Best Reasonable Restaurant in Vegas?
 

There is basically too much information on the web. Most of it conflicting.
So does anyone have suggestions?
Budget LESS than 40.00 per person for food + beverage (no alcohol).
I would prefer to avoid Italian and Indian.
HELP!
PS... we are staying at the Palms.

If you get downtown to see the Fremont Street Lightshow, eat at the Pasta Pirate in the California hotel. Be sure to ask if there are off-the-menu specials that night. Silly name for a very nice restaurant and probably $20-$30 per person.

Near the Palms, the Gold Coast has the Cortez Room, basically a nice but not expensive steakhouse (I think the menu is listed at goldcoastcasino.com). Gold Coast has a shuttle bus to the Orleans hotel I think, and the Prime Rib Room at the Orleans meets your budget. Orleans and Palms have good, not-expensive buffets. Gold Coast buffet is even cheaper but the quality is hit-or-miss. Can't go wrong with the breakfast buffet however, it's about 6 bucks.

Any New American or French, non-buffet choices?
I want to avoid Italian, Indian and I will add Steakhouses...
Really I am looking for something fresh and not too gimmicky.
It is not an easy task, I know.
Hey, would GRAND LUXE CAFE fit the bill?

Nix Grand Lux... I just checked the menu and it is a bit too much like the Cheesecake Factory.

Do not do Bertolinis,,,just ate there 3 days ago and it was AWFUL.

Isn't it disappointing! This week I ate at a fairly new restaurant in Dallas, Stephen Pyles, and it was just awful.
Now, I have always thought Stephen simply tries too hard to be innovative.
Star Canyon was just so-so to me. Dragonfly is actually very good, but he is no longer the chef. I had limited expectations and it came in even lower.
Stephen is a media doll, so he still gets good reviews. He sat with us for 30 minutes and sent us one of each dessert. Still unimpressed.
2 days later I went to Cool River. The Spinach Mercedes was VERY good this time but the Cuban sandwich was terrible.
I did get to sit next to Emmett Smith, though... What a cutie.

Someone come up with that perfect place in Vegas ... PLEASE!

Border Grill at Mandalay Bay? It's more of a Mexican influenced place than typical Mexican restaurant; the menu has things like roasted chicken, pork chops, halibut, snapper, all in interesting sounding (and tasting) creative dishes. (In fact, if you went in there to try to order a taco & enchilada combo plate, it doesn't exist!) Nice setting, good service - at least when we were there. I believe the entrees were in the $20 range, give or take. The alcohol was overpriced - but if you aren't ordering any, that shouldn't be a problem.

Mon Ami Gabi at Paris gets good reviews - I've always wanted to try it but haven't gotten around to it. Unfortunately, I'm also not sure of the price range, but it is something to investigate.

There's also Wolfgang Puck's at MGM. More of a fun than fancy atmosphere, interesting dishes, pretty sure it is in your price range.

Since price is the main consideration, I was going to recommend Grand Lux and then I discovered we are dealing with a person who requests suggestions so he/she can give reasons for rejecting them. That's no fun.

:p Happytrails,
I have not rejected anyones suggestions... I suggested Lux and then said nevermind.

Spago in the Forum Shops at Caesars is a very nice, modern restaurant. Prices would probably fit within your budget without alcohol, but if not, you can also sit in the Spago Cafe just in front of the restaurant (in the mall area, but roped off) and get slightly lower priced food. We had excellent brick oven margherita pizzas, but there were plenty of non-pizza options as well. They may have a menu online.

Fix at Bellagio has a prix-fixe pre-O menu for early dinner (maybe before 6:30?). It's $40 per person, and apparently a very hot place with fun food concepts, mainly American, I think.

Also for downtown, Center Stage at the Plaza looks nice. It's in a room with large windows overlooking Fremont Street from the end. If you go to the Plaza website, I believe there was a menu with prices.

Olives at Bellagio had a very nice looking lunch menu that would fit your price range. Dinner was more expensive, but I'm not sure how much.

We looked at menus of a couple restaurants at Wynn that were surprisingly more affordable than we expected (though certainly not cheap). One was Asian. Can't remember the other.

Really, that price range would work in a lot of restaurants since it doesn't include alcohol. If you go into any of the reasonably nice casinos and look around at their restaurants, I'd think you'd be sure to find something in most of them.

