I ate at Delmanaco's at the Venetian on Sunday after seeing the Japanese Wagyu on the menu. Usually I'm a ribeye sort of guy, but considering I knew the marbling would be excellent anyway, I want with the filet.

It was amazing, even at a price of 95 dollars for 6 ounces. I'll likely go back for the dry aged ribeye within a couple of days, which is obviously a much lower price than Japanese Wagyu.

It's almost embarrassing for other steakhouses that Venelazzo has Delmonico and CUT essentially across a hall from one another.

And Carnevino.

Craftsteak

I know this thread is not a fan of Craftsteak, and I am starting to come around to that viewpoint. This was my 5th or 6th time there.

Went as a party of 7.

Ordered 6 filets and one ribeye. All the steaks were fine. None were bad, none were outstanding. All were cooked as requested.

The starters were mostly lobster bisques, with one scallops and one avocado salad. Again, everything was simply fine. The lobster bisque used to be fantastic, not sure what's going on now.

The sides were not fine.

Went with squash, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, corn, sunchokes, and potato puree x2.

Corn & potato puree were excellent. Everything else was subpar. Not horrible, just not very good. The asparagus was limp, the carrots were hard, the squash was... I don't know what happened to the squash but no one had seconds.

Only a few of the party tried dessert. Chocolate cake was reported as underwhelming, monkey bread as OK. The limoncello drinker was happy with it.



That was the last chance for Craftsteak. Do not plan on going back again. Next time it will be Cut.

Went to Prime for the fiance's birthday the other day. We were in town for a short trip for a concert, and had to have a reservation at 6PM or earlier. Prime ended up being the only legitimate option.

Where to start? I've been to Cut multiple times, JG twice, Tender (in Luxor), Craftsteak, and a host of other places. Never been to SW.

I ordered the dry aged bone-in ribeye. Fiance ordered the same steak, wet-aged. Had a long, jokey conversation with the server about how everyone overcooks our steaks in Vegas. Ordered medium rare. Figured this would be enough to get our steaks cooked right.

Steaks took an hour and 15 minutes to come out (!). When they came out, fiance cut into hers. It looked like a well-done cheeseburger. I cut into mine and saw the same. I have literally never sent back a steak at any steakhouse before. Fiance is also very easy going. She said we were paying too much to just accept it.

Waiter comes over and shines a flashlight because the dark lighting could make it look more cooked than it was. There was a tiny amount of pink showing, but it still looked medium well at best under the light. Just a clear mistake. Combined with the cook time, I can piece together what happened.

Waiter returns with a steak that was on the blue side of rare. That's fine. Would much rather than that than overcooked. Steak was good, but we were frustrated at this point by how long it had taken. We were also rushed because it put us behind schedule for our concert. We had to woof down the steaks in about 10 minutes to make the show. Very frustrating.

Worst experience, though, was with one of the servers. After the 2nd server had looked at our steaks, agreed they were way overcooked, and brought new steaks, the 1st server (who took the order) came over. He told my fiance, "Yeah, we got you new steaks. Sometimes the lighting in here can play tricks on your eyes." As if to say to her that she was wrong and/or an idiot, and that the steaks were actually alright.

I'm not sure what his purpose in doing that was other than to offload guilt. We had already received new steaks and now had to feel guilty that maybe we ****ed up.

Total dick move. I try to be very very very forgiving to servers because it is a hard job and I have done it. But he was an *******. And his little comment was one of the rudest things I've encountered at any restaurant.

Ended up with a $250 tab for the 2 steaks, 2 sides, 2 salads, and 2 glasses of wine. Sides were fine. Nothing special. Salad was good, and the Malbec was actually quite good ($20/glass).

I was not impressed with Prime and would say it is not in the same stratosphere as Cut. I had JG a couple months ago, and it was much much much better than Prime, too.

I would eat at Gallaghers before I ate at Prime again.

I know it's NW Vegas but has anyone been to Kame Omakase?

They didn't even offer you dessert on the house?

A place like Prime can't "forget" about a customer. Your waiter is supposed to know when you ordered your food and has to check with the kitchen if something is off. Overcooking the steak for whatever reason is disrespectful to the animal that died for it. Serving you said steak, even though the kitchen knows it's overcooked, is disrespectful to you. Putting the blame on the customer by telling them their eyes played tricks with them is inexcusable.

I would send them an email and expect some form of compensation like a coupon. Things like that can't happen if you pay $250 for a meal.

+1 on contacting Prime and letting them know how badly they missed.

I had a pretty hilarious steakhouse experience (not in Vegas) the other night. Someone that worked at the property had said that I had to try their triple-seared steak, so I was all set to try it.

