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Conrad’s at the Flamingo Las Vegas

By: The Lady of The Night Out

Why should you eat at Conrad’s?

When the star chefs came to town, their creativity and ultra talent upgraded the culinary scene in LVNV. However, they also raised the prices as well as the bar. Fortunately, there are a few restaurants in town who can match their quality plate for plate … at prices us working folk can afford. Conrad’s at the Flamingo is one – the revamped dining room, now hailed as a steakhouse -- offers food as pretty as the artistry at Renoir or Picasso and service rivaling the Ritz -- at my kinda prices.

Who should you eat at Conrad’s?

Carnivores. Like most top LVNV steakhouses, Conrad’s serves only prime meats. Unlike most LVNV steakhouses, Park Place Entertainment has its own butcher shop at the Paris kitchen. Its staff carves up sides of beef and ages them their way. No cryo-vacced meat for Conrad’s carnivores.
Fish lovers. This steakhouse has more seafood on the menu than steaks; the quality sent me reeling. The executive chef, Oystein Larsen, a Norwegian native who worked on a fishing boat in high school, has deep seafood experience.
Diners who like a show with dinner. Conrad’s is a good match for people who like a little flame with their food. Try the Bermuda coffee service. The server torches glasses of Kaluha, Frangelica and Grand Marnier; after they glow as blue as the Blue Man Group, the liqueur finds its way into the coffee. The dining room staff also ignites crepes suzette, cherries jubilee, and bananas foster.
Would be chefs. Conrad’s has an open kitchen, so you can watch the wizards at work.
People with special requests. Give him three days notice and Chef Oystein will prepare anything your heart desires. A high roller from Texas wanted sauteed frogs’ legs. A Valentine’s Day romantic wanted beef Wellington for two. Now you know where to find your favorite dish in LVNV!
Snugglers. Conrad’s has lots of roomy booths for romantics.
Value seekers. Prices are remarkably reasonable, given the four star food and service. The average tab at our table was $55 per and we left with lots of leftovers.
The nostalgic. Diners old enough to remember Ike will feel a sense of déjà vu. Many of the dishes are prepared tableside. Thank goodness chateaubriand is back in favor.
The trendy. You can’t get more New Age than tuna sashimi.

Who shouldn’t eat at Conrad’s?

Folks on a budget. Even though you get more than you pay for, you still have a relatively expensive meal to pay for. Anyone used to surprisingly fine food at the buffets – for example, the four star Flamingo buffet now feature lobster tails – will find Conrad’s expensive.
Hungry folks in shorts. Business casual is the norm and coats and ties are common.
Families. The dining room has elegance and decorum. Noisy children won’t work here.

Ok, so what’s the food like? Scale the heights with Conrad’s tuna sashimi. Sashimi is sushi without the rice – it features the freshest raw fish sliced razor thin. Conrad’s uses the best grade of ahi tuna. It’s as rich and buttery as Hudson Valley foie gras. The raw slices, a beautiful aubergine color, sit in a sweet and spicy soy sauce that’s punctuated with dollops of lime green wasabi sauce. The exquisite intensity of the tuna brought tears to my eyes; so did the fierce wasabi. Conrad’s tuna sashimi gets the “Big O” award from moi.

Another must have item is the mashed sweet potatoes. The puree is so silky it could pass as baby food. Here’s the best part: the kitchen mixes heavy cream with vanilla beans as an upscale replacement for the sweet goo of melted marshmallows. The vanilla flavor adds a whole new dimension to the orange tubers.

I rarely order chicken in a restaurant but the airline chicken breast – so called because it has a wing bone still attached – is remarkable. I have never had chicken so moist and flavorful in the last 30 years. The breast, sauteed with the skin still on, is glazed with a demur honey lemon butter.

So what about the steaks? We sampled the 24 ounce rib eye, butchered with the bone in for additional flavor. The chef pokes tiny channels in the raw meat and slips in garlic slivers and fresh thyme – the flavors are baked in during the high heat grilling. And that’s it. The meat makes it on its own: no sauces drown out the earthy, big, concentrated flavors of a prime cut.

