Q: positive

A: New Zealand Cafe? The name totally confused me when I visited a business a few doors down to get some signs made. I thought "what do they eat in Australia?" Then a friend suggested that I try it out for sushi. I don't so sushi so again, went about life. Well, I've tried it now twice and while I haven't tried the sushi, the other dishes are great. This place is pretty cool. It's in a divey plaza wedged into the corner next to a take out chinese place and something else on the other side. They have a sushi bar and about a hand full of high top 4 place tables and a few lower ones in the middle. I've been in larger walk-in closets. The food is good...really good. I ordered a lettuce wrap and it was exactly what I wanted. Why can't more places do a decent lettuce wrap? The hibachi chicken was a little unexpected. It came in a bento box-like contraption with rice in the corner, the chicken the veg in the center, more chicken on skewers, salad in another corner and even two crab rangoons (I guess - who knows how it's spelled...and I know what you're thinking "Why not just use google to find out how to spell it!..." I just did and it is rangoon". You sushi people, don't fret. I'm sure someone else had that and thought it was good. If you order a lot of sushi, they bring it out in a boat which is pretty cool. I grew up thinking that Japanese food required a bunch of pageantry and pantomime but I don't want that. I want some rice or noodles, some lettuce and veg that's crisp and some meat prepared properly. This place get's it for me. Definitely one to put in the rotation.

Q: negative

A: Eh...its not your typical burger....purina yuppie chow!!

Q: negative

A: I stay in Vegas often and usually try to pick a different place each time just to try everything. Lately, though, I've been staying at MGM more and more often just because the other properties seem to be going downhill. Monte Carlo is one such property. Casino: The casino was OK and had a good vibe. My only annoyance here was a pit boss totally ignoring me betting $20-$30 per round on roulette because I was using the $1 chips (it was a $5 minimum table at the time). After several rounds he finally came over and offered to explain how the comps work and that we need to bet a lot more than the minimum to be noticed. Really? Well if you'd been watching, you'd have seen that I just dropped $400 on the stupid table. He did try to make up for it once he noticed how annoyed I was, though, so that was cool. Also, it didn't help that the dealer at the roulette table was totally uninterested and kept looking off in the distance and yawning. I don't think the employees are very happy here. Hotel: The hotel is "eh". My standard rant at any of these properties are their so called "queen sized" beds. They are NOT queen sized beds! They're doubles!! Don't advertise that you're getting a queen size when it's a tiny little double!! The pillows were like 2 foot tall bricks the first night. I asked housekeeping for better pillows for the second night and they brought some feather pillows up which were much nicer. The rooms are VERY loud. I could hear people coughing and sneezing a floor up and below from me and also next door. The plumbing is really really loud, too, and at one point was making a really loud hummm for hours. I was awoken each morning around 6AM and couldn't get back to sleep because of all of the noise. Not a good way to encourage me to stay up all night gambling :( Go to MGM. It'll be much nicer.

Q: negative

A:
We were in Vegas for a catering show/birthday/anniversary trip and since we've seen Scott Conant on a few tv shows and heard good things about him, we decided to try the "casual, rustic' wine bar as opposed to the upscale Scarpetta next door. The seating is a joke. Way too close to the next table. We were involved in three different conversations, and there were only two of us dining. The wine list is STUPIDLY EXPENSIVE. Scott, I hope you read this. $50 for a bottle of Ca' del Sarto Pinot Grigio is criminal. I own a restaurant.... a 3x markup is common , 4x expensive, but 6 times the cost. You've gotta be kiddin' me! And no bottle of red under $60. Absolute robbery. I was so pissed at the wine prices that the food didn't even appeal to me. We ordered a truffle pizza with egg that was pretty good and a pizza with soppressata that seemed a little off to me. The crust was good. The service was average, a number of the perimeter lights in the ceiling were flickering, and the hostess was dressed like a hooker. I was very dissapointed and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.