that encases either the engine in gasoline vehicles or a front trunk in electric vehicles; instead, they are basically just rectangular prisms (which I imagine might not be the best for aerodynamics).

Once inside, there was a message on the control screen welcoming us to the ride and briefing us on the estimated length of our demo ride. Shortly thereafter, a button popped up that allowed us to begin the ride.

There is a little screen next to each occupant from which the climate control and music can be adjusted.

People sometimes ask me (presumably as a joke) how I can prove that I went somewhere or did something if I take pictures of things around me, but not of myself. Well, here is a remarkably low-quality picture of myself sitting in the Zoox.

There were two demo rides available—a short one just around Resorts World Las Vegas, and a long one all the way up the Las Vegas Strip. Interestingly, our Zoox decided to have a mind of its own and not follow the mapped route; instead, it took us all the way out to Koval Lane. Here is a photograph of the MGM Grand at the intersection of Tropicana Avenue.

When I mentioned this detour to a Zoox staff member after the conclusion of the ride, he said that the system sometimes takes different routes to avoid construction if it knows that it will be stuck in congestion.

Eventually, it found its way back onto Las Vegas Boulevard. The vehicle has a dual-pane sunroof, which acted as a convenient window through which we could see the lights of the Strip.

After about half an hour, the Zoox completed its loop and returned us back to Resorts World.

I found most of the ride to be not too different from what I experienced in a Waymo. However, there were two things that were significantly worse.

First, the headrest is extremely hard. It feels like it is an insanely dense block of foam or something. Not only does it jut out a bit so it feels like your head is leaning forward the entire time, but it is so solid that, if the Zoox ever has to brake hard and your head gets thrown back, it will impact with the foam and probably give you a pretty bad headache. In Waymos, I liked that the headrest was basically just a regular vehicle headrest that was firm enough to give proper support but still soft enough to be comfortable.

Second, the seats do not recline at all. This is a problem for someone like me who gets easily car sick. In Waymos, I’m able to sit in the front passenger seat and recline the seat back pretty far so that I’m in a relaxed, leaned position and my motion sickness is mitigated. However, in the Zoox, I had to sit upright the entire time, and my motion sickness got bad enough near the end that it almost felt like I had to vomit.

Overall, I thought this was a great experience, and I’m glad I was able to participate in the program and volunteer some of my time to test out a new autonomous vehicle. To be clear, I did not get compensated to write this blog post, and I didn’t even receive a special private invitation or anything; I just saw that this was a thing and tried it out along with the rest of the general public.

I don’t know how long this testing phase will stay open, but if you’re on or around the Las Vegas Strip and want to check it out, I think it would serve as a fun way to spend half an hour.

I think this would be especially compelling if you’ve never ridden in a Waymo before. This wasn’t as novel of an experience for me as it could have been because of my plethora of Waymo rides from Phoenix, but I’ve heard from people who have never been in a fully self-driving car before that their first time was pretty surreal.

I mentioned earlier in this blog post that I’m looking to buy an electric pickup truck as my next vehicle. I decided to save this photo for last because it’s not fully relevant to Zoox (apart from the Zoox vehicles also being electric), but I drove a Ford F-150 Lightning as my rental vehicle while I was in Las Vegas.

(For those wondering, the reason I had a rental and didn’t just drive my own personal pickup truck is because I recently flew from Hà Nội to Los Angeles and had a small window of time to head back home to Las Vegas before needing to return to Los Angeles again to attend an event, so instead of driving to Las Vegas, I parked my truck at my friend’s home and flew.)

When I rent vehicles, I always select the pickup truck class because I’m used to driving pickup trucks and feel more comfortable in taller vehicles with better visibility. Luckily for me, apparently Avis just classes all full-size pickup trucks together, regardless of whether they are a basic trim or an EV. I figured this was a good opportunity to test out a Ford F-150 Lightning for the first time, so I specifically asked for it when I went to the rental counter, and the customer service representative gladly fulfilled my request.

The charging infrastructure in the Las Vegas Valley isn’t the best if you don’t have access to the Tesla Supercharger network (which I did not, because the F-150 Lightning rental did not come with a proper adapter to allow me to plug in a Tesla Charging Connector into the currently more common CCS connector for non-Tesla EVs). I ended up having to drive down to the Shell Recharge south of South Point for fast charging, as a majority of other locations I found only had ~7 kW charging rate instead of the full ~180 kW DC. Unfortunately, the price there was pretty expensive, and considering the kilowatt-hours per mile used by the F-150 Lightning, it was barely any cheaper than if I had a gasoline F-150 with an EcoBoost engine.

With that being said, I heard that Tesla is working on making their facilities more universal and friendly to other non-Tesla vehicles as well, and they will allegedly retrofit their stations to have built-in adapters. On top of that, charging technology is only going to get better, so in a handful of years when I’m ready to buy a new pickup truck, I imagine that charging will no longer be much of an issue.

The F-150 Lighting was probably the most stable and smooth ride I’ve ever felt in a pickup truck. I love that the heavy batteries bring the center of gravity down low, so it significantly reduces the chances of a dangerous rollover in the case of a collision, and it overall just makes the vehicle feel more firm and solid. I felt like I could easily take curves faster than my smaller mid-size pickup truck and still not have as much of a sensation of inertia from centripetal force.

If a car rental company has an F-150 Lightning available, I am definitely asking for it again in the future. Once you get the hang of it, charging at a fast charge station isn’t too bad—you plug it into the charger, get back in the vehicle, turn on the air conditioning or heat to stay comfortable (without needing to idle the engine like you would with a gasoline vehicle), plug your laptop into the household outlet that F-150s have, and treat the truck like a little mobile office.

