The restaurant got its start in Chicago from Chef Gabino Sotelino, the same man who imported his French bistro Mon Ami Gabi to Paris Las Vegas just down the street. His parents are from the Basque and Galician regions of Spain so the tapas experience is, in many ways, like a part of his heritage.

There’s a nice outside patio with a great view of the comings and goings on Las Vegas Boulevard if it’s not too hot, but the interior of the restaurant is nothing to sneer at – done with dark woods and deep velvety red drapes that almost make it feel like an upscale steakhouse instead of a tapas restaurant.

The menu is enormous and a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. If that’s the case, ask the server for guidance – they are enormously helpful in pointing people toward the selections that will turn into a great meal.

You could skip the tapas thing all together and do your meal out of the paella – Spanish rice with your choice of chicken, lobster, shrimp, and other accompaniments. Or they have several calderos: rice, broth, and meat or seafood cooked in a cast-iron kettle that are more than enough food for full meals. Toro brochetas are the Spanish version of shish-ka-bobs, done up with chicken, pork tenderloin, shrimp, or beef tenderloin with vegetables, individual sauces, and tomato bread.

But the tapas section of the multi-page menu is really where I recommend you spend the bulk of your time reviewing the choices. The sizes of the tapas vary depending on what you’re ordering but in general you’ll want to get at least two per person at the table to make a full meal, unless you feel like doing something like eating sensibly for a change.

Cold tapas come in a variety of categories. Seafood includes things like roast tomatoes and tuna or citrus cured salmon and cucumber bread; the chicken and pork section features chicken salad with curry and ham, chorizo, and cheese among others; vegetables and cheese offerings include everything from a garlic potato salad to roast eggplant with goat cheese; and then there’s the salads and gazpachos in case you need roughage.

The hot tapas offerings is also divided into sections with seafood including seared salmon and Israeli couscous salad or fried calamari; beef and lamb items serve up things like seared lamb chops with piquillo peppers and meatballs in a sherry tomato sauce; roasted dates with bacon or almond and herb crusted chicken are found in the chicken and pork section; and vegetables and cheeses is where you’ll spot items such as mushrooms stuffed with spinach and cheese or fried green peppers.

The ones we sampled included the beef tenderloin, two one-inch thick, silver-dollar sized medallions of silky meat topped in a crumbled and baked blue cheese; the skirt steak, done a skewer with confit potatoes and onions; and the chicken and chorizo sausage, also done as a skewer with a cool cream-cheese style sauce accompanying among others. The meat in all instances was done perfectly – tender and juicy and since it is done in those bite size chunks it makes it easy to share and even linger over.

That’s the power of the tapas, if you feel like giving tapas power. The tapas are meant to be shared around the table and even the paellas and the other main dishes are done in 2- or 4-person servings so socializing is not only encouraged it is practically required. This is the place you want to take a big group of people, order a dozen or more different items and start passing plates while the conversation roars.

And if you need any help getting that conversation going, why not grease the wheels with the restaurants signature line of sangrias, wines, and sherries. The sangria comes in traditional red or white plus fun flavors like peach, passion fruit, cava (done with raspberry flavored Chambord), or even frozen, all by the glass or by the pitcher again to encourage sharing.

Finish off the meal with bite-sized desserts from caramel custard to vanilla cake with rum ice cream to apple cobbler and beyond. They are actually more like three bites each but after a big meal of tapas it’s the perfect way to top things off without feeling like you need to be wheeled out of the place.

Prices vary widely depending on what portion of the menu you are ordering from. Cold vegetable and cheese items start as low as $4 while the hot seafood and beef items can get up in the $7-8 range, although most are comfortably in between. Again, a normal person will want at least two to make a meal so that means anywhere from $10-$20 per person before you start adding in extras like drinks, dessert, tax, tip, and of course sangria.

At first blush that may seem like a lot to pay for glorified appetizers but once you start diving into the dishes you’ll see them more for their substance than their size and it’ll definitely feel worth it. Consider the fact that you can’t get a decent hamburger on The Strip these days for less than $10 and you start to understand why this is actually a great bargain.

