HKR Prompts Head to Keyboard with First Food Review

Has a restaurant ever been compared to a fern bar in a review? Heidi Knapp Rinella of the Las Vegas Review-Journal does just that this week with First Food & Bar at the Palazzo. “I struggled, much more than usual, with how to approach this review.”

And struggle she did, saying Sammy DeMarco’s restaurant, ”reminds me of an '80s fern bar in that it is clearly designed to appeal to a broad demographic range. But while the fern bars were all about being trendy, First and its brethren blend the trendy and the traditional, and do it with panache.”

Keyboard now firmly planted against forehead.

Other enlightening ditties include: “Founding chef Sammy D. opened his first First in the East Village of New York and since the D. stands for DeMarco you might expect some of the traditional dishes to be Italian in origin, and you'd be right.”

Should you care, and you shouldn’t, she gave the food and atmosphere an A and the service a B+ for an overall A-.

Max Jacobson at Vegas Seven checks out the new Booming Spot Mini Pot in Chinatown, what he calls “the first place in Las Vegas to specialize in the northern-Chinese-style hot pot.” Choose from a list of ingredients for the hot pot or another of grilled meats on long skewers. “Then be patient. Fast food this is not.” [VS]

Al Mancini from CityLife is delighted that Café Berlin opened, “more evenly distributing the local supply of quality schnitzel and bratwurst.” The schnitzels, the German potato salad, the spaetzle, the beer brat sandwiches and the curry wurst all make the grade. [CL]

The desserts and the design are the best parts of Gordon Ramsay Steak, says Brock Radke at Las Vegas Weekly. “The sticky toffee pudding, a dense, moist cake-ish creation done in all kinds of rich with brown butter ice cream nearby, wants to be the top treat in town.” [LVW]
First Food & Bar [Photo: First]