When you have a celebrity's face and name on the restaurant, you want to be impressed, need to be impressed, should most definitely be impressed. Not the case for this restaurant.
Sure, take Rick Moonen's cuisine and price it at regular prices and put it in a "normal" city and you would have a decent restaurant. But for Vegas, wah wah wah. The restaurant was nice but felt like upscale-Vegas-buffet seating on the lower level. 597,000 servers must have rushed by our table and there was hardly any room for them to even put their large trays of food down on a tray-jack so they could serve their tables. Our server was cold and very business-like, but also very efficient in his own way. The diversity and the politeness of the staff was the best thing about them.
(oh! Its okay to charge for water at an upscale restaurant but this is not the type of place I would expect that from....but it happened without a word of warning. Not cool.)
Food time!!!
1st up:
White Clam Chowder: Fantastic except it was missing the clam/seafood taste!! All I was getting was bacon and dill which still made for a fantastic creamy soup.
Entrees:
Lobster Bolognese: Loved the thickness of the noodles and the size of the dish.
Didn't love the slight "black licorice" flavor (over-did it on
(the anise oil?) Decent dish but wouldn't order again.
Grilled Shrimp: Loved the color of the dish. Loved the texture of the Saffron Risotto and the creaminess of it as well.
Didn't love the lemony taste of the shrimp. Should have kept the shrimp simple and/or gone for the "grilled taste."
After all of that resentment towards the food and the server, I just couldn't stick around for dessert so that was all she wrote! I'm sure there are ways to experience this restaurant in a better view (maybe ordering sushi?), I just didn't hit it right on the first try.