| rev:text
| - It's Chinese. It's Mexican. It's . . . not bad. Ah, fusion restaurants. So hip, so stylish. They promise the best of both worlds. But when they fail, the offer double the . . . dishes that rise to the level of "pretty good".
For all it's hype (and man, was this place hyped as part of the newly-opened Cosmopolitan), China Poblano fails to deliver the amazing meal that could have been from the combination of Chinese food and Mexican food on one menu. It has interesting choices, but the dishes just don't rise to the quality of the better Mexican and Chinese restaurants in Vegas and China Poblano is double the price.
First, the Mexican dishes. We ordered several tacos. The mole chicken was bland. Seriously, the mole sauce was bland. A chocolate-based sauce was bland. The other tacos we ordered combined braised pork with a fried pork rind. It felt gimmicky. The pork rind just took away from the impressively tender and tasty braised pork. Remove the pork rind and that's a pretty tasty taco. The pork itself was delicious, but not enough to bring me back when I'm craving Mexican food when Vegas has so many tasty taquerias.
As for the Chinese offerings, we ordered the Vegetable Noodles and the bbq pork dumplings (When Pigs Fly). The noodles were good and the sauce was delicious, but again, it just didn't rise to the level of amazing that I expected. On a positive note, the dumplings in When Pigs Fly were tender, the bbq sauce was sweet and tangy and I recommend them if you head over to China Poblano.
We also splurged and tried the dish "Like Water for Chocolate," which local reviewers have been raving about. It's a tapas-sized portion of fried quail with dragon fruit in dragon fruit sauce, which is beautifully arranged (as were most dishes -- one thing this place knows is artful presentation). But after having the dish, I don't quite understand the rave reviews. Dragon fruit is essentially tasteless, but juicy and offers very little to the dish other than its undeniably cool name. The waitress told us that the chefs add citrus into the dragon fruit sauce to add some flavor, but when we had it, the flavors could be described as subtle at best, and absent at worst. The quail itself was pretty damn tasty if you don't mind crunching through a bone or two in your fried nuggets. At $8, I'd say it's worth ordering. At $15, stay away.
The best parts of our meal were the fresh guacamole, pomegranate margarita and the entire desert menu. The guacamole was exceptional and included a wonderful mix of Oaxaca cheese. The pomegranate margarita is a little piece of food art with a sweet, sharp taste and topped with an inventive salt foam. And this place is known for its deserts. We had the flan and it gets a big thumbs up.
Bottom line: 3 stars with some dishes rising to the level of "good to great," but most sitting around "not bad:. Add in the high prices for tapas portions and it's a solid 3. Four of the dishes made me want to cheer, the others rose to the level of not bad.
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