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| - I've never eaten at an Olive Garden. If Rao's had been one, I would have walked out with a couple of hundred dollars more in my pocket, and said it was okay. But grading on a price to dining experience ratio, not so much. Look, I know that every restaurant at Caesar's Palace is overpriced, and I'm perfectly willing to overpay for a great dinner, but this was overpaying for a mediocre dinner.
We started with Frito Misto for the table. A couple of bites convinced me to save my appetite for the next course. It's not that it was bland. It had flavor. It's just that it had flavors I didn't care for. So on to the first course special - Pasta Fagioli. Dean Martin claims that this dish should make me drool like I'm in love, but it was pretty much just a bowl of soup. My main course was the bone-in veal parm, which was huge. That made it a bit of a waste, since I left most of it on the plate, and declined an offer to take the rest home in a doggy bag. I knew I could whip up something for tomorrow night's dinner that would taste much better. I also had a side of Quattro Fromagi pasta - large pasta shells with no noticeable cheese flavor and, come to think of it, no particular flavor at all.
In short, I just wasn't impressed. Neither was the rest of our table. My wife had a pasta dish, which she described as "acceptable." One of our friends had chicken, which he called "a waste." Our other friend had a steak, on which he didn't comment.
The room was a bit cramped. The walls were completely covered with photographs of people who, I guess, you had to be a New Yorker to recognize. I certainly didn't. Service was attentive, but a bit rushed. The goal seemed to be quick turnaround of the table, rather than facilitating a relaxing dining experience.
So the whole thing was disappointing. If my veal parm had cost $22, I probably wouldn't have minded leaving most of it on the plate. But at $53 I expected something top notch. This wasn't it. My suggestion: If you want a high-end and fairly priced Italian meal, go a mile off the strip to Piero's Italian Cuisine.
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