Was thinking about it-- have you been before and thought is was worth the $200?

nope this will be my first time. i don't know if it will be "worth" the $200 as i don't really care to meet any of the chefs. wouldn't recognize a single chef that has not had their own extensive cooking show on TV, lol.

i'm basically just going just to say i went (and to try 55 small plates!)

tried out that lunch at milos today with my girlfriend after class.
for appetizers we got the crab cakes (delicious) the hortopita (not as great but still good) we both had the salmon entree which was fantastic and for desert, the yogurt martini (kind of different, greek yogurt topped with kumquat, gf loved it, i thought it was alright) and the karidopita (not my style but the ice cream topping was amazing) service was impeccable and i see us going back routinely since its such good value.

can't wait to try the $20 lunch...hope they don't take it away!!

was it busy?

nah, there were a constant 6 other parties in the whole place there other than us.

ftr, on the menu i noticed it said lunch was served wed - sat from 12 - 2:30, but obv went today and it was open. didn't bother asking about hours though.

gonna do vegas with the gf for first time soon, we're gonna crank out a bunch of fine dining in a 3day stretch.

im thinking:

-julian serrano (or should I do Jaleo instead? or is there another tapas place?)
- lotus of siam
- RM seafood
- bouchon (brunch)
- mesa grill

can someone recommend a place to get her into sushi gradually, that isn't Nobu? a place with good hot plates, basically. then she can sample the cold stuff. preferably on the strip.

Sen of Japan is just the best but it isn't on the strip. Okada?

the foie gras at french laundry was the #1 best thing I've ever had so this news pleases me greatly. I hope it comes with the array of salts and toast the way it did at FL.

Both of those work, guess I'll do okada. Did u not like blue ribbon? Not having to deal with cabs would be the primary concern I guess. She loves Thai so it would be easy telling her that it's the best in the country, so get in this cab lol. sushi we'd be better off walking. ty!

almost puked in sen parking lot

puked in naked fish parking lot

too much sushi but delicious

One of the very best plates I've ever had too, and it was served with perfect satsuma mandarin segments and hazelnuts....

Anybody been to Golden Steer?

The foie au torchon at Bouchon won't be plated as nicely, its served in a mason jar with some toast and some fleur de sel, thats it but the foie itself is prepared the same way as Keller's other places is what I meant.

I'd scratch Mesa Grill, it's just not that impressive. As for tapas, your three high-end choices are those two and Fleur de Lys, which rebranded themselves as a tapas place. Haven't been yet. I have been to Julian Serrano and it was great.

i'd rather go to mesa grill than julian serrano!

therefore, you should go to jaleo

I love Julian Serrano. I've had one meal at Jaleo and was pretty unimpressed.

I've eaten twice at julian serrano and was not impressed at all. And I've had one attempt to eat there where they didn't honor my reservations and acted very poorly to me and my friends when we expected nothing but our reservations to be honored within 45 minutes of when they were.

the gf is a massive top chef/food network fan, so that should explain the selections (lol mesa). the gobbo seal of approval on rm upstairs is just additional gravy. mmmm gravy.

gonna try jaleo and go the clarkmeister route.

mesa really is not that bad. it gets a bad rap because ELV dislikes it and it's overpriced. you will probably have to ask for extra sauce too.

i can pretty much guarantee your girl will love it if she is a big watcher of his shows. i have eaten there with a few fans of his show and eating at mesa grill is like the holy grail to them. doesn't really matter how the food comes out, lol

I ate at Mesa this past Sunday and really enjoyed it. I got the pork tenderloin which I thought was extremely well prepared. On a side note, Phil Helmuth was the table next to us.

I will have to say that we went to CUT Friday night and it was better than I expected. I got the Wagymu (sp?) Ribeye and I still don't know how they got all the flavoring in that one piece of meat.

cut is indeed da bomb

Milos $20.11 lunch is the best deal I've ever come across in Vegas. 3 courses, all decent portions. The salmon I got was so insanely good. I want this lunch every day.

Open Mon-Fri for lunch according to waiter.

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.

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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

great TR and that's really good value, wow.

TY Clayton, great TR.

Can't wait to try Milos my next time in Vegas. Love greek food, but there are basically no upscale greek restaurants where I live, because the restaurants are all run by greeks that came to Germany in the 60's/70's and developed a domesticated, rather fat, fast-food-style cuisne.

it's not surprising they aren't many where you live, because there are not many in the entire country!