In fact, there’s nothing on the plate except two garnishes: a glove of elephant garlic whose insides gush out in a sedate paste; and a slow roasted Roma tomato. Slow as in seven hours. The time spent under the grill concentrates the tomato’s flavor – I cut it open and it tasted like a good Italian tomato sauce!

The most unusual dish I sampled is Conrad’s chopped salad. A garden basked of goodies -- roasted corn, avocado, tomato, olives, cucumbers, carrots, toasted pecans, hearts of palm – are pulverized to smithereens by hand – the chef reminds me Norweigans are good with knives! The ingredients are then mixed together – the result looks like cole slaw. The result is a refreshing mish mash, dressed up with balsamic vinaigrette.

Conrad’s does serve the traditional surf and turf, but the best such combo is the portabella mushrooms with grilled shrimp. The plump shrimp – they look they they’ve just had a botox injection – are seared in a garlic butter sauce that adds cascades of flavor to the musky mushrooms.

Chef Oystein grills yellow fin tuna in a catchy sauce of horseradish, ginger and soy sauce. The fresh horseradish adds a delicious sting to the flakey fish.

Dessert in the desert: After all this serious food, there’s not much room left for dessert. Have no fear. The kitchen crew at Conrad’s has solved the problem. Try the dessert sampler – it’s a heady mix of bite-sized confections. My favs: the panecotta, a luscious gum drop of Italian custard on the button with puckeringly tart raspberry on the top, and the apple almond tart, with its cookie crust and its crème anglais raisin sauce.

History: Chef Oystein was professionally trained in his native Norway. Every male must serve in the military for one year; he was an Army chef. He’s been with the Flamingo since 1996.

Conrad’s, named after the founder of the Hilton Hotel chain, which owned the casino before selling it to Park Place Entertainment, was originally the casino’s fine dining restaurant. In August 2002 Conrad’s was reborn as an affordable steakhouse.

Where is it? In the Flamingo Las Vegas. Conrad’s is close to Las Vegas Boulevard in case you get lost in the sprawling casino. The address is 3555 Las Vegas Boulevard South. Phone: 702.722.3502.

By: The Culinary Curmudgeon Lady of the Night Out

Conrad’s Steakhouse at the Flamingo is one of the best kept secrets in LVNV. That’s because no one at the hotel seems to know where it is. I asked three casino employees for directions and received nothing but blanks stares before a high roller at the craps table kindly escorted me to Conrad’s front door. Maybe there’s some method to their madness. Getting lost raised my frustration levels, leading to a much larger bar bill.

Even though Conrad’s is billed as a steakhouse, it’s really one of the finest fish places in town. The place does grill top cuts of beef and lamb that will satisfy the most selective carnivore – there’s nothing to carp about in the red meat department. But the restaurant is missing the boat. All the appetizers feature fish! Denizens of the deep hog the entrée menu. And don’t miss the hoopla surrounding the deboning of the Dover sole. Given the state’s current medical crisis, Ovaldo, Conrad’s maitre d’, is one of the few folks left in town who can handle a knife with surgical precision.

Until now, lobster lovers who scoff at one pound crustaceans had to eat at The Palm to order a big ‘un. Now Conrad’s has thrown down the gauntlet. It serves a 34 ounce tail that used to power a 15 pound lobster around the ocean floor. This thing looked like it escaped from Jurassic Park! I was almost worried it would fight back. I needed just one bite to realize this super-sized shellfish was a charmer. And the price was right, since I whacked away at it for three more days after I let it loose from the doggie bag.

You’ll have to save this culinary adventure for the week-ends. The jumbo tails are only available Thursday through Sunday. Sure beats cleaning the garage!

Speaking of garages, I drive a Kia, so I have no problem in the parking garages of the older casinos. But I had the misfortune to follow a Lincoln Navigator into the Flamingo garage the night I ate at Conrad’s. The owners had a baby stroller fastened to the roof. The towering town car actually got stuck in the low garage entrance – built in the days when cars were long, not tall. I watched the security guard climb on the roof to remove the baby carriage so the Navigator could navigate the entrance. If you drive a behemoth: please spare the rest of us and valet park.

Aired 21 February 2003

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