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| - I have been hearing fabulous things about the new nightlife mecca that is Hakkasan long before it's opening this past April. My friend does PR for the brand and I grew up in Las Vegas, so any new opening is exciting and warrants a trip home to see what all the buzz is about. We made reservations weeks before, and had planned to eat around 8:30 on Saturday before entering the club later to see Tiesto. It is a bit tricky to find/enter the restaurant, because you have to walk through the entirety of the massive MGM casino floor to the other side, and navigate the signs and ropes that herd the club-goers into their appropriate lines to find a little opening that says "restaurant". Inside, blue lights glow and 4 hostesses wait behind a lobby desk to check you in.
The service is impeccable from the start, and although we were a few minutes late (leave about 15 minutes to walk through the MGM), we were seated right away. The restaurant takes up the first 2 floors of the 5 story Hakkasan space, and the interior is breathtaking. While the restaurant is huge, it is broken up into intimate spaces by an endless web of intricately woven wooden panels stationed horizontally and vertically. The walls glow blue, and the dark wood decor is tasteful and elegant. The menu is vast, and is broken up into sections i.e. Meat, Fish, Veggies, Starch, etc. like a standard Chinese restaurant, but we asked our server for recommendations.
We started with the Crispy Duck Salad which is one of their renowned items and for good reason. The duck alone is divine, it is poached and steamed in a chinese spice mixture for hours before being fried in rice flour, then added to a plum dressing mixture with greens, pine nuts, pomelos, and more mouth-watering ingredients. It was truly astonishing how amazing it was.
Next came the Sesame Shrimp Toast w/ Foie Gras which I was most excited about, since CA has outlawed the delectable delicacy, but I was greatly disappointed. The dish was 4 hearty spheres of a solid shrimp mixture completely coated in sesame seeds. Supposedly when we bit into them, foie gras would ooze out but that was not the case. If there was foie gras in there, we did not find it. Disappointing and bland.
Next we ordered a cup of Hot & Sour soup, a dish my boyfriend and I both love and were curious to see how Hakkasan interpreted it. It was good, different though... it had a sweet and almost fishy flavor to the broth.
For our larger dishes we ordered the Black Pepper Rib-eye Merlot Stir-fry which came with sauteed onions and garlic and was absolutely out of this world. Some of the most tender steak I've had in general, and was a wonderful experience to have that flavor and texture in a stir-fry dish. We also ordered the Sweet & Sour Pork which was fresh and very flavorful.
We had wanted to order the fried crab appetizer and a veggie dish as well, but realized quickly we were getting very full because we foolishly had a snack at the Todd English Pub around 5:30 pm (more on that later!). I wish we could have sampled more dishes and cocktails...I only tried the Hakka which was vodka and sake mixed with passion fruit and lychee juice and was absolutely incredible.
The menu provides plenty of options for a fantastic meal, for 2 our bill was about $137. There are also specialty dishes with abalone and caviar and some seafood dishes that can run up to $400, so clearly it depends what you order. I believe the average cocktail is $15-18, although they also offer about 5 for $120. So, you can choose what type of experience you wish to have, although dining at Hakkasan alone is absolutely an indulgent and upscale experience.
Our waitress Catalina was the most gracious, helpful, and genuinely fantastic server we have had in years, she really helped make our experience memorable. I can't wait to go back and try the rest of the menu, hopefully I will in 3 weeks when I'm back in my home away from home!
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