Terminal 3

It had been over 5 years since my last trip to Las Vegas, and over 9 years since A's last visit, so when we exited the plane at McCarran Airport, we were both surprised. It was so spacious, bright and new. Where were the old gates with the dingy colors and old slot machines? This new terminal was really nice.

Since we had some time before hotel check-in, we decided to get a snack from the small food court near our gate, which had a Burger King, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Pei Wei Asian Diner.

A got his caffeine addiction fix at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, which offered a nice Costa Rican blend. Costa Rica is his favorite blend from CBTL so he was pleasantly surprised to find it available while in Vegas, even if it was more expensive than in NYC.

We also got some food from Burger King, after taking a look at Pei Wei (a place we had seen in other cities but had never tried) and not finding anything we really wanted.

I snacked on my usual onion rings.

Unlike some of the Burger Kings at home, these were nice and crispy, so they were a good snack.  I hope Burger King never gets rid of the onion rings, because it's nice to have an alternative to fries.  I just wish they would serve (non-sweet) curly fries here in the US like they do in Europe.

A also got a Whopper Jr.

The burger was fine, about the same as it is at any other outlet.  A doesn't really like going for fast food burgers at the big chains, but when that's the only real option, a Whopper/Whopper Jr is one of the better choices.

We were planning to eat a "real" lunch once we had checked in to our hotel, but we needed this quick snack to tide us over until then, since it was already late afternoon in NYC and all we had each eaten was half a sandwich and piece of chocolate.  Not the most exciting meal but Terminal 3 doesn't have a ton of options (something we'll touch on a little later when we recap our return trip) and most of them are chains you can get in any city or any airport.  But I guess it's not that surprising considering that many of the popular Vegas restaurants on the Strip are imports from elsewhere as well.