Aureole

As much as its hurts to say but Restaurant week has come to an end. But before it ended we had to make one more stop.

Aureole at the Manadalay Bay has been featured on most wine, travel or food shows about Las Vegas. The first thing you notice is the wine tower. Inside the tower are 1700 different vineyards from all over the world. There are about 10,000 bottles. The other interesting things is Aureole's "wine angels" that "fly" up , down and side to side on a harness in the tower to retrieve the bottle that you have ordered. When seated you receive a computer note pad from which you can sort the wine list by price,varietal, region and even bottle size. After playing with the wine list computer we selected a Castle Vineyard Merlot Sonoma Valley 2000 and sent the wine angel to flight. The menu consisted of three courses.

First Course Duo of Hudson Valley Foie GrasVanilla scented torchon, seared with port glaze Beerenauslese. Second Course Braised Beef Ribs and Hanger Steak Truffle-celery root puree wilted swiss chard, cabernet reduction Third Course CITRUS SCENTED CHEESECAKE WITH HUCKLEBERRY COMPOTE Crème brulée ice cream, essence of Cassis, maple brown sugar sauce. The food was very good. The Braised Beef ribs were a real stand out. The Castle Vineyard Merlot paired excellent with the meal. Now more about the wine. In the glass it showed light to medium bodied and dark red in color. On the nose, hints of spice and red fruit were prominent. As it opened up, chocolate mocha became prominent as well. On the palate spice, chocolate and red fruit came through with a nice medium silky finish. This vineyard specializes in small production hand crafted wines.

As always if you want to see the menus and wines of Aureole, There is a link to the right of the page .Our over all impression of the whole experience is mixed. The food was good and as expected. The atmosphere was large and impersonal. The wait staff appeared robotic but professional. The waiter for our table bordered on being rude and arrogant. We did have a good time and next time we most likely will sit in the bar area and share an appetizer and a bottle of wine

Cheers !