best of the best? the strip's top dining destinations.

First thing's first: this lovely image here is the badass benedict at ZoozaCrackers, the deli inside Wynn Las Vegas. Forget about an English muffin. This sucker is built on an authentic, savory potato latke, stacked with house-made pastrami and corned beef, then Swiss cheese, poached egg and Russian dressing. If you are skilled enough to get a bite with each component, it's a pretty amazing mouthful. It's just one of the specialty dishes at Zooza, one of the more overlooked restaurants at Wynn, and it's absolutely delicious. Even in a pair of resorts with spectacular brunch offerings, it's hard to imagine a better midmorning nosh than this satisfying benny.

So I'm thinking about (and eating at) Wynn and Encore lately, because there's been a lot of change 'round here, and a lot of talk that the dining at these two beautiful Strip resorts are slipping. The closure of Alex Stratta's restaurant Alex is the catalyst for this theory, but there have been other developments. Combined with the big foodie impact of the Cosmopolitan's opening in December, these changes have me returning to one of the great debates of the Vegas Strip: Which resort has the best restaurants? It's definitely a loaded question, but it's still fun to think about. And I don't think it's fair to limit this question to single hotels, because Wynn and Encore are the same, Venetian and Palazzo are the same, and CityCenter is essentially a single destination. So I'm grouping things together where they make sense.

What makes a great dining destination in Vegas terms? You must offer a diversity. Every casino has a top-notch steakhouse, but what about French and Asian food? Got Mexican? There must be great casual munchies as well as amazing high-end stuff, and the highest of the high-end needs to be a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience. This is Vegas; it's all or nothing. Quantity of good restaurants is not as important as quality of those restaurants.

And so with lots of "research" and a belly full of Wynn pastrami, I say behold: The Top 6 Dining Destinations on the Las Vegas Strip, according to me. Enjoy. Seriously, go enjoy. (Note: Sure, we can argue about this if you want.)

6. Cosmopolitan. Notable dining: Blue Ribbon, China Poblano, Comme Ca, D.O.C.G., Estiatorio Milos, Jaleo, Scarpetta, STK.

5. Wynn/Encore. Notable: Bartolotta, Country Club, Sinatra, Society Cafe, Stratta, SW Steakhouse, Tableau, Wazuzu, Wing Lei.

4. MGM Grand. Notable: Craftsteak, Fiamma, Joel Robuchon, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Nobhill Tavern, Seablue, Shibuya.

3. CityCenter. Notable: American Fish, Bar Masa, Jean Georges Steakhouse, Julian Serrano, Lemongrass, Mozen Bistro, Sage, Sirio, Social House, Twist.

2. Caesars Palace/Forum Shops. Notable: Beijing Noodle No. 9, Bradley Ogden, Joe's Stone Crab, Mesa Grill, Payard, Rao's, Restaurant Guy Savoy, Spago.

1. Bellagio. Notable: Circo, Jasmine, Le Cirque, Michael Mina, Noodles, Picasso, Prime Steakhouse, Sensi, Yellowtail.

dinner at payard.

Sometimes you'll read about a Las Vegas casino restaurant and it'll be described as a "hidden gem on the Strip." This sounds like an impossibility; how could something be hidden on Las Vegas Boulevard, one of the biggest, brightest dining spots on the planet? Well, it happens. Sometimes excellence gets lost in the shuffle, and sometimes there's a truly perfect little restaurant quietly cranking out amazing food under multiple layers of casino hype.

Payard Bistro is the epitome of a Strip hidden gem. It is known more as a coffee-and-sweets shop, with a tiny circular dining room perfect for an easy lunch or brunch. Seven months ago, a simple dinner service began. Our meal there last night was one of the best we've ever had on the Strip, bite-for-bite, a clinic on how to do French bistro fare. Enjoy:

Roasted chicken, overwhelmingly juicy with a sublime crispy skin, with fried potatoes and a bit of perserved lemon in the natural jus.

Filet mignon au poivre with buttery potato pave and haricot verts.

Adorable frisee salad with Nueske bacon and poached egg.

Best mac and cheese of all time. OF ALL TIME.

Pont Neuf.

Cheese souffle, all about parmesan. Wifey: "From now on, I have cheese souffle with all my meals."

George V. Chocolate masterpiece, with peanuts.

saturdazed at spago.