* Waiter came over and told us that two(!!) of the steaks on the menu were "Prime" and proceeded to tell us that there were 3 grades of meat: prime, choice, and select, and that prime meat was really the best and we really needed to try it. Then proceeded to use ultra-flowery language to describe other things (poorly) on the menu. Told me ribeyes are really the best because of their beautiful marbling, which is where the flavor comes from. There are no specials. They are out of prime rib.

* Ordered carpaccio and salads. Four slices of brown beef came out. Couldn't even tell if it was seared or what, but it wasn't hot. Tasted like roast beef. Might have been? Was covered in parmesan cheese and truffle oil. When we asked if it was cooked, the waiter said he didn't think so, but told us it struck HIM as odd that it wasn't red when it came out. Never followed up with us about this.

* Salads came out, and ultra-flowery-must-try-prime-meat-trying-too-hard-to-be-prim-and-proper-waiter asked us if we want "some of that peppery stuff" on our salads -- pepper.

* We ordered wine at this point and told him we'd order steaks after we had some wine.

* 15-20 minutes later he comes back and asks if we're ready to order dinner, to which we reply yes, if he's ready to bring us the wine we ordered 15-20 minutes ago

* Wine arrives, was pretty decent actually. Highlight of the meal.

* We order the triple-seared steak recommended to us. Waiter has no idea what we are talking about. It's three sears: salt, soy, and whiskey (this is a traditional Japanese preparation, typically sake instead of whiskey). He says he'll talk to some people and figure it out. We let the manager, who we had talked to earlier that day about it, know what we're looking for. He says this preparation comes out a beautiful medium-rare. Waiter insists we tell him a temperature on the preparation because "I know it will come out medium-rare, but the kitchen is going to ask me for a temperature anyway." We went with medium-rare.

* Steak preparation and quality was actually pretty good, strangely. Sides, as you might imagine, were uneventful. Did not order dessert.

Just a comedy of errors all around, starting by assuming that we don't know anything about meat and doubling down on that assumption by serving us something that wasn't beef carpaccio.

+2 on contacting Prime, if only for management to be able to get rid of that server so other customers don't end up having similar experiences.

Put these on yelp.

Yeah, most of the reviews on Yelp are people complaining about small portions in a degustation service. Your reviews are valuable reviews that would actually steer me in another direction.

MTM,

You should post that verbatim on Yelp. It's clear you know what you're talking about and had legit issues, not standard clueless Yelp bitching.

Not sure if Yelp is the right place for reviews of fine dining restaurants. Legit bad reviews like the one here get lost among the ones that complain about the price, serving sizes and other things you expect to hear from someone who isn't too familiar with that kind of restaurant experience.

Mad,

Fine dining managers pay close attention to Yelp and are very likely to respond directly to any clearly legitimate negative review like this.

do you think they won't respond to an e-mail?

Not saying that posting on yelp is a bad idea, just that I doubt it will help very many other people.

Mad,

They'll respond to an email. Good chance they respond faster and with a better resolution for mtm to a Yelp post.

Maybe Prime thinks they're a fine dining restaurant with fine dining standards because they are in Bellagio and charge a lot, but I too have never had an experience there that made me think it was anything better than a Ruth's Chris. I'm not convinced they know what real fine dining standards are. Still, I would email them. I'm sure they care, they just might not have the ability to see your experience as a teachable moment.

Haven't been to Vegas in a year because I'm lame now and almost not a gambling addict anymore. Anything new in the food scene these days?

Staying at Bellagio, but leaning toward Jean Georges for our big dinner. Never been before and like trying new things. Have tried: SW, CUT, Kabuto l'Atelier, Prime, é by José Andrés, Delmonico, Wynn Country Club, Stack and N9ne. I'd like to do Joël Robuchon but don't think my traveling partner would get as much out of it.

Other spots I want to check out:
- Pizza Rock (I've always been a Secret Pizza/Five50 guy)
- Bardot Brasserie (I miss American Fish and never got around to BB before my hiatus)
- Bouchon's brunch

Any suggestions would be good. Mostly confined to the strip, but may hop an Uber out to Lotus of Siam.

When's your trip? JG has been under renovation for a few weeks and may not be open. Supposed to open sometime this month, so I would check with them before operating on any assumptions.

September

Any suggestions for best dinner spots for large groups? Like 15-20 people. We could divide up into two tables of 10. Would do steak, American, or Italian. Staying at MGM. I've really enjoyed Fix and Yardbird before.

^^meant to add we have pool parties scheduled for most days and people are late 20s to early 30s so we aren't the overly fancy type. We like good food and willing to splurge but the more casual the better.

TWW,

1) check out the Vegas casual dining thread

2) pretty sure most vegas steakhouses can accommodate a party of 15-20

Based on own experience I would advice against fine dining after a day of partying/drinking at the pool. Just go to a casual place instead of spending $100+/person for something you can't really enjoy anyway.

Mad,

Lol, great advice. My Vegas past is full of far too many expensive meals I barely remember.