casa don juan.

The first time I went to Casa Don Juan, it was for a job interview lunch years ago. It was with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority and I had chile verde. It was good. That would have been a pretty funny job for me, huh?

The second time, it was meeting up with new girlfriend and her friends during a First Friday arts event, and it was a bit nerve-wracking but there were giant margaritas. Those were good, too.

But I was never really impressed with the food at this downtown cocina until I had an early dinner there last night. The chips were especially crunchy and corny, and the salsas, though a bit thin for me, were fresh and zingy. I ordered a rice-and-beans plate with a fully-packed shredded beef enchilada, a crisp beef taco and a hearty relleno. Everything was better than just good. The relleno, in particular, was interesting. The "crust" on the pepper was soft, spongy and warm, kind of like an omelet instead of some fried disaster, and it tasted of eggs but not in a breakfasty way. It was light and satisfying at the same time.

I will gladly take Casa Don Juan as my downtown Mexican restaurant of choice, ahead of the perfectly fine Dona Maria Tamales and the quaint but overrated El Sombrero Cafe.

mrkt.

As Aliante Station is the "little sister" in the Station Casinos family, more compact and less luxurious than Summerlin's Red Rock Resort, so MRKT will be the lesser known and appreciated sibling in Station's steakhouse roster. And this is not a surprise.

The decor in MRKT is stylish and sophisticated, with its oval glass bar, subtle colors and 5,000-bottle wine list. The service is just fine. The meat is just fine. But the menu and overall experience is missing the small touches that make a meal memorable and force you to come back. You can find those touches at Red Rock's T-Bones steakhouse, and I've had great experiences, if somewhat surprising, at Santa Fe Station's Charcoal Room. But it's just not meant to be at MRKT, the epitome of good-not-great. Where's the soul in this food? Drop the price on your $37 porterhouse, I say, and you may have a winner.

The two bar-top meals we've had here were good. Not great. The jumbo crab cake was pretty jumbo and full of meat, but under-seasoned and without any oomph. Butternut squash soup is terrific and served in a rather large bowl. Spinach salad with pancetta is a little overpowered by sharp dressing, and not as good as the chopped salad, that new steakhouse staple. The side dishes here are flat out boring and I don't want to order any of them. Bone-in New York, ribeye and grilled salmon, all okay. Everything here tastes good enough to tease. Maybe I'll go back to the Charcoal Room after all.

fooled by mgm grand. west wing = boo.

The MGM Grand website describes its West Wing rooms as "sleek," "stylish" and "modern." It reminds you there's a Bose radio in here. I'll describe my West Wing room as "tiny," feeling like a "space-age coffin," and equipped with a "broken telephone." And I'd like to remind you there's no fucking bathtub in here.

That's not to say that a weekend at the MGM was a total wash, or that a stay in the West Wing was uncomfortable. But in the pantheon of recently remodeled, modernized hotel rooms on the Strip, these are particularly unimpressive, especially since the rates for this weekend were about the same for a room in the Grand Tower of the same resort. The high points were the big robo-shower, a cozy bed and quick access to Las Vegas Boulevard without having to tromp through the entire casino (particularly important since we were back-and-forthing it to the Monte Carlo for two days). A room service order of bacon cheeseburger and Asian chicken salad at 3 a.m. was delicious but not easy to fully enjoy without enough space to afford the rolling food cart. Another low point was walking into the room for the first time and being greeted by the toilet before all else. "Design rules," says the website. Ha.

The West Wing bar (pictured) should have been a cool urban haven between the walkabouts, but in the daytime, thanks to the red glass doors that lead from here to the ultra-tacky Grand Canyon Experience mega-gift shop next door, this bar is where tired fat people go to die. The sandals-with-socks crowd, no doubt exhausted from Strip walking, sneak in here to find comfy couches and it's all over. Needless to say, this is not what you want to see when you come off the elevator, on the way to dinner, looking for a nice hip drinkhole. Fix this, MGM. All it takes is a big broom.

