Roy Choi's Best Friend Restaurant

 Las Vegas, NV

Roy Choi S My Best Friend!

Revisiting Good Eats

Today we rode The Deuce to Park MGM for a 5pm dinner reservation (that's what you do when you are retired, you make dinner reservations at 5pm).  It's about a 3.5 mile journey and takes 45 minutes.  The Deuce slowly works its way up and down the Las Vegas Strip providing rides, for a fee, to locals and tourists a like.  It mostly stays in the slow lane so it has to wait for streams of cars entering and exiting resorts while pedestrians cross the parking entrance lanes. The Strip is one big hot mess when it comes to traffic so you have to enter a Zen like mode when you get on The Deuce.  Being retired and not needing to be anywhere helps.  Having a month to explore Las Vegas rather than a long weekend really helps.  When you ride the Deuce you can sit on the bottom or top floor like those iconic busses in London. We have ridden it a few times this trip and both floors are usually packed.  While riding you can watch the scenery go by slowly and listen to tourists name off things as they see them out of the window and talk about how they get an itchy throat when they are, "warn down".  If you're lucky you can even listen to tourists talk about having to go back to work when they get back home.  This trip we sat behind a guy video chatting with his child showing the child the sights as the bus went by them.  He was sitting in the isle seat and the person in the window seat was very patient with him as he thrust his phone towards the window and almost in front of his face to show his child The Bellagio.

We arrived at Park MGM about an hour and a half before our reservation.  We wanted to give enough time to get there and enough time to get an Amaro or a few Amari at the Amaro Bar in Eatily which is also in the Park MGM.

As an LA Kings Hockey Fan I approve this depiction of a Las Vegas Golden Knights.

We were happy to see that the Amaro bar we went to December '21 was still open.  We had looked online and couldn't find any info on it.

We were also happy to see the same server was there to serve us.  He was great at giving recommendations.  I asked for a less sweet, more herbaceous, and possibly piney tasting Amari and he delivered.

We weren't there to break the bank on Amaro, we shared 3 pours and then walked around checking out what new things were going on at Park MGM.  

I made friends with the local wildlife

We saw the El Jefe Chef Truck from Chef The Movie and The Chef Show.  I love both of those

They had the great miniature that was either the one used in the series or a replica.  Either way it looked great.

The 2nd miniature had a cool mirror effect that showed the inside and made it look much larger than the inside could have been.  It was a really cool effect.

The third miniature had the back open and a video playing with the same mirror effect.  It was really really cool.

We went gaga over the Lady Gaga displays

We gasped at the $119 bottle of non alcoholic distilled spirit for sale.

We took photos of cool looking bars that weren't open yet.

Winner winner chicken dinner!

As our reservation time approached we walked over to Roy Choi's Best Friend and got in line.  They reserve some walkups each night so there was a bit of a line forming when we got there.

The front of the restaurant is dressed up like a convivence store

They sell retro looking merchandise

Donna checked us in and we were directed to our 2nd line of the evening.  I say line but it was really about 8 people or 3 or 4 groups.  We didn't wait very long.

There is a bar in the front area too.

Roy Choi got his start in LA with a Mexican/Korean fusion food truck called Kogi.  The restaurant is themed with imagery from LA.

We sat down and service was great.  We had already decided to get the The Chef Menu.  It has a nice selection of things from the menu.  The only catch is the whole table has to get it.  Happily we can agree on stuff easily.  It was a unanimous vote.

Donna double checks the menu to make sure there weren't any last minute changes.

I posed with the water so Donna could take an action photo.  You need to stay hydrated.

The Kogi Tacos are the star of the show IMHO.  These are the things that made Roy famous and they taste way better than you can imagine by just looking at them.  I too would chase a food truck around LA to be able to eat these.

When the kimchi fried rice came I was happy to break the egg and stir things up.

The meal started with banchan, a selection of picked and seasoned sides.  We love banchan and it met our expectations.

The slipper shrimp was so good.  The shrimp were lightly fried and then coated in a spicy mayo sauce.  When we were done I wanted to jokingly remind the waiter that we ordered two Chef Menus so we could get another plate.

Donna patiently waits while I take a photo of the Kalbi Ribs and Teriyaki Chicken.  Both were fantastic with our kimchi fried rice.

The meal also came with a date cake dessert that we didn't take a photo of.  Big Fail I know.  Instead enjoy this shot of us leaving Best Friend with our dog bag of rice and meat that we will eat for breakfast.

It was a great dinner and we might even go back once again before we leave.  It's a little pricy but totally worth it in our opinion.  Our bus ride home was just as interesting as our ride there.  It was slow and there were plenty of tourists and locals talking about interesting and non-interesting things.

Tow of the more fun things heard on the bus on the way home were, "Vegas, 1 vacation for the price of 3!" and a woman on the top section of the bus talking to someone on the bottom section of the bus over the phone, trying to organize sitting together by saying stuff like, "let me know if two seats open up," and "You could come up here and sit on my knee, I am not sure if you would be embarrassed by that or not."

That's it for today.  If you missed, A New Pinball Tournament Format in Las Vegas, check it out.  It was an exciting night.