Odds 'n' Sods (another pizza post)

First off, I'd like to say that I had the great pleasure of meeting long-time reader of this blog and T2V member "Jamie in PA" and her husband at my craps table the other day. She was an absolute delight to deal to, was very generous in her dealer tips, and made my work-day much better than it had been going! Thanks again Jamie, come back anytime!!

Last Thursday Danielle and I decided to do something that we'd been putting off for months now but just needed to get done! She's lived here in Vegas for about 8 years now, but has NEVER been up to the top of the Stratosphere. So I decided to finally get her up that thing and we played tourist for the night. However, first we needed a place to eat. The night before, she mentioned something about feeling like some pizza and threw out the idea of going to someplace called the California Pizza Kitchen, or something like that. But the name itself immediately made me picture a bunch of surfers sitting around a table eating pizza made of wheat dough and topped with bean sprouts! So I talked her into trying out the Chicago Brewing Company seeing as how it is right near where she works near Summerlin and it has been extremely hyped up by Mikey as being the next best thing aside from Grimaldi's!

I drove up and met her there near the intersection of Sahara and Fort Apache. Below are a few pictures.

The atmosphere was pretty nice and not pictured was a great little outdoor patio area that we probably would have requested if we'd known about it ahead of time.

I purchased and imbibed one microbrew. This was blueberry-vanilla wheat. It was pretty good, but not the greatest. What I look for in a fruity microbrew is that the fruity sweetness doesn't knock my socks off right away, but only as a subtle aftertaste. This was a pretty decent attempt, but doesn't come close to Main Street Station's Strawberry Cream Ale. I wish I could give more insight on Chicago's other brews, but I was driving so I just had this one.

These are the garlic knots, or as Mikey has referred to them, "garlic donuts". They were awesome!

Chicago Brewing Company's attempt at deep-dish.

Amore's attempt at deep dish.

Overall, it was a pretty nice experience. The service was good. The atmosphere was nice. The beer was good. The pizza was good and the garlic knots were excellent. It was all just "pretty good", not great or amazing by any means. If I lived in that area of town I could definitely see myself frequenting it once every 2 months or so, but I can't bring myself to say I'd go out of my way and make a special trip when better pizza is found closer to home (I guess that's a little unfair seeing as how I live within WALKING DISTANCE to Grimaldi's).

I guess the small let-down for me was the pizza itself. That's why I included Amore's pie above because I simply like Amore's attempt way better than Chicago's. Since anyplace "worth its salt" that has the word "Chicago" in it BETTER make a good deep dish pie, that's what I went for. Like Amore's, I ordered the deep dish with only one topping, homemade sausage. The sausage was very good indeed, but Amore's sauce has a distinctive sweetness to it that I didn't find in the Chicago's sauce. It just seemed like Chicago's had a very small hint of "chain-pizza" to it....something I couldn't really put my finger on, but it was there.

In case you are not familiar with Amore's, click here to see my other pics of the place. It's located on Durango just north of Flamingo.

Anyway, after dinner we drove down to the Strat and went up to enjoy the view for an hour or two. Curiously, we got a $3 discount each for being Nevada residents, which I had not remembered seeing in my previous trips. Below are a couple pics from my camera phone. Obviously, the phone can't really do the view justice. But I seem to remember liking the view of the Strip better a few years ago when the Stardust was still around, the construction of the City Center wasn't there to be an eyesore, and that stuff being built to block the Venetian/Wynn area wasn't there. Maybe when all that construction is finished it'll be a much better view, but maybe I'm just jaded a little since I've been up there a few times now. Danielle, seeing it all for the first time, was obviously very impressed!!