Bloo, we liked the croquetas also:


Wine was i guess fine but not good. Not sure what we expected for $36 but he just said we should definitely go with that for a tempranillo. If their other tempranillos are worse god help them.

Amuse: was great. watermelon and mint gazpacho
Oysters: the oysters were really good. I didn't think any of the accompaniments added anything though - would order plain.
La Lata: roasted red peppers and anchovies served on toast points. Was fine. There was one uni-stuffed olive on this plate that was really good but out of nowhere
Fermented tomato salad: Very good. Would recommend.
Lobster salpicon: This dish was good also. Big chunks of lobster in kind of a ceviche preparation. Was looking for a little more from the salsa but overall still solid.
Tortilla de patatas: Pedestrian, but no real complaints. It's a simple dish, and they prepared it in an authentic way
Buñuelo de bacalao: Cod fritters. They were black all the way through and looked like little charcoal briquettes (squid ink). These were a little overfried imho, and the squid ink didn't add anything to the dish but it made these visually unappealing
Clams: Ok, so this was pretty weird. It was clams in a beef and lemon broth, with maybe a lemon verbena or something lemony and herbal in the broth. The beef and lemon broth was v good, but then you got these big pieces of herb and it was pretty bitter lemon and just overwhelming. And the clams had no real taste, crushed by the broth.
Pulpo: Octopus was cooked perfectly but served with an incredibly strong, thick tamarind mole -- really a paste, not a sauce. This could be a taste thing, but I thought the tamarind mole was -- not gross, but really unappealing. Octopus isnt really strong so i think it needs something really light to accompany it. Was another one where we were left scratching our heads.
Pan Amb Tomaquet: Really fantastic, but again it's such a simple dish -- tomato on bread -- that you don't get a lot of points for getting it right (of course its a huge minus if you screw it up. Totally unfair but i make my scoring rubric :shrug
Croquetas: Lots going on, and a really creamy(?) almost liquidy filling. Perfect little fritters just oozing a gooey taste bomb filling. I dont even remember what was inside but i know it was good
Patatas bravas: Usually double fried little potato cubes served with chili sauce and 'alioli' - a garlicky aioli. These things are addictive. The EDO potatoes are awesome but their sauce leaves a lot to be desired. Imagine four 1" x 1" x 6" sticks each consisting of 6-10 layers of long potato slices, fried what seems like it must be seventeen (but probably is 2) times. It was a french fry, but instead of a piece of potato, you had all these great layers. Great mix of crispy and soft. Friends said theirs were *really* greasy but ours were really great. Again, really wanted that garlic sauce though. They gave a "spicy alioli" but the fun w bravas is you can make them really spicy or really garlicky/creamy. Overall the dish missed even though the potatoes were god damn heavenly.

Then there was the service. I don't know if I'll remember all the things but:
1) Your wait staff should be able to pronounce your dishes, or at least not try and totally botch it. It was comical. Poor kid clearly took french or german in high school or something.
2) Your wait staff should bring the right food (not an order of the one type of oyster we didn't order, for example)
3) One waiter took my wine glass away when it was empty and we had half a bottle of wine left. Wife and I were laughing about it and called him back over to bring a new wine glass, and I joked that i thought he was going to fill my glass up, not take it away. And he apologized for being rude but still left me an empty wine glass. No one poured wine for us all evening except the first glass.
4) Service was generally inattentive - even getting the wine glass back took a few minutes
5) There was a somm, but when we were ordering, the waiter just gave his suggestions, which were laughable. Didn't find out about somm until dessert wine.
6) The bravas we ordered never came out. The waiter came back and asked if we wanted the check (not dessert or anything) and i told him we wanted the bravas we ordered that never came out. No apology, nothing. Just bravas.
7) Table next to us: woman never got her drink, food came out wrong, they paid and left halfway through their meal. The tables on the wall are a little tight, so we got to be a part of their service issues too.

Think that might be it.

hah, we literally only overlapped on the amuse, the fermented tomato salad and the croquetas, all of which we agree were very good (oh, and the oysters, which were fine, nothing special)

possibly the stuff on the tasting menu is the highlights and straying from that is higher variance?

service stuff all sounds like it shouldn't be happening though

How difficult can it be in Las Vegas to find a service staff that speaks Spanish?

Where we live, lots of restaurants/bars offer beer from a local German-style brewery. Especially in a louder environment, it's almost impossible for me to order a "Hefeweizen" because nobody understands the word if I use the German pronunciation and I have a hard time pronouncing it the way Midwesterners do. So I usually try once and then just ask to get the wheat-style beer and try to not roll my eyes when they lecture me on the correct name.

Mad,

Please describe the German and midwestern pronunciations phonetically, thx.

or, youtube...

I'm really hopeful that madlex yells "HEFEWEIZEN" in a way that resembles Christoph Waltz in IB

For the right pronunciation, YouTube might be a better source than me.

