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| - Date: 04/19 lunchtime
My wife and I are in town celebrating our 15th anniversary, and we're staying at the Venetian for the first time due to its collection of celebrity chef locations. Emeril has been a favorite of ours for a long time, so we were excited to try Table 10. We wanted to stay on-property for our first night in town.
We were seated next to a half-dressed morning-after bachelorette party, which put a damper on the meal from the start. We waited 5-10 minutes for menus while the party next to us had speakerphone conversations. Our waiter ignored us most of the visit in order to placate their requests.
I'm sure the inside of the restaurant might be nice, but we were seated in what can nicely be described as "mall ambiance", between the retail stores and the escalator.
The waiter's assistant brought us a plain flat biscuit (looked like it was from a can) and some water, and appeared to be the only one doing anything. Very slow return service on water, and no bread refill.
We chose to share the Crab Hush Puppies (4) as an appetizer. Paired with the essence mayo sauce that came with it, these were tasty. Definitely needed the sauce though, and they were a little undercooked.
My wife chose the Croque Madame, which was a ham and Swiss sandwich with a sunny-side up egg on top, with fried potato wedges and a small balsamic salad. The ham in this was excellent, and she was happy with the sides. I chose the Lobster Rolls, which came with a small side of cole slaw. The lobster rolls were lobster + mayo on Hawaiian rolls, and they were fine, but since this was Emeril's restaurant, I expected them to be spicy or at least seasoned with Emeril's essence or ANY seasoning. They could and should have been so much better! There is an expectation (by me, anyway) that a lobster roll at an Emeril restaurant should be above and beyond what I could get at Lobster Me in Venetian, and it definitely was not. The cole slaw was overkill on mayo.
We also ordered the Truffle Mac & Cheese to share as a side. We were really hoping this would be great, but it definitely was not. It was not cheesy at all, and had very little flavor. There was no taste of truffle at all, so it failed on every level to live up to its name except that it did have macaroni in it.
Our excitement to eat at celebrity chef restaurants has been lowered. Our expectation was that food quality and presentation at a celebrity chef location would be better than average and I do not think that is setting the bar too high. We have eaten in restaurants bordering the Grand Canal Shoppes that had way less mall-type distractions. Most of the food was average, but we left half of the truffle macaroni & cheese on the table, which is not the norm for us. Very disappointing. I don't think we will be back.
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