Every December for the last seven years, I have been creating a list of what I consider to be the Top 10 hotels, shows, and restaurants in Las Vegas, ranking them in order from 1 to 10. But for the 7th annual installment I decided to shake things up a bit and look at “Bests” in a different way.

Say it with me: change is good.

As I sat down to try to come up with the Top 10 Awards (as they have been called in the past), I finally came to the realization that comparing hotels or shows or restaurants or anything else in this city is really a prime example of Apples v. Oranges. (We’ll just set aside the fact that it took me seven years to accept this and move on, shall we?) For instance, pitting a hotel that charges $50 a night against one that charges $300 a night is not a fair fight. At $300 a night you get more but you also expect more and as long as your expectations are firmly in check, a $50 a night hotel can be just as satisfying (and in some ways even more so).

So instead, I decided to come up with a variety of categories and pick the best in each. You get to choose which category is most important to you.

Honorable Mention: Wynn Las Vegas
Yes, it’s too expensive. No, it’s not perfect. No, it doesn’t break any particularly new ground. But Mr. Wynn’s latest project is no less of a success than any of his previous ones and despite the unreasonably high expectations (which he set himself) this truly is a terrific hotel.

Best Downtown Hotel: Main Street Station
I have a tendency to throw words like “gem” around too much but in this particular case it applies. I’ve always enjoyed the intimacy of this hotel, its friendly atmosphere, its gorgeous décor, and its fantastic restaurants and casino. A recent renovation of all of the rooms has only made it more appealing, turning a gem of a hotel into a precious one.

Honorable Mention: The Golden Nugget
The former Grand Dame of Fremont Street is showing her age, mostly due to a little bit of neglect from former owners. But the new folks who are running the joint are promising big things and here’s hoping they deliver. Grand Dames deserve nothing less.

Best Neighborhood Hotel: Green Valley Ranch Resort
It’s an upscale neighborhood to be sure, but this beautiful destination straddles an invisible line between friendly locals’ joint and luxury getaway. A terrific casino, sumptuous rooms (with the most comfortable beds in all of Las Vegas), some great restaurants, and a beautiful pool area are all big pluses but it’s the atmosphere – decidedly less stressed and hectic than The Strip – that really makes it all work.

Honorable Mention: Santa Fe Station
To get the true appreciate for what has been done here you’d have to go back in time and see what it looked like before Station Casinos came in and rescued the join. The transformation is remarkable on just about every level and the amenities, service, and price are almost impossible to beat.

Best Resort Hotel: Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas
The word “resort” is applied to a lot of places in this town that don’t actually qualify as resort, at least in my opinion. As far as I’m concerned, a resort should be a world unto its own, where you can walk through the front doors and immediately put everything behind you. Seriously… everything. It should have impeccable service, be visually and atmospherically comforting, and should swaddle you like a really soft, plushy robe. The Ritz-Carlton is the definition of the word “resort.”

Honorable Mention: Green Valley Ranch Resort
For everything that is mentioned above under Best Neighborhood Hotel and a few extra points for those really comfy beds.

Best Bargain Hotel: Bally’s
What is a bargain? Is it merely the total of the bill upon check-out? No, a bargain is more closely aligned with a “bang for the buck” mentality, where you can look at the bill and say, “Wow, I really got a lot for what I paid here.” Bally’s is not the fanciest hotel in town nor is it the cheapest. But for the level of comfort, convenience, and service offered here, mixed together with a terrific location and a bunch of other intangibles, it is hard to find a better example of a true bargain.

Honorable Mention: Santa Fe Station
See Best Neighborhood Hotel above and then throw in rates that are so low as to be almost shocking.

Best Luxury Hotel: Wynn Las Vegas
I can hear the howling now. But scream all you want, Wynn Las Vegas has outdone the other luxury hotels on The Strip with bigger, better, more comfortable and well-equipped rooms, and an overall feeling of value (as in “this is valuable”). Of course you have to pay for it, and handsomely, but if I had the money and wanted to spend it, this would be the place I’d choose.

Honorable Mention: Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas
See Best Resort Hotel above and factor in rooms on a bridge over a lake. Cool, huh?

