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| - A serious foodie restaurant just off the courtyard garden in the Venezia wing of the Venetian hotel. It has a bustling, no nonsense, bright, noisy, food lover's tone to it. That puts off some tourists who expect that a fine restaurant has to be quiet, velvety, dark, and formal. But if you know what you like it can be good here.
What I like is oysters. Lots of them. So while my cohort slept in the room I snuck down for a baker's dozen with some bread and sancerre on the side. The place was booked solid all night, but like most restaurants of its ilk it has a large unreserved bar section so that solo diners and couples can usually slip right in. Personally, I brought my laptop and cell phone to work on a business presentation -- but in deference to people who think that paying lots of money for good food means a certain level of decorum, I put the laptop discretely on the banquette next to me rather than the table.
How can one place's raw shellfish be any better than another's? Is it the selection, the storage, the presentation? Sauce? Temperature? Whatever it is, their oysters, half a dozen tiny gourmet varieties from the Oregon and Washington coasts, were out of this world delicious.
Service was ridiculous. Slow, they forgot the oyster spoons, had to ask twice for bread, etc. And it was in-your-face personal quirky, California style. But it was, strangely, professional. You know they know what they're doing, even if they're not doing it for you at the moment. At the end, without my prompting, the waitress gave me two free oysters and apologized, said that they were far busier tonight than they were expecting. And the oysters, a little pricey, but they were really, really good.
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