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After flying all night, we didn’t want to spend another evening locked in with room service but didn‘t want to search far for a good meal. The solution was simple; we took the elevator to the mezzanine level of our hotel and experienced the best steak dinner of our trip sans reservation or extensive research.
Elements’ theme reflects the earth’s primary elements: fire, water, stone, wood, and metal. One side of the restaurant reveals chefs searing meat and flaming seafood specialties while the entire back wall of the restaurant is made up of a liquid curtain fountain enhanced by Vegas-style mood lighting. Metal sconces, wood trims, and stone highlights round out the stylish venue. The results are comforting, confirming the importance of feng-shui design. The overall effect would be considered grand in your hometown (yes, even in New York), but the restaurant’s location on the mezzanine level of the casino leaves no doubt you are most definitely still in Vegas. Just beyond the hostess stand the garish sights and sounds of the casino on the level below, reminding diners that temptations of another sort are only a glance away.
Where most urban supper clubs would cater to a healthy number of romantic couples out on the town, after being seated in a romantic booth with my date, I quickly realized I was the only yin in a sea of yang. Businessmen, conventioneers, and bachelor party groups of males dominated the scene. I was not put off by this. In the same way that an overflowing gravel parking lot in a truck stop signals good food, I surmised that a sea of suits signals succulent steaks. Or some such similar suspicion.
And I was right.
From the appetizer menu, Sweetie chose his favorites, which were amply paired together on one plate - a duet of tuna tartare and carpaccio. I’m not one to resist the ubiquitous sin city specialty, shrimp cocktail on ice, for nowhere else will one find more perfectly plump, sweet, and crispy representations of the pink crustacean. Elements’ version of the classic was so huge that I took a picture as proof for the folks back home. (That's a full-sized fork placed next to the "shrimp" in the photo just to give some perspective to their enormity.)
Following our opening feasting course, all I needed to be fully satiated and nutritionally balanced (a feng shui essential) was a side order of jumbo baked potato and sautéed spinach. Sweetie gallantly offered me a taste of his New York bone-in rib eye grilled expertly on the wood stoked fire. It was one of the better (and bigger) cuts one encounters in a city that thrives on the steak and martini trade.
What more would one expect from a venue that urges, "Put a little meat on your bones," in its advertising? After dining at Elements, there’s a good chance you’ll have something to show for it later, which is likely more than you’ll have playing roulette.
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Best of $$Vegas$$