Category: Dining

Located at the Horseshoe entrance to restaurant row right off the casino in the walkway to Paris, Flavortown is a large sports bar with at least a dozen small TV screens scattered around the walls, a big video wall with three screens, each larger than the one next to it, and a 28-seat egg-shaped bar in the center. Ordinarily, a celebrity-chef’s overpriced restaurant on the center Strip, even one showing sports all day and night, wouldn’t interest us. But Flavortown is currently promoting a unique deal that caught our attention.

It’s not a buffet, but it is an all-you-can-eat brunch served Mon.-Thurs. from 8 am to 2 pm. You mix and match off the menu and keep eating until you bust. The starting price is $19.99 for bacon and eggs, biscuits and gravy, French toast, Caesar and house salads, chili, and brisket mac ‘n cheese. You can add on avocado toast, a club sandwich, or chicken and waffles for $5 and steak and eggs (seven-ounce strip) for $10. It’s another $29.99 for bottomless mimosas, Bloody Marys, and margaritas. 

Since you eat as much as you can, the diner next to us ordered three eggs instead of two with his steak and avocado toast, the latter two adding $15 for a total of $34.99. (In the photos, those are potatoes that look kind of like fried shrimp.)

At 11 a.m. on a Thursday, it was a half-hour wait for a table, but a few seats were open at the 28-seat bar, which has video poker machines in front of every other seat. (Careful, these are the worst pay schedules possible, 6/5 JoB and Bonus in all denominations from nickels to $5. And par for the course, people were playing.)

Initially, service was non-existent. Two bartenders split waiter duties and the guy next to us got a menu, ordered, and was served by the other bartender in the first 10 minutes, while our order wasn’t even taken for 15. Once it was, we waited another 15 minutes for the food — (bad) luck of the draw …

The eggs, which come without toast, and French toast arrived at the same time. It was all what you’d expect from a sports bar; the French toast was one inch-thick slice with a little bacon, a couple of hunks of caramelized banana, and good maple syrup.

When we arrived at 11, the place was packed and most people were ordering breakfast; by the time we left around noon, Flavortown had thinned out considerably and people were now ordering lunch. Typical for a sports bar, it’s big food, definitely quantity over quality. And though it’s nice to know you can eat eat eat, most appetites will be satisfied with just a couple of the offerings, either breakfast or lunch.

All in all, it’s a good gimmick and not a bad deal during the week at center Strip. With tax and a tip, we were out of there for $25.

We hadn’t valet parked in Vegas in decades, but on our visit to Gjelina at the Venetian, we were accompanied by a disabled person, so we opted for the convenience.

There were no surprises. A big sign as you pull into the porte cochere says, “Valet Parking $40 a Day.” Self-parking is $20 anyway, so we bit the bullet; the extra $20 for the well being of our guest was certainly worth it.

You drop off your trusty steed in the usual fashion: pulling up to the valet area under the portico in front, giving up your key, and receiving a claim ticket. But when you come out to retrieve your car, you do so at the Valet Pick-Up Kiosk.

You follow the few simple instructions on the screen. First, you scan the QR code on your ticket.

Then the credit card screen comes up. The arrow points to the card reader, where you pay by swiping, inserting, or tapping.

The last screen tells you that your car is on its way. You don’t have to talk to anyone; no one is there to talk to anyway, since the one or two valet attendants are busy running cars from the garage to the portico. Ours took another 15 minutes to show up on a Wednesday afternoon around 2:30.

With the $5 tip, parking at Venetian added $45 to our lunch tab at Gjelina.

The Naughty Angel is a new “French-inspired steakhouse” in a small strip mall on Sammy Davis Jr. Drive at the intersection of Resorts World Road. The owner-chef, Angel Lopez, has worked up and down the Strip, from Sadelle’s to Joel Robuchon, and opened Primal Steakhouse ini the Boulevard Mall on Maryland Parkway in late 2020; it’s a favorite of at least one Blackjack Hall of Famer of our acquaintance.

It’s a large restaurant and bar that encompasses three storefronts and dresses up the shopping center with its massage parlor, vape shop, tattoo parlor, psychic, and hookah lounge. It’s a tasteful and eclectic place, with soft French-style cabaret music, Central American-inspired original art (Lopez is Guatemalan), and a few Asian-decor touches. If you’re looking for a quiet, non-casino, fine-dining experience, The Naughty Angel will definitely fill the bill. It’s open until midnight Mon.-Thurs., 1 a.m. Fri. and Saturday.

A great way to try out the food is during happy hour, 4-7 p.m. Monday-Friday. Appetizers start at $5 (pommes frites), with a bargain French onion soup ($7), ratatouille ($8), and up to $12 for cheese fondue. Bottled beers are $5, shot of the day $6, well drinks $7, and glasses of international wines $10. We arrived at 6:30 on a Thursday and got in on the happy-hour zucchini and Gruyere cakes, housemade herb sausage, and ratatouile; with one beer, we’d have been out of there for around $30. But everything was so good, especially the sausage in a piquant salsa, that we stuck around for dinner.

The menu is as advertised, French and steaks. The traditional dishes include such appetizers as crudites and tartine ($17), escargot and steak tartare ($19), and bacon-wrapped prawns ($22); lobster bisque, crab louie, and Caesar ($14-$18); coq au vin and chicken fricassee ($38), linguine and clams ($40), seared duck breast ($49), Dover sole ($58), and braised lamb shanks ($65); and of course the steaks ($40-$90). Sides include garlic mashed, twice-baked potato, stuffed peppers, lemon-butter/hollandaise asparagus, and herb risotta ($9-$12); and for dessert crème brûlée, chocolate fondue, baked Alaska, and hummingbird cake ($14-$22).

Our bill for three happy-hour apps, steak and lobster, crème brûlée, and bottled water came to $178.82 with tax. Eminently reasonable for a lot of high-quality food — and we got another meal out of the steak and noodles.

We tried the lobster-tail Mafaldine with pasta in a creamy lobster sauce ($55) and the eight-ounce filet in creamy horseradish ($50), plus the crème brûlée. In true French fashion, the secret to this food are the sauces: for example, demi-glaze, peppercorn, and Bearnaise for the steaks; lemon beurre blanc for the sole; red wine and herbs for the lamb; and a cream sauce for the fricassee. Chef Angel definitely learned his lessons in long years in Strip kitchens.

The Naughty Angel opened in April and is still getting on its legs, so service is exquisite; Angel himself served us our appetizers. We’re really rooting for the place to make it and with Resorts World directly across the street, with Circus Circus next to it and Fontainebleau on the other side, it has a good shot of becoming a local mainstay. We’ll definitely be back, especially for happy hours to come.