Grand Lux Cafe - Venetian and Palazzo

VERDICT: This is one of the few decent places on the strip to eat that won't cost you an arm and a leg.

One of the things that I hate about going to the strip is the horrible restaurants.  They are horrible in that they are either very poor quality or they are extravagantly expensive...or both.  That's why I always recommend people go to the Grand Lux Cafe.  They aren't cheap, but at least you get better quality food for your money.  Owned by the same group that brought you the Cheesecake Factory, the Grand Lux has a large menu, but not the phonebook menu with ads that you get at Cheesecake Factory.  The food is a little more upscale I find as well.  

  I love the Asian Nachos (Crispy Fried Wontons Covered with Chicken in a Sweet-Hot Peanut Sauce. Topped with Wasabi Cream and Melted Cheese).  I almost always get the amazing Shaking Beef (Southeast Asian Inspired! Pieces of Beef Tenderloin, Red and Green Onions Sauteed with a Mildly Spicy Marinade. Served with Steamed White Rice).  Also, take advantage of A Box of Warm Homemade Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies, because they are amazing.  You have to order them at the beginning of the meal, because they do bake them fresh.  I always eat them later at home anyway.

Osaka - Sahara Location

VERDICT: The most authentic Japanese restaurant in Las Vegas.

I lived in Japan for two years and consequently I ate food there.  I grew to love Japanese food even more than before I moved there.  Not just the stuff you are used to eating in generic Japanese restaurants, but also the regular, daily food....the meat and potatoes, if you will.  When I came back to America I was devastated that I could not find any restaurant that prepared it quite the way that I had it in Japan, nor the types of food that I had in Japan.  For example, I did not have teriyaki once in Japan...OK, I had it once at McDonald's of all places.  They had a teriyaki burger, which was absolutely horrible.  Here in America, you would be hard pressed to find a Japanese restaurant that didn't have teriyaki. 

One of my favorite dishes from Japan was tonkatsu, which is a pork cutlet pounded thin, deep fried with panko, and served with shredded cabbage, karashi (Japanese hot mustard), rice and tonkatsu sauce.  It's very simple and delicious.  The combination of flavors is exquisite.  So much so that if I eat tonkatsu without cabbage, I don't like it.  It all goes together magically.  Osaka does tonkatsu right.  I hate it when I go to a Japanese restaurant and order tonkatsu and they dribble the sauce over the pork rather than serve it on the side.  It just isn't right and it lacks the right flavor.  The other thing that I hate is when you ask the waiter for hot mustard (or karashi) and they act like you're absolutely insane.  At least, where I lived, on Hokkaido, karashi was always served.

They also have various donburi, which is a staple in Japan.  Their oyakodon is exactly Japanese style.  Oyakodon means family bowl.  While that sounds like it is food for the whole family, it is called that because you are eating the whole family, chicken and egg, cute and morbid, very Japanese.

They have a teppanyaki room as well (think Benihana), and a sushi bar.  I prefer to eat my tonkatsu in the tatami mat rooms though.  They also have shabu-shabu, which is a boiling pot that you cook food in at the table.  Greg doesn't like shabu-shabu, because who wants to cook when they go out.  He does have a point.  I don't like Osaka's shabu-shabu because they don't bring the best assortment of boilable vegetables and noodles. 

They even have onigiri, another daily Japanese food (you have to ask for it, not on the menu).  Onigiri is a rice ball and it seems like you can make it yourself, but it never turns out right for me.  They make it perfectly.

Their sushi is good, but expensive.  I usually get one roll, the Oh-My-God roll.  I don't know what is on it, but it will make your eyes roll back in your head from deliciousness. 

Roberto's

VERDICT: 24 hour restaurants are always a plus on this blog.  This restaurant comes with a delicious high-grease warning though.

I think that every city has a late night Mexican restaurant that every club hopper knows about and reveres.  This is that place.  It's the grease.  Drunk people love grease.  I have to admit after a night of drinking, nothing cures a hangover better than super greasy Mexican food.  Don't ask me how it works.  My standard hangover cure used to be Taco Time, but there is only one Taco Time in Las Vegas and it is too far away for me.  Also, I don't really drink very often anymore. 