Honorable Mention: Triple George Grill
The only reason that this restaurant didn’t beat out Fix for the top honor is because of its location – you have to go Downtown to eat here, which really isn’t that big of a deal but is to many visitors. It’s a shame really, because great food at terrific prices like these should not be dismissed just because you have to throw in a couple of extra bucks for a cab ride.

Best Buffet: Wynn Las Vegas
Buffets have never been more grand, more epic, and more satisfying than the new one at Wynn Las Vegas. The facility itself is a stunner, with a series of intimate dining spaces and a garden décor that is both visually arresting and yet comforting at the same time. With a spread that’s as big if not bigger than any in town and all done with a level of preparation that would shame most regular restaurants, this buffet is a remarkable achievement.

Honorable Mention: Main Street Station Garden Court
For about one-third the cost of the Wynn buffet you can get another beautiful room and some amazingly satisfying food. While it gets edged out by the expensive places in terms of quality and selection, 99.9% of the people who eat at buffets will enjoy this one just as much as the ones that will cost them three times as much.

Best Steakhouse: Austins Steakhouse
I don’t know what I have to do to convince you people to get in your cars or cabs or whatever you have to do to make it to Austins Steakhouse. I can report that everyone who has visited this place on my recommendation has come back raving and I routinely refer to it as not only the best steakhouse in Las Vegas but one of the best anywhere. Go. Now.

Honorable Mention: Hank’s
Brand new and patterned in many ways after Austins, this sister establishment is a bit more expensive and the décor is a bit more upscale, but it is no less enjoyable and not at all intimidating. A truly terrific addition to the city. A full review of Hank’s will be appearing in this column after the new year, but don’t wait for that to try it out. It’s located at Green Valley Ranch Resort.

Best Bargain Restaurant: Capriotti’s
Forget Subway and Quizno’s and head to this local Las Vegas institution, a wonderful Italian deli with sandwiches that will knock your proverbial (or literal) socks off. I have a friend who actually makes me stop to pick one up for her before I come back to Los Angeles. It’s that good. Throw in the fact that you can get a sandwich big enough for two meals for about $10 and I don’t know what you’re waiting for.

Honorable Mention: Ming
Chinese restaurants are a dime a dozen in this city and this one will certainly never win any awards for fancy décor or adventurous menu items. But if you want traditional Chinese at a fraction of the cost of most hotel Chinese places, Ming is the place to go.

Best Expensive Restaurant: Alex (Wynn Las Vegas)
From Chef Allesandro Stratta, Alex is the newest, hottest, most award-worthy restaurant in the city. The meals are more than just food on a plate, they are constructions – feats of almost engineering-level accomplishment blending the perfect tastes and textures into a heady experience that even the least appreciative palates can recognize as great. Just be sure to digest fully before looking at the bill.

Honorable Mention: Mix (Mandalay Bay)
Another acclaimed chef (in this case Alain Ducasse), another award-winning restaurant. Here the fantastic French/Continental fare is served in a beautiful room with amazing views from the top floor of THEhotel’s tower. Not quite as expensive as some of the other expensive restaurants in town, but still very pricey and still completely worth it.

Best Desserts: The Chocolate Swan
Okay, see, I have this theory. There are two basic types of people in the world: cake people and icing people. Icing people are the ones who will always choose a corner, end piece of one a sheet cake while cake people will choose one of the middle pieces. Icing people are dreamers, poets, and scholars and have a true appreciation for the finer things in life. Cake people are fundamentally okay, I guess, but I just don’t trust them. You shouldn’t either. Icing people will love The Chocolate Swan and its mind boggling array of mouth-watering confections (from candy to pastries to ice cream and beyond) whereas cake people will just kind of shrug. See… you just can’t trust them.

Honorable Mention: Fix
See Best New Restaurant above and throw in warm, sugared, banana donuts with chocolate dipping sauce. Come on!

Honorable Mention: Avenue Q
Foul mouthed puppets singing songs about life, love, and Internet porn. There’s a reason that this show won a Tony Award.

Best Production Show: Mystère
Trying to describe this show in full sentences is too hard, so let’s just do it with a series of words. Emotional. Awe-inspiring. Evocative. Funny. Scary. Beautiful. Passionate. Heart-breaking. Uplifting. Erotic. And that doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Honorable Mention: KA
See Best New Show above.