You don't need a seat out on the "patio" to enoy the parade at Spago. The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace is one of the best people-watching spots in Vegas, which is evident when you pass by Spago. The people munching California-style pizzas and Thai chicken salads are looking right back at you, and maybe even bothering you. We saw a drunken hipster, proud of his perch, getting playful with female passersby on our way out of the mall on Saturday, after we had consumed a quick lunch in Spago's main dining room not far from a booth occupied by Robin Leach.

The Spago experience lived up to the hype, but the food ... not so much. It was solid if unspectacular grub, and we should know better than to be surprised by an $80 check for one drink, two salads and two lunch entrees. But Leach and other fine dining pundits maintain the cuisine at this iconic Wolfgang Puck outpost is still worthy of the attention it receives. It is, after all, a cornerstone of Las Vegas dining, the first celebrity chef restaurant to come to the desert. So it was time to return to Spago, once a blend of tourist trap and power lunch destination, to see how things are holding up. The service was very good. So were the salads, one of butter lettuce and the other a bright, fresh take on the chopped salad. It was full of sweet corn, fresh peas and snappy green beans. The Greek pizza was forgettable and the meatloaf (pictured), decorated with a bit of pancetta and a semi-rich mushroom glaze, was ... just meatloaf.

Spago has been sitting here since 1992, and it seems like you're still getting what you expect when you come here to eat. But eating isn't really why you come here, is it?

joe's in the forum shops.

It's been ten years since I came back home to Vegas, and I've been thinking a lot about things (and restaurants) that have shaped my experience here. For better or worse, Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab fits into that category.

When MenuVegas went up in the summer of '06, Joe's was the very first featured restaurant on the site. It was chosen not just because the food was good, but because it seemed like the epitome of what I then thought of as the Vegas restaurant experience. It's expensive. It's inside the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. It's not really ours; it's an extension of an iconic Miami restaurant and operated by the Lettuce Entertain You company, which opened Joe's Chicago in 2000 and Joe's Vegas in 2004. So, like so much of this Vegas Experience, this restaurant is meant to re-create an entirely different, faraway destination. Also, it's nice. It's a classic dining room, all dark wood and white tablecloth. And the menu: seafood and steak, simple and timeless.

And still, five years later, pretty damn good. In my early visits to Joe's I was impressed with the sweetness of the namesake stone crab claws and the creamy crab bisque, and quite surprised by the steady steaks. The perfectly charred, bone-in, 16-ounce filet mignon I had on my first visit years ago remains one of the best steaks I've ever tasted. And maybe I was just in the right mood, sitting by myself at the bar, the first person in the restaurant, but today might have been the perfect lunch:
1. Hendrick's and tonic.
2. A wealthy bread basket.
3. A lot of chilled king crab legs. (The menu said 12 ounces but it had to be closer to 16.)
4. Potatoes lyonnaise, crispy and good.5. Sweet corn, pan-roasted.6. Strawberry pie and strong coffee.It was about $40 before the tip. Typically, I feel remorse after dropping this kinda money on lunch for one. Not today. The esteemed Max Jacobson recently reviewed the lunchtime offerings at RM Seafood, naming it one of the best places on the Strip for your mid-day meal. I wouldn't put Joe's at the level of Rick Moonen's place, but the lunch specials are very reasonable and, as you have just read, quite a bit of tasty food for twenty to thirty bucks.

Joe's is the type of restaurant I don't want to like. It's for tourists, sure, but so is everything else on the Strip. It's make-believe, yes. There is fresher seafood and richer beef to be found in this town. It isn't even close to being the best restaurant in Caesars. My skeptical side wants to slam this place, find something absolutely wrong with it. But I don't think that part of my brain got the message when I was fork-shoveling chunks of tender, butter-drenched king crab into my face at 11:30 this morning. I can't deny you, Joe's Stone Crab. You are good.

bradley ogden.

Visiting friends (including these two again) and family celebrations were the excuses used to blow big cash for a fancy Valentine's Day dinner out, and my party of eight selected Bradley Ogden at Caesars Palace. By the looks of the casino and Strip traffic, the V-Day weekend may have been a much-needed boost for Vegas. I feel fine with my own contribution to the economy, evidenced by my gleeful snatch of the bill to see if we broke into four digits.

