I spent a week with my Aunt and Uncle at the end of April/beginning of May this year at a condo just off the strip. Just touring around various hotels we passed by Spago (Wolfgang Puck), Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay), KGB: Kerry's Gourmet Burgers (Kerry Simon), B&B Ristorante (Mario Batali), BurGR and Gordon Ramsay Pub and Grill (Gordon Ramsay) as well as Craftsteak (Tom Colicchio) and Lagasse Stadium (Emeril Legasse). And those were just the few places we happened upon while strolling around. I really really wanted to go to Mesa Grill (and we even had a coupon for it), but we weren't hungry when we walked by and we never made it back to Caesar's Palace later.
some famous chefs strutting their stuff -
Las Vegas style!
Las Vegas style!
In planning our vacation the one big thing that I wanted to do was to go out for a meal at Gordon Ramsay "Steak" in the Paris hotel. In fact, I was so keen on this that I was on the website so far in advance to try to make reservations for May 1st that their on-line booking system was not yet accepting reservations. I am such a huge fan of Gordon Ramsay - I love all his shows and even though he's a giant asshole a lot of the time (for TV ratings no doubt) I love the sound of all the food he makes. Emma's youngest sister had been to Las Vegas the year before and she went to Steak and was raving it about it. It was she who gave me a heads up about making sure to make reservations well in advance.
We arrived early for our big night and had a cocktail at a quaint little cocktail bar right near the entrance to Gordon Ramsay Steak - two for one martinis sounded pretty good to all of us!
Cheers!
You arrive at the entrance of Gordon Ramsay Steak and it's a faux "chunnel" since you are travelling from Paris (in the hotel) to Steak (in London). There is a Union Jack painted on the ceiling of the restaurant so you know you are in the UK.
At the time we were there you could order off the regular menu, or as a special, Steak was offering a Hell's Kitchen Limited Edition Tasting Menu. There were only 2000 Tasting Menus being sold and when they were done, they were done. The Tasting Menu included an amuse-bouche, salad, appetizer, entree and dessert. You could also choose five wine pairings to go with the Hell's Kitchen Tasting Menu, but if you chose the tasting menu everyone at the table had to have it. We agreed, (and it was recommended by our waiter) that it was probably the best way to be able to try a variety of different dishes so we decided to go for it.
Had we decided to order off the regular menu, there is a "meat cart" which literally gets pushed up and down through the restaurant and you can select the cut of steak that you want for dinner. Although you may not be able to tell from this photo, the meat is laying on a platform and there is a mirror behind it so you can see the reflection of the top in the mirror -- all except the Porterhouse which stands up in the front centre of the meat cart. It really is a bizarre feeling to have a cart of raw meat wheeled by your table numerous times during your meal.
As you can see, we were seated just outside the open-concept kitchen. This was both good and bad. It was nice to be able to watch all the cooks and chefs doing their thing, but on the other hand it was very very noisy. In fact, the entire restaurant was exceptionally noisy. The noise level was the first downfall in a dinner that I had been waiting for and super excited about for months.
Looking into the kitchen from our table and spying
alllllll those beef wellingtons!
Looking back into the restaurant from our table
Bev and I began with a pre-dinner cocktail - the signature cocktail of the evening (you know how I love a signature cocktail!) which was some pink frothy thing, and which had some acai berries so it was some sort of superfruit cocktail. Mark stuck with the martinis.
We were served a plate of three kinds of very fresh, different breads prior to starting our meal. There were three pieces each of a garlic focacci, a swirled savoury roll and a kind of sourdough bread, all served with herbed butter. And all very good; homemade fresh bread goodness. Luvs it.
We had a cute young bus-boy who was training another young man. When the bus-boy in training set the bread plate on our table, the more experienced fellow came over immediately and literally shifted the plate about a quarter of an inch to the right to make sure it was perfectly squared to the corner of the table. It was quite cute, and was indicative of the level of service that is demanded of the wait-staff.
bus-boy in training ... water anyone?
We began with the Amuse Bouche, a Scotch Egg, described on the menu as being made with berkshire pork sausage and served with red wine braised cabbage. It was made with a quail egg so it was perfectly tiny and fit with the idea of a "one-bite" amuse-bouche. If you've never had a scotch egg it's a boiled egg (shelled, duh) then encased in sausage meat, breaded and deep fried. It's like breakfast in a ball.
The egg was perfectly soft cooked with a gooey yolk. The red wine braised cabbage on the side offered a cold, zesty bite to cut the richness of the sausage and the egg. It was nice, but not out of this world. Tasty but not something I would have to/have to/have to eat again. Frankly, I thought the slaw was the best thing on the plate -- but then again I'm very partial to salty and vinegary flavours.
Bev enjoying the first bite of her amuse-bouche
The wine pairing was Louis de Sacy, Champagne Rose, Grand Cru, MV. I don't really know what any of this means ... I really don't know anything about wine or wine/food pairings, but in case any of you foodies out there want to re-create Ramsay's menu, I'll give you all the deets.
The next course was a Spring Vegetable Salad made with fennel seared ahi (tuna), pea shoots, asparagus and candied rhubarb and was pared with Pala, Vermentino di Sardegna, 2011.
The salad was very good. It was very fresh and the vegetables nice and crispy. The candied rhubarb added a delicious sweetness to the zestiness of the dressing. And the Ahi tuna was spectacular. As you know, I'm not a fan of fish or seafood (if it swims in the water, crawls on the bottom or floats on top I'm probably not gonna like it) and you would NEVER catch me eating tuna out of a can (meat should not come out of a can! that's my policy). However, this is the third time I've had a fresh tuna steak and really liked it. (This does NOT include the tuna that Caitlyn had at Two Six {Ate} last year ... which tasted like canned tuna). Anyway ... as usual I digress. The tuna was excellent. As you can see it was very rare, only lightly seared on all sides and with a very herbaceous fennel crust. The tuna was sliced very thin - probably less than a centimetre thick but it was very fresh, good and cold and tasty.
