Doug Elfman’s Best of Las Vegas

Below are his personal picks for 5 Best of Las Vegas categories:

-Best Place to Spot Celebrities

OK, let’s not get too excited with this category.

Generally speaking, people don’t always, randomly, run into celebrities in poker rooms, restaurants and rich stores.

However, that type of eating-near-the-stars experience has happened to many thousands of tourists and locals over the years. (“Hey look, it’s George Clooney!” “Hey look, it’s Blossom!”)

So it could happen to you. Possibly. Probably not. But you never know.

With that huge caveat, the winner is:

By far, the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace is the most likely place where A-list and D-list celebrities actually go to spend their own money in public instead of demanding free stuff while hiding from the rest of us in 75-star VIP suites with their butlers and masseuses.

You might glance at a star in a club like XS, Marquee or Light, but I wouldn’t count on it, unless you go to a club’s website and find out that club is advertising a star will be there because the club is paying the star to wave at the masses for a few minutes after midnight.

The only way you can make absolute certain you’ll see a star in Vegas is to look through the Review-Journal’s performance ads and show listings then buy a ticket to see your favorite star on stage doing the thing you like that star for doing. Sorry. It’s all about money, isn’t it? Yes, it is. The color of Vegas is green.

-Best Southern Food

I grew up in New Orleans, which means I cut my foodie teeth at crawfish boils (hot crawfish in a witch’s pot) and fish brought to my table fresh after a boat pulled up to a restaurant. Mmm-hmm.

So here in Las Vegas, I look for that flavor of Southern chow — New Orleans seafood-y Southern food, as opposed to the mashed-sweet-potatoes-and-grits Southern grub found in places like Kentucky.

So if I want just crawfish, I go to the affordable and quite good Hot N Juicy Crawfish on Spring Mountain Road. (Get the “Hot N Juicy” flavor, not the New Orleans flavor.)

But my overall winner for New Orleans dishes is the criminally overlooked restaurant The Oyster Bar in Palace Station.

The gumbo and other Cajun plates and bowls are the most New Orleans-ish delicacies I’ve tasted outside of Louisiana, I guarantee.

Now here’s the thing. It’s a sit-down restaurant at a counter, and you can’t make reservations. You have to stand in line, sometimes for five minutes, sometimes for an hour. I know, I know, locals don’t stand in lines. I don’t stand in lines. I’m just as spoiled as you.

But for the Oyster Bar, I get in that line. I gripe about the line when I’m in the line, but when I’m sitting at that counter, that food is so good, I forget the line, I forget the middle-class prices, and I forget my manners. If you try to eat off my plate there, I’ll consider biting it. Chomp, chomp, mine, mine.

-Best Pizza

I usually go for pizza fat with crust, with a tsunami of tomato sauce cresting over the sides. But the flat, delicious pizza at downtown’s Las Vegas’ Pizza Rock is so good, I forgive it for not being a bread-lover’s heart attack special (and for playing music and TVs too loud).

Pizza Rock’s creator famously earned a worldwide award. And not only have I never been disappointed by one of his specialty pies there, I also dive into the scrumptious calamari and other sides every week. Yes, every week.

-Best Nightclub

This is the toughest, most competitive club category in Best of Las Vegas.

On one hand, Wynn’s XS nightclub continues to stage more superstar DJs than Mandalay Bay’s Light nightclub, and beautiful people go there.

But on the other hand, Light nightclub has bigger buzz for being newer, and for feeling welcoming. It even, gasp, has some places you can sit without paying extra.

XS is glammier and feels somewhat more uppercrust due to being dressy in the Wynn.

Light has glitz for the masses in the regular-people enormity of Mandalay Bay.

My tie-breaker is this question: Which club would I rather be in this Friday night? I would probably choose Light for two reasons. It just seems a little fresher, and it’s easier to navigate.

-Best Dayclub

We’re all open to the possibility a new dayclub/party pool will open and take over the Strip.

Until that happens, Encore Beach Club remains the most sprawling, packed, DJ-starry, hypnotizing dayclub and pool party on the Vegas Strip.

The proof is in the many thousands of people who populate the premises every week, in their little bikinis, or their man shorts, tucked into their calculated debauchery.

Doug Elfman writes about Las Vegas nightclubs and entertainment. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com.