Located inside the Forum Shops at Caesar's, the restaurant had elegant decor and a nice, mature feel. Its menu was an appropriate length, offering a good number of starters, steaks, steak-alternatives and sides. When my eyes scanned the steak list though, I knew what I was going to order as soon I saw it: Bone-in Filet Mignon.
I know enough about steak to know that anything bone-in is going to have immense flavor (or is supposed to), compared to the same cut with no bone. A bone-in Filet is the best of both worlds! Wonderful flavor yet incredibly soft and tender texture. I was almost giddy when I ordered it.
Sadly, it wasn't too memorable, which realy isn't what you want when you drop $80 for one person. I don't remember the meat having any flavor at all, and I had to rely on the Bernaise sauce I ordered for an extra $1 (who charges for that stuff??). On the upside, the portion was much better than I thought. I'd guesstimate 12oz? with the bone, possibly more.
I did have a bite of my neighbor's Kobe ribeye though, and that was GOOD. I would definitely recommend that over the bone-in filet. We also ordered a couple starters; the tuna tartar is better than their steak tartar. In my opinion the sides were all pretty mediocre and disappointing for a steakhouse of Boa's stature (they also have one in Hollywood). The lobster mashed potatoes (at $22 a pop) didn't have any lobster taste at all. I'd prefer even Johnny Rocket's chili cheese fries over Boa's Truffled Cheese Fries any day. AND to make matters worse, when we asked our waiter what side he recommended, he said the Bamboo Steamed Vegetables were good. Really? It literally was a bunch of (over) steamed vegetables sitting in a dimsum basket. For nine bucks.
The service was also on the poor side. When my steak knife would barely cut through butter without trouble, I had asked our server to exchange the knife for me, after I finally manged to flag someone down after about five minutes. The server was quite nonchalant and actually looked at me like I was the retarded one. In retrospect I should have stabbed him to make my point. I'm not sure that he ever came back to check on us either... But with a 20% mandatory tip, why would you?
Anyway, the meal was average in my book and not any worse because they did squeeze 10 of us in on a Saturday night (although I'm not sure if they did in fact have to "squeeze" us in, they didn't seem busy... and maybe for a very legit reason that I now know about...), and there was good company. Plus $80 really wasn't that bad since we had ordered two bottles of wine, a couple coffee drinks and a good number of sides.
Next time we're going to Maestro's though!
20% mandatory tip!? wtf!?
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