VegasChatter

Tags: Restaurant Week / Restaurants / Fleur de Lys / Stratta / Food / Charity / → All Tags

VegasChatter's Top 5 Picks For Restaurant Week

Help feed America by feeding yourself at Fleur de Lys. Win/win?

As we mentioned yesterday Restaurant Week Las Vegas kicked off last night and continues through Sunday. It’s one of our favorite weeks of the year to eat out since we get to try new and old preferred spots alike at a discount. And know that we are helping Three Square by gorging ourselves in the process.

With more than 100 restaurants participating this year, up from 85 last year, narrowing your lunch or dinner plans can be an exercise in itself. Luckily, we’re here to help.

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Tags: Snapshot / Max Brenner / Forum Shops / Caesars Palace / Food / → All Tags

Don't Get Too Excited When the Check Comes at Max Brenner

While you’re in the mood for food, thinking about Restaurant Week, our minds drifted to the nice brunch we had at Max Brenner the other week. Specifically, the surprise that you get when it’s time to pay.

When we asked for the check, it was presented in a pretty tin box saying “money for life, chocolate for the soul”. The inhabitants of our table promptly got all excited that Max was slipping us some chocolate with the bill, but alas, no, it was just the check.

To be fair, you’ll probably have consumed so much chocolate as part of the meal that an extra choccy drop with the bill could actually push you over the edge.

Move on, people.

Tags: Restaurant Week / Food / Cheap Vegas / Wet Republic / Charity / → All Tags

Train Your Stomach For Restaurant Week At Wet Republic Tonight

A particularly nice sausage of seared tuna we once enjoyed at Serendipity 3

What a lovely morning it is! The world is still laughing at Paris Hilton, and it’s the start of Restaurant Week in Vegas, meaning we can eat food we couldn’t normally afford at prices we can, while helping charity at the same time. Bonza!

Not familiar with what’s going on? Basically, from today until Sunday, 94 Vegas restaurants will be offering three course, prix fixe menus throughout the week for either $20.10 (lunch at Rao’s), $30.10 (lunch or dinner at Serendipity 3) or $50.10 (dinner at RM Seafood) per person. The proceeds go to Three Square.

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Tags: VegasChatter Reviews / Restaurants / Food / Max Brenner / Chocolate Shops / Forum Shops / → All Tags

Brunch at Max Brenner Isn't All About the Chocolate (But the Chocolate's So Good)

It’d be remiss of us to leave you on a bad food-related note when it’s coming up to lunchtime, so to redress the balance of our poor meatloaf experience, we present to you: Brunch at Max Brenner, A Yummy Experience.

Yes, we hit up Max Brenner at the Forum Shops last weekend to see whether we would eat the finest brunch in Vegas, as they’d promised. The verdict? We’re never ones for superlatives (unless we’re talking about the wunderbar Tom Lowe) so we won’t say that. In fact, we wouldn’t say it was spectacular, but it was very, very nice.

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Tags: Snapshot / MGM Grand / Studio Cafe / Food / Do Not Do / Restaurants / → All Tags

When is Meat Loaf Not a Good Choice? When It's at the Studio Cafe

You can’t beat a good piece of meat loaf, right? No, not right. Not, that is, if the meat loaf comes from the Studio Café at MGM Grand.

We’re always on the lookout for cheap eats so when we ended up in the Grand the other night to see Ka, we thought we’d give the Caff a whirl. Normally we go for a burger as our restaurant litmus test, but this time we were tempted by the meat loaf, that we were assured by our server was very good. Which it had to be, really - because at $18.50 it was hardly being given away.

Woe was us – it was not very good. It was, in fact, very poor. It had the consistency of jelly and the only thing we liked eating was the mashed potato, which wasn’t very good, either. suffice to say, we didn’t ask for a box. Then during Ka, we started feeling sick. Was it the food or was it those kerazy kidz and their onstage turning our stomach? Who knows, but we doubt we'll risk it again.

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Tags: Classes / Restaurants / Food / Red Rock Resort / Hachi / Sushi / El Segundo Sol / Mexican Food / → All Tags

Time to Locate Your Inner Domestic God in Vegas Next Week

Little Sumpin Sumpin and LSD rolls at Hachi. Yumballs.

Sometimes we feel like getting lairy, watching shows and stalking Elvi isn’t enough in Vegas. Don’t you want to learn new skillz? (No, people, we're not talking Stripper 101.)

So as an appetite-whetter to the forthcoming Restaurant Week (more on that next week), we couldn’t help noticing that two restaurants we rather like are running cooking classes next week.

Off the Strip, Hachi at Red Rock Casino runs monthly sushi-rolling classes. A two hour class gives you all the ingredients, instructions from either exec chef Linda Rodriguez (who studied with the Nobu), chef de cuisine Martin Swift or head sushi chef Fernando Luna, and a roll to take home. It costs $85 plus tax, and the next one is August 26 at 6.30pm. After that, it’ll be September 23, October 21 and November 18. Space is limited as classes are small – 12 max.

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Tags: Food / Restaurants / Wynn / Encore / Vegans / Vegetarians / → All Tags

Steve Wynn Wants to Make Life Easier For Vegas Vegans

Yes, you can now eat here without harming any animals.

For anyone who loves animals enough not to eat them, finding good vegetarian eats always requires a bit of work when dining out. And for vegans and vegetarians, Las Vegas isn't the friendliest of places when it comes to eating--not with all these carnivorous Frenchie chefs in town! But it now looks like vegan and veggie folks have a new ally in Steve Wynn.

