Just before the pandemic found we nomads last year, about a month before to be precise, we ate dinner in Los Angeles at David Chang's Majordōmo. A memorable meal. We, of course, didn't know it would be one of our last at a fine dining establishment until everyone was brought up to speed on proper precautions while dining out during a pandemic which turned out to be mostly don't. But it was and we're grateful for the experience.

​Fast forward to later March 2021 and we find ourselves in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is, and has been, very low on the must visit and experience list for a very long time. I'm not a gambler, at least not when it comes to the many and varied games of chance to be found in Vegas and traveling full time in a 25' van notwithstanding.

Hoping to explore some of Utah (one of the last states we've not traveled to in Miranda) soon, we headed north a few days ago out of Desert Hot Springs, California planning on spending a few quiet days off the grid in Mojave National Preserve about a mile off Interstate 15. When we arrived at the point where we and Miranda were to leave the road and travel to the designated campsite on a desert dirt road, the sand and road conditions were deemed by Melanie and me to be too dicey for Miranda to try. 

We punted and traveled on to the nearest town of size on our preferred path towards Utah, Las Vegas.

A few weeks back we tried lunch on the strip in Vegas and were stymied by lack of parking. We had just had Miranda's door repaired.  This time through, Melanie wanted to book a dinner reservation. Momofuku was her choice.

Since, as mentioned, there's no place to park Miranda nearby the strip in Vegas and since Uber has become costly (last night's round trip from our location near Sam's Town would have been nearly $30.00) we took an RTC bus on the advice of a nice person at the KOA desk where we're staying. Nice ride, $10.00 round trip.

I'm relatively new to good Ramen, but have become a quick fan. When we were in Pasadena, California in January of 2020, we dined at Ramen Tatsunoya, and loved it so much we ate there a few times. Tatsunoya became our standard for Ramen going forward though we also had good Ramen in Summit, New Jersey at Ani Ramen (thanks, Diana).

So last evening as I glanced at the menu over a very nice Hendricks martini, I spotted my dinner pretty quickly, the Spicy Miso Ramen. I added pork belly to the braised short ribs that comes with it. Melanie had Duck Paitan Ramen.

We agreed that David Chang's ramen is slightly superior to Tatsunoya and Ani. The stocks for the ramen are sublime and the meats are very well prepared too. We started with half dozen oysters and Popcorn Octopus both delicious. Great meal, great ambiance. And I got to see Vegas at night. It's eye candy for the television generations, no doubt.

We arrived in Palm Desert, California from San Diego hungry and a bit early to check into our RV Park in Desert Hot Springs. Cafe Des Beaux-Arts was the perfect spot for a very tasty lunch.