As for Zoox, I’m looking forward to seeing how they iterate on the interior design of their vehicles. Hopefully they implement some more comfort features in the cabin so that I can consider using them on a routine basis without needing to be worried about motion sickness.

 

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Hello, “Glam Menagerie: Surrealist Summer” at the Bellagio Conservatory on the Las Vegas Strip

by   •   Las Vegas
 

I’ve sort of made it a seasonal tradition at this point to go to the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens to capture and upload pictures of their latest installment. Earlier this year, I posted about “Lunar New Year 2025: Year of the Snake” in the winter and “The Birds and the B’s” during the spring.

The Bellagio’s summer installation this year is called “Glam Menagerie: A Surrealist Summer.” I took a quick look at it back in June and July when I had friends visiting Las Vegas, but I didn’t have an opportunity to go through and thoroughly photograph everything until earlier today. I managed to get my visit in with only a day to spare—the installation is closing down at the end of the day tomorrow and will be entering its dark dates for a week while they transition to the autumn collection.

 

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Hello, Kabuto Edomae Sushi in Las Vegas, Nevada

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

After spending a decent and satisfying chunk of time back home in the Las Vegas Valley, my next trip is already underway. Shortly before heading out, I dined at Kabuto Edomae Sushi in the Chinatown neighborhood of the unincorporated town of Spring Valley for one of my last meals in town until my return. I opted for the premium chef’s omakase experience, labeled on their menu as the namesake “Kabuto course.”

The meal began with an assortment of appetizers. Out of these appetizers, the tofu particularly stood out—I think this is the best tofu I’ve ever had in my entire life, and it tasted like they had compacted about five times the normal tofu flavor into a single slice.

Next was the warm dish, chawanmushi. Japanese steamed egg custard is usually the color of scrambled eggs, so it was interesting to see it come out very dark brown.

This was a traditional Japanese omakase experience, so while we were eating, we were able to watch the chefs prepare food for us and the other diners.

The following course was a trio of sashimi. This sashimi was exactly as you’d expect from a high-quality sushi restaurant—thick, fatty, and rich in flavor.

Next up was the seasonal grill item, fish with asparagus and ginger. The fish was remarkably tender and took “melt in your mouth” to a whole new level, while the vegetables had the perfect balance of crunch to add some variety to the texture of the fish.

By this point, the chef had finished preparing the slices of fish for our nigiri.

After finishing our grilled fish, the premium selection of nigiri service began.

Each piece had a very generous portion of fish. It is often considered to be Japanese etiquette to consume each piece of nigiri in one single bite. I managed to do this and get an abundantly pleasurable mouthful of fish each time, but I wouldn’t blame someone if they had a smaller mouth capacity and need to eat each in two bites.

After five pieces of nigiri, we took a quick break for some ikura and uni.

Shortly afterwards, we finished nigiri service with our final few pieces.

The subsequent course was a hand roll. It was just a regular roll with some cuts of tuna belly inside, which we had already eaten earlier during the dinner, but I still appreciated the added variety of style of preparing the items.

As a bonus after the conclusion of the sushi items, we got a prism of tamago. I don’t know if it’s because I just finished eating a large portion of amazing sushi so it was just a matter of bias through comparison, but this tamago was somewhat underwhelming and didn’t taste special at all.

There were two different omakase experiences—the full Kabuto option and the abridged Yoroi option. I saw the chef preparing some more sea urchin and salmon roe, and my guess is that this was for the diners on the opposite side of the sushi bar who had opted for the Yoroi course.

As our second-to-last course, we received clam miso soup. We had an option to pick between mushroom and clam; it’s rare to have a non-vegetable version of miso soup, so I opted for the clam.

To accompany our dessert, we received some tea.

Dessert was an assortment of three sweet and fruity dishes.

All the fruit was explosively packed with flavor. The sweetness also had an interesting phenomenon where it had very high intensity of sweetness, but that intensity didn’t come with any of the usual downsides of excessive sweetness that makes it overwhelming and “too” sweet.

Chef’s premium omakase ×2$ 350.00
Sales tax (8.375%)$  29.31
Gratuity$  50.00
Total$ 429.31
The table to the right shows how much we paid.

I thought this was a very well-rounded traditional Japanese omakase experience that perfectly captured what you’d expect from high-quality Japanese fine dining, both in the cuisine and in the impeccably attentive service.

There was nothing particularly innovative or revolutionary about this dinner, but that’s okay—sometimes you just want a predictable and straightforward Japanese meal, and Kabuto Edomae Sushi satisfyingly fulfills all those checkboxes.

My friend and I were seated at the edge of the sushi bar, which made for a nicer experience—we had an effortless view of all the chefs in the bar area, and it made for a slightly more private meal as a result of not being surrounded by other diners.

With that being said, Kabuto also has regular tables set up behind the sushi bar, and the isolation of those tables from the chefs means that diners seated there will just chatter among themselves. I think I just got unlucky, as there was a particularly loud group of young adults at one of those tables that came in about half an hour into our meal. Hopefully this doesn’t sound too bratty, but I think the omakase diners would have appreciated it if the wait staff asked that group to avoid yelling and keep their voices at a volume suitable for indoor dining in order to maintain the classiness of the environment.

Overall, this was a fantastic experience. Japanese is my favorite type of cuisine, and it was great having this meal be one of the conclusions of my stay before heading out for my next leg of travels. Paying over US$200.00 per person for a meal is a sizeable amount, but if that is within your budget, I think Kabuto Edomae Sushi is a solid option if you’re looking for a great traditional omakase restaurant.

 

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