Category: Dining

Hawaiian cuisine, such as it is, is getting good.

When we reviewed Zippy’s, we weren’t particularly complimentary, especially considering the irrational exuberance over the place. But 808 Café was a vast improvement, so when we read a highly positive review of Ai Pono on a San Francisco news site, we took notice.

Ai Pono (“Good Eats” or “Eat Right” in Hawaiian) Café is one of the sit-down eateries at the Eat Your Heart Out food hall at Durango.

It’s the brainchild of Hawaiian-born and -raised Las Vegan Gene Villiatora, a 30-year local who’s cooked at numerous restaurants around town and had a mostly successful run on “Top Chef: New York”; he opened the first Ai Pono in Orange County, California, in 2019.

The word is out about Durango’s Ai Pono. We were there at 4:30 on a Saturday, figuring to beat the dinner rush. No such luck. We waited a few minutes to order, but behind us, nine people were in line.

The menu is amusing, with names like Mento Bento, Dim Sum and Den Sum, Crackhead chicken (“everyone keeps coming back for seconds in one sitting”), and Ham Buggah steak. Most dishes are a major carb fest, with two scoops of rice and one of macaroni salad, along with some Asian slaw.

But the proteins and sauces are the stars of the show. The Crackhead chicken ($17) is sauteed in Ai Pono’s “secret batter” and topped with a coconut-garlic miso glaze. You’ll also find guava-chili chicken, Japanese chicken in a katsu sauce, and Korean chicken in a truffle sauce ($17 each), pork chops in a spicy garlic barbecue glaze ($18), mahi mahi in a garlic-butter-white-wine sauce ($18), and Korean short rib ($20). You can also get bowls ($14-$16), sampler plates ($20-$23), and add-ons such as kim chee, lumpia, potstickers, and lollipop shrimp ($5-$10).

We sampled the garlic shrimp in a cilantro-citrus-chili sauce, which comes with a fried egg on the rice, and the OG beef, hibachi-style slices of striploin marinated in “black-magic” teriyaki (both $19). Each ushered the Zippy-style Hawaiian plate lunch into a whole other dimension— a very good thing. Our bill, including a pickled-mango lemonade (delicious), came to a reasonable $48.77 (including tax, not tip).

The verdict: This is the kind of menu that, beyond our reviewer responsibilities, tempts us to go back and try everything else that looks so good. Villiatora claims that Ai Pono is on its way to becoming the standard of Hawaii fast-casual and street food and it might just succeed.

Scotch 80 Prime is high-end steakhouse at the Palms (formerly N9NE). The food is big and so are the prices. So a happy hour with several of its best dishes—appetizers and entrées—for 50%-off sounds ridiculous. An 8-ounce ribeye cap for $31? Yes, it’s good, but you need to know a few things going in.

Best HH in Vegas?

There are two happy hours Mon.-Thurs. from 5 to 6:30 pm and 8:30 to 10 pm. The number of HH items is amazing: oysters (6/$12.50), jumbo shrimp cocktail ($13.50), soups and salads ($8.50-$9), ribeye cap ($31), 8-ounce filet (32.50), New Zealand king salmon ($26), Chilean sea bass ($27), sides ($6-$7.50). Crazy. Beer is $5, wine $12, and cocktails $12. We went with appetizers: steak tartare, wedge salad, Caesar salad, brie fondue, grilled asparagus, and the snow beef burger. That’s a lot of food for a tab of $79 before tax. It sounds good, right? Heck, yeah. This HH was immediately anointed one of the best in Vegas. But we ran into some problems.

No Oysters

Our first choice was a couple orders of oysters on the half shell. At $12.50 for 6, that’s a pretty wallet-friendly $2.08-per in a fancy joint like this. Nope.

“Sorry, we’re out of oysters.”

“Really? Is that normal?”

“Yes. Everyone orders them. We run out every day.”

OK, we were at the late happy hour, so lesson learned, go to the early one.

No Sharing Entrees

Our food was delivered. That is, all except for the Scotch 80 Burger. This thing is $50 retail, so we had to try it for $25, but it never came. When we finished, we requested the check and asked the waiter to make sure we weren’t charged for the no-show item. “But it’s ready now” he said. We’d been there for 45 minutes and were ready to leave, but shrugged and told him to bring it with a couple of extra plates so we could split it between the three of us, since no one was in the mood to eat a big burger at that point. He did. We ate it. He brought the check. The price hawk in our party looked it over and saw that we’d been charged the full $50 for the late-arriving burger. When we brought it up to the waiter, he pointed out a clause on the menu indicating that entrées would not be given the discount if shared. Given the circumstances, we eventually got the discount, but that rule is brutal. What constitutes “sharing”? A bite? Several bites? Be aware of this one and make sure that if you order an entrée you can eat it all yourself.