Café Ba Ba Reeba
Fashion Show Mall
3200 Las Vegas Blvd. S.
North end, street level
702-650-5186
Open

That’s why I used to love the buffet at the Palms because it offered all of the above. The dining room was a jazzy/cool as the rest of the hotel, the food was interesting and unique with lots of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes you couldn’t find elsewhere, and the prices were bargain basement.

So of course they went and changed all that.

The Palms Bistro Buffet is smaller than its predecessor – much more cramped in just about every measure with personal space at a premium. In most instances you will be dining mere inches away from total strangers, which could put a real cramp in those “you’ll never guess what I did last night” stories that seem to come up in Vegas so often. This, in combination with the almost austere design, makes the room one of the most unwelcoming in town. Weird that while everyone else is making their buffets over to have a more restaurant-like layout with a series of smaller dining spaces, here they went the opposite direction and turned it into the buffet equivalent of a high-school cafeteria.

Then they went and took out every last bit of interesting food from the service stations. There are fewer of them to begin with so your options are more limited but when those options consist of the typical American, Mexican, Chinese, carving station, salad, dessert, and that’s about it, it is hard to get excited about what is left over. Although their website insists that they have unique and original items, I certainly didn’t see any during a recent visit. All I saw were tired variations on the same old thing.

I’d be willing to overlook that if the things they did serve were fantastic examples of the same old thing. Bowl me over with your carved turkey or your potstickers or your spaghetti and Bolognese. Come on, I dare you. But alas, the flavors were pedestrian at best and in many cases items designed to be either hot or cold were lukewarm.

And here again, I’d even be willing to give them a break if the prices were something to get excited about. The old buffet with a better layout and better food was $6 for breakfast, $8 for lunch, and $12 for dinner. This new, smaller, and decidedly less interesting buffet runs $8, $10, and $17. So they took away a bunch of stuff and raised the prices.

Yes, I expect a lot of things out of Las Vegas buffets and the Palms Bistro does not deliver on any of them.

Palms Bistro Buffet
The Palms
4321 W. Flamingo Rd.
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702-942-7777
www.palms.com
Hours

Question: We all know that rooms and meals and shows are getting more and more expensive in Las Vegas but the one thing that shocked me the last time I was there was how expensive even the little things are. Prices for everything from a pack of gum to a tube of toothpaste in the hotel gift shops are outrageous. Are there any options?

Answer: The answer to this is the same as the answer to the question I get all the time about finding cheaper hotel rooms and meals – get off The Strip. The solution has a problem though when it comes to smaller items like the tube of toothpaste you use as an example.

You’ll be able to find everything you could want or need in the usual chain department stores, grocery stores, or pharmacies that are located everywhere around town, dozens of which are located within a mile or two from The Strip. In most cases you’ll be able to find lower prices on just about everything including that tube of toothpaste, allowing yourself to save a couple of bucks on your purchase in some cases.

If you have transportation at your disposal (your own car or a rental) and you plan on being out and about anyway, there is absolutely no reason to spend more money by shopping on The Strip. And this goes for more than just toothpaste or gum. That t-shirt you are considering buying at The Gap in the Forum Shops mall is probably more expensive there than the exact same t-shirt at The Gap in the malls located elsewhere in town.

But if you don’t have a car at your disposal then your choices become much more limited. It obviously doesn’t make any sense to spend $15 on a cab to save yourself $2 on a bottle of shampoo. The only time that would prove valuable is if you have a lot of items to buy, say in the event the airline loses your luggage.

On The Strip there are a few other cheaper options including two Walgreens – full service pharmacy/drug stores that have all manners of sundry items that are cheaper than what you’ll pay in your hotel’s gift shop. But it should be noted that these items can still be more expensive at these stores than they are at a similar Walgreen’s in another part of town.

If you are determined not to be ripped off in the hotel gift shop, you can find a list of reliable chain stores of all manners (automotive, computer supply, pharmacies, etc.) in the Shopping section of Vegas4Visitors.com.

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