Venetian, Secondhand Report

A friend of mine from another internet site just got back from a couple nights in Vegas for a trade show. Show was at the Sands, they stayed at Venetian, weren't impressed. Here's the brief report she emailed me (I'm happy to note that none of the bad restaurants they tried were my recommendations )

HOYA,
The room was MOST EXCELLENT! Sunken living room and comfortable bed with lovely curtains - like Cleopatra would sleep in! No, we loved the room! We were part of the GLOBALSHOP package event so the price wasn't ...well, it was over $300 a night - I think Bellagio is about that, too, right? Our huge window faced the whole city. Just AWESOME!

The Italian Restaurant had the most boring food - just tasteless or Chef boy R Dee. We ate there with our vendor friends from New York. They don't drink (but are fun, anyway) and vegan - so that was a problem - actually one of our customers ate there also - very disappointed.

The gondola ride - only runs every couple hours. The Art Show from the Guggenheim was $20 bucks each - I think the art museum at Bellagio is free. Anyway I would have liked to have seen it - but we were on the go - meeting customers and vendors.

Breakfast at the Boroche sp? was a joke - it advertises itself as "French Laundry" style food. Service was THE WORST - bunch of people left, a group from Smurfit -Stone - (huge display company - packaging, boxes, paper, too) were really pissed. Like their tab had to be $300+. Food was average at best - Jim said greasiest plate he's ever had. My quiche was just ok.

Our food highlight was at BOA at Caesar's Palace. The service was out of this world - the meal, wine - everything - like a dream. The Forum Shops - well, I'll be sharing that on my post. FANTASTIC!

Steve Wynn's new place is just amazing. I tried to get photo's to show to my friends - but then couldn't get the site to load. It will be open in a couple weeks.

Maybe some of the other restaurants would be a better choice at Venetian - we did stop in to a little fruit/produce stand and that was excellent for snack. Gelato GREAT!

The restaurant at the VENETIAN to AVOID is Canaletto.

I ordered RAVIOLI stuffed with eggplant and other veggies. Didn't see them in there? They were very flat - someone used a dolly spoon to fill them. The sauce was just like Campbell's tomato soup. Another diner with us had the angel-hair pasta - it was like gramma used to serve as she skimped on the sauce to stretch it out over all the kids. My DH had swordfish that the server said was NOT DRY...well, so much for his understanding of the word "DRY" (over-cooked)

The bread - LOOKED AWESOME - ciabatta with a hint of wheat - you know that is supposed to be crunchy crust with collapsible center. The slices tasted like they were left out on the counter since noon - very DRY! Maybe it is the Vegas lack of humidity? LOL

Service was good - not a place to talk business as opera singing in background. We did not choose this place - our vendor did because they are vegan and Italian seems to work best for them usually...
mellow