I'm guessing here, but I imagine that new millennium steak-house trappings such as Prime's chick-pea fries, the black truffles adored by Charlie Palmer and tarte flambee, an Alsatian white cheese pizza chef Eric Klein at Wynn's SW is known for, would be lost on the Hooters crowd.
Not that they don't need sustenance like the rest of us. But eyeballing the mostly male, definitely young clientele here, and the enormous bowls of spaghetti and meatballs, cheap cuts of beef, bionic portions of garlic mashed spuds and salads as big as your back-yard fountain, the training table regime seems like it would be a better fit.
Still, Dan Marino's Steakhouse, the new casino's flagship restaurant, manages to suit a variety of tastes and even gets competently creative at times. For those of you who don't know the owner, he was a record-setting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, a franchise that spawned another successful steak-house operator, Marino's former coach, Don Shula.
That's Marino, arm cocked, on the cover of the menu, in an abstract, Niemanesque portrait by Infante, and while he doesn't win the Super Bowl with his new effort, the restaurant is surely playoff material.
My wife was happy that we didn't have to walk through the casino to get into the steakhouse, although that is an option. (We sort of snuck in through a side door.) This is a big, spacious room with an all-chrome kitchen, stonework, sweeping leather booths and a dark wood parquet ceiling, making it masculine in the extreme.
A bar fronts the main dining area, which also features cozy lighting and faux granite on the tabletops, and I'd stop short of calling the TVs in the sports bar "bar-like." I'm getting the feeling, as I look around here, that the concept of branding has reared its head in some distant boardroom. What I mean is that this place will most likely be replicated.
My wife is staring at a dead ringer for Fidel Castro as her Quarterback Colada arrives. It, like many of the drinks here, is pretty cool, and what makes this one so is a small shot of Midori, looking like Love Potion No. 9 in its see-through plastic vial, hooked onto the side of the tall glass.
What Castro is eating, I later learn, is the most expensive item on the menu, the filet mignon, 12 ounces of tender, buttery beef, aged 21 days. At only $34, it is considerably less than many steaks of comparable quality in neighboring steakhouses, and the rest of the menu is a bargain, too.
Take the perfectly delicious skirt steak, a 9-ounce marinated center-cut served with garlic-mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables, only $15.95. There's also sautéed grouper, another Florida product, like Marino, for $24. I'd come back for both dishes.
Appetizers are pricier, relative to the competition, than entrées. I liked the Mediterranean flat bread, topped with barbecued chicken, red pepper and sweet corn, cracker-thin bread with flavor, but at $9.95, I'd prefer pizza. The comparably priced calamari Marino, best when done Asian-style with a sticky, sweet marinade, isn't bad, either.
But pass on the anemic Caesar salad, drowned in a creamy, punchless dressing and tossed with oily croutons you'll end up shunting to the side.
This being an Italian-American steakhouse, there are a few pastas to choose from. Bowl of spagett is purposely misspelled, said our server, but "regatta" cheese (I think they are trying to say ricotta) and the meatballs, three dense spheres the size of tennis balls, are just plain mistakes.
Chicken Parmesan is surprisingly good, though, and so are these lobster ravioli, finished in an impossibly rich brandy cream sauce. I'd also give high marks to the tender beef tips, a cafeteria dish composed of beef in a mushroom-Merlot sauce, except that here, the beef is leftover filet mignon and especially tender.
Since Marino started his restaurants in Florida, expect good seafood; fresh Maine lobster, nut-crusted mahi-mahi, Maryland crab cakes, sesame-studded ahi tuna.
You may complement the steaks (for extra charge) with novelties like Oscar- Style, with lump crabmeat, Hollandaise sauce and asparagus. Just a few of the good side dishes include Virginia's creamed corn, fresh broccoli florettes and cheesy potato gratin.
And should the dessert mood strike, there is something called Tall House Cookie, sort of an elaborate chocolate chip cookie sundae, or my favorite thing here, a nice strawberry shortcake made with a thick slice of eggy, hot pound cake, real whipped cream, a portion of sweet, sliced berries and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Hooters, you've got yourself a quarterback.