Las Vegas Restaurants - Part I - Updated Jan. 2013

January, 2013 Update: My two posts last year on Vegas restaurants received some of the highest page views in the history of Frank-Incensed. Since not a great deal has changed on the restaurant scene, rather than write whole new reviews, I have updated these review based on our experiences over the past year, during which we spent almost five weeks total in Las Vegas.

Enjoy!

As some of you know, Laura and I have been living part time in Las Vegas for the last couple of years, going down four or five times a year for long weekends and occasional long weeks.  With CES right around the corner, I thought I’d pass along a few tidbits of restaurant information from a “local’s” perspective.  We have had quite a lot of opportunity to try different restaurants, some multiple times, and gotten lots of advice from real locals, including our son and daughter-in-law Keith and Katie, who live in Henderson full time.  A quick disclaimer: this is in no way anything like a comprehensive review of Vegas dining, as there are literally hundreds of restaurants in Vegas that we have never set foot in.  Additionally, the opinions expressed here are heavily biased toward our existing food preferences.  Rather than an objective critics-eye view, this is more of a personal diary of Vegas dining.  That having been said, I hope you will find this useful, and maybe even a little entertaining.

First, we love Japanese food.  We eat in one or more of Portland’s many fantastic and authentic Japanese places at least once a week, so we were very pleasantly surprised to find truly excellent Japanese fare in Las Vegas.  One certainly needn’t worry about the old “fish in the desert?” question these days, when everything from real Mediterranean Branzino to live Maryland crabs are available for restaurant dining and often even retail purchase thanks to the miracle of daily air deliveries.

There are two world-class Japanese restaurants on the Strip.  First on my list (by just a hair) would be Okada at the Wynn.  The sushi is fantastic and the traditional Japanese cooked dishes are also superb.  This is the only place in town with a traditional Robata bar, where fresh seafood, poultry, meat, and vegetable selections are cooked to order on a small charcoal hibachi.  Robatayaki is one of the most popular dining styles in Tokyo, with hundreds of places serving it up.  Unfortunately, it has not proven very popular in Vegas, and the Robata bar at Okada was only open a couple of nights a week at the time of our last visit.  This place is hugely popular, so reservations are a must, even at the sushi bar!  There is an amazing sake list here too, which can further damage your wallet (more on this below.) This is the best Japanese food I have had outside of Japan.

2013 Update: Okada has been renamed Mizumi after a dispute between Steve Wynn and the man who's name was previously on the restaurant.  The chef, staff, and food is said to be the same.  The decor is definitely not.  The place has been changed from its former subtle ( and quintessentially Japanese) bamboo and hemp decor to a garish red and gold color scheme that reminds one of nothing more that a chain Chinese restaurant. We ate there, and while the food was certainly good (and certainly just as expensive,) it didn't take our breath away like it had for us in the past.  Perhaps it was the subliminal influence of the horrible new decor, but something had slipped.

The second top-notch Japanese place is Shibuya at the MGM Grand.  It also features fantastic sushi and very fine specialty Japanese dishes as well.  You’d be well advised to have reservations here, too, especially on weekends.  The sushi here is also fantastic: really fresh and expertly cut by one of what seems like fifty Japanese sushi chefs working behind a huge sushi bar.  Shibuya specializes in creative sashimi-style appetizers that are perfect for sharing, with each having four or more pieces.  The marinated Hamachi and the Kobe beef are highly recommended, but everything here is top-notch.  The cooked dishes are terrific too, with Laura’s hands-down favorite being pineapple salmon and miso-marinated black cod; two generous chunks of fish that are simultaneously full-flavored and melt-in-your-mouth.  On a side note, Shibuya is one of the very few places I have visited that offers real fresh-grated Wasabi root.  The clump of spicy green paste you get in 99% of all Japanese restaurants is a reconstituted mix of dried wasabi root powder and water.  By contrast, Shibuya’s fresh Wasabi comes on a miniature cutting board with a sharkskin grater and a generous hunk of a real Wasabi root.  The resulting grated Wasabi is only vaguely similar to the usual paste, having good spiciness and a more pleasing texture that comes from the fibrous root and its natural moisture.  It costs an additional $15 per order (politely decline when they say your table may need two orders) and you have to ask for it.  Ask for it.

