Best Restaurants in Las Vegas 2010

Each year, the local paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, conducts a poll of its readers and editorial staff asking them to name the best businesses, sights, people, etc. of Las Vegas, which it then publishes on its web site. Their picks are available online. In our opinion, the editors' picks are usually pretty reasonable, while the readers' picks are, uh, very occasionally, uh, not inane.

Needless to say, we here at LV Revealed think we know better. Moreover, we also think we can do a better job even picking the categories. So, we've come up with our own list of, in order to avoid any whining about infringement by the RJ, The Best Shit In Las Vegas. This first list consists of the best casino and non-casino places to eat in Las Vegas. We'll update it periodically.

Last updated: September 24, 2011

Casino Best-of

Best Bar Food: Triple 7 Brew Pub at Main St. Station

Of course, part of having the best bar food is having good beer, and in our opinion the Triple 7 has the best micro-brewed beer in the state of Nevada. The food is also good, especially the appetizers, but the meat loaf, fish and chips, pizzas, and burgers are all quite good. The best play is to show up at happy hour and make a meal of the appetizers along with a micro-brew or two... or more.

Best Buffet: Wynn Las Vegas

It's true that it's expensive, but as buffets around town have raised their prices without improving their quality, the buffet at Wynn Las Vegas only stands out more due to the high quality of the food. If you're talking bang-for-your-buck, then the buffet at Red Rock deserves some mention. Once you get down below the $15 for dinner and $12 for lunch range, then to us it all becomes practically Circus Circus, and nobody wins.

Best Cheap Food: Arizona Charlie's Sourdough Cafe Steak & Eggs

Despite the shift toward an upscale experience, there are still a lot of places in Las Vegas where a person can get cheap food, but how much of it do you really want to eat? The Vienna Beef $0.75 hot dogs at South Point and the Suncoast, and the venerable shrimp cocktail at the Golden Gate both have their supporters, but do we ever really look forward to eating these? That's why we go with the $3.99 Steak & Eggs at Arizona Charlie's. We've paid a lot more for a lot worse, that's for sure.

Best Chinese Restaurant: Ping Pang Pong at the Gold Coast

Yeah, this restaurant has a stupid name, and yeah, it's not one of the fancy places where celebrities like to dine, but the food is good, and it's very reasonably priced. The crowd at the Gold Coast that keeps this place hopping is a testament to both of these qualities. Even better is that the same proprietors run Noodle Exchange just across the Gold Coast casino floor, which is every bit as good and every bit as a good a value. Cathay House at the Palms and Noodle Asia at the Venetian get an honorable mention. They are also good, and while the "Strip markup" is evident, with Cathay House in comparison to its off-Strip incarnation, both are some of the better bangs-for-your-buck available in a Las Vegas resort.

Best Coffee Shop: Carson Street Grill at the Golden Nugget

Las Vegas used to be filled with old-style coffee shops where a customer could get decent food at reasonable prices. These days, there seems to be a trend toward putting truffle oil on these classic American dishes, calling them "comfort food", and charging $35 a plate. There are still some places where it's possible to get high-quality Americana at a reasonable price, and this is the most consistent of those. High quality food, a broad selection, and reasonable prices make the Carson Street Grill in the Golden Nugget a standout, although less so since they reduced the scope of their menu. The coffee shops at South Point and the Silverton deserve mention as competitors.

Best Deli: Sports Deli at the Rio

Sure, there are some big name Delis in Las Vegas casinos, such as Canter's, Carnegie, and the Stage Deli, but while we like some of their food, we object to the massive markup the famous places get away with, plus the notion that a good sandwich is comprised of three inches of meat on two quarter-inch thick slices of bread. That's just silly. The Sports Deli at the Rio is reasonably priced, good, and their food is well proportioned. For those of you who bet "under one half" as the number of Harrah's restaurants that would make our list, it was a good bet, but pay up.

Best Gourmet Restaurant: Robuchon at the MGM Grand

It's Robuchon. That's all anyone needs to know. Robuchon has been named the most important chef of the last century. His food is exquisite, and even if he's not in the kitchen, and since he lives in France, he rarely is, his commitment to excellence demands the highest performance of his employees. Executive chef Claude Le Tohic delivers.

Best Italian Restaurant: Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at Wynn

This staple of the Wynn upscale dining experience delivers an excellent dining experience in a town replete with great Italian restaurants. It doesn't appear on anyone's bargain list. A little lower down on the price scale but still well above Olive Garden territory by any measure, Terra Rosa at Red Rock is entirely edible.