<<<<<<<Isn't it disappointing! This week I ate at a fairly new restaurant in Dallas, Stephen Pyles, and it was just awful.>>>>>>>

Well, here's a different opinion, from a restaurant critic at the Dallas Morning News...

"Stephan Pyles' comeback effort is an enormous success. There's so much to experience. Only the caste system that governs reservations detracts. Seats are always reserved for those considered VIPs. Others have to call ahead. Way ahead. But walk-ins can usually find a seat at the communal table or the tapas-ceviche bar, perhaps with a minor wait. Except on weekends, persistent or demanding diners might even wangle a table. "

"On several visits, pizzas showed the only serious flaws. One was cold. Flavor and ingredient combinations on the other just didn't meet the astronomical standards set by everything else. "

Just don't order pizza...

I ate at the Border Grill (Mandalay Bay) last week and thought it was very good. Good service and reasonable for Vegas.

xbt... was that review from his old pal Dottie?
I don't put a lot into published reviews.
First off, many of these people are friends of the chef, especially a popular chef.
Second, I feel the restaurant treats VIP's like known food critics differently than the everyday Joe.
I had the chicken salad sandwich and it was plain awful. 3 people in my party had the same sandwich and we all thought it was awful. I had onion rings for the side dish and I expected 4 or 5 awesome big rings. Instead I got a mess of those shaved onion rings used as a garnish at many restaurants. Greasy and much too rich for a side dish. The french fries my friends selected were just as bad. Cut like shoestring potatoes, they were fried dry without one bit of fluffy potatoes inside.
I had a shrimp cocktail for a 1st course and it was good... but it is pretty hard to screw that up.
The salads looked good.
One other member of our party had the enchilada of the day, which was white bean and beef. She said it was good.
They sent us one of each of the desserts... they were beautifully presented.
We all tasted each and the only ones that were eaten were the Heaven and Hell cake and the Donuts and Coffee dessert.
The others were not very good.
One of my favorite cakes is Tres Leches and his version was pretty bad.
Hard to beat the Fiesta version.

Anyway... I suppose you can believe whatever you want. I have no reason to make anything up. I selected his new restaurant with high hopes. We were semi-VIP's and I was honestly quite surprised.
I do want to try the Ceviche one day.
It looked pretty good.

Thanks JLM... we have decided to go to Spago. I totally forgot about that one.
Perfect!

Well, TxTravelPro, I guess I won't be eating the french fries there... but the GuideLive com was not the only good review... here are a couple of otther complimentary reviews... perhaps the dishes these folks tried were better...

Fort-Worth Star-Telegram

"Versions of old favorites include his bone-in cowboy rib-eye with red-chile onion rings and the long-popular roasted garlic custard-tamale tart. Some dishes here are also on the menu Pyles created for Ama Lur at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, including his duck confit empanada, ceviches trio, coriander-cured rack of lamb with Ecuadorian potato cake, and boneless barbecued short rib.

"New treats I sampled are likely to be big hits: The tuna escabeche came with feather-light calamari in panko breading with a drizzle of blood orange aioli; and seared foie gras took on what Pyles calls his "Tacu Tacu" treatment, a Peruvian specialty incorporating stewed lentils with rice and grilled banana. Friends spotted on opening night raved about Pyles' new pulled, spit-roasted pig in a cardamom-tinged apple and a plate of steamed salmon over crabmeat paella."

Dallas Observer

"Stephan Pyles has distilled Texan, South American, Spanish and Mediterranean flavors into one well-tailored, compelling clash. Pyles calls it New Millennium Southwestern Cuisine. This means you can mull a wide range of ceviches, tapas, foie gras with Peruvian underpinnings, Texas steak and salmon with crab paella and still go down for more. It’s all wrapped in wood, granite, slate, plasterized concrete, copper weave, Texas flagstone and white tablecloth. The possibilities emerge in a stylized glass kitchen coop--the central reactor core--where chefs and hands perform and test, strike earnest poses and tame flames agitating from rotisseries, wood-fired ovens and blowtorches. Eat your liver out, Planet Hollywood."

On the other hand, Scott at Dallasfood.org agreed with your opinion... you aren't Scott, are you?