Arizona Charlies Decatur

740 South Decatur Boulevard
Las Vegas, NV 89107
(702) 258-5201

 

I got the opportunity to go to Ron’s Steak House for Mother’s day this year.  My parents and I try to go to some place that none of us have been before when we are going out to celebrate, so this year my Mom was all about trying Ron’s, based purely off of their commercials.  If you live in Las Vegas you have without a doubt seen an increase in advertising for this restaurant.  And you can’t blame them for wanting to get their name out there, when you think of fine dining the first place on your mind is not Arizona Charlie’s Decatur.  This is one of the older casinos in Las Vegas and off the strip and from the outside doesn’t carry all the glamor and glitz of the strip.  I should apologize upfront that this unfortunately is going to be a photo-less review of the food, since the restaurant is quite small I didn’t want to disturb the neighboring tables with the flash on my camera while they are enjoying their meal. (I promise in the future I won’t care…well I’ll care a little just not so much that I don’t snap a couple pictures of the food)

Walking through Arizona Charlie’s to Ron’s you are able to see that this place does stand out from the rest of the casino, from outside it has a very new & modern feel compared to the rest of the place.  You enter through a door into the restaurant which is very nice, because it is like stepping away from the casino, which in Vegas doesn’t always happen.  Here is a shot of the interior of the restaurant, we sat at the table on the bottom right of the photo.

While we looked over our menus my mother ordered a Manhattan, which she said was stiff but good they did not scrimp on the alcohol.  My step-dad ordered Borgo Conventi Pinot Grigio which was quite tasty and smooth.  Later in the meal I ordered the Kendall-Jackson Cabernet which was very smooth and would recommend it.  But in ordering this glass of wine it was the first sour moment at the restaurant, because the waiter brought me the Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay, and when I asked about it he actually argued with me saying that I ordered the Chardonnay.  Now Chardonnay and Cabernet do rhyme so I can see how it could easily be misunderstood, but instead of just saying I am sorry I misheard you or something to that effect, he actually insisted that I ordered it and for a moment gave me the impression that he was not going to correct my order, of course after a couple times of saying I wanted the Cabernet he did correct it.  So I was a bit disappointed in his attitude towards the whole thing.

My mother and I each ordered an appetizer to start, she had the stuffed mushrooms; they are stuffed with sausage topped with melted mozzarella cheese and served with a spicy tomato sauce.  She really enjoyed this appetizer, for me it just didn’t hit the spot, they seemed a little one note.  I ordered the crab cocktail, because I haven’t seen that offered on a menu before and I really wanted crab that night but I always feel weird asking what Market Price is that day.  Well they did not disappoint when it came to the crab cocktail, it was a martini glass filled up with fresh lump crab served over ice.  Here is a picture of the glass so you can see how much of it was crab.

The top glass part was filled all the way up with fresh crab and on the side it was served with a spicy cocktail sauce just like normal shrimp cocktail.  Also on the plate was orange salt, so don’t be shocked when you accidentally drop a piece of crap on to the plate and then eat it and you get bombarded with salt, which is exactly what happened to me.

After appetizers we were served our salads, they come with your entree order.  The salads were mixed greens which were placed inside of a cucumber wrap and we chose blue cheese dressing.  I loved the presentation of the salad and my mother even commented how she would love to do this for the next party she has.

For the main course my step-dad ordered the New York steak and it came out cooked perfectly and melt in your mouth tender.  He chose not order any of the sauces on the menu, these are offered for an additional charge, and his steak did not need anything.  So that is a good sign for a steak house if the meat can stand on its own.  My mother order herb encrusted half rack of lamb, they were cooked perfectly and tasted wonderful.  She did not try her meat with the mint demi-glaze that is served with the dish because she prefers her lamb without mint.  I ordered Charlie’s Steak Au Poivre which is filet mignon medallions coated with cracked peppercorns topped with a sauce of shallots, Dijon & cream.  My steak was cooked to a perfect medium rare and again was melt in your mouth tender.  I will admit I could have used a little less peppercorns because on some bites it did over power the rest of the dish when you bite down and all you get is pepper.  But overall it was very delicious and I got two very nice size medallions so I ate one and took one home for left overs, and even with reheating it still tasted just as good.  Because the menu is al a carte we ordered a couple side dishes to share. The first one was the mac & cheese gnocchi which was to die for, so creamy and smooth I wanted to order a second dish to take home. The other side dish was the Au Gratin potatoes, which were just so-so, nothing special about them next time we would choose something different.

Since it is a celebration we did order dessert, we ordered the flourless chocolate cake and the new york cheesecake.  Both were very good but the stand out to me was the chocolate cake it was one of the better flourless cakes that I have tasted.  It was moist and chocolatey and it sometimes is hard to achieve that with flourless.  The cheesecake was good but nothing to outstanding, I would order it again but I have also had better ones.

So overall I would recommend this steak house if you are looking for a place off of the strip and you want to get some melt in your mouth steaks.  The food for sure is why I am giving them 4.5 stars out of 5, I am taking away 1/2 a star because of the wine incident with the waiter.  While I understand it was an honest mistake it could have been handled a bit better.  But I did not let this moment ruin the delicious food.  Our bill came to around $160 without tip, which breaks down to a little over $50 a person, which is pretty good for what you get and our bill included alcohol and we had a total of 4 drinks.  In Las Vegas that is a pretty good per person price for a fine dining experience.