Here are my Alinea pics: http://imgur.com/a/CAKv1

Nice, I almost went there when I lived and worked in Chicago 8 years ago, but I definitely wouldn't have appreciated it much as a 20 year old with very limited fine dining experience to that point.

The dessert (at least from the picture) doesn't look as cool as it used to though imo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qofsdSMuGbg

They still did the table painting, however the mess you see was a chocolate sphere that was filled with the other goodies that they poured liquid nitro into and then smashed onto the table.

Haven't seen Hakkasan restaurant mentioned ITT. Any opinions? If negative what would be a good alternative Chinese/Cantonese?

Cheers!

I'd like to hear a few opinions on this too, I'm going to the Beverly Hills location in a few weeks. I wonder how these restaurants vary from city to city; I was at Tao in NYC last week and really enjoyed it, but I've only been to the nightclub side at the Vegas one. I've always just thought of it as a club. LAVO in NYC is like right across the street and I've heard literally nothing about that location in Vegas. I hope Hakkasan is good, the menu looks pretty interesting.

Matt, TT:

I've been to hakkasan in London and sf. Experience was the same both places:

Crowd: hot
Space: cool
Cocktails: excellent
Food: fine but way overpriced and not interesting at all for that price point

I've eaten at Hakkasan in London a few times and I think this is a bit harsh. It's very expensive, and I suppose it's nothing particularly innovative, but the food is extremely good, IMO.

If I were choosing a Chinese fine dining place in Vegas, and assuming the Vegas location is similar to the London one, I'd pick Hakkasan over Wing Lei or whatever the place at Aria is called.

Ike,

I just feel like the quality delta between hakkasan and a good mid-priced Chinese place is way smaller than between a French fine dining place and a mid-priced brasserie of similar respective price levels. I don't disagree that the food at hakkasan is pretty tasty.

Yeah, we're on the same page. Have you been to any high end Chinese places that you didn't find similarly disappointing?

Personally, its hard for me to to find a fine dining Chinese restaurant that isn't disappointing. It's possible that my standards are too high or I'm use to the amazing and cheap Chinese food here in Oakland Chinatown.

I've eaten at LAVO and thought it was good but not great. Would eat there again, but probably not go out of my way for it.

~~~~~~~~

And on the topic of fine dining Chinese food - why? I'm with run here in that there are so many good cheap Chinese food places, why spend the time and money on fancy Chinese that has limited room to improve? I'm all for fine dining and what not, but I've never been blown away with expensive Chinese food.

Is there a consensus 'best' steakhouse in the MGM properties? We are going to Vegas in a couple of weeks and want to have a nice steakhouse dinner instead of just the buffets one night. Sorry if this has been covered already, but I read back a few pages and didn't see it, so thought I would ask. My wife doesn't drink, so no worries about best wine or anything. She wants to go to the Ramsay place, but I figure if we are having a fancy dinner, at that level they are likely the same, so why not get the tier credits for it? Plus we will likely get reservations easier as we are gold level at MGM, but nothing at the other properties.

I seem to recall someone saying Jean Georges in Aria was good.

The only true steakhouse I've been to at MGM properties was Prime in Bellagio. This was several years ago, but it was amazing. If there weren't always new places to try in Vegas, I would have been back by now, for sure, but alas I'm only there so often...

ike: I have super limited experience with high end Chinese, but yeah, in general I'm prob kinda biased against expensive Chinese and Mexican food. I do love this place in SF, though: http://www.yelp.com/biz/jai-yun-san-francisco-2

g: It has been a while since I've been, but I really liked Prime a lot as well. Craftsteak is pretty good too.

El D:
Would you consider mission Chinese high end even tho its very casual?


I too enjoyed craftsteak. The massive amount of leftovers made for great drinking snacks back at the room.
For steak & seafood, Mastros inside Crystals has bumped Joes stonecrab as my favorite surf and turf restaurant.

I got torched in another thread for this, but I absolutely hated JG's. The only bright spot was their cocktails for me, which is irrelevant for this. Our tab rang in around $240/pp for Outback level food. It wasn;t terrible or offensive, but nowehere near the Steakhouse experience I had expected.


I would vote Prime or Craftsteak depending on proximity if we are going for best MGM Steakhouse

There's no consensus "best steakhouse" in the MGM sphere. My personal favorite is Jean-Georges, but I also like StripSteak. Prime I thought was OK, CraftSteak is severely overrated and overpriced, IMO. I've been to each of those more than once.

iar,

I like MCF a lot (**** waiting in line for that, though - delivery ftw!) and they definitely have some really interesting twists on traditional chinese food, but MCF is def not high end. It's very casual and pretty cheap - entrees are like $15.

I got the results that I kind of figured on my own, but also thought that it was worth asking. I just didn't want to decide on a place that people immediately chimed in with negative reviews on.

I have decided to make reservations at Prime. We are staying at MGM, but dont plan to camp there the whole weekend, and this is a reason to head to another part of the strip. I looked at all of the menus that I could find and prices were pretty consistent for the things that we are going to order. I am not against a higher end restaurant, but I dont like spending over $100/pp and leaving still hungry. Fine dining isn't a thread I would hang in that much honestly. My wife is more finicky than my kids when it comes to food, but at least she likes steak, so that is our 'nice' meal out this trip.

I think you're in good hands. Post a followup!

Yeah, like this thread needs pics of a fat middle aged guy gnawing on a steak bone like a bum on a baloney sandwich......

Well, I could do without that, but words will be fine.

Yeah, like this thread needs you. Oh wait.

I agree ! Craftsteak at MGM cost 150 a steak and was a big step down from CUT at Venetian.

Vegas foodies,

A couple quick reviews from a recent trip.

BarMasa: Similar type place as Nobu. Really good cocktails and sake. The nigiri/sashimi fish was excellent, but no better than any other high-end sushi place. The rolls were all very tasty. Some really awesome cooked entrees, but all were pretty small food for pretty steep prices. Peking duck with foie gras in moo shu skin and Habanero beef taco were especially awesome. Anyway, it was really good, but with rolls and small plates in the $20-40 range each, I'd expect it to be! Service was pretty impressive given the fact that ~25 of us rolled in around 10pm with 15 minutes notice. Overall I'd give this a recommendation if you are not price sensitive at all (or especially if one of your poker friends is picking up the tab!), but not if you're looking for some fine dining value. http://www.arialasvegas.com/sites/de...FallMenu_0.pdf

L'Atelier Robuchon. Had the seasonal discovery menu that was very similar to this: http://www.mgmgrand.com/pdf/atelier_decouverte_menu.pdf with wine pairing.

I thought it was pretty good but not really up to $160 tasting menu levels. Also, it's a 9-course menu and the first course is an "amuse bouche" and that's it for amuses, which I think is super lame for a fine dining tasting menu place.

Quick rundown of what I had:

Foie gras parfait amuse was excellent, but come on a little amuse cup as a course?
Hamachi with some uni was like a nobu style dish, was awesome.
Bowl of miso soup w/ mushrooms was fine, nothing amazing.
Seared foie was great, but you know, it's a hunk of tasty seared foie...
John dory was mediocre.
Crab and couscous was mediocre.
Signature quail stuffed w/ foie was good but actually a tad overcooked.
One dessert was blah, one was amazing.
I think that's everything.

Wine pairings and service were both excellent.

Overall, it was certainly quite good, but at $160 + wine pairing + tax/tip it came out to ~$360 for one, and it wasn't really at that level imo. Makes me realize how spoiled we are w/ fine dining options in SF.