Our f-a-b waiter (Steven? Stefan? George? I really don't remember)
offering our next glass of wine
The mushroom risotto was very good. Good earthy flavour; a little more al dente on the rice than I would have expected but it was a good lesson for me to find out what the appropriate cook on risotto rice is, as I tend to cook mine a bit more. Then the little bit of mushroom puree on the base added a little more intense mushroom flavour. It was very good mushroom risotto; but frankly, not better than mine. (I've blogged about my mushroom risotto when I made the arancini). I'm not comparing myself to Chef Ramsay ... but ... just sayin'! LOL.
a moment out for cheers and a photo
There is no doubt that service is a high priority at Steak. I would guess there were practically as many serving staff as there were guests in the restaurant. However, we did feel a little rushed, with having our upcoming wine being explained and poured while we were still eating our prior course. We did tell our waiter that we were not in a rush and asked him to slow the kitchen down a tad (we were eating five courses after all) as we wanted time to really savour and enjoy every course. Even after asking to slow things down, I don't actually think it made a difference, and we continued to feel a little bit rushed.
The main course: Roasted Beef Wellington, glazed root vegetables, potato puree, red wine demi glace and paired with Orin Swift, "The Prisoner", Napa Valley 2010.
It is an absolutely beautiful presentation. I guess a normal entree would be the full beef wellington but because we were on the tasting menu, we were each served a half portion - which really was fine with having already eaten three prior courses and still dessert to come.
Everything was really good. The beef was perfectly cooked, but could have been seasoned a bit more for my liking (but then again I'm a salt fiend so maybe it was just me?). I LOVED the potato puree - it was silky smooth and creamy; served with the demi glace which was rich with a deep beefy flavour. The entire plate was very good - but not exceptional. For me, the absolutely best thing on the plate was the pastry that the beef was wrapped in. It was light and flaky with a rich buttery flavour. Absolutely delicious; and I was very surprised at how they managed to keep the pastry from becoming a mushy, gooey mess on the bottom where the beef juices were saturating the pastry. That part was cooked perfectly.
Finally, on to our last course. Dessert was Blueberry Tarts, described on the menu as brown butter filled blueberry tarts, vanilla bean anglaise, warm blueberry compote, citrus infused vanilla ice cream with micro mint. It was paired with Leinenkugel's Berry Weisse, Brown Ale, Wisconsin. Yes, that's right -- the dessert was paired with a beer! We were pretty surprised.
Although it was described as a tart, it is more like a strudel in shape and presentation. It was a very nice ending to our meal. The blueberry (both the tart filling and the compote) was not too sweet and the vanilla ice cream was delicious. It was smooth and and creamy with a very rich vanilla flavour. On par with the rest of the meal, I thought it was very good but not spectacular. The best thing on the plate, once again, was the pastry. It was phenomenal. They must have a really top notch pastry chef at the restaurant.
Mark digging in to his blueberry tarts and close up
of the Berry Weisse Brown Ale -- yes, it is pink not brown at all
Overall I have to say that I was disappointed in our dinner. It was ridiculously expensive (ridiculously) and while everything was good -- and I literally have nothing bad to say about anything we ate -- I also don't think anything was truly phenomenal. There is nothing that was served to me that I will remember and dream of in the future. So that was very disheartening. Perhaps I just had too high of expectations.
In fact, our dinner at Gordon Ramsay Steak was not only not the best meal I've ever had, it wasn't even the best meal I had in Vegas. A few nights earlier we had a spectacular Chinese dinner at Blossom restaurant in the brand new Aria hotel. The service at Blossom was spectacular and the food equally amazing (we shared three dishes: the spicy eggplant and shredded pork hot pot, at the recommendation of the waitress the garlic prawn fried rice - which had an outrageous amount of massively huge prawns in it (all the more for Bev & Mark as I picked mine out) and I believe the Kung Pao chicken though I might be mistaken on that one as it's been four months and I didn't take any photos). For me, Chinese food never tops my list of go-to's for the kind of food I want to eat so that is really saying something - that Blossom was a more memorable meal (for one-sixth of the price, no less!) than five-courses at Gordon Ramsay Steak!
We did get some swag. We got a copy of the Hell's Kitchen Limited Edition Tasting Menu with a signed photograph of Gordon Ramsay (I have menus numbered 1288 and 1302 out of 2000 available since Mark gave me his). There is a Union Jack decorated paper bag to carry your menus in, some matches, and some little napkins and paper plate runners that I took for memories.
Christina Wilson, the winner of Hell's Kitchen Season Ten and the Executive Chef of Gordon Ramsay Steak was not in the restaurant on May 1st when we were there, but we were told that we could come back the next day and have her autograph our menus as well as Gordon, if we wished. I did love Christina and was rooting for her in her season of the show but ultimately we had too many other things to do so we did not go back to meet her.
Sadly, not only do I have no desire to go back to Gordon Ramsay Steak, I have not recommended it to anyone that I know heading off to Vegas. That is not to say that next time in Vegas you won't find me chowing down some burgers at BurGR in Planet Hollywood or enjoying a beer at Gordon Ramsay Pub and Grill in Caesar's Palace but I don't think you'll ever see me again at Steak.
Still ... you gotta love Vegas.
Viva Las Vegas
chillin' with some of our celeb friends!
deuces bitches!
a postcard from Vegas ... wish you were here!
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