Bar Belle from 6/18/08 LEO Weekly

BY SARA HAVENS

Vegas vacation
Vegas is my kind of city — with free drinks and 24-hour buffets, you can’t really go wrong, unless you actually go to gamble. I’m one of those people who screw the system, but I’m OK with it. I can sleep at night. I’ll stick $10 in a machine just as the waitress is passing, get my free cocktail and then cash out. I just got back from Vegas last week and am unhappy to report that the casinos are cutting down on free cocktails, it seems. They’ve got fewer waitresses (at least in the nickel-slot areas), some no longer offer top-shelf liquors and some, like the Wynn, don’t offer free cocktails at all.

I still had a fun time, though. Met Elvis, saw Barbra Streisand dealing black jack and ate at the Pink Taco. Really. And when I accidentally set my top-shelf margarita (free Patron tastes even better!) on the video poker “Max Bet” button while sitting at the bar, I actually won $36. So maybe this gambling thing isn’t bad after all.

Sunny and soused!
As the temperature rises, so does my thirst for margaritas. I’d argue it’s one of the best summer drinks, second only to the mojito. Just as a Bloody Mary keeps you warm and fed in the wintertime, a margarita keeps you chilled and stripped of clothing in the summer. There’s a certain risk we all take in ingesting the salty cactus sap that is tequila, and that makes it all the more fun. I recently stumbled (literally) across two upstanding Louisville restaurants that offer great margarita specials, and by great, I mean you can taste tequila. El Mundo (2345 Frankfort Ave., 899-9930) in Clifton offers strong-ass $3 margs on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Seviche (1538 Bardstown Road, 473-8560) has them for $2 on Sundays. They’re best served on the rocks, with salt and lime. And don’t even ask for flavors, that’s not how we roll. Olé!

Tell me about more drink specials at shavens@leoweekly.com or leobarbelle.blogspot.com