Day 356: Freemont Street

My bus got into Las Vegas in the afternoon. Instead of staying on the more recently developed Strip I was downtown on Freemont Street. Freemont Street is the old part of Las Vegas where the original, mob-run casinos were, and now it's largely filled with bars and casinos that are a bit less extreme than the famous Strip ones. The afternoon desert heat was quite nice after the chill of San Francisco and after walking down the street, out far past where anything truly touristy was, to drop off my things at my hostel I explored around downtown a bit more.


Also now on Freemont Street is the (in)famous Heart Attack Grill, where I went for dinner. Heart Attack Grill has become famous on serving some of the most unhealthy food in the world, and making a point to take pride in just how unhealthy it is. If the name wasn't enough of a clue, the staff are dressed as doctors and nurses, and they put a paper hospital gown on your when you step in, just to drive the theme home. There's a scale out front of the restaurant for people to weigh themselves, because the restaurant has a standing offer that if you weigh 350lbs or more, you get to eat for free.

The quadruple-bypass burger has a world record for the most calories in a burger - about 10,000. Even worse, in the menu there's an 8-layer octo-bypass burger. If you get the burgers with bacon they add 5 strips per level, so that's 40 pieces of bacon just added on top. I kept things reasonable by only getting a double-bypass burger, without bacon, and a coke instead of their butterfat shake. I've probably regressed somewhat in health since leaving Asia, but I'm not looking to reverse a year of constant exercise quite so easily. It was delicious, but I'm glad the restaurant is in a place that I won't be visiting often.