Las Vegas: A New Hotel, A Rush of Adrenaline and Cool New Food and Entertainment

The folks at SunBuggy Fun Rentals offer guided dune buggy rides through the desert east of downtown Las Vegas. You'll bounce and roll over trails in a 15,000 acre area filled with rocky scrub, dun-coloured sand dunes and white-walled canyons as you go. It can be a little warm in summer but the rest of the year is great for a dune buggy ride in Nevada.

Estiatorio Milos is a wonderful Greek restaurant at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. It was started in Montreal by chef Costas Spiliadis, who now has restaurants around the world. The seafood is flown in overnight from Europe and the enormous, ripe tomatoes from California. A fresh concept with a lovely atmosphere.

Matt Goss is a fabulous British entertainer who recently opened a show at The Mirage Hotel. He does a great job on numbers from the likes of Frank Sinatra but also sings his own tunes and does great renditions of tunes from The Eagles, Alicia Keys and others. The band swings like nobody's business, too. And the showgirls aren't bad, either.

The spa at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas is a sanctuary of quiet and relaxation. I had a fabulous massage with oil scented with desert fragrances such as sage and juniper and cedar that relaxed muscles I didn't even know I had. The hotel swimming pool includes lovely cabanas and a waterfall. There's no casino on site but guests are just a short walk to the gaming action (and restaurants and other facilities) at Mandalay Bay.

The burrata at Buddy V's is nestled onto colourful heirloom tomatoes and served with a drizzle of balsamic. The restaurant is located at the fantastic Venetian Resort on the Vegas Strip. They also serve a remarkable rigatoni alla vodka and other great dishes. Nice wine list, too.

Just about everyone in Vegas this week was talking about their NHL team, the Golden Knights. The Knights swept the L.A. Kings in the first round of the playoffs, an unprecedented act for a major league team in its first year of operation. Who would've thought that Sin City would turn into Hockey Town West?

Pole Position is a splendid spot where you can race electric go-karts that go up to75 km and hour. It's a ton of fun and a great activity on a hot or one of those rare rainy days in Vegas. They also have private rooms for parties and a second location in suburban Las Vegas, with similar features but a different driving layout.

WOW (World of Wonder) is a relatively new entertainment extravaganza at the Rio in Vegas. Water is featured in a large portion of the act, which takes place in front of high-tech LED displays that change constantly. The show is highly entertaining and features everything from a woman firing a crossbow to roller skaters, a Titanic-themed dance number and the kind of wild acrobatics one has come to expect in Las Vegas.

Hell's Kitchen is a magnificent restaurant run by celebrity chef and TV personality Gordon Ramsay. It's located directly on Las Vegas Boulevard in front of Caesar's Palace. The pineapple carpaccio comes on top of a container filled with billowing smoke from a bed of dry ice, and the pumpkin soup might be the best you'll ever try, with toasted pumpkin seeds and chorizo.

The Park MGM is a new hotel carved out of the shell of the old Monte Carlo, on the south end of The Strip. The pool complex is outstanding, and you'll also find excellent French bistro food at the on-site restaurant, Primrose. Rooms are bright and comfortable, and you're directly across the street from the new T-Mobile Arena, home of those surprising Golden Knights of the NHL.