Q: What’s the best crosstown shortcut from north to south? A: In a town where construction is ubiquitous and seemingly planned by sociopathic scientists engaged in a rats/maze experiment, finding shortcuts is essential. Whether it’s darting through a neighborhood to avoid a long light, getting off a freeway at just the right time to avoid construction, or learning to drive at times other people don’t, if you live in Las Vegas, you need shortcuts.

[Destination known] A sweet dose of rural kitsch (and some ostriches, too) Rev up romance with a road trip to dateland. The Indio Date Festival — a combination of hometown county fair, “I Dream of Jeannie” kitsch, and food made out of dates — is the third weekend in February.

At this iconic import, there’s no muss, no fuss — but lots of superb steak You’ve got to love what they’re doing with food at Caesars Palace. The place has become a gold mine of iconic, imported, super-old dining destinations: the Forum Shops has Joe’s Stone Crab (of South Beach) and P.

Welcome to Desert Companion’s second annual Best of the City. We daresay it’s even better than last year’s.

Would it be too grand a flourish to wave my hand over the year ahead and declare 2012 The Year of the Museum in Nevada? I don’t want to jinx anything, but it says something when we’ve got to crack open a fresh box of bullet points to cover cultural news. Consider: • The openings of the Mob Museum in February and the Neon Museum this summer will illuminate and celebrate two facets — one dark, one light — of Las Vegas history.

This year, Valentine’s Day means the Mob Museum’s opening and memories of a Chicago mob massacre. But it also means hearts and love.

She greets diners, serves food, cleans tables — and sings. Oh, how she sings It’s a busy Monday afternoon at Namaste Indian Cuisine — the tables are packed, the buffet line is buzzing.

If art can sleep, there’s a lot of it snoozing peacefully in the secure storage room at the former Las Vegas Art Museum space in the Sahara West Library. The museum has been in hibernation since it closed in February 2009 after chronically low membership and dwindling donations gradually shut the contemporary art space’s doors.

They added a new word to the Atomic Testing Museum. Now it’s the National Atomic Testing Museum.

Market For finest service, the employees of our four Whole Foods Markets make the top of my list. Their policy of escorting a customer to help find an elusive item feels deliciously like an old-time throwback.