How Good Is the Sports Food at Heraea?

Max Jacobson at Vegas Seven heads over to the Palms' new sports bar Heraea to check out chef Doug Bell's dishes. "Let's face it, sports-bar cuisine doesn't have to be good, and it definitely doesn't have to be this good."

In a review riddled with sports talk, Jacobson recommends the pretzel-wrapped dogs, crispy green beans with sea salt with a sweet chili dipping sauce and tuna tartare tacos with taro shells.

He compares the entrees to their cousins at STK at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, another venue from The ONE Group. Try the pepper tuna steak and boneless baked rib, "which have a wicked, crunchy barbecue-sauce glaze, a side of equally crunchy corn bread and an oddball apple fennel slaw. He also recommends the brick chicken with "its skin rendered crisp. "

Heidi Knapp Rinella at the Las Vegas Review-Journal heads to Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill at Caesars Palace, saying she found "the sort of food you'd be likely to find at those establishments in Britain." Well, she didn't care for the seating there and for some reason compared the chairs to the Goldilocks and the Three Bears. "[I]t seemed that people didn't know quite what to do with their elbows and ended up looking like Papa Bear. In other cases, the tables seemed to be too low for the chairs, and their occupants were sort of hunched over, like Mama Bear. Only at the high-top tables, with their corresponding bar-height chairs, were things just right. Ah, Baby Bear." She gave the food an A, the atmosphere a B and the service an A- for an overall A-. [LVRJ]

Al Mancini at City Life says Cafe de Cebu has the best Filipino food in Vegas. He highly recommends the lechon belly de Cebu, a suckling pig served with red and green onions and lemongrass. "Keep in mind, this little piggy isn't neatly cut into pretty slices so you can eat only the portion you like. It's hacked into a magnificent hodgepodge of skin that crunches when you bite into its deliciously gelatinous fat and wonderfully moist meat." [CL]

Brock Radke at Las Vegas Weekly looks into the dishes at the new Koraku, a ramen-ya on Spring Mountain Road. He recommends going for non-ramen dishes such as the chicken teriyaki, ground beef steak with hayashi sauce and rice bowls as well as the buta kimchee with garlic pork stir-fried that "set my mouth aflame for the rest of the day." [LVW]