Oh man!  Let's talk about Taco Time for a second.  Their food is not spectacular as a whole, but the crisp meat burritos, the taquito before taquitos were in vogue, are pure deep fried heaven.  I love Taco Time and miss it.  I love Taco Time so much that one day I even ended up in the emergency room vomiting blood apparently from Taco Time related food poisoning and I still went to Taco Time.

Greg was driving around one day and I saw that they were putting a Taco Time in my neighborhood.  I screamed like a woman getting a free car on Oprah.  It scared Greg, but he immediately understood that it was not an overreaction.  I was so excited to have Taco Time again.  I went it and the manager took my order.  I ordered a crisp meat burrito and mexi-fries.  He then snorted and said, "You know mexi-fries are just tater tots."  My shoulders immediately slumped.  Of course, I knew that mexi-fries were just tater tots (with fancy mexi-spice).  I love tater tots.  I loved them even before Napoleon Dynamite.  It was a sure sign that this Taco Time wasn't going to last, not if the manager is berating one of their better products.  When I got my crisp meat burrito, it was frozen in the middle and the mexi-fries were undercooked.

It went out of business within 2 months.

Anyway, Roberto's has it's own kind of atmosphere.  They have pictures of a lot of the food they have on a menu.  What gets me is that even on the pictures, they are still displayed on styrofoam plates.  I just figured that if they were going to have appetizing pictures maybe they could have a better display.  Even McDonald's has pictures of Big Macs on a cutting board surrounded by fresh vegetables on their menus, as if that's believable.

There are a lot of Roberto's in Las Vegas.  The problem with Roberto's is that they don't really have health food.  In fact, I would go so far as say that they have unhealth food.  I watched them prepare my carne asada nachos (the best thing on the menu).  Not only do they deep fry the already cooked tortilla chips, they also take out a ladle and dip it into the deep fat fryer and pour it on the chips!!!!  Now, that's flavor!  The healthy bonus, given as if an apology for all the grease, is the spicy carrots in their salsa bar.  They are delicious and help soak up the grease.

Many Roberto's are 24 hours!

Phở Little Saigon

VERDICT: OK, but 24 hours, so always a plus.

This place is a little cafeteria-like, odd, and dirty.  It needs a hosing off.  That being said, if you are craving Phở (Vietnamese noodles) at 4:00AM, this is the place.  I really don't expect Vietnamese restaurants to be too clean especially when they have really low prices and a huge selection.  I've only ever had the plain Phở, and am always jealous of one of my friends who gets the #96 or #ninety-something which is a sampling of food in a bowl with a salad at the bottom.  Clearly, I don't know Vietnamese food at all.

Atmosphere:  Dirty cafeteria feel with pictures of food with numbers on the wall that are peculiarly out of place and don't match the numbers in the menu. 

24 hours!!!
3775 Spring Mountain Rd
221-2111 
http://www.usmenuguide.com/pholittlesaigon.html

Krung Siam

VERDICT: Typical Thai, but the only Thai open 24 hours! Really it is only open until 6:00AM.  That's close enough to 24 hours for me!

A Thai Restaurant open late in Las Vegas?  You would expect to find this in Las Vegas, but really late night restaurants off the strip are rare, unless they are a crappy pub serving deep fried sandwiches with fries.

This place rocks at 4:00 AM!  Their Tom Yum soup is delicious and flavorful.  We ordered our spiciness at a "5" out of "10" and we could have gone higher.  Thai food can get very spicy...so much so that even spice lovers can shy away from going all out, but they seem to tame their spiciness for gringos.  If you like jalapeños, I suggest a "7".  If you like habaneros, might as well go to "10".

Thai beef jerky is a must have for anyone.  It thick pieces of meat that they deep fry!  What they take something great and make it greater?!?!  I know....yum.  It's flavor is greatly complemented with a pinch of sticky rice, the traditional way to eat Thai beef jerky.

They have a typical Thai selection with prices around $9 - $15, which is typical for Thai food.

Atmosphere: Well, when I went at 4 in the morning, they were blasting Thai karaoke even though nobody was singing.  By blasting, I mean we had to shout over each other.  We asked them to turn it down, which they did happily from a volume of "10" to a volume of "9.5".  It is otherwise clean and cozy.

The sign reads open until 6:00 AM.  Who wants Thai food for breakfast anyway?

3755 Spring Mountain Rd
735-9485
24 hours!