The Verdict

So you need to come early for oysters and understand the sharing rule. Aside from that, this HH is a bargain on the high end, and we didn’t even do the big bangers on the menu. The restaurant is beautiful and, as pointed out, there are lots of discounted options. Of the items we sampled the winners were the fondue and the Caesar salad. We were disappointed in the tartare and that burger was too fancy for us (squid ink on the bun isn’t really our thing). We’re gonna try it again, going early for the oysters and one of those steaks.

The validation at Club Serrano took five minutes. The wait to get into the weekday brunch buffet (served 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., 1 p.m. on Wed. and Thurs.) also took five minutes — plus an hour.

The line wasn’t especially long, but it moved in fits and starts, stalling when people waiting for a table backed up to the cashier. Yes, it was a drudge, especially looking into the room and seeing half the tables empty, but dirty. Eventually, however, you pay (more on that below), get seated, fill your plate and then your face, and all is forgiven and forgotten — unless you have to write a review.

Filling your plate is easy. The good stuff: steamed snow crab (worth the wait alone), six-ounce steak (grilled to perfection), carved bone-in ham, pork loin, and chicken breast, dill salmon, medium peeled shrimp, bagels and lox, cooked-to-order eggs, and two types of Benedicts. You’ll also be tempted by Middle Eastern choices (baba ghanoush, Fattoush salad, falafel/tzatziki), scrambled eggs and Tex-Mex scramble, bacon, sausage, several potato dishes, hot and cold cereal, parfait bar, melons, salads, lobster roll, fajitas, tamales, several pizzas, and chicken and waffles.

For dessert, there’s scooped sorbet, soft-serve, and assorted pastries cakes, and pies.

As you eat, you’re secure in the knowledge that with our MRO coupon, you’re getting the best buffet deal in town, without a doubt, and one of the best deals in town overall. With the 50%-for-one option, you pay $21.50, for two $42.99. (The brunch buffet price was raised $10 on August 12; dinner Sat.-Tues. is $46.99, an increase of $10. Snow crab and prime rib on Fridays is now $52.99, up $10 and the all-you-can-eat lobster dinner on Wed. and Thurs. is $79.99, up from $64.99.) With a $5 toke, a couple is out of there for $50.

As we say, this deal is so strong, it erases the memory of standing around for an hour.

The area code and universal identifier of all things Hawaii is also the name of one of Las Vegas’ best new restaurants. The 808 Café, run by Hawaiian transplant Dennis Lin, is located in a nondescript storefront in a strip mall at Flamingo and Buffalo. Don’t be deterred; the major menu includes authentic Hawaiian and Asian dishes served in big portions and nothing is priced above $20.

Hawaiian

We asked a bartender we know from the Islands if she was familiar with 808 and she raved about the selection. Indeed, just about everything associated with Hawaiian cuisine is on this menu—loco moco, mochiko chicken, spam, teriyaki beef, Hawaiian beef stew, Portuguese sausage and eggs. We didn’t go that route, except to try the gau gee (fried wontons), which we’re told aren’t easy to find outside of Hawaii. You get eight for $8.95 and they’re excellent.

Asian

Described as Asian-Fusion, the rest of the menu is a mix that’s primarily Chinese. Well over 100 selections include noodles, rice, pastries, soups, meat, seafood, and vegetables. We had garlic edamame ($4.95), Szechuan dumplings ($6.95), siu mai ($7.95), salt & pepper fish ($14.95), shrimp chow fun ($15.95), and the house special rice ($16.95). Different spices, mustard, and hot sauces accompanied. One of our favorites was the siu mai that comes five to an order and they’re huge, but despite the size, still delicate. The star of the show was the salt & pepper fish. This is a gotta-get. Spice it up however you fancy and eat it there (they’re not as good for take-out).

MRO Deal

Making everything better, we have two Member Rewards offers for 808 Café, both downloadable. One is a modest offer for non-LVA members: 5% off $25 or 10% off $100—a discount of $2.50 to $10+. The second is more substantial and available to LVA members only: an order of the house special rice for $5 when you spend at least $40. That’s an easy spend for two people and it works out to a $12 saving on the dish. It comes with your choice of beef, chicken, pork, or shrimp and is a meal in itself. Take it out and you have a $5 lunch for two.

The Verdict

You’d expect this place to be in the heart of Chinatown, but it’s about five miles farther west up Flamingo. It’s worth the drive for the good food, not to mention the LVA deal. It’s not fancy, but the owner is usually there to make suggestions and the diners tend to talk with one another, likely due to familiarity from frequenting the place.

This is one of those restaurants you’ll have to go back to several times to even begin to dent the menu and we’re sure we’ll come up with other recommendations (our bartender friend raves about the crab Rangoon), but the S&P fish, another entrée, and orders of siu mai and gau gee will get you there for the rice deal. It’s open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. (11:30 p.m. Fri. & Sat.).