"This must have been a no-brainer for the Flamingo," said a friend as we walked into the vastness of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville at the Flamingo Hilton.
Even midweek at lunch, the place was packed, and the restaurant seats more than 600. Come at night and the wait times, I've been told, can be as long as two hours. By the end of the year, this restaurant, one of nine in a chain that includes locations like Cancun, Jamaica and New Orleans, may be the top-grossing restaurant in the country.
If you're not familiar with the concept, surely you can sing the song. It's important, then, that people realize the name isn't just Margaritaville, because the restaurant isn't Mexican. It is, in fact, Caribbean, serving dishes inspired by Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Florida Keys. Think conch chowder and jerk chicken. Now, go find that lost shaker of salt.
Fans of Jimmy Buffett, and there are many, are called Parrotheads, folks who adore his songs' laid-back messages, unsubtle lyrics about decadence and partying that resonate to the very heart of modern America.
The main dining room is a giant, boisterous space. A private plane suspended from the ceiling, a mock volcano that erupts on the hour, and a number of plastic cetaceous mammals hanging near the bar are just a few of the design elements.
There's also a sky-blue floor, Strip-facing patios on the second and third levels, and an adjoining gift shop stocked with T-shirts, CDs, and other memorabilia. I hear Buffett himself comes often, but even if you come when he doesn't, he can be spotted crooning on an enormous screen in the main dining room, unless there is a live band playing on the restaurant's stage.
Imagine being at the world's largest tailgate party. Buffett, who has an interest in all nine of these restaurants, must be as rich as Croesus by now.
The good news is that this success isn't undeserved. I was surprised by how good many of the dishes were, given the huge numbers the restaurant does, not to mention the probability many of these recipes are corporate, like in any chain of this size.
Conch, a shellfish reputed to have aphrodisiacal qualities, is hard to find in Vegas, but here it is eaten in two delicious forms. Try the conch fritters: golden, crunchy balls with tiny bits of the fish laced into the batter. Along with them is a creamy, slightly bland remoulade sauce, as pink as the flamingos just outside.
There also is conch chowder, sort of like a Manhattan clam chowder with the same tiny bits of conch standing in for the clams. Amazingly, you really taste the conch in this soup. It's almost as good as its sister soup, the creamy crab and corn chowder. This is a thick soup concealing a bite of cayenne pepper. No one at my table could stop eating it.
I didn't taste the mountainous nachos, but practically every table orders it, a pyramid-shaped monster of a dish, crowned with a lot of jalapenos. But I did try the peel-and-eat shrimp, and they proved to be the best dish on the menu, fresh shrimp simmered in beer and crusted with Old Bay seasoning. Bravo.
Main dishes weren't quite as consistent. A crab cake sandwich, one of the more notable misses, was bready, and neither the flavor nor texture of the meat shone through, like the good back-fin crab cakes you can eat at the Palms or Simon Kitchen and Bar.
The jambalaya, one of my favorites, wasn't spicy or rich because the restaurant doesn't use roux, a blackened flour and oil base, to thicken it. What you get here is a plate of rice, chicken, sausage and shrimp, acceptably bland fare for the mainstream. Digging into it, I couldn't help wondering if they would dare to serve this dish at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville in New Orleans. If they do, the natives aren't eating it.
But I'd give high marks to Rudy's barbecue ribs, nicely smoky, fall-off-the-bone-tender ribs basted with a Dominican (is that the Dominican Republic or the Island of Dominica?) guava-based sauce. These ribs are delicious, with the faint tang of tropical fruit.
I also liked the jerk chicken, and the island-style rice it was served on, though I would have liked it better if the chefs hadn't been so shy with the jerk seasoning, a blend of aromatics which includes ginger, clove, allspice and garlic. They don't hold back on the Old Bay, so why here? Go figure.
Yes, there is Key lime pie for dessert, with a filling that is the pale yellow of the true Key lime, and not green like the more common Persian lime. There is also an enormous, 10-layer chocolate cake in case your decadence quotient is especially high, and chocolate banana bread pudding, served with two sauces.
And yes, the margaritas aren't bad, either.