Bradley Ogden is considered by most as one of the top overall rooms in the city and as this was my first meal at the nearly six-year old restaurant -- Ogden's first outside California -- expectations were high. Incredibly high. Some of this excitement was built around the rare opportunity, for me, to go out plus 7, paving the way for a truly comprehensive experience. Lucking into this opportunity, I didn't disappoint, and neither did the restaurant. Mr. Ogden himself even strolled out of the kitchen to visit several tables (but not ours) during the almost four hours we were there, which is always nice to see when you're on the Strip and every restaurant has a big name on the wall but not necessarily in the kitchen.

In a word, outstanding.

A couple bottles of Melville Pinot Noir (which was Californian, people, not Oregonian like you thought) and too many $8 bottles of Voss accompanied farmers market green and Caesar salads, twice baked Maytag blue cheese souffle, squash soup, butter poached Alaskan king crab with Fuji apples, seared Sonoma foie gras, roasted chicken, scallops, pork loin, roasted sturgeon and bison. Everything was great and everyone was happy. The service was comfortably slow (until we tried to pay, then it became uncomfortably slow) and the staff was friendly and warm.

There were highlights, and they were very, very high. At least a couple of our almost vegetarians were completely turned by the South Dakota bison, which was plated as two small tenderloin filets on a dense potato pave, granola and a currant-red wine sauce. This was perfection: moist, lean, slightly smokey to stay in touch with the cowboyishness of the meat, and so delicious that we will wonder for a while why people eat beef. The foie gras, too, with a whimsical peanut butter and jelly accompaniment, was mind blowing. My chosen entree, the Duroc pork loin, was good enough (I'm still adjusting to piggy done on the rare side) but the top tastes on this plate came from the braised cabbage underneath and the spiced apples and bacon on top. I'm not complaining, because the Caesar was strong and the crab was fucking amazing. And there was a lot of crab on the dish, huge sweet chunks among strands of apple and a foam that tasted of creamsicle. Seriously. Ogden's crew also amuse bouched us with a little lobster and citrus, talked us into desserts of ice cream, rich cheesecake with berries and coconut flan, and threw in another something sweet with creamy shots of the best butterscotch pudding ever.

Before dinner, I was explaining to one of these good friends that my recent dilemma, as a developing Vegas epicurean, is highly recommended restaurants that simply cannot meet the expectations that grow and grow with each new fantastic meal. That wasn't a problem at Bradley Ogden. To walk into a high-priced restaurant on the Strip and automatically expect the best meal of your life, well, maybe that's foolish. But this was one of the best, even if the company had a lot to do with it.

yellowtail. border grill. payard.

Just because there is a ton of food in the house doesn't mean we shouldn't go out. Actually, it does, so the blame for going out on Thanksgiving weekend falls to those friends who come to town. There is a slightly odd feeling when "entertaining" friends who grew up in Vegas with you and return to see their families for holidays. You try to pick a place to go out together, but you can't really impress them because they know everything already, and they're over it. There's pressure and no pressure at the same time. It's strange.

The friends, S+M, grew up Vegas and have since been all over the world. They currently reside in Sacramento for no good reason. They greatly appreciate epicurean adventures and we always say we're going to do grand dining tours of Vegas' top restaurants, but we seldom have the time or disposable income to realize the dinners of our collective dreams. On our last adventure, I foolishly took them to the then-newly opened Company in Luxor and although the food was tasty, it managed to become a disaster.

This time around, because of Thanksgiving and family commitments, we didn't do dinner but we did get some drinks and snacks at the newest restaurant in the Bellagio, Yellowtail. Sitting at a small, comfy table in front of the bar, adjacent to the casino, perfect for people watching as douchebags, girls with super short dresses and George Maloof wandered about, we had dirty martinis and too-sweet bourbon drinks and a pleasant variety of delicious vegetarian small plates. The seaweed salad was a simple and pure revelation, putting anything else I've ever had to shame. It was a colorful red, white and green plate, and all the varieties were tender and clean-tasting, except for one leafy green selection that appeared to be lightly fried. I never thought I'd think seaweed amazing. We also had sea salted and chili-sauced edamame and grilled eggplant skewers, bathed in a sweet miso. Yellowtail, headed by Korean chef and former pro snowboarder Akira Back, has been very well reviewed and apparently deserves the accolades. I'm looking forward to a proper meal there, perhaps with S+M.

