View at dinner. (Kate Symmonds)

Al fresco dining in Las Vegas? It’s not only possible, it can be tons of fun.

Last night, my daughter, her fiance and I got lucky and scored an outside table at Mon Ami Gabi at the Paris hotel on the Strip. It was around 9 p.m., the temperature somewhere in the 80s and we were right up against the railing with a splendid view of the Bellagio fountains.

While Mon Ami Gabi counts as a bit of splurge in my book, it’s a moderately priced restaurant by Las Vegas standards. The steak frites is a house specialty at about $22 and it’s very good.

And with the view we had, I wouldn’t trade it for a $65 entree at the Strip’s really expensive places.

Yes, that’s a wine rack in a supermarket with Freixenet cava at 5.25 euros and decent red wines from the area for less than 1 euro a bottle.

And all I managed to get back in my suitcase was a bottle of wine from the Bierzo region and a big chunk of the Galician cheese called tetilla — both long gone now. Adios.

Imagine my chagrin at finding that my idea has been adapted by the makers of the WineDiaper, which is said to “cradle your wine in a padded container” and is alleged to contain “absorbent material to quickly soak up any spills.”

My sister just used WineDiapers to transport two bottles of Georgian wine back to the United States, and I admit they arrived quite intact (and delicious).  And they looked considerably less bizarre than my Huggies-swaddled Russky Standart.

But seriously. Shouldn’t a purist use real diapers?

I know, that’s two weeks. Well, almost. Saturdays are excluded and some restaurants don’t participate on Sundays, either. And then there’s another restaurant week in the winter, so I guess this is summer Restaurant Week. Or fortnight. Or whatever.

More than 275 restaurants are participating, offering prix-fixe lunches for $24.07 and dinners for $35.  Taxes, tips and beverages are extra.

So if you hanker to dine fancy in New York at a discount, now would be the time to check out the details.

That’s great, but Starbucks is still lagging McDonalds, which provides free Wi-Fi at 11,500 locations. That makes McDonald’s the largest provider of Wi-Fi hotspots in the country. And with its new line of McCafe coffee drinks, McDonalds is undercutting Starbucks on price.

I’ve been a devoted user of Starbucks Wi-Fi, using a Starbucks card to get up to two hours a day of free access. (Otherwise, it used to cost $3.99 for two hours.) It’s a great boon for travelers.

But on my camping trip this week, I’ve been to McDonald’s twice for Wi-Fi and to Starbucks once. The McDonald’s is closer — which is not surprising because the company has nearly twice as many wireless locations.

As for McDonalds’ lattes, I’ve had worse.

The airline will start rolling out five meal options – four boxed meals and one cheese and cracker tray – in the next few weeks on all flights scheduled to last more than three hours and 45 minutes. The meals will cost $6 each.

JetBlue is known for providing free unlimited snacks and drinks but has never provided or sold more substantial fare. Hot meals are out of the question. JetBlue aircraft have no galleys.

This “à la carte” catering will be available for 15 euros per meal only on flights between Amsterdam and Bangkok, Taipei, Dubai, Cape Town, Singapore and Denpasar (Bali) until the end of August. The meal choices are described as a healthy Japanese meal, an Indonesian rice table, an Italian meal and an organic chicken dinner.

Passengers on those flights will still be able to get the standard meal that’s included in the airfare, if they prefer.

Most of us aren’t going to be flying those routes between now and August, so this pilot program will be significant only if it turns out to be a success and the practice spreads.

Maybe we’ll end up being able to order the crummy, overpriced boxed food that we pay for on domestic flights in advance, so at least we won’t have to worry about the airline running out.

Maybe we cheapskates will find ourselves staring at our tray of rubber chicken while the passenger in the next seat tucks into a much tastier meal.

Or maybe we’ll end up paying for all meals on longer, intercontinental flights and the “free” food will go away altogether.

I hardly expect the airlines to start offering full meal service in coach again, at any price, on domestic flights. Most airliners used for domestic service are no longer equipped or staffed to serve hot meals.

They were sitting in the chairs provided in an alcove of the open-air lobby, a floor above the bar where a guitarist was playing Hawaiian music. They had pulled their chairs up to the edge of the alcove, so they could see down into the bar, and were applauding vigorously.

The man had a glass — it looked like one of the water glasses from the guest rooms — with an amber liquid in it. No inflated bar prices for him!

McDonald’s offers wireless Internet at 11,000 of its 14,000 U.S. restaurants, and has been charging $2.95 for two hours of access. In mid-January it will drop the fee, according to the Associated Press.

I say woo-hoo for that. Everything tastes better with some free Internet on the side.

This will come in especially handy when I’m traveling and trying, as I usually am, to avoid hotel Internet fees. I usually look for restaurants that I know have free Wi-Fi —  Cosi and Panera, for example. I even went through the complicated process of buying and activating a Starbucks card so that I can use its Wi-Fi free.

In fact, the AP suggests that McDonald’s move may be aimed at grabbing more of Starbucks’ business for its McCafe line of beverages. I think it might work.