There is a specific kind of tiredness that only Las Vegas produces. By day three of the trade show I had to get out.
There is a specific kind of tiredness that only Las Vegas produces. You walk what feels like miles between sessions. You get into another cab for another dinner at another venue that looks exactly like the last one. The bells and dings never stop. And somehow, despite the constant visual assault, the whole thing becomes boring. Overstimulation and boredom should not be able to coexist, but in Vegas they do.
By day three of the trade show I had to get out.
It is easy to forget, when you are deep inside the casino floor, that more than two million people live in Las Vegas in places that are not casinos. They have neighborhoods. They have streets where nothing is trying to separate them from their money. So I got in a cab and went to the Arts District.
The Arts District feels like a small southwestern town that has gently wandered into the wrong address. There is a main street with low storefronts, restaurants with sidewalk seating, and an almost unreasonable number of vintage clothing stores. Look one way down the street and you could be in New Mexico. Look the other way and the Strat spire is poking up above the roofline, reminding you where you actually are.
I had booked a table at Esther's Kitchen, about fifteen minutes from the convention center.
Main Street, Arts District · The Strat in the distance
Esther's is on a corner, and the thing I noticed first, before the menu, before the music, before anything, was the windows. Big ones, on two sides, pouring in actual daylight. Casinos, of course, do not have windows. They are engineered not to. You can spend seventy-two hours inside one and never know what the sky is doing, which is the point. Sitting down at a table with sunlight on it felt like my brain coming back online. I had forgotten what afternoon looked like. The Replacements were playing quietly in the background, which I took as a good sign, and I settled in.
It is an Italian place. Fresh pastas, sourdough pizzas, a few Italian-leaning sandwiches. The kind of menu where you can tell the kitchen actually cares.
I started with the anchovy butter, which arrived with their sourdough. The bread was fresh. The butter was whipped, European-style. The anchovies did exactly what good anchovies do. I realize anchovies are not for everyone. My mother is Norwegian, so a taste for canned fish is basically in my DNA, and these were good ones.
The cacio e pepe was tempting. The rigatoni carbonara was more tempting. But I also knew that a bowl of pasta at lunch was going to turn the rest of my afternoon into a slog, and I still had breakout sessions to sit through. So I ordered the roast porchetta sandwich, served with an au jus.
It was exactly right. Bright from pickled chiles and broccoli rabe, rich from the pork, held together by bread that could take the beating. I drank a glass of light red wine and for about forty-five minutes I was not at a trade show.
That was the whole point. A good meal, a walk on a nice day, a few hours of feeling like a person again. The Arts District is going on my rotation. Esther's is going on the list of places I come back to. Next time I will be here for dinner, and next time I am getting the pasta.
