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xvp - review of Simon Restaurant in Palms Place

Some friends wanted to go to Simon's restaurant in Palms Place. You can
reach it from the casino via an elevator up to a "skywalk" (moving slidewalks),
so it isn't too far. It has spacious, nice decor, with views of the Palms
Place interesting pool area (with fireplaces out there). It is open for lunch
and dinner (after 6pm). There is also a bar.

Kerry Simon is known as a good chef, and the food was generally quite good.
Unfortunately, for us, that is where the goodness ended. The prices were on
the expensive side, especially the sushi prices (there is a sushi bar), with
entrees ranging from about $25 and up. I wanted to try the pumpkin soup,
but it was somehow "out of stock" at 6pm. We had some good appetizers, and
generally good entrees.

Unfortunately the bar is very busy and very noisy. Like the N9NE restaurant
inside the Palms, the acoustics are bad. So as the restaurant filled up, it
soon became extremely noisy. On top of that, loud music was played, and the
music also got louder, to the point we could barely hear each other speak.
Maybe I'm an oddball, but when I go out to dinner, I like to talk to my
companions.

Then sometime about 7pm, they suddenly dimmed the lights and the place was
really dark for dining. I could barely make out my companions faces. When I
went to the rest room after this, I found they had dimmed the lights in there
too -- impossible to put makeup on if you were a woman, and hard to see much
of your own face in the mirror. The restroom fixtures are ultramodern, and
may take a few moments to figure out.

Perhaps younger people like trendy restaurants where it is dark and loud,
but gee, I think even younger folks like to talk to one another at dinner.
Certainly for us over 50-year-olds, the place got too dark and way too noisy to
enjoy the end of our meal.

There are numerous excellent restaurants in Las Vegas, so I would never go
back to this one. I love good sushi, and I can eat at Little Buddah for less
money (and less noise and loud music, though sometimes the lights get a bit
dim there too). [Little Buddah is the tops in my book for fresh sushi.]

Chef Simon's good food isn't enough of a pull for you to visit, in my
opinion.
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Miss Craps, I love your reports. They are well written and informative and sometimes funny. This one was useful to us as we stay at Palms every Vegas trip and would definitely have tried this restaurant and I would have hated it because of the noise. I wonder if you would care to disclose your top pick for sushi in Las Vegas? Still Little Buddah or somewhere else? if somewhere else, will you give a name and address? Thanks a lot. Annie

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On Apr 6, 2009, at 1:06 AM, misscraps@aol.com wrote:

Some friends wanted to go to Simon's restaurant in Palms Place.

Unfortunately the bar is very busy and very noisy.

Then sometime about 7pm, they suddenly dimmed the lights and the place was
really dark for dining.

There are numerous excellent restaurants in Las Vegas, so I would never go
back to this one. I love good sushi, and I can eat at Little Buddah for less
money (and less noise and loud music, though sometimes the lights get a bit
dim there too). [Little Buddah is the tops in my book for fresh sushi.]

*snip*

Chef Simon's good food isn't enough of a pull for you to visit, in my
opinion.

MissCraps,

Great review, and nearly identical to my one visit there a few months back. I ate regularly at Simon when it was at the Hard Rock - enough so that Kerry actually recognized us after awhile. We gave it awhile after it opened at Palms Place for the initial interest to die down and planned a nice date night, but it was just so annoying. Our reservations were for later, so already very noisy and very dark inside (I didn't have occasion to use the restroom, and now I'm glad I didn't need to check my makeup!). Our entire experience can really be summed up in that we were incredibly disappointed to learn that the same dishes we ate at the Hard Rock were marked up a good 20% or more, just because we're now paying for a "hip" spot to eat? Didn't like the music, the layout, or the atmosphere. Food was great, but not worth what we paid for it. We will never go back there, and the coupons they send us go right into the trash.

Bettie

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, misscraps@... wrote: