steakhouse

Bob Taylor’s Original Ranch House
 
 
6250 Rio Vista St.
Las Vegas, NV 89130
702-425-1885
 
http://www.bobtaylorsranchhouse.com
 

Bob Talor’s is an old school rustic steak house, in the north side of the valley.  I remember when there was nothing out there but this place, but the city has grown right around it, you can see the 215 right from the parking lot these days.  The parking for this restaurant is limited and you may end up parking on a gravel lot if you come when it is really busy.  This is not a typical Las Vegas strip type steakhouse, the decor is old and hasn’t been updated in awhile, so if you are looking for a modern, updated & high-end place this is not it.  They are definitely on the down home casual side.  The nice part of the decor was that you can see the grill that they cook the steaks on upon entering, you walk right past this to be seated.

Photo Courtesy of Bob Taylor’s Ranch House

The tables in the dining area are crammed together, which I think made it difficult for the waiters to serve the tables.  Our waitress kept having to squeeze past on her tip toes to get to around.  Because of this closeness I could’ve joined the conversation at the table right behind my chair if I wanted to.  I pretty much heard every detail anyway.

On the walls you will find what looks like old movie posters, black & white photos of all kinds and cowboy type memories.  To me they didn’t seem to have an overall theme for the decor, just a mix match of western type items.

Each of the entrees come with your choice of soup or salad to start.  And then a choice of one of their potatoes, rice or mixed veggies with your meal.  I went for the soup of lobster bisque which I was excited for since it had been awhile since I have had it.  I apologize for the dark photo below – downside to a dark restaurant and cell phone camera.

©TastingLV

My opinion the soup was bad, it tasted like a canned condensed soup with no lobster pieces or flavor and had this vinegar sour taste to it.  The consistency of the soup was gelatin like, almost as if they did not put enough cream into the mix while cooking.  I took a couple bites hoping it would get better but it didn’t, it was very disappointing.  On top of the bad flavor & consistency it was luke warm to cold, maybe this is why it was on the thicker gelatin consistency but if you are serving soup it should be hot.  Why cut corners and not use the freshest possible ingredients that you can when you are charging roughly $30-50 a plate.  The other disappointment of the dinner was the cheesy garlic bread that comes out, it was plain white bread topped with garlic flavoring and some kind of cheese.  I found this to be almost stale and cold, it was hard to chew I had one piece and that was it, and I am bread person.

©TastingLV

This is how my 12oz filet was delivered to me, it took up half the plate and the other half was empty, so if you are looking for presentation this is not the place to go.  I ordered my steak medium-rare and got really rare, which meant it was undone in the middle and cold.  I had to ask for them to take it back and cook it a bit more because I prefer my steak medium-rare, so the center is warmed through.  When I did get my steak back it was still on the rare side but it was warmed through.  My mother ordered her filet medium rare and it came out perfect.  And my step-father’s ribeye came out a bit on the rare side but it was ok for him.  So it seems they have a bit of inconsistency on cooking temps.  It did have a nice beef flavor and was really juicy, you did not need any sauce to enjoy it.  The seasoning on the outside tasted mainly of salt, it was not overly salty but I did not pick up any other flavors.  The reason they are getting 3.5 stars is because their redeeming factor was their beef, it was juicy, tender and a nice cut of beef overall.  I had the twice baked potato as my side and it was good, nothing that special, but as I left I realized I should have just gone with the baked potato because they really good as I passed them.  And this is something I don’t thing the restaurant wants you to think when you leave, that you should’ve ordered something else.

The only non-steak dish we ordered was one of their chicken entrees for my god-mother, Chicken Marsala they were nice enough to make it for her without any sauce, and she said that it was tender and juicy.  I did not taste any of this but it looked and smelled really good.

For the four of us to dine here and 3 of us had one cocktail each our total bill with tax was $150 before tip – so for approximately $38 a person; the dinner was just OK.  I think if I was going to spend this money again I would go back to Ron’s Steak House this place is a little bit more per person, but the service, ambiance and food make up for the difference in price.

Ron’s Steak House

 
 
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.

Photo courtesy of Arizona Charlies (http://www.arizonacharliesdecatur.com/Gallery)

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.

Photo courtesy of Crate and Barrel

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.