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| - Gordon Ramsay may be famous for Hell's Kitchen and MasterChef, but I think he should also be infamous for opening up one Las Vegas tourist trap after another. His eponymous steakhouse is the latest example.
I had a reservation on a Sunday evening. GR Steak is right on the Paris casino floor, and, upon checking in with the hostess, you find yourself passing through a tunnel ("chunnel") from France to England. Actually, GR Steak is less like England and more like a giant, two-story plexiglass box designed to be only vaguely reminiscent of England.
The restaurant is loud and raucous, but I was lucky enough to score a relatively quiet corner table next to a wine cabinet. At the same time, it was totally awkward when the sommelier would bump into the table every 5 minutes while fetching bottles.
While wine sounded nice at first, I ended up starting dinner with one of their cocktails -- the English Garden (Hendricks gin, basil-infused rock candy, lemon, basil, cucumber, celery bitters). The cocktail was refreshing and easy to drink, but I didn't taste much other than gin and cucumber.
My original plan was to order the tasting menu, but the server insisted it was "overrated" and steered me toward his favorite menu items. While waiting for the first course, I nibbled on a delicious assortment of breads. These breads were so soft and luscious that the English Devonshire butter and black volcanic sea salt (how fancy!) weren't even necessary.
The first course was baby beet salad with burrata and spiced pecan crumble. The beets were nice and tender, but, overall, the dish (especially the pecan crumble) was unbearably sweet. I mean dessert-level, tastes-like-an-ice-cream-sundae sweet. I nibbled at it but didn't finish it.
The second course was seared Hudson Valley foie gras with goat cheese popovers, huckleberry jus, and pickled ramps. This was easily my favorite dish of the night. The foie gras was juicy and tender, but the huckleberry jus provided some acidity to cut through the richness. Totally wonderful.
Unfortunately, the entree was a disaster. I had a small (3 oz) filet of triple-seared Japanese A5 Kobe, which tasted slimy and mealy and un-fresh. I had it with a side of roasted okra, which was so absurdly spicy that I couldn't eat more than 1 bite of it for fear of burning out my few remaining tastebuds. The server asked me why I didn't like the food, and I told him the honest truth -- and he was nice enough to take it away and strike it from the check. He told me the kitchen made a mistake and was apologetic. I appreciated that.
Last item of the night was the signature dessert of the house -- sticky toffee pudding with brown butter ice cream. I was surprised that I didn't care much for it, especially since I normally enjoy toffee. The pudding itself was cloying and syrupy and overly sweet, and the brown butter ice cream was as hard and dense as a cinderblock. After about 2 small bites, I was done.
A highlight of the dinner was the service, which was very courteous and professional, despite the fact that I might've been acting slightly more high-maintenance than usual, due to my especially high expectations that day. (In my defense, the eye-poppingly steep prices at GR Steak are more than enough to justify high expectations.)
I don't see myself coming back here. The gimmick of the place is fun and there are a handful of interesting items on the menu -- but I think my next trips to Vegas will be steakhouse-free. There are just too many exciting and innovative restaurants in Vegas to squander precious time at tourist traps like this.
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