Las Vegas Fine Dining Thread
03-21-2011
, 03:35 PM
03-21-2011
, 10:11 PM
03-21-2011
, 10:37 PM
03-23-2011
, 02:55 AM
03-24-2011
, 03:18 AM
Jaleo TR, or "Clarkmeister Revisited"
cliffs:
atmosphere - B
food - A
service - C minus
i thought the atmosphere was pretty cool. we were seated near the front by the bar, and a few yards away we could see the paella being made. it was pretty crowded and the music was a litte loud, and the chairs were a little high. seating for 2 this is to be expected, so whatever. it was pleasing but not amazing.
food:
we did the "clarkmeister" tasting menu, more or less.
1) Pan con tomate Toasted slices of rustic bread brushed with fresh tomato
This was both of our favorites. Just very simple and very tasty.
2) Chistorra envuelta en patata frita Slightly spicy chorizo wrapped in crispy potato
This was the lone bad dish of the evening for us. There was very little sophistication about it, it was too greasy/heavy, it had a cocktail-weener "I could make this myself" presentation, and the chorizo spice was overpowering. Just not all that great unless you're into that sort of thing. It seems to hit Clark's tastebuds more than ours.
3) Flauta bread brushed with fresh tomato and extra virgin olive oil with Ibérico ham
- another good dish, essentially a ham panini. was hard to taste the ham over the tomato (plus the chorizo was still crushing the palette), but still a good dish.
4) Manzana con hinojo y queso Manchego Sliced apple and fennel salad with Manchego cheese, walnuts and Sherry dressing
- cosign with Clark on this being an incredible dish. I don't eat salads and I LOVED this. The fennel managed to taste like apple shavings with a hint of citrus (the gf thought they tasted of licorice), and everything thrown together it tasted more like a cheese plate than a salad. The vinaigrette was superb.
5) etas al ajillo con La Serena Sautéed wild mushrooms with La Serena potato purée
- again, a superb yet simple dish. I don't care for mushrooms due to the texture, and I enjoyed this a lot. My mushroom palette is non existent; all i know is it was savory and with the potatoes it was a pleasing meal. Two straight meals of stuff I don't usually eat and I enjoyed them both, I think that's a testament to the cooking.
It should be noted that every single dish we had was cooked perfectly, and while not every one of them jived with us, we couldn't say they were mismanaged in the kitchen. It was all excellently handled with above-average presentation.
6) Gambas al ajillo The very, very famous tapa of shrimp sautéed with garlic
- very simple but at this point of the meal it's what we needed. we were looking forward to dessert while at the same time not killing ourselves via food coma, so finishing the main dinner with shrimp as opposed to some massive paella or fried dish was the right choice. standard good shrimp, nom nom nom.
7) molten chocolate mousse with ice cream and candied nuts
- about what you'd expect, but i liked mine more than Clark. the hot and cold with the sweetness from the nuts, plus some rum aftertaste, it was great. paired it with malvasia dulce wine and that went surprisingly well. the gf got jasmine tea.
Service:
I'm not gonna lie, this sucked really bad. The hostess introduced us to our server. She said she'd take care of us for the evening, then ignored us the rest of the meal, providing zero explanation as to why, wtf! 15 minutes later as we're wondering wtf is going on, a different server said she'd also help us if we needed it and she ended up being our sole server for the evening. I *think* they may have been severely understaffed but I'm not sure. If so, she did well for the circumstances. If not, it was inexcusable on the part of the entire wait staff.
Basically there was a complete and utter disconnect with respect to the server/patron relationship. Little to no eye contact was ever made by the server to check on stuff, I think after a certain point I started clocking it and we were voluntarily being given attention once every 20 minutes, which is a big problem for tapas for the obvious reasons, am I right? We'd sit there with empty plates for like 15 minutes asking ourselves if we should treat it like a rushed vietnamese restaurant where you literally had to grab someone if you wanted to get your next dish. At a certain point we just ordered the rest of the dishes together, saying damn the torpedos cuz we weren't gonna be ignored by the wait staff any longer.
All that said we had all of the above courses plus 2 glasses of wine and tea, a meal of about 90 minutes, and the bill came out to $100 pre-tip, so for a fine dining experience this was satisfactory on the value spectrum.
