Kurt's Thoughts

Rao’s has won a fan today.

I wasn’t feeling hungry earlier today despite the fact that I had a reservation at Rao’s – the Italian restaurant at Caesar’s Palace.  Rao’s is purported to have one of the best meatballs in all of Las Vegas so of course I had to try it. 

The problem is, you really can’t rate food if you’re completely full.  So I cancelled the reservation and headed off to my evening show. (Penn & Teller)  After the show, I headed straight to Caesars intending on eating dinner by racing over to Rao’s.

It was just under 11PM and I ran up to the maitre d’ and said, “I MADE IT!  You’re still open right?  I’m dying for some meatballs.”  She said, “Yes, we’re open for the bar, but not for food.”  I said, “What?”  She said, “The kitchen closes at 10:30PM!”  I suddenly became despondent – rolled my eyes and slowly turned around.”

Suddenly the girl said, “Wait.  Hold on.”

I stopped, and she gestured to come in, and so I did.  She said, “ONE dish, right?”  I said, “Yeah.  Just the meatballs.  That’s it.”  She said, “Hold on – I’m going to ask the kitchen if they’ll prepare just that dish.”  She was gone for awhile but when she came back she said, “They’re going to take care of you.  One dish of meatballs.”  She turned to the bartender, where I was sitting by then, and said, “The kitchen said it’s okay – one dish of meatballs.”  The Bartender said, “Cool.”

Needless to say, I tipped her $10 as she left.  And sure enough, when the meatballs arrived, they were steaming hot. The bartender came and put FRESH parmesan cheese all over it that smelled heavenly. 

I’m going to summarize here because I have a full review of Rao’s on Yelp but suffice it to say, these folks get a 5-star for me as a combination of service and food.  The food is the most important part but the service is what gets them to the “I-will-always-come-visit-on-every-trip” level.