Best Japanese Restaurant: Nobu at the Hard Rock

Okay, this is kind of a cheat, but we're sort of doubling up with this category and "Best Sushi". This restaurant features truly excellent sushi, but our favorites are the non-sushi menu items that continually wow us. We love the food here.

Best Mexican Restaurant: Isla at TI

Garduno's is good with a relatively long tradition, but the nod has to go to Isla in the Treasure Island. We still haven't had a truly outstanding margarita in any of these three places (to qualify, the lime juice must be fresh squeezed). For that, we need to go to one of the better off-Strip Mexican places. Overall, though, the Mexican food in the casinos almost has to be so dumbed down for the ignorant masses that it can't really appeal to us. This place is the best of a watered-down category. The locals places are much better.

Best Other Ethnic Restaurant: Pho at the TI

This is a tough category. We really don't think there are any standouts here. It may appear that Las Vegas is a wild, adventurous place, but deep down the folks that run casinos are very conservative. They go way out of their way to not offend people, and that goes for the food in restaurants as much as it does other aspects of the casino business. Therefore, it's hard to find something that hasn't been "dumbed down" for the huddled masses. That said, Pho is good food and not outrageously priced, which earns it relative accolades in a weakly contested category.

Best Seafood Restaurant: Michael Mina at the Bellagio

Restaurateur Michael Mina has transplanted his Bay Area successes to Las Vegas, and his eponymous restaurant at the Bellagio was his first venture. This place is high-end, no doubt, but it's also good. The problem is, we can't think of a reasonably priced casino seafood restaurant we like. If anyone knows of one we should try, let us know. Note, we haven't yet tried Mina's "American Fish" at Aria yet, but it's probably pretty good as well. Another good one is RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay.

Best Snack: California Club Snack Bar

The snack bar at the California downtown provides decent won tons, a decent katsu, teriyaki beef, and other quick bites that will fill you up without breaking your budget.

Best Steakhouse: T-Bones at Red Rock

This is a tough one. Despite the ability to get great beef at many places in Las Vegas, every high-end casino steakhouse seems to have at least one serious flaw, as well as an overall experience that is more hit-and-miss than we'd like at this level. The one where we've experienced to lowest ratio of serious flaws is T-Bones. It's not the most expensive, nor the fanciest, nor the loudest, but it's competitve just about everywhere. At a big step down in quality and price point, Primarily Prime Rib at South Point delivers a good value at a reasonable price. Our go-to spot for $20 steaks, the Cortez Room at the Gold Coast, seems to have fallen on hard times lately, so we're looking for a new leader in this category if anyone has any suggestions.

Best Sushi Restaurant: Yellowtail at the Bellagio

For some strange reason, there's a lot more good Japanese food in Las Vegas than Chinese food, maybe the only North American city where one could say that. In any case, there are many good options for casino Sushi in Las Vegas, including Bar Masa at Aria, Sushi Roku at Caesars, and Okada at Wynn, but we'll go with Yellowtail at the Bellagio in a close heat.

Non-casino Best-of

Best Bar Food: Outside Inn

Frankly, there's a lot of good bar food in Las Vegas. In an effort to draw in those lucrative video poker addicts, most places serve at least decent food at reasonable prices. We think a lot of choices are justifiable here, but in a tight race we pick the Outside Inn as our suggestion.

Best Barbecue: TC's World Famous BBQ Rib Crib

At LV Revealed, we'll take the family run joint over the national chain every day. Not only do we like supporting a business where the folks who work there have something invested in making the business a success, but the food just tastes better, and certainly less "institutional". TC's is a fine example of the sort of family-run BBQ restaurant that has made this cuisine the best thing ever to come out of the American south.

Best Chinese Restaurant: China MaMa

Wow, this place is good. How can they assemble a menu that is both this authentic and this friendly to all comers, even those who view Chinese cuisine through a decidedly western lens? The soup dumplings are outstanding. We've had nothing bad from this menu, and it's extensive enough to always present something new. We look forward to working our way through it over the course of many years.

Best Deli: Weiss'

Las Vegas is a crossroads, a great American melting pot. One of the great things the valley has inherited from those who migrated here from the east coast is a great deli tradition. While we don't think transplanted Manhattenites will ever truly accept a Deli with stucco walls and ample parking, at least the food is good. In our opinion the best example of the east coast tradition thriving in the desert southwest is Weiss' Deli at Sunset and Eastern.