Elsewhere on the property, margaritas, taquitos, salsas and queso fundido are top-flight at Diego, the pink and somewhat forgotten restaurant at the back of the Studio Walk. Even better is the fried egg, bacon and bleu cheese sandwich at Wichcraft, one of the best hangover meals ever consumed. And the pool -- or more appropriately, collection of pools littered with spiked Slurpee distribution centers -- should get a good grade as well, even though there weren't enough spaces to lounge on Sunday. Despite this being the opening weekend for dayclub Wet Republic, the douchebaggery was minimal. With that egg sandwich in your guts, perfect spring sunshine on your body, and an orange frozen mess tasting of rum and mint in your hand, you really can't complain. The MGM has plenty to offer, but next time I'm sampling I'll get a suite.

it's not on fire.

Got a wedding coming up this weekend, and the out-of-towners have chosen the Monte Carlo as their headquarters. Room rates being what they are, it's a solid choice: mid-level resorts like this one, New York-New York, Luxor and TI are among the top Vegas bargains right now, offering up all-inclusive amenities, plenty of dining and drinking options, and proximity to other Strip action for a fraction of the cost seen in '08 or '07.

The Monte Carlo, currently operated by MGM Mirage, opened in 1996 and despite a vague European theme is better known as the home of cheesy magician Lance Burton and Vegas' longtime resident fancy French chef, Andre Rochat. (Now that his original downtown restaurant has closed, Rochat has Andre's here and Alize at the Palms.) In the last couple years, as nightclub operations like Pure Management Group and Light Group took over the Strip, the Monte Carlo has been touched up with more modern venues such as Brand Steakhouse and Diablo's Cantina, both operated by Light. And of course, the top floor of the hotel famously caught on fire in early '08.

Upon my post college return to Vegas, UNLV buddies introduced me to the Monte Carlo Brew Pub, which has always been a somewhat unexplainable draw for locals. The draft beer selection is fine, sandwiches and pizzas are okay, it's quiet when it needs to be and it hosts live bands most nights. If I'm making this place sound mediocre, you're welcome. Mediocrity is pretty much the theme here. The most exciting thing going on at the Monte Carlo is lunchtime at the food court, and that has nothing to do with the new selection of tacos at Rubio's. CityCenter looms next door, so all day long you can catch construction workers moving in and out on their breaks. As a 10-plus year-old hotel-casino, Monte Carlo is somewhat forgotten in the shadows of bigger and better, and it will be interesting (to me) to see what becomes of it when (ever) CityCenter opens.

Overall, skip it. As far as I can tell, the hotel rooms haven't been renovated as recently as ones at TI or Luxor. The sleek bar at Brand looks like a place I'd like to have a drink, so I think I will. Other than that, eh. I'm staying across the street this weekend.

jc wooloughan's irish pub.

Sometimes you just want a pint, maybe a whiskey, and some greasy bar food. And you want to consume them in a dark place made of wood, with a real bar, a place kinda stinky and maybe too loud. Sadly, as it is with all things authentic, most of the time in Vegas you have to find a fabrication of a joint like this instead of the real thing (unless you want to hit up Crown & Anchor). The closest fake Irish pub to my house is J.C. Wooloughan's, inside the JW Marriott resort just off Summerlin Parkway and Rampart.

Sometimes I get a craving to hit this place up, and usually I'm slightly disappointed. I think it's the fake part. It's always close, but not quite there. But the beer is never disappointing. We started off with a couple of fake Black Velvets, Guinness and cider instead of champagne, and moved on to the ultra smooth Snakebite, Harp and cider. With this one, you can easily and accidentally drink four or five.

I really wanted to walk out of here with the confidence to say they serve the best fish and chips in Vegas, but it just didn't happen. The deep fried pickles and potato skins we happily munched were delicious, but I remember the fish and chips being better. Perhaps the last time I ordered the dish was after many more drinks. That'd do it. But it's okay because there is better food to be had at Wooloughan's, including corned beef in sandwich form or with cabbage, a tasty version of shepherd's pie, solid burgers and fine Irish breakfasts. The menu is known as one of the more authentic in town, but to me this always will be a place for boozing on all things Irish, from car bombs to coffees, and other less foo-foo beverages as well.

the gold coast is good.