Best Magic Show: Mac King
There’s something inherently more satisfying about seeing a card trick (or something equally as “small”) done really well than any whirling blades of death escape style tricks (or something equally as “grand”) could ever be. Add in the fact that Mac King’s show is laugh-out-loud funny and you have a true recipe for great entertainment.

Honorable Mention: Penn & Teller
More than just a magic show, Penn & Teller put on the deconstruction of a magic show by telling you how they are doing the tricks yet still amazing you every time.

Best Music/Variety Show: Clint Holmes
In less talented hands, this type of show would look like a bad ‘70s variety hour where you’d expect a visit from Susan Anton or Joey Heatherton at any moment. But Holmes turns what could be treacle into an engaging experience that wins you over immediately. He’s a talented singer, a great performer, and seems to be a genuinely nice guy and in my book that adds up to a “best” award any day.

Honorable Mention: Barry Manilow
Mainly because I’m frightened of the Fanilows. But seriously folks, give Mr. I Write The Songs his due because even after all these years he’s a consummate showman and a terrific entertainer. Admit it… you know all the words to Mandy, don’t you?

Best Comedy Show: Second City Improv
Great comic improvisation is like watching a virtuoso musician riff. You’re never quite sure where it’s going but where it winds up, and the thrilling journey along the way, make it something that you can’t take your eyes off of. The talented performers of Second City know their craft and will make you wonder how anyone can think that quickly.

Honorable Mention: Rita Rudner
This quirky comic has been slaying audiences for years with her off-kilter observations like this, a favorite of mine from one of her early TV appearances (paraphrased, but close enough): “When I was a child, my parents got a pony for my birthday party one year. You know these things are never in very good shape. Well, this one dropped dead. It just wasn’t much fun after that. One of us would sit on it and the rest of us would drag it around in a circle.”

Best Adult Show: Folies Bergere
True, you get more “adult” on basic cable than what you get in this throwback to days of Vegas entertainment of yore, but if you want a classic “showgirl” experience, complete with feathered headdresses and beautiful, bare-breasted women to watch, Folies is the best choice in town.

Honorable Mention: Chippendales
It’s obvious why the ladies like this one, but I hereby throw down the gauntlet for the guys. Go with your wife or girlfriend, let her sit up front with her friends, grab a drink, sit in the back, and watch the insanity unfold. It’s like watching a pack of hungry pumas attack a group of elk.

Best Casino
Bally’s – It’s not the fanciest or biggest or most lively, but the casino at Bally’s has a simple, easily navigable layout, all of the latest (and many of your older favorite) slot machines, video poker, plenty of table games, and an incredibly friendly staff. What more could you want? Okay, how about this: I have won more money in the Bally’s casino than in any other in town. It may not mean much to you, but this is my list so there, nyah.

Best Nightclub
Ivan Kane’s Forty Deuce – Nightclub is probably not the exact, best word for the place but there’s something groovy, funky, and fun about this tiny sliver of a joint that features comely lasses strutting their stuff in the best burlesque in town. Who cares that there isn’t a dance floor – the great beats and fab drinks they serve will make you want to boogie wherever there’s an open bit of carpeting.

Best Shopping Experience
MonteLago Village – Note that I called this the best shopping “experience,” not necessarily the best shopping. There are a limited number of stores here and most of what they sell is on the expensive side but there’s something undeniably lovely about wandering through the cobblestone streets of this faux Italian village, maybe with a gelato in hand, as you gaze at the beautiful lake and maybe, just maybe, find yourself that perfect thing you were looking for in one of the boutiques.

Best Spa
The Bathhouse at THEhotel – I’m not much of a spa person, but The Bathhouse Spa at THEhotel is almost enough to make me become one. The stunning space, evocatively designed with dramatic alcoves, soaring ceilings, and intimate lighting makes you want to relax even before you get to the massages and treatments.

Best Recreation
Lake Las Vegas – Golf, hiking, boating, swimming, fly-fishing, star-gazing, kayaking, and mountain-biking are just the beginning of the offerings at Lake Las Vegas, a nature-lovers paradise. With the exception of Lake Mead, there is no other single place in the Las Vegas area that offers this much and you get the added bonus of fewer people and much more to do after you’ve had that hike (like eat, drink, gamble, and sleep).

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