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| - My first time at a Michael Mina restaurant, after hearing so many accolades about his restaurants for years, and almost surely my last. The experience I had here was so horrifying, I can't imagine a second chance in the offing.
I was in a party of four. Nicely greeted at the front and seated. That was fine. Waiter introduction. Menus. The usual. Then it goes right downhill. This was after 7 pm on a Tuesday night. Restaurant was about half full.
Almost right off the bat, the waiter informs us that, while there are tasting menus (five or seven-course), the "chef's rules" (his words, I kid you not) are that either the entire group orders tasting menus (and the same course amount) or nobody can. I have been to restaurants twice as expensive to half the price and have never in my LIFE heard of such a policy - especially for a group of this relatively small size. Anyway, we joke about it and give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt (and note - nothing on the tasting menus comprises of any items not on the a la carte menu, which is relatively skimpy if you ask me.) Anyway, after a few minutes of discussion, we all agree to go a la carte.
We start off with some caesar salad and the dungeoness crab tasting appetizers. The salad was, at best, ordinary and when they call the green part "little gem lettuce", I think they should have capitalized "little". As for the crab....I'd love to review but this is now six days since I ate there and I'm wondering if it's coming via air mail. How does a finer dining restaurant completely miss a course? Damned if I know. In the meantime, there was also a bread basket. The corn muffins were actually decent so if you want to spend at least 80 bucks a head on a fine corn muffin dinner, you've hit paydirt here. The other bread was toasted sliced foccacia. Three of the five slices were not only over-toasted but were clearly blackened on one side. How nobody in the kitchen picked up on this before service is yet another mystery in this enigma.
On to the main course. Two share the Salt-baked aged prime rib. Before being cooked, this was fun to look at - a 45 oz. bone-in monster embedded (and removed tableside) in a huge salt block. $170. Waiter asks how it's to be cooked and is told between rare and medium rare. It ends up coming back......medium (and overcooked medium at that.) Waiter comes......says he "didn't understand" what my company meant and told the kitchen to make it medium on the outside and medium rare on the inside. Of course, the question as to why a waiter would "guess" at how to cook a $170 slab of meat instead of, oh, asking the customers for specific clarification, is a great question. Plus one that didn't get answered because, after that (and offering no solution), we'd never see him again until the check came.
My wife chose the mixed grill. Tasteless and presented like something out of a New York diner gone bad. A special moment came when she pulled up one of the calamari which, as she explained quite accurately if you ask me, resembled a burnt baby spider.
I guess I got the "winner winner chicken dinner" choice by default - the branzino. I'll accept that it's a more difficult fish to prepare into something good but, for a place like this, I think three pieces of tiny cut and non-special cooked whitefish with squirts of three different non-memorable dipping sauces merits disappointment, no? We also had the horseradish potato as a side. Highly recommended if you're having sinus problems. The horseradish is so overpowering, you really can't taste the potato - and based on the yellow soupish goop it sat in, I'm not sure you could see it either.
Anyway, while the waiter disappeared, we finally decided to call a manager who, with a nice smile mind you, left this whole mess with "I'm sorry" and "oh nooooooo" and then proceeded to become the waitress for the rest of the meal. Never even offered coffee, dessert, a suggested solution (particularly with the prime rib). Actually, at the end, MIA waiter, without flinching came back to speak. And he said..........."I guess you'd like the check now?" I might expect this kind of attitude from a 68 year-old waitress in her 30th year slugging out sandwiches at the old deli institution, but at a premium-price fine dining place from a "celebrated" chef?
I'm still deciding whether I was embarrassed (for choosing the place to begin with) , appalled or downright angered but, no matter what case, I obviously would never recommend this place to anyone even semi-sober. But I'll try to be funny about it. Prior to this on the same trip, I had great experiences at Sensi (at Bellagio, another MGM property) and Alize and a memorably sensational one at BOA. This place? Unless you want to toss down a few at the spacious bar before the Elvis show, I wouldn't just walk by this Michael Mina "experience"......I'd run. FAST.
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