Three Days, Three Lousy Lunches – Day One: EIFFEL TOWER RESTAURANT

Day One — Eiffel Tower Restaurant

Something must be in the air. Either that, or ELV’s karma might be starting to catch up with him; because this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday found us experiencing three of the worst meals we’ve had all year. And since they were disappointing (to say the least), we thought we’d forego our usual photo spread in favor of a food foto essay on just what made them so.

Walking into the Eiffel Tower Restaurant, our hopes were high for good meal, especially after the Beaujolais Nouveau lunch we’d had there a month ago. And there’s no denying the attractiveness of the place: or the soothingness of the view as you walk in:…or after you’re seated: Of course gazing out at the forlorn Jockey Club, wedged as it is between the Bellagio and It’s Not A City Or A Center, we felt a small pang of regret for the faded glory of Las Vegas’s earlier days that it represented. Those pangs would dim quickly, compared to the ones we were about to feel from the food.

As The Food Gal perused the menu: our hopes were high that the food would match the view. Alas, it was not to be.

The first clue as to how awful the meal was about to become were the rock hard Parmesan “popovers”… …that could easily be converted to hand grenades should someone figure out how to wire a fuse to their insides. Of course to do that they’d have to chisel through a crust that could easily defeat a pneumatic jackhammer.

From there, things went from bad to worse.

In order, we were subjected to an amuse of a roasted garlic flan (not pictured) that tasted of neither eggs nor roasted garlic, and was grainy to boot; then (from left to right above): an amateurish, mayonnaise-y, crab and avocado salad; a trio of mayonnaise-y “finger sandwiches” that weren’t up to church social standards; a Roquefort and grilled onion steak sandwich that reminded us of steak’um; and a pretty decent, if small, creme brulee, topped with out-of-season berries.

Add to this effrontery a $44 half-bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and you have a $165 lunch for two that wasn’t worth a third of that.

But of course the Eiffel Tower Restaurant does have an open kitchen with lots of shiny pots and pans everywhere…. …so you just know it’s gonna be good, right?

Wrong.

Back in the day, i.e. eleven years ago when this place opened, we ate here a number of times and were consistently impressed(sic) with how they could get away with such high prices for such unremittingly mediocre fare. We wrote it off then as a tourist trap, and regrettably, must conclude that it continues to be one.

Rumor has it that Chicago uber-chef Jean Joho is connected with this restaurant. Whether he does anything more than cash a check is doubtful.

EIFFEL TOWER RESTAURANT

In the Paris Hotel and Casino

3655 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.948.6937

www.eiffeltowerrestaurant.com/