The Gold Coast opened at the end of 1986, less than a year before I arrived in Vegas. I doubt I'm alone in being surprised at that date; I'm sure lots of people thought it has been around a lot longer than that. This is because it is so consistently popular among locals. The Gold Coast really is the epitome of the locals' casino, the standard long before Station Casinos blew the whole thing up with super swanky suburban joints. I don't remember a whole lot about life as a sixth-grader, but I do recall going to the Gold Coast buffet with my family (My father had rather odd tastes when it came to choosing which buffet or coffee shop was worth regular visitation. He was a fan of places like this, the Village Pub in Desert Shores, the Sunshine Cafe on Vegas and Decatur, and the Rio coffee shop. Why? No one knows.) and occasionally bowling here as well.

It's very different now. The buffet isn't in the same place in the casino. But the casino looks exactly the same as it did through my 11-year-old eyes. In fact, the Gold Coast is keeping it real on a level you're not going to see very much anymore in Vegas. It's old school in here, right down to a spacious, red-and-gold, boothed-out casino lounge with drink specials, free bands and karaoke on Mondays. Check out the leather chairs in the casino bar between Ping Pang Pong and the Cortez Room. It feels like you're having a drink in Casino, waiting for Joe Pesci to come through and slap somebody.

Nostalgia is not the only reason to visit. I came to grab a quick lunch of sweet and sour braised shrimp, glistening and delicious fried rice and above average egg flower soup at Noodle Exchange, which, like the dim sum haven Ping Pang Pong a few steps away, is owned and operated by Kevin Wu, who knows what he is doing. (He also does Noodle Asia, at the Venetian, in case you are wondering.) These two restaurants are always full of local diners, mostly Asian, and serve food much better than you would suspect.

If you're new, you might not remember, but the Gaughan family used to run Coast Casinos, before Boyd Gaming came in and basically fucked them all up. For some reason, and I'm guessing it's Gaughan-related, there was always good Chinese food to be had at Coast properties. (Of course, Chinatown is very close to the Gold Coast, but these two restaurants give the neighbors a run for their money.) If there wasn't an Asian restaurant on property, you could go to the coffee shop and they'd have a full-on Chinese menu. The cafe here at Gold Coast was a great example. But now they've gone the corporate route with a TGI Friday's, which took over that space. The classic steakhouse, the Cortez Room, also is in a new location, where the Arriva Italian restaurant used to be (over by that cool bar).

What I'm saying is, I'm going to eat great Chinese food and drink cheap beer or whiskey at this old-school bar, and I'm going to like it. And if I can't make it out of the building, at least the rooms are super cheap.

buzz bbq.

Meat for meat, Buzz BBQ is my pick for best in Vegas. The brisket is maybe the best I've ever tasted, rich and meaty and smoked forever. Pulled pork, andouille sausage and the pork spareribs are all phenomenal. And the spicy sauce they serve on the side for you to drown your meats in, if you like, is the perfect complement. Slow Smokin' is the tagline at this northwest Vegas restaurant, and they mean it, hickory cooking the shit out of everything. The chicken is pretty special, too, with skin blackened from the thick smoke and tender, juicy meat spilling out.

Buzz is a restaurant that doesn't pay much attention to its side dishes, which is unfortunate but nothing near a deal killer. See, you're going to be piling so much meat in your face, you're not going to want any mac 'n cheese or potato salad anyway. A fine and balanced restaurant it ain't, but I have yet to find a local barbecue pit that can hang with these meats.

Buzz BBQ originally opened in a small spot on West Ann Road that used to be a tiny coffee and dessert shop. It has since moved to a 120-mouth building a few blocks south, on Craig Road just off U.S. Highway 95, and adequately renovated what used to be a bland neighborhood Italian restaurant. The place is now comfy, kinda quiet, splashed with some flatscreens so you can watch the game, and essentially the perfect place for a family dinner. It's also the perfect place to order a bunch of takeout and pass it off as your own next time you want to host a barbecue. Go ahead. Impress your friends.

hachi.

If I was creating the website for the Japanese restaurant Hachi at Red Rock Resort, I would call it ilovehachi.com too, because I love it. And this is after one meal. Love.

I had heard the cuisine of chef Linda Rodriguez was outstanding from several sources, but I was skeptical as I entered the fancy, modern dining room. After all, this is a non-steakhouse in a Station Casino, a setting typically reserved for mediocrity. Still, I have been excited to try it here, especially after we took over the Red Rock for a weekend in December but were unable to pry ourselves away from Cabo Mexican restaurant, T-Bones Steakhouse and the LBS burger joint.