The Midwesterners start the word either “Hay” or “Hef” as in Hugh Hefner. Weizen is a little tricky because in German the word sounds like it’s spelled with “tz” instead of just a “z”. And most Americans, including my wife, have trouble pronouncing the German “z” correctly anyway. OTOH, I still have no idea what the difference between “c” and “z” is in a lot of English words.
I wish! I think he has German citizenship but is actually from Vienna. That’s a very different German dialect than the one I speak. But I can pull off a pretty decent Arnold Schwarzenegger “I’ll be back”.

OK clearly not a citizen myself, but from a Nordic country bordering Germany, and taught the tongue since 5th grade.

Just because you didn't mention it: The biggest issues to my ears, when I hear Amurcans mangle German words, are the blatant disregard of /fau/ ('v'), and the failure to pronounce w as a v.

Thank you Wyman, this is super helpful!
a. When I order Rioja, I make sure its a Crianza (12+ month in oak). Really makes all the difference.
b. The described level of service is repugnant. Shame on the GM.

That’s very true.

Would people who have been to EDO and Jaleo say that they are pretty similar with the latter having better service and being more expensive?

I wonder if both places share the same distributor for a lot of the stuff that’s coming directly from Spain.

Mad,

If you just say hef-uh-wize-en (or anything close to that) you won’t have any problem ordering Hefeweizen in America.

I think the food at Jaleo is better, but as we may have beat to death, I think I may have ordered the bad half of the menu...

Jaleo is still quite good ate there 2 Saturday nights ago with 2 friends.

Yellowfin was good, not great.

Picasso amazing food and service my 4th time I think. I go every trip and never misses. One of my alltime fave restaurants.

Hadn't been to L'atelier Robuchon in like 4 years, almost forgot how totally great their food is. And the drinks were on point also. Been here over 5x now.

Went to Scotch 80 Prime, everything was pretty amazing. Expensive, but similar pricing to other strip steakhouses. We had the following:

-crab cake
-short rib ravioli
-steak tartare
-42oz tomahawk
-20oz bone in dry aged NY strip
-all 5 sauces
-shisito peppers
-potato au gratin
-mushrooms
-creamed corn
-peanut butter pie
-toffee cake thing
-banana bread pudding

....plus a bunch of wine and some old fashioneds.

Everything was pretty great, wasn't crazy about the creamed corn and honestly thought the steak was better without the sauces. Crab cake and steak tartare were some of the best I've had anywhere. Service was great. Didn't get a chance to try the $3k shots of Macallan, maybe next time.

Sounds very good, Scotch 80 Prime is definitely on my “to do” list. I wasn’t a fan of N9NE, especially the noise, but it looks like they did well on the replacement.

Do they have a whiskey list online somewhere? Friend of mine went to the Macallan distillery to watch them fill his own barrel, can’t wait for that to be done in a little less than 15 years. They also could sample some of the old “Fine & Rare” ones dating back to the 40s, but I doubt Macallan hands out the super super expensive ones for that.

Many years ago when I was just visiting here a lot, N9ne was one of my go to date nights, mainly really enjoying the apps, sides, and deserts. Went there 3 years ago and it was the last time I'd ever go, the food was flat out bad, cold, etc. Was hoping that Stations might find a way to put a high quality steakhouse in there that would be a little better value than the strip, doesn't look like that was the goal but great review, I will definitely check it out.

Can you still eat at the bar, like at the old N9ne?

Going to NoMad tonight. Will report back.

no clue what this was....looked it up. Wow, no prices on the menu. Could be dangerous.

Looks cool, tho.

Hell of a google tagline from NoMad there

reminds me of scarface babylon club with booths switched inside

where did you see a menu? all i saw was bar, that had prices under menus>bar

Been awhile since we've really gone off so it'll be ok. Appreciate the thoughts and prayers though.

I haven't seen a menu even. Looking fwd to it though.

The chef/co-owner is Daniel Humm, the Swiss guy who got Eleven Madison Park in NYC 3 Michelin Stars. If you are interested in a rough price range, I guess you could check menus from NoMad NYC or LA. The LV location should at least be in the same ballpark?

@wyman: very curious about your TR!

Will do a better job later but everything was really nice and we really enjoyed the meal. Their roast chicken for 2 is the nuts, good wine list, service was ok-not-great. A few weird missteps I chalk up to opening night (but that's pretty generous). Basically it's a really nice option for a business dinner or a date, but it's probably 50% too expensive, so it makes the rotation if it's 30% discounted or so. Was just under 600 out the door for 4, incl a round of cocktails, a shared dessert, and a shared bottle of wine ($130, where a magnum at K&L is $110, so not crazy markup). No one left stuffed.

I took a bunch of menu pictures but only one food picture - got lost in conversation so apologies there. More to come

Sitting in the airport dead after Manresa, Benu, and Meadowwood in three days. Meadowwood still the king.

DD,

Reviews pls! Has been quite a while since I’ve been to each of those, time for a return visit to one of them.

German dude I used to know a long time ago always pronounced it the German way. But when said with the rest of the name of the beer, I don't think there was generally any confusion.

Sounded like heef-uh-veit-zen if I remember correctly, but I could be butchering it.