The Meal of a Lifetime

Way back in November we went on a weekend trip to Las Vegas with my mom. She had gotten a condo there for a week, so we went up for part of it. Our wedding anniversary is in October, so instead of celebrating then we waited and went out to dinner in Vegas. I spent days--or maybe weeks--trying to decide on a restaurant. My first choice was Hubert Keller's Fleur De Lys, but unfortunately it was closed for renovations until December. Sigh. Then I decided on Tom Colicchio's craftsteak. Then after hearing about my friend Jen's dinner at Joel Robuchon's restaurant, I was sold. I panicked a bit because the MGM Grand website showed no reservations available, but I called the restaurant directly and found out they did indeed have one table left. Phew! For those of you unfamiliar with Joel Robuchon, he's been named Chef of the Century, and the restaurant has been awarded three Michelin stars. Pretty freakin' awesome.

The husband and I got all dolled up for the event:


Then a limo from the MGM Grand came and picked us up. Pretty freakin' awesome, huh. I had asked Jen if there was a bar or anything in the limo. She said there was not, so we took our own drinks.





To enter the restaurant you go through the Mansion at the MGM Grand. Who knew there was a mansion, right?! Apparently it's where the high rollers get to stay. Seemed pretty freakin' awesome. We were met at the door of the mansion by the restaurant hostess who greeted us with a "Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Knightly."



(Sadly none of my other pictures turned out because I was using our point and shoot camera that apparently I'm completely inept at using. I was trying to not use the flash, but there wasn't enough light so everything's blurry. Sad.)

The interior of the restaurant was not what I would have expected. Jen had already told me about it. Everything was black lacquer (sp?) with purple accents. Very 1985. Maybe that's cool in France? I don't know. We had a nice table in a little atrium area. The restaurant itself was pretty small, I was surprised. I heard a couple weeks later that Kelly Rippa and her husband had eaten there (not when we were there, just in general), and I was bummed I didn't even think to check for celebrities.




We decided on the two course dinner option, an appetizer and entree. There was a second two course option that was an entree and dessert, but we knew there was a dessert/pastry cart that came around, so we figured why waste a course on dessert when there was that. The meal starts with an amuse bouche of crab meat topped with a fennel cream topped with caviar. It was AMAZING. Seriously, I savored each bite. I really hoped we got to keep the little tin, but alas we did not.



For my appetizer I chose a salmon tartare with caviar and edible gold leaves. It was fantastic. The texture of it was just amazing. I don't remember what the husband had for his appetizer, but it was awesome. His dish won the appetizer round, which is why I'm really surprised I can't remember what it was. For my entree I had duck breast and foie gras. The husband had veal cheek in a Thai broth. And they served some amazing mashed potatoes on the side with both our entrees. I'm pretty sure God himself made them because there's no other way mashed potatoes could be that good. The husband thinks they were a 60/40 blend of butter and potatoes. He may be right. They were ridiculously creamy and smooth. I wanted to lick my plate. My entree won that round. It was my first time having foie gras, and it was so yummy.

Oh, I forgot to mention the bread cart. There were probably 20 different kinds of bread to try. I tried just about all of them. There was a saffron roll that was amazing, bacon bread, basil rolls. It was all fantastic. The butter for the bread is shaved off this huge tower of butter...it's pretty amazing. We got French press coffee after our meal, and it was hands down the best coffee I've ever had in my life. The pastry/chocolate cart was pretty incredible too. Handmade chocolates, little tarts, petit fours. At the end of the meal we were given a gift bag with a Joel Robuchon chocolate bar inside. Pretty awesome. Turned out, there were gold flakes in the chocolate, but they were colored purple.







Oh, since I had told them it was our anniversary we were presented with an ice cream cake of sorts that said Happy Anniversary on the top. It was like a fancy grown-up version of those orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream cups you used to have at birthday parties when you were little. It had a meringue layer and then a real fresh tasting orange layer. Yum!

We had a bottle of wine with dinner, but I have no idea what kind it was. I started off with a cosmopolitan to drink and the husband had a martini. I'm not usually a big martini fan, but I switched to those because it was hands down the best martini I'd ever had. Surprisingly they were only $14 each which I didn't think was bad. We had paid $10 for a vodka tonic at a bar in The Venetian the night before to put it in perspective.

I have no idea either what the grand total was for this extravagant, fantastic, ruined-me-for-other-food meal...the husband wouldn't let me see the bill. I don't really care, and it's probably best I don't know. I don't think it's anywhere we'd go again, just because it was insanely expensive, and I think it's more of a one time place to go (unless you're beyond wealthy). It was definitely the meal of a lifetime!




(By the way, I don't think there has ever been a post with this many pictures of me in it!)