And now I have a new favorite.

It looks and feels cool enough to be in any Strip hotel. I particularly like the warm, soothing colors and wall of Murakami eyeballs in the back of the dining room, which is much larger and comfortable than it appears from the casino entrance. But the setting means nothing compared to the food, which set a new standard for neighborhood dining with each arriving dish. I began with an unnecessary order of edamame and miso and followed it with a signature appetizer, crispy spicy shrimp, which sounds like something you could get anywhere. And you can. But here it actually succeeds in being super crispy, thanks to an invisible layer of tempura, and spicy enough. And there's plenty of shrimp in this $15 dish. The spicy kabocha coconut soup, however, is not spicy, nor does it need to be. It's a perfectly smooth and balanced blend of coconut and the pumpkinish kabocha, punctuated by salty, toasted pumpkin seeds. Speaking of pumpkin, there was a piece of it in the vegetable tempura plate, along with asparagus, broccoli, avocado, zucchini and shiitake mushroom.

Wifey, being anti-fish, chose a special of medallions of beef, tender and largely portioned. I couldn't decide and I didn't want to get full on sushi rolls, so I split between two more small plates and couldn't have been more pleased. Braised short ribs with a roasted apple puree was everything you expect short ribs to be, so soft that the breeze from floating a fork over the top collapsed the dense square of meat into shredded deliciousness. And most impressive of all was the sashimi sampler, four types of fish, each of them reminding me what this is supposed to be about: paper-thin shards of fluke laced with yuzu and topped with a single cilantro leaf and a dot of the most intense sriracha ever; Barely seared salmon belly; yellowtail with jalapeno in chili ponzu; tuna in a warm bacon vinaigrette with actual bacon and onions floating about. Sublime is the word that comes to mind. And we closed it all out with crispy, chewy, green tea and chocolate beignets with a caramel sauce that tasted of strawberries. Wifey: "It tastes like what's left over in your dish after eating a banana split."

Now that I've discovered Hachi, I may help keep Station Casinos from declaring bankruptcy. Only thing is, the food here is a fraction of the cost of the big boys on the Strip. And so far, it's better.

rosemary's.

Update: Rosemary's has closed.

Rosemary's has been tagged with that condescending Best Restaurant Off the Strip label forever, and chefs Michael and Wendy Jordan (pic'd) are fine with that because they are really nice people. Rosemary's actually is one of the best restaurants in Vegas no matter the location. I hadn't been there for probably a couple years until a few nights ago, when we stopped for an impromptu dinner at the bar.

The service from our somewhat hyper bartender was fine, and the food and drink was terrific. We guzzled a few Duvels, smart considering Rosemary's has an outstanding selection of beers and the menu even lists pairings for each dish with beer and wine. Potato rolls and honey-glazed, white chocolate bread greeted us up front, along with an amuse bouche of whitefish salad on a crisp little cracker. The wifey couldn't decide what to eat so she picked an interesting assortment of small plates (parmesan risotto cakes and mozzarella stuffed eggplant), a wilted spinach salad with a monstrous goat cheese cake and a side of (oh baby) white cheddar grits. She loved the grits the most. The risotto cakes were pleasing, reminiscent of deep fried mac and cheese, while the eggplant was a little undercooked and overkilled with the smoky mozzarella cheese.

I stuck with my standard appetizer order here, Hugo's Texas BBQ Shrimp with Maytag blue cheese slaw. This has been one of my all-time favorite dishes in Vegas, but it was off a little this time. The shrimp seemed smaller than I remember, and the barbecue sauce -- in my mind a rich, almost mole-ish substance, a little sweet, a little spicy -- wasn't barbecuey at all. It was more peanut-chocolate, a little thick and syrupy, not really sweet or hot. Weird. It was still a great dish, just tuned differently. Any skittering feeling of disappointment was washed away by a perfectly moist roasted tomato and bacon-crusted swordfish, served atop mushroom and wax bean salad. The tang of the tomato rode the fish well; it was a completely new taste. Also, those grits are really, really good. More restaurants need to serve grits.

Dessert: espresso, a tiny espresso cup full of creme brulee, and an unordered gift from the kitchen -- bourbon balls, peanut butter buckeyes, and lemon squares. Awesome across the board, as things go at Rosemary's.

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.