Eating touristy Mexican on the Las Vegas Strip
Las Vegas is absolutely jam packed with dining options, but when when looking for a fast, affordable bite right on the strip, it can be fun to stop on a whim when something catches your eye.
We were surprised to find ourselves gravitating to touristy Mexican spots along the strip for a quick, cheap meal and a cheesy vacation drink or two. This may have been the power of suggestion as everyone and their grandma is walking around with a giant margarita in their hand (present company included, how could I resist?).We tried three Mexican restaurants on the strip, chosen on a whim as we walked by and were pleasantly surprised each time.
La Salsa
La Salsa has four locations on the Strip, priding themselves on authentic made-to-order Mexican fare and ‘by-the-yard Margaritas’ (modelled in front of the restaurant by me). We stopped in at the location beside the M&M store across from the New York New York casino, lured in by a tasty aroma of sizzling steak and a sign advertising 2 for 1 Coronas.
The staff at La Salsa were all friendly, attentive and cheerful. Our server Javier was great, rushing chips, salsa and Coronas to our table with lightning-fast speed. My husband and I decided to share a fajita platter and were humming and hawwing over steak versus chicken when Javier suggested a combo of both. Perfect, and the size of one entree was plenty for two people.
While I wouldn’t call this the best Mexican I’ve ever eaten, I will say that everything tasted fresh and well-flavoured. The staff also won my heart by coming by to check if we needed more tortillas – nothing more irritating than piles of fajita fixings and not enough tortillas.
La Salsa has an on-site magician who goes table to table doing card tricks. He was mildly amusing, although unfortunatly the funniest part of his act for me was that he thought my name was Wynn, not Gwen and raved about what a beautiful name it was. He had a few not bad card tricks and an entertaining customer banter but I was mainly focused on my fajita.
After our meal, we decided to get a signature By-The-Yard margarita to go. Javier pleasantly up-sold us to a Patron Tequila margarita on ice and it was worth the extra few $. Hey – it’s a yard of margarita, it better taste good.
Diablos Cantina
Another stop on a whim was to Diablos Cantina, this time lured in by a sign for their $9 taco special and the fact that I couldn’t walk another step. Located directly on the strip in front of the Monte Carlo Casino, Diablos is a two story restaurant bar with loud music and not bad food.
We ordered the Steak Tacos special, once again to share as we weren’t that hungry, and a two pints of draft Dos Equis. Here, of course, is how they get you on the strip. The two tacos, stuffed with steak, grilled peppers and onions, with black beans and rice on the side and all the tasty taco toppings including guacamole = $9. One pint of beer = $8. Yes, your drinks will out-cost your meal by a long shot.
Travel note: I was somewhat irritated to walk by Diablos a few days later and be handed a $3 pint coupon for the restaurant, so keep your eye out for the guys out front trying to lure you in with coupons if you want to reduce the price of your bill. Second travel note: make sure the coupon guy is yelling Diablos and not Girls, Girls, Girls…
The music was blaring the entire time we were at Diablos, but it was good music, and we were sitting in the front area which is open to the strip just below, a fun place to watch the Vegas masses. The food was good enough that I’d come here again, and pretty reasonable for right on the strip.
Chipotle Mexican Grill
On our last night in Vegas we decided to skip going out for a romantic dinner in favour of a Texas Hold-em Tournament at The Aria (hey, you poker people understand), and afterwards started looking for a take-out place to grab something to eat back at the hotel while we packed our bags.
Not surprising, it’s difficult to find a take-out place on the strip unless you know what you are looking for, but we happened upon Chipotle Mexican Grill on our way past Harrah’s. This national chain had three things going for it immediately – it was cheap, it all looked good and we could get it for take-out.
We ordered two burritos (insanely affordable at $6.50 each) and two orders of chips and salsa ($2.50 each). The burritos are made-to-order with lots of tasty-looking ingredients and the sheer size and weight of one is impressive at about a pound each. I found my shredded pork burrito a little dry and bland, would probably spring for extra salsa next time, but overall well worth the cheap price, and really two meals worth of food. Unless you are really hungry I would say one of these would feed two people easily.
The star of our Chipotle take-out was the crazily inexpensive chips and salsa. The chips come in a cute brown paper bag and you can choose from four different kinds of salsa. The chips are made fresh every day and flavoured with a hint of lime and kosher salt. They are completely addicting and I will definitely be back in the future to grab a bag of these to eat with my ‘walking down the strip’ margarita.
Although Vegas is known for its amazing fine dining, and I can’t wait to get my hands on Hubert Keller’s tasting menu, I had a really good time stopping on a whim at some touristy Vegas Mexican restaurants. We ate some affordable, tasty food along the way, saving the big bucks for a splurge dinner another time.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Food, Las Vegas, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.