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| - This was a disappointment. I've been to Picasso at the Bellagio and I know what Julian Serrano can do. This meal wasn't a disaster by any means but when you pay these kind of prices, you expect a four or five star experience.
We arrived early for a 5:15pm reservation and were seated prompty. The look of the place (inside the Aria Resort which is part of the City Center complex) is fantastic with some of the best restaurant chairs I've sat in. If you have back problems and are large, you know what I'm talking about. These chairs were generously padded with upper back support.
My partner and I ordered the four-course Signature Tasting menu. I got the wine pairing. The first course was a delightful mixed baby Romaine salad with walnuts, roasted peppers, and Cabrales cheese. In a sign of things to come, my first wine pairing came while I was in the restroom. It was a full glass of champagne - way too much. I was gulping it but was only a third of the way when the next course came. Also, the pairing was weak - matching champage with a lively, flavorful salad seems lazy. It simply did not match the inspiration of the salad.
The second course was the standout course - a creamy, wild mushroom risotto. The flavor was intense and earthy. I'd go back just for this course. However, my wine pairing showed up when I was midway through the risotto. Once again the wine selection was mediocre. A great wine pairing will play off the flavors of the food. This wine did nothing. Maybe the emphasis on all things Spanish didn't give the somolier enough room to operate.
The third course was where it all crashed. First, my partner received his course first (chicken wrapped around sausage) and was a third of the way through it before I received mine. My first bites of the pork chop were delicious but by the third bite I knew they had seriously overcooked it. It got drier and drier as I got into it. To get a sense of how dry it was, I had to use a fair amount of force to get my fork into it! At this point, I brought my waiter over to tell her. I continued eating, she brought of the manager over who offered to cook another pork chop or substitute another course. This might make sense if I was eating alone but not with a show to catch or a partner sitting by while I wait for a new entree. This wine pairing was better but I was using anything available (including the leftover champage from the first course) to wash down the pork chop.
The manager came back to ask if there was anything else he could do. I said no. The manager deducted half the cost of my tasting menu for our tab. I might go back and try an ala carte/tapas approach. The reason we select the tasting menus is to allow the chef to showcase the best of what he has to offer. For the prices this restaurant charges, you expect fabulous. What we got instead was decidedly not.
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