The pampered moose?

Pamplemousse.

What a strange word. It has been tucked away in the recesses of my mind since I first saw it as a child years ago on vacation in Las Vegas.

My parents and I were walking through Circus Circus after visiting their Midway. Circus Circus was one of the first on the Las Vegas Strip to recognize that not only adults over 21 go to Las Vegas--they also have children.  This hotel/casino provided carnival games for the kids to win stuffed animals. At the same time, their parents play in the casino, where they could try to win their kid’s college tuition.  

I remember the inside of this hotel/casino was a gigantic explosion of the color pink. Every shade of it was on the walls, the carpeting, the staff’s uniforms; even the interior lighting had a hue of pink.  At the time, as my young vision was being saturated with this rosiness, I happened to notice a gentle glowing sign (in pink light bulbs, of course) on the wall—it read Pamplemousse le Restaurant. It struck me as a weird name for a restaurant. The word resembled pampered moose, but there was no way a restaurant would be called that—who would eat there? 

Flash forward to present time. I was getting prepared in the morning and happened to notice my new shower gel was Pink Grapefruit. Right below the name in French was pamplemousse.  A-ha!! Upon seeing this word, the memory of the restaurant flooded back.  I finally knew what it meant.

Now it makes perfect sense—of course Circus Circus would have a French restaurant with the word PINK in it!!