According to The Strip Podcast and the fragrant Johnny Kats (who is actually vegan atm), Wynn has introduced a vegan culinary program where every Wynn and Encore restaurant will feature a vegan menu. Some of the entrees include a fava been puree at Alex; a market chopped salad at Society Cafe, whole wheat primavera pasta at Stratta; vegetable gratin at Botero and grilled mushrooms at SW, Wynn's signature steakhouse.

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Tags: Deals / Food / Restaurants / Sushi Roku / Boa / Forum Shops / → All Tags

We Like Good Food and We Like It Cheap. Thankfully, Sushi Roku and Boa Have Our Backs

We've been a couple of busy bees this summer scouting out the Best Budget Hotel Rooms in Vegas for you but while saving money on your room frees up your budget for other things like Chippendales, souvenir drinks and Elvis t-shirts gambling, drinking and eating, that doesn't mean you still need to pay full price for everything.

Fortunately, over at Sushi Roku and Boa inside the Forum Shops, we won't have to park it outside a food court to have a sensibly-priced meal.

That's because both restaurants have introduced a "Summer Breaks" pre-fixe dinner menu for $45 per person that includes a starter, entree and dessert. You only have to decide whether you want sushi or steak. But at these prices, if you're feeling particularly flush you can have both!

The menus are available nightly through Labor Day weekend. Keep reading after the jump for the menu descriptions.

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Tags: Food / Mexican Restaurants / Fashion Show Mall / El Segundo Sol / → All Tags

Celebrate Cinco de Agosto at El Segundo Sol (Yeah, That's Right--The 5th of August)

We've said it before and we'll keep on saying it because you all are probably too hungover to remember we said it in the first place--Vegas will ALWAYS find a reason to celebrate something, anything. And if you were looking for a reason to get loco tomorrow night, you can find it at the new Mexican taqueria and margarita bar, El Segundo Sol in Fashion Show Mall.

If you recall, this is the place we mentioned would replace Cafe Ba Ba Reeba way back when. The joint opened in May and is now serving up cervezas, margaritas and tequila shots along with your favorite Americanized Mexican dishes like fajitas, tacos (with all kinds of meat in 'em and veggies ones too), enchiladas and quesadillas. And of course the apps we all love to feast on--chips n' salsa with guac, queso fundido and nachos.

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Tags: Kerry Simon / Food / Palms Place / Lunch Spots / → All Tags

Wham, Bam, Thank You Chef: 30-Minute Lunches at Simon

We're typically never in a hurry here in Vegas (unless it's at Timpano Tavern and we've got show tickets) but when we are, the options for grabbing good food on the go are pretty dismal--i.e. pizza in a food court, McDonalds, stale pastries at Starbucks.

Chef Kerry Simon must have also recognized the lack of good, quick eats in Vegas so he's now rolling out his own 30-Minute Power Lunches at Simon at Palms Place. Designed to get you in and out of his restaurant in 30 minutes, the menu offers three options, ranging from $18 to $21--each with their own mini versions of starter, entree, side and dessert.

· Iron Chef: A grilled bacon cheddar burger, Tuscan fries, Caesar salad and a vanilla milkshake.
· Kerry's Classic: A combination of the chef's favorite menu items including the turkey chop chop salad, creamy tomato soup, sourdough grilled cheese and warm chocolate chip cookies.
· Simon Bento Box: Sushi bar selections of a California roll, seaweed salad, the buzzed about spicy tuna crispy rice and chocolate mochi.

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Tags: Vegas Mistakes / VegasChatter Reviews / Restaurants / Venetian / Food / Timpano Tavern / → All Tags

The One Where We Forget to Tell The Server We Have Show Tickets

David Burke may have left but Humpty Dumpty ain't getting off that wall.

While we like to tell you what to do and not do in Vegas, that doesn't mean we don't mess up every now and then. It's true. VegasChatter makes Vegas Mistakes, just like everyone else! In this episode, we try out Timpano Tavern at The Venetian. See what important lessons we learned below.)

We here at VegasChatter like to eat try new restaurants so when we’re going to a show we often look to work in a meal beforehand. Our therapist even suggested we write about our pre-show eating obsession.

Ever since David Burke at the Venetian closed we were curious about its successor, Timpano Tavern. Located near the Blue Man Group theater and owned by the same group running Aquaknox, the spot has a lot going for it from the start.

On this particular outing, we took a large group of seven people for a 7:30pm reservation. The catch being we had a show to catch across the street at The Mirage at 10pm. Still, we figured two and a half hours would be plenty of time to eat, drink, be merry and scurry across the street before 10pm. We were wrong.

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Tags: Food / Restaurants / Concerts / Mandalay Bay / Hussong's Cantina / → All Tags

'Grub for Stub' at Hussong's Cantina Before the Concerts

We've already told you where the best pre-show dinners are as well as what are this summer's hottest concerts but now there's an option for you to gnosh before you mosh at Hussong's Cantina. Or as they're calling it--Grub for Stub.

The restaurant is inviting concert goers with tickets to shows at Mandalay Bay or Mandalay Beach to show up early, park in valet at The Shoppes at Mandalay Bay and head into Hussong's with their ticket stubs. Upon showing the waiter their concert tickets, diners will get a complimentary appetizer with the purchase of an entree.

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