Best Gourmet Restaurant: Todd's Unique Dining

Our previous pick was Rosemary's, but c'est la vie. So, we go with Todd's on the east side. Todd's lives up to its name with a highly eclectic menu, along with good preparations. It's no wonder that this is a regular spot for off duty crews who man the Strip's finest dining establishments.

Best Indian Restaurant: Tamba

Tamba is hidden away on the second floor of the Hawaiian Marketplace on the east side Las Vegas Boulevard across from the Monte Carlo. Finding parking nearby is challenging, but the food is worth it. The menu is loaded with all the expected favorites. Everything is loaded with flavor without being overpowering. Moreover, even though the LV Revealed editorial staff generally hates asian lunch buffets, Tamba's is worth the visit. They don't dumb down the food they put out on the steam trays. This place deserves a lot more business than we see there.

Best Italian Restaurant: Piero's

Okay, it's American-Italian rather than Italian-Italian, but good food is good food. It would be hard for us to argue that the upscale Piero's delivers as much bang for the buck as other spots, but the food is excellent, the service is impeccable, and in a community that has experienced hyper-growth, it's what passes for a Las Vegas institution. For something nice, but not quite so, check out Gaetano's on Eastern in Henderson.

Best Japanese Restaurant: Raku

Raku is one of the most unconventional restaurants we've been to in quite some time. The hours are unconventional, open six days a week until 3 AM. The seating is unconventional, before its recent expansion Raku's capacity was about a dozen people. The menu is unconventional, imagine authentic Japanese-style tapas, but boy is the food good, and completely unlike anything else in town. It's no wonder that the late seatings tend to be dominated by culinary professionals who have just closed up their own shops.

Best Mexican Fast Food: Los Antojos

We love Roberto's, especially how there's always one nearby and it's always open, but Los Antojos just has better food. The al pastor is authentic. The carnitas are the best we've had in this state. It has loads of authentic Mexican comfort food dishes on its menu, and they're all great. Tacos El Gordo are also worth a mention, espcially if you're down on the Strip.

Best Mexican Restaurant: Sabor

Sabor features a slightly upscale truly authentic Mexican menu. Their moles are real moles, and their soups are outstanding, and, as everyone knows, soup is an essential component of any real Mexican sit-down meal. We used to really like Agave, and it's still good, but we like it less as they've felt the need to dumb down their menu.

Best Middle Eastern Restaurant: Hedary's

Good food, decent prices, and arguably the best lentil soup any of us have ever tasted. Our one gripe, sometimes when we swing by it seems to be arbitrarily closed, but when we're able to dine there, we always leave happy. Over the last few years, the quality seems to have declined some, but we haven't found a place we clearly like better, so... .

Best Other Ethnic Restaurant: Himalaya

Okay, this is a posthumous award, as Himalaya, noted for, if you can believe it, an eclectic American take on Nepalese food, has become The Mint Indian Bistro. We have yet to check it out since the name change. It appears to have become a little more Indian, but some of the Nepalese dishes we previously enjoyed are still on the menu, so until proven otherwise, we'll let it stand as is.

Best Pizza: Rosati's Authentic Chicago Pizza

Hey, New Yorkers, if you want your ketchup on cardboard that's okay with us, but give us real stick-to-your-ribs Chicago pizza any day. Rosati's delivers, in more ways than one. Of course, if you want your thin crust (or can't wait an hour before chowing down on something), they have that available as well. If you have to eat east-coast style pizza, it has to be from the Arenas at Metro Pizza. The weird thing is that they hail from Chicago. Go figure.

Best Seafood: King's Fish House

There are more expensive, more upscale places to get fish in the Las Vegas valley, but we'll stack King's seafood up against any of them, and at a steep discount. Located at the District in Henderson.

Best Steakhouse: Fleming's

There are a number of decent choices, but to us, Fleming's near Summerlin is the least pretentious, and delivers the best bang for the buck. Excellent service, a nice ambiance, and great beef makes us recommend this place.

Best Sushi: Sen of Japan

This place on west Desert Inn just doesn't get the love it deserves. If it were in one of the high-end Strip resorts, run by some fancy "brand name chef", and charged twice what it does, folks would rave about it. However, located off the beaten path in an unpretentious strip mall it becomes one of the best kept secrets in town.

Best Thai Restaurant: Lotus of Siam

Yeah, this is the safe choice, and, yeah, we disagree with Gourmet Magazine that it's the best Thai food in the United States, but it seems to have become trendy to find some other spot in town to tout in order to avoid stating the obvious. Always leaning toward the counter-cultural, we'll take a different tack and go back to pointing out what everyone knows, that Lotus of Siam has the best Thai food in Las Vegas.