Saturday marked a return to what I am now convinced is the definitive Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas, Border Grill at Mandalay Bay. I accept that I am partial to Mexican food and so it is hard to be critical, especially when so many restaurants are so similar in quality and cuisine. I generally prefer the more creative spots on the Strip (Diego at MGM, Isla at Treasure Island) to the more traditional, home-style eateries around Vegas. But this was my third time at Border Grill and it keeps getting better. Well, at least the food does. The restaurant was renovated over the summer and it looks a little boring. Formerly colorful, open and lively, it's now trying to be a sleek, dark steakhouse. (At least the upstairs is. I didn't go down there, but I'm assuming the lower level is still a little more bright and casual to match the poolside patio.) The new decor threw me off a little, but the food was beyond impressive so I guess we'll let it slide. Along with perfectly adequate chips and salsa, we started with plantain empanadas, a perfect salty-and-sweet bite. A favorite we've sampled before, the smoked brisket taquitos, were great again. But the star was Cochinita Pibil, tender marinated pork roasted in a banana leaf with cinnamon, orange and other tasty things and served with caramelized plantains, pickled onions and two handmade corn tortillas. I didn't even touch the tortillas. The flavor of the moist pork was so warm and satisfying, I couldn't bring myself to consume a forkful of anything else. Well, except for the sweet plantains. They were a perfect match, like having dinner and dessert all at once.

Later that night we met again with S+M at Payard patisserie, the Caesars Palace playground of probably the best pastry chef around, Francois Payard. I was still too full, although we did buy a flourless chocolate chip cookie that I'm eyeballing as I type this. But S+M polished off a banana nutella crepe, which sounds pretty fucking good. As we were reflecting on the pastries, chocolates and coffees to be had, S revealed that these French goodies are, in fact, not really better in France. He says they're the same. They just taste better because you know you're in Paris. And you can get them from a street cart instead of parking at some goliath casino resort and walking forever to find and purchase something that costs three times as much. Yes, this is our problem in Vegas; we've got the goods, all of them, but we know it. And shit, how awesome would it be if the Strip was lined with litte streetfood vendors?

firefly. bradley ogden.

It's a tough job, when you're me, to settle on a location for an afternoon of eating and drinking somewhere in Vegas. I want to try new stuff. I want to get not-so-new stuff that I haven't been able to get yet. I also have a hard time not going for something reliably awesome. So we combined two of those factors on Saturday, going for a late lunch of tapas and cocktails at Firefly and then wandering around the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace before getting another drink and snack at Bradley Ogden.

Firefly has got to be one of the most beloved restaurants in Vegas. Tourists love it and eat there when they're hungover. Locals will tell you it's the best spot for tapas. It's kind of a hipster joint, which can lead to some douchey surroundings at times, but the food and drink are worth putting up with such a minor annoyance. Mojitos and sangria are mandatory, as are one of the tastiest bites I've ever had: the stuffed dates. It's a smoked almond crammed inside a date, wrapped with bacon and served with a red wine reduction and crumbles of bleu cheese. It's as good as it sounds. On this visit, we also sampled perfect portions of gazpacho, boquerones (white anchovies on baby toasts), a veggie empanada with a great tang from herb cream cheese, stuffed red peppers and ham and manchego cheese croquetas. As usual, everything was great, complemented by a table on the patio and perfect weather. It got me to thinking: is this the best Spanish restaurant in Vegas? And are there Spanish restaurants in Vegas that aren't all about the tapas? (Firefly does serve paella, although I've never tried it.) When Julian Serrano opens his at CityCenter next year, I'm sure that will answer questions like those.

Meanwhile, at Caesars, everybody is wandering around the Forum and not buying anything, and we are no different. After planning to grab a drink at either Joe's Stone Crab or Boa Steakhouse, I instead opted for Bradley Ogden's bar. This place is in my top 5 when it comes to Not New Restaurants I Still Haven't Eaten At. If I wasn't still partially full from lunch, I would have tried what many have hailed as the best burger in Vegas, the ground steak burger served at this bar. But instead, we munched a tasty plate of hummus and grilled flatbread and sipped two slightly disappointing cocktails: a Dirty Laundry, an extremely olivey vodka martini, and a Drunken Tortuga, basically a glass of gin with cilantro floating in it. I'm all for ordering expensive "signature" cocktails at expensive restaurant bars, but more often than not I regret it and wish I'd gone for some whiskey or a plain old gin and tonic. These drinks were not so great, but the hummus was. Still, it was nice to finally step foot in this restaurant and I look forward to returning for that burger.