Vegas With a French Twist

The wife wasn’t fooled for a moment when I told her I was taking her to Paris for a romantic weekend. She’d seen the TV commercials, too, and knew that I didn’t have to take her to France to enjoy some of its trappings. Besides, I couldn’t afford to cross the pond. C’est la vie.

But this Paris is so convenient. You cross an ocean of sand, drive past a pyramid and Monte Carlo, and before you get to the Roman statuary or the Venetian canals, turn right at the Eiffel Towerette.

Welcome to Paris Las Vegas, the newest bonbon in a town that embraces the sublime and the ridiculous, and where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell what’s real faux and what’s fo’ real.

On this Friday afternoon, we pulled into the traffic circle around L’Arc de Triomphe and were greeted immediately by frisky valets, ready to thrust their French on us. “Bonjour, monsieur!” said one, impressively. “Nice,” I said. “Thanks--uh, merci!”

Another valet joined us. “Bienvenue!” she said warmly. “Very nice,” I said, congratulating her on her mastery of the language. “Where are you from?”

“France,” she said. “Really.”

And that would be the challenge and fun of this weekend, wondering what was authentically French and what wasn’t, given that we’d never been to France and would be suckers for all of it.

We started with the French accents. “You have to work the back of your mouth,” said a security officer looking smart in his gendarme uniform. “I was in the military overseas, so I learned accents. This one took me about 30 minutes to nail.”

The weekend would play out like a language tape, everyone greeting us in French and echoing immediately in English. “Bonsoir, monsieur. Good evening, sir.” “A biento^t, see you later!”

Check-in was efficient and courteous. As a matter of fact, everyone on the staff we encountered that weekend--servers and busboys, maids and security--was effervescently polite. Paris must be the friendliest place on the planet!

The room was a comfortable size, and for this price range ($199 on that weekend), the amenities were appropriate: French soaps in the marble-tile bathroom, and handsome furnishings including an armoire. There was, however, no separate vanity area nor an in-room refrigerator, so we used our ice chest for drinks. As requested, our room had a view of the pool and the half-scale Eiffel Tower, well worth the $20-per-day premium.

The 2,916-room Paris Las Vegas, which opened Sept. 1, is owned by Park Place Entertainment Corp., which also owns Bally’s, Caesars Palace, the Flamingo Hilton and the Las Vegas Hilton. The $760-million Paris Las Vegas is positioned to compete against middle-tier luxury casinos such as the Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Treasure Island and New York-New York.

Paris offers a multitude of dining opportunities; we made our Friday evening reservations for La Rotisserie des Artistes, a large and elegant two-level dining room with a full view of the open kitchen. How authentic was this French restaurant? Jeanne put it to the test by checking the bottom of the china, and she smiled: It was Limoges.

We started dinner with warmed asparagus and sauteed scallops; Jeanne selected one of the five salad offerings (the soft-poached quail egg stands out in my mind), and I had split pea soup. For main courses: the house specialty, cuisse de veau ro^ti (leg of veal) for me, and carre d’agneau aux herbes (rack of lamb) for Jeanne. We finished with creme bru^lee and coconut parfait. The quality of the food was excelled only by the attentiveness and friendliness of servers.

For Friday night fun, we had planned to take in Paris’ show, French Canadian illusionist Alain Choquette (through Dec. 20), but weren’t told when we made our reservations that he was off that weekend. So we abandoned Paris for the Riviera’s quintessential faux show--the irreverent female impersonators at La Cage.

Saturday morning I headed down to Le Boulevard, the hotel’s retail walkway in the guise of a French village. Over a pastry and coffee, I settled at a sidewalk table and watched the accordion player over here, the mime over there, and right down the middle of the boulevard, half a dozen bakers delicately carrying a 6-foot-high cake. They all looked friendly, and I thought again how wonderfully polite Parisians must be.

Saturday afternoon we ate at the hotel’s coffee shop (Le Cafe Ile St. Louis). The server said the eggs Benedict were the finest on the continent, and Jeanne would agree, though the yolks were runny. I had a ham-and-cheese sandwich with, uh, Dijon.

We spent the afternoon exploring the hotel’s nooks and crannies and admiring its architectural features. In front, one sees a facade of the Louvre and the Opera; the style of the 34-story hotel tower is taken from the Ho^tel de Ville.

We strolled through the gift stores, followed Le Boulevard all the way into the Bally’s casino and returned to Paris’ gaming room, where, playing the quarter slots, we walked away with significant winnings. Oh, how wonderful Paris must be!

We had made late-night reservations for the hotel’s premier dining room, the Eiffel Tower Restaurant, so we would have time for another Parisian-style show--Folies Bergere at the Tropicana, Las Vegas’ longest-running show.

Jeanne, however, had been complaining after lunch about feeling nauseated, and shortly into the show, she excused herself and took a cab back to the hotel. This would effectively mark the end of our romantic weekend, but she insisted that I carry on stag because she was in no condition to leave early for home. Nor did she want any company in the hotel room.

The prospect of dinner alone was sad, but I kept our reservation for the Eiffel Tower Restaurant.

The dining room is on the 11th floor of the tower. Diners holding reservations reach it by an elevator that opens onto a full view of the kitchen. The menu was nouveau French, and I settled for the simplest: a tomato-onion-Roquefort salad, and a filet mignon with truffle pudding. To the server’s horror, the steak was overcooked, but I was too tired for a redux. I had coveted Jeanne’s creme bru^lee Friday night; now I could have my own.

The restaurant’s most compelling feature was not its food but its elevated panorama of the Strip and its neighbor across the street, the lovely Bellagio and its fountains.

If it’s view that you’re after, spend the $8 for the glass-elevator ride up the Eiffel Tower to the cage-enclosed observation deck, 45 stories above the street.

Sunday morning, Jeanne waved me off to Le Village for the champagne brunch buffet, which must be one of the finest in all of France--er, Vegas. The ambience was delightful, akin to dining outdoors in a town square, and the food was grand: Alaskan crab legs, prime rib, jumbo prawns, custom omelets and all the pastries, fruit and cheeses you could expect.

At one station I indulged in a strawberry crepe covered with mango sauce, whipped cream, maple-sugar pecans, shaved almonds, coconut and powdered sugar.

Then, for dessert, I had a chocolate eclair and bananas Foster.

Back in our hotel room, I told Jeanne all about it, and she said she felt ill again.

C’est la vie.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Budget for Two

Gas: $27.36

Paris Las Vegas, view room, two nights: 433.82

Dinner, La Rotisserie: 139.47

La Cage: 72.66

Saturday, pastry and coffee (for one): 4.95

Saturday lunch, Cafe Ile St. Louis: 27.01

Folies Bergere: 119.50

Dinner, Eiffel Tower Restaurant (for one): 88.51

Eiffel Tower tour (for one): 8.00

Sunday brunch buffet (for one): 23.54

Valet tips: 10.00

FINAL TAB: $954.82

Paris Las Vegas, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Las Vegas, NV 89109; tel. (888) BONJOUR (266-5687).

*

Tom Gorman is chief of The Times’ Inland Empire Bureau.