2013 Update: With the slight decline of the former Okada and no less than four outstanding dinners in 2012, Shibuya tops our ranking of Japanese restaurants with ease.  Consistently great sushi and sashimi,  innovative cooked and raw Japanese dishes, and outstanding service and Sake selection.

One note on both of these places, which applies to most quality strip dining spots:  they are really expensive.  Expect to pay 50-75% more than at a regular top-shelf big-city Japanese restaurant.  Think New York City prices.  Perfect for your CES expense account meals!

There is an excellent “hole-in-the-wall” Japanese place that is very popular with locals as it is open really late.  It’s called Naked Fish, and it’s way out on the west side at 3945 South Durango Drive.  Sushi prices here are approximately half the cost of Okada and Shibuya, and I would rate the quality at around 90-95% of the two top shelf Japanese places.  You miss out on the super-fancy décor of Okada and Shibuya, and they typically do not have as large a menu, but this is a locals’ favorite and has become one of ours as well.  Especially as, ahem, there is no expense account involved when we dine in Vegas.

A real sleeper of a Japanese restaurant is Hyakumi at Caesar’s Palace.  If you’ve been going to Vegas a while you’ll know this place by sight – the sushi bar is right across from Cleopatra’s Barge night club.  This place has been here forever, and you’ve walked by it a million times.  There is actually whole restaurant behind the sushi bar area that serves various styles, including Teppanyaki, but we’ve never eaten there, preferring to sit at the sushi bar.  The sushi here is seriously good and perfectly prepared in traditional style, the sushi chefs are friendly, and the Japanese beer is ice cold.  Taking the secret back service roads that my son taught me to navigate I can make it from our place to the Caesar’s parking lot in four minutes, and that and the quality of the sushi have made it my lunch favorite, especially when I’m in town solo.

2013 Update:  The hottest new Sushi joint in Vegas is called Kabuto. It is a minimalist sushi bar with a few tables that is patterned after the hole-in-the-wall sushi bars in Tokyo's subway stations, like the one featured in the cult documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi.  We have not been there yet, but it's on our list for this year. Reservations at least a week out are necessary, even for a seat at the sushi bar!

Apart from Japanese, there are many great choices for fine or casual dining, so I’ll finish today’s post with casual dining, and leave fine dining and specialty cuisines for Part II. 

The Burger Bar in the shops between the Mandalay Bay and the Luxor is a favorite casual dining spot.  You get to choose what kind of beef you want for the burger as well as many other choices of toppings and condiments.  They have Kobe beef burgers, fois gras burgers, excellent organic grass-fed American beef burgers, and many more choices. They also have a terrific draft beer selection.  There is frequently a wait for a table at the Burger Bar, so why not make like a local and eat at the bar?  For carnivores only.

A place you would likely never hear referred to as a casual dining destination is the lounge area at Bradley Ogden in Caesar’s Palace.  Bradley’s is a high-end fine dining place that will be discussed later, but they have a prix fixe lounge menu that offers three courses for $29.  Choice of salads, either fish and chips or a burger with fries, and a desert of butterscotch custard.  The burger has won best-in-Vegas awards, and deservedly so.  The hand cut fries are perfectly cooked and presented in a paper cone, and the fish and chips is pretty awesome too.  Only in Vegas is a thirty-dollar salad, burger, and fries a great bargain, but this little menu is really good.

2013 Update: Regrettably, Bradley Ogden closed in August, 2012.

There are tons of acceptable casual dining places (without even mentioning the In ‘N Out Burger on Tropicana and Dean Martin, a Mecca for those unfortunate enough not to live in one of the five states that have them) but I’ll go ahead and mention one more casino hotel place that I really like.  It’s the Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill, an open casual restaurant located right across from the ticket windows for Cirque’s Ka in the MGM Grand.  It features the Puck standard California-style wood oven pizzas as well as a great prime burger and fresh and tasty salad choices.  To my thinking, it’s a better choice for lunch than dinner, but I’ve been happy with both.

2013 Update:  As mentioned in Part II last year, a great new casual spot is Todd English P.U.B. located between the Aria casino and Crystals mall in the new City Center mega-development.  Great oyster bar, lots of unique sandwich and soup choices, and a billion beers on tap make this one of our favorites for a late lunch.

Coming up next:  Part II covers fine dining, Italian, steak, and couple of other personal favorites, plus a list of places we avoid.