Tonight’s dining experience is another NY based transplant to Vegas. I’ve eaten here a very long time ago (don’t remember when exactly). My understanding is that the dining area has been redone. The 50-ft wine tower is still there with “wine angels” in harnesses who retrieve bottles; I guess no one ponied up for a bottle at all while I was dining since no angels ever appeared. I went for the tasting menu, of course, with the premier wine pairing. I sat in the main dining room (didn’t realize there was a nicer one, the Fountain Terrace, until later). Experience is far less intimate (big dining room) compared to Le Cirque. Dress code is pretty casual…a lot of short sleeves, jeans and t-shirts, and some shorts (one woman in tank top and jean shorts) and no one really dressed up (ergo I was relatively overdressed). Everything had a bit of a nice-but-mass-produced feel to it. Dishes were good, but not great. Service was ok…pretty basic. Wine pours were pretty generous, although nothing outstanding (I didn’t finish most of my glasses… Quality would be much better than quantity for me). The Valpolicella with the foie gras was interesting and worked fine because of all of the cherry components. The rose was not that great and didn’t pair well with the scallop dish (we’ve definitely become rose snobs. How about a Bandol?). I hate to say it but the experience made me think of having banquet food at a conference at a very nice venue (e.g. at the Ritz) I.e. good but pretty generic. If this restaurant were in the SF Bay area, IMO there’s no way it would have had a Michelin star. There are just so many more restaurants with interesting flavors and meticulous dish preparations.