===========
PICTURES!
tomato toast
chorizo w/ potato chip
tomato bread with ham
salad
shrimps
shrooms
dessert
where they cooked the paella; right in front of everyone more or less
main room area, paella station off to the left of the photo
the bar
cliffs:
atmosphere - B
food - A
service - C minus
i thought the atmosphere was pretty cool. we were seated near the front by the bar, and a few yards away we could see the paella being made. it was pretty crowded and the music was a litte loud, and the chairs were a little high. seating for 2 this is to be expected, so whatever. it was pleasing but not amazing.
food:
we did the "clarkmeister" tasting menu, more or less.
1) Pan con tomate Toasted slices of rustic bread brushed with fresh tomato
This was both of our favorites. Just very simple and very tasty.
2) Chistorra envuelta en patata frita Slightly spicy chorizo wrapped in crispy potato
This was the lone bad dish of the evening for us. There was very little sophistication about it, it was too greasy/heavy, it had a cocktail-weener "I could make this myself" presentation, and the chorizo spice was overpowering. Just not all that great unless you're into that sort of thing. It seems to hit Clark's tastebuds more than ours.
3) Flauta bread brushed with fresh tomato and extra virgin olive oil with Ibérico ham
- another good dish, essentially a ham panini. was hard to taste the ham over the tomato (plus the chorizo was still crushing the palette), but still a good dish.
4) Manzana con hinojo y queso Manchego Sliced apple and fennel salad with Manchego cheese, walnuts and Sherry dressing
- cosign with Clark on this being an incredible dish. I don't eat salads and I LOVED this. The fennel managed to taste like apple shavings with a hint of citrus (the gf thought they tasted of licorice), and everything thrown together it tasted more like a cheese plate than a salad. The vinaigrette was superb.
5) etas al ajillo con La Serena Sautéed wild mushrooms with La Serena potato purée
- again, a superb yet simple dish. I don't care for mushrooms due to the texture, and I enjoyed this a lot. My mushroom palette is non existent; all i know is it was savory and with the potatoes it was a pleasing meal. Two straight meals of stuff I don't usually eat and I enjoyed them both, I think that's a testament to the cooking.
It should be noted that every single dish we had was cooked perfectly, and while not every one of them jived with us, we couldn't say they were mismanaged in the kitchen. It was all excellently handled with above-average presentation.
6) Gambas al ajillo The very, very famous tapa of shrimp sautéed with garlic
- very simple but at this point of the meal it's what we needed. we were looking forward to dessert while at the same time not killing ourselves via food coma, so finishing the main dinner with shrimp as opposed to some massive paella or fried dish was the right choice. standard good shrimp, nom nom nom.
7) molten chocolate mousse with ice cream and candied nuts
- about what you'd expect, but i liked mine more than Clark. the hot and cold with the sweetness from the nuts, plus some rum aftertaste, it was great. paired it with malvasia dulce wine and that went surprisingly well. the gf got jasmine tea.
Service:
I'm not gonna lie, this sucked really bad. The hostess introduced us to our server. She said she'd take care of us for the evening, then ignored us the rest of the meal, providing zero explanation as to why, wtf! 15 minutes later as we're wondering wtf is going on, a different server said she'd also help us if we needed it and she ended up being our sole server for the evening. I *think* they may have been severely understaffed but I'm not sure. If so, she did well for the circumstances. If not, it was inexcusable on the part of the entire wait staff.
Basically there was a complete and utter disconnect with respect to the server/patron relationship. Little to no eye contact was ever made by the server to check on stuff, I think after a certain point I started clocking it and we were voluntarily being given attention once every 20 minutes, which is a big problem for tapas for the obvious reasons, am I right? We'd sit there with empty plates for like 15 minutes asking ourselves if we should treat it like a rushed vietnamese restaurant where you literally had to grab someone if you wanted to get your next dish. At a certain point we just ordered the rest of the dishes together, saying damn the torpedos cuz we weren't gonna be ignored by the wait staff any longer.
All that said we had all of the above courses plus 2 glasses of wine and tea, a meal of about 90 minutes, and the bill came out to $100 pre-tip, so for a fine dining experience this was satisfactory on the value spectrum.
===========
PICTURES!
tomato toast
chorizo w/ potato chip
tomato bread with ham
salad
shrimps
shrooms
dessert
where they cooked the paella; right in front of everyone more or less
main room area, paella station off to the left of the photo
the bar
Last edited by Clayton; 03-24-2011 at 03:32 AM.
03-24-2011
, 04:22 AM