Pleasant surprise....Veranda for dinner

Just returned from another Vegas jaunt. Ate at a couple of old family standbys (Chada Thai, Todds), but had two dinners worth mentioning, albeit for different reasons. We've had breakfast at the Veranda (Four Seasons) countless times, but when they offered 50% off your dinner check if you booked on Black Friday and ate sometime in December, we couldn't pass that offer up. What a pleasant surprise. The service was terrific. The food was devine. I'm still dreaming about their beet salad. The mushroom tagliatelle was perfectly cooked and so flavorable. Between the four of us, we tried many items and each was a hit. Although this dinner was a veritable bargain, at full price it still would have been worth it. A definite keeper to be added to our regular rotation.

On the flip side, we had 6:30 reservations at Picasso on Christmas Eve. We chose Picasso sort of by default as Twist was closed for the holidays and Le Cirque had a holiday menu that didn't excite us. Our 6:30 reservation wasn't honored until 7:30, with nothing more than an apology from the manager. Once seated, the menus were brought along with the extensive wine list. The amuse bouche was brought to the table before drink orders taken. (The two different house cocktails we ordered were excellent). After perusing the wine list for several minutes, inexplicably, the waiter came and removed the wine list from the table without asking us if we wanted to order any wine (we did). By then our appetizers arrived. We summoned the manager to ask about ordering wine so she sent the waiter over to take our wine order. No apologies, just took the order and took off. Not an ideal start to our evening. However, the food was terrific. We had eaten here a couple of years ago and enjoyed it but never felt compelled to return due to the limited, repeating menu. Once we got some alcohol to drink, we mellowed out, the poor start to our evening fading away as the delicious food was eaten. Still, when spending ~$700 for dinner, the lapses in service were inexcusable, even taking into account the full restaurant and the holiday.