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The Hash House a Go Go is an off-strip joint that has had somewhat of a cult following for many years, and late last year they finally opened a restaurant inside of the Imperial Palace.

The far-flung location of this eatery (Rainbow and Sahara) has always prevented me from becoming a routine patron of the establishment, but its new location mid-Strip allowed me to finally get around to giving it a fair shot.

This morning, I happened to be out and about by myself when hunger struck, and I’ve always felt that eating solo was highly underrated.   I never really caught on to the eating-as-a-social event thing.  Why do people get together to talk at the precise moment they plan on having food in their mouths?  It’s kind of like going to the proctologist after downing a full bar of Ex-Lax.  When I eat, I don’t like to talk, I like to read … or possibly think.  The last thing in the world I want to do is carry on a conversation.  I’m very much an eater that prefers to be left alone.

The only drawback to eating solo is that everyone else in the restaurant looks at you with pity and assumes that you are a loser, and I am a loser which I’ve fully accepted.

This being the case, I ascended the escalator to the Hash House, and asked the seating guy (host? I don’t know what their title is) for a table for one.  He looked at me quizzically and said “one?”, as if I couldn’t possibly be serious.

“Yes, I will be eating alone”, I replied.

He seemed to have a combination of sympathy and amusement, but fortunately, losers go to the head of the line in this town.  Just ask Steve Wynn.  I was led past a line of waiting social eaters needing larger tables, and I was seated immediately.

About 10 minutes later my waitress came by, took my order, and said “this is going to take awhile, we are backed up”.

I looked around at a plethora of empty tables, and said “uh, ok”.

Having been warned that it might take awhile, I pulled out my 13″ and also pulled out my laptop.  That’s right folks, a dick joke … I’ll be here all week.  I set it on the table (my pecker that is), fired up my 4G modem, and proceeded to … do nothing.

Apparently, the Hash House is in the nuclear core of the Imperial Palace.  Nothing can penetrate it, especially wireless signals.  It wasn’t just 4G, even the 3G on my CrackBerry rolled back to 1x standard data with zero bars.

Fortunately, my computer picked up a Wi-Fi signal named “Hash House”.  Score one for me.  I clicked the SSID, and once again proceeded to do nothing.  It required a WEP password.  I summoned the guy who shows people to their seats for a living, and asked him how I could grab an IP address on their network.

He looked at me as if I had just asked for permission to cornhole his sister, and said “You can’t, it’s not for customers.”

Well f*ck me in the ear.

That’s what I get for roaming the Vegas Strip with uppity 21st century expectations.

I was half expecting the waitress to bring me raw food served with two rocks.  That way if I was one of “those guys” who ate things cooked, I could bang them together and make fire.

With long waits, they absolutely need to put Wi-Fi in the joint.  It’s already a quasi-hipster place, so a complete lack of connectivity is inexcusable.

It’s not just the Hash House’s fault, though.  As much as I like and depend on Clearwire, their building penetration is for shit.  Planet Hollywood and Aria are also dead spots unless you go to the roof and sit on a ledge.

I digress.

After sprouting three gray hairs and watching my driver’s license expire, my food finally arrived.  The cook brought it out himself, and for some reason, he stuck a tree in my biscuit.  I thanked him, but I contemplated the tree for awhile.  What in the hell was I supposed to do with the thing?  Take it home, decorate it, and put presents under it?  Gnaw it in half and build a dam?  Why was it in my biscuit of all places?

Again, this was probably my fault.  When I ordered my food, I didn’t say not to put a tree in it, so that could be construed as tacit consent.

I threw the tree aside, started eating, and found it to be decent food … albeit very “potato-y”.  It was the Hash with Chorizo and Jalepenos.  If I had to describe this particular dish, it would be a baked potato topped with meatloaf.  The potatoes were not really scrambled, rather, one potato had been cut into about 16 pieces.  I have never had this type of “heavy, full-potato hash” before, and while it was tasty, it was way too filling for me.  I thumbed my nose at the starving kids in China, and only finished about half of it.

The eggs were, well, eggs, but the thing that stood out most was the homemade strawberry jam that they had also put on the table.  It was very good dripped over the biscuit.

Now, as one who looks at value propositions, I realized that what I was eating was “inexpensive food served attractively”.  One would be hard-pressed to find a less expensive food product than the modest potato, but it wasn’t like I was paying the highest device markup in the industry by buying an iPhone.  That would just be silly.  “But I’m paying for the eeeekooosisssstemm” shutup douchebnevermind.

Anyway, I finished up, yammered with my waitress for a couple of minutes, and then headed down into the bowels of the IP.

The entire meal was $14, or $20 with tip.  This is not bad for a meal on The Strip.

So, now I’ve eaten at the new Strip Hash House a Go Go, and it’s not bad.

While my personal waitress was very cool, like the rest of Las Vegas, they do have some service issues to address.

An hour wait is not good for the customer, and is not something that a casino will appreciate.  We cut short Broadway shows in this town to keep people gambling, and it hardly seems rational to hold them longer than that for eggs and potatoes.

It would also be nice if they didn’t tease people with Wi-fi, and then act like you are trying to get one over if you try to access it.  I could have pulled up my favorite website and rubbed a few out during my wait.  This may have put me in a better mood … although I may have fallen asleep on the table.  Prolactin is a cruel joke that mother nature plays on the human male.

I’m still kind of partial to the Peppermill for my obesity endeavors, however. It’s easier to get in and out, it’s a bit friendlier, and it has a familiarity thing going on.  They have a seafood omelette that I eat regularly, and I can also get a wireless signal for every device I have.

However, my criteria may not be the same as everyone else’s.

The Hash House is a worthy addition to The Strip, and it seems to be a good fit for the target demographic of the Imperial Palace.

The “Go Go” in the name is a bit ironic, however.

Trust me, if you take a seat in the Hash House, you’re not “going going” anywhere for a very long time.

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