After Zumanity (the gorgeous “sex Cirque” at New York, New York), Rabbitz caught dinner at Seablue, along with the Rabbitz-in-laws and their very charming friends. Seablue is a Michael Mina restaurant in the MGM Grand. It’s a pretty space, with décor ever-so-slightly reminiscent of some of our favourite East Coast restaurants. It avoids that terribly over-design-y Vegas feel, but still offers a very pretty setting. The menu specializes in grilled fish and seafood.

We arrived about 9:15, and were immediately shown to our table. Service was slow to start (and we were ravenous after the show), but that was perhaps partially our fault since we needed some extra time to decipher and translate the menu for our Japanese friends.

We started with drinks —bottles of champers and chardonnay (about $100 each), and an appletini so good that Mr.Rab’s mom had two. We nibbled on warmed flatbread, served with a trio of herbed butter, humus, and what we think was a baba ghanoush. Some started with clams and oysters from the raw bar, all of which were reportedly excellent (and these are people who eat a lot of seafood). Mr. Rabbit started with a tandoori octopus that was particularly outstanding — interesting flavour, and very tender cephalopod. Two of us started with salads… a Caesar whose eater reported it best in memory (notably topped with three huge sheets of parmigiano), while I had a very nice salad of I built* from spinach, blue cheese, apples, and delicious candied cashews.

[* One grievance with Seablue’s menu — they have a “build your own salad” trick, which is probably supposed to be “fun,” but which we found confusing, gimmick-y and troublesome. You literally have to check boxes on a sheet of paper — same goes for raw bar items. I’m sure some people love this menu feature, but we found it a little downmarket and irritating… it’s salad bar a la carte. The choices were rather overwhelming, and it wasn’t really clear which flavour combinations were going to marry well.]

Mains were generally very good. The rabbit mother-in-law probably had the star dish of the night, chicken skewers with foie gras and figs — gorgeous flavour combinations, beautifully presented. Others had fish and seafood, including tuna, halibut, scallops, and Mediterranean sea bass. All were quite happy with their mains — Seablue’s grilled fish is their calling card, and with good reason. Mr. Rabbit also noted that his sides were interesting and tasty, but he didn’t share, so I’m not sure what was going on. I, unfortunately, “ordered wrong.” A little tired of eating after two days in Vegas, I went with the aforementioned salad and some crab cakes — a menu combo I often order in New England. However, the crab cakes, which our server recommended would be suitable in lieu of an entrée, were really not. The cakes did have a nice spice, but were no match for what we get in New England (maybe I should have known better??).

For dessert, we sampled a watermelon soup (an item much abused on Top Chef this season), with sage gelato… very fresh, and interesting. We also tried an excellent chocolate crème brûlée, paired with less interesting caramel-filled profiteroles (more donut hole-y than pastry-ish). Mr. Rab had a nice vanilla gelato drizzled with balsamic. Some of us finished with after dinner drinks (scotches and drambuie) — or coffee.

Service, despite the slow start, was excellent. Our server was on top of all our demands, and handled the language barriers with notable aplomb. Seablue pleased six quite different palates, and delivered some very good food. Great night -nicely done.

Oh, the cheque amounted to about $100 per head (before tip, but including wine) — not at all unreasonable for the quality of food and service.

Posted on September 9th, 2007 by rabbit
Filed under: Las Vegas, Restaurant Reviews