China Poblano — Restaurant in Paradise

This one seriously pains me to write (and I've been putting it off for a while now), but China Poblano needs some WORK before it's going to be worth the money it costs to dine there.

Let me start off by saying that I am a BIG Jose Andres fan (he gave the commencement speech at my University years ago, and I've liked him ever since). I think there are plenty of great Jose Andres restaurants out there. Unfortunately (for us anyway, considering how much time and money we wasted) China Poblano is just not one of them.

We spotted this restaurant during a 10-day birthday trip in Vegas, and since it was a Jose Andres place, we decided to spend one of our precious "splurge meals" on it, especially since I'm a big fan of fusion restaurants and the idea of Mexican-Asian fusion sounded really fun and different.

The service was okay - definitely not on point with other similarly priced restaurants in Vegas, but not horrendous either - but the food was disappointing at best and inedible at worst.

In fairness, I'll try to start with the positives: The chips and salsa were good. I love a well-salted homemade tortilla chip as much as the next gal, and the salsa is smoky, which was a fun twist on a traditional tex-mex restaurant salsa. The Golden Pigs dim sum dish was the best thing we ordered by far. We didn't know if we were going to like condensed milk with barbecue buns, but MAN IT WORKS. They were honestly so sweet they should have been on the dessert menu (especially since they were far and away better than the dessert we ordered). If I were ever to return to China Poblano, it would only be for this one dish. That's how good it was.

Then we'll come to the dishes the two of were split on: The Quail Egg Siu Mai: My partner really liked these, but I found them bland and very unappealing. The Chicken Ji Song: I thought these were good lettuce cups, and enjoyed the crispy topping, but my partner hated the addition of the sweet potato.

And now, for the bad: BOTH noodle dishes we ordered were basically inedible to us. The DAN DAN MIAN was the worst offender by far, neither of us could stomach even a second bite (and we love dan dan noodles typically). It was off-putting to even look at, and the flavors were a complete mess. I didn't even understand what I was eating. The Li Mian Lo Mein dish was slightly better, but equally puzzling - it was impossible to decipher why the flavors present were put together in the first place and the result spoke for itself - definitely flavors better left apart. The Chocolate Terra Cotta Warrior is perhaps the lamest way to waste $18 on a mediocre dessert that doesn't taste even half as good as it looks. If you want to spend that kind of money on a dessert that looks pretty, go ahead, but I prefer my desserts to actually taste incredible, no matter how they look. The elements of this dish seem slapped together and not a single bite of it felt gourmet. It was just a chocolate shell you get to smash open and some basic cookie crumbs with chocolate pudding that you can eat. If that doesn't sound appealing to you, don't waste your money. The bananas are cut so thick that the "brulee" on top of them doesn't work at all (if you can call a barely-there layer of sugar a "brulee" at all) and the entire thing just doesn't work. The cocktails we had were not nearly as good as they look either. When you're paying a pretty penny for a drink, you hope it'll at least taste good, but the margaritas we had were just meh.

There are so many wonderful (and inexpensive) places to eat at The Cosmopolitan, don't waste your time and money...

After reading many of the reviews for China Poblano prior to writing this, I am very confused by the vast majority of glowing reviews. Either we were grossly taken advantage of, the restaurant was having an off day, or the reviews were paid for. I can not see any other middle ground.

First, I need to address the quality and quantity of food versus the price. Most of the items on the menu are priced extraordinarily high. Bowl of fried rice? $20. Small bowl of noodles? $20. Guacamole from 1.5 avocados? $20. Margarita? $20. (The margarita comes in a standard stemless martini glass, 3/4 full, with the remainder filled with salty foam.) The tacos are street style tacos, with the average price of $8 a piece. I don’t normally complain about restaurant pricing, but the quality of these items were far below sub par for the price. The food from a local taco shop is far superior and many times less expensive.

Second, the menu is very deceptive, and again, I feel as if I was grossly taken advantage. I ordered the Mongolian Beef with Lettuce dish. In reality, it should be titled Lettuce with Mongolian Beef. The plate was decently sized, however, it was comprised of 90% lettuce. I had 6 small cubes of beef (that looked to be stew meat), a very small bed of sauteed onions, and a small bowl of white rice. There was no dressing or sauce on the lettuce. It was simply a plate with a mound of chopped lettuce. I should note, this was not on their salad section of the menu but is apparently an entree.

The Dan Dan Noodles we ordered was another huge disappointment. It was essentially a small portion of noodles (literally 4 bites), dripping with hoisen sauce, with some peanuts and a few vegetables. Being the dish was priced at $20, we ordered them to share. Four of us were barely able to have 1 bite of the noodles before they were gone. We were extremely displeased.

Third, their signature Margarita with Salt Air, another gross disappointment. The only “special” thing about this drink is the salty foam. The margarita itself tasted exactly the same as the Jose Cuervo premixed margarita that you would buy at the grocery store. I firmly believe this is what was used for the drink.

Fourth, Guacamole. Our server made the guacamole table side as may Mexican restaurants do. It was comprised of 1 1/2 avocados, a sprinkle of cheese, some lime juice, and some peppers or oil to make it either mild or spicy. The ingredients were barely mixed, and there were large chunks of avocado despite it being mixed in a mortar. This was easily one of the better dishes in flavor, but I was still disappointed in the amount for price and quality.

Service was below average. Our waiter was not attentive, however, other staff were topping off our water glasses and filling in for the lack of service.

Our “meal” for a party of 5 (3 adults, and 2 children) cost over $150. After we ate, everyone went to find other food since the portions were so small. I paid cash for our meal, and our waiter decided apparently that he deserved a $50 tip, for all of this disappointment, and didn’t bring back a receipt or change. I had to ask a different waiter for our receipt and change because ours was nowhere to be found.

I was quite unhappy with our whole experience and feel as if I was grossly mistreated, my money stolen, and we all walked away hungry.

If you are like me and believe that $150 should provide a substantial meal, I advise that you...

We actually ate here very recently so this is an extremely fast turnaround on a review, because I usually don't do a review as fast as this.

We came in after trying a couple of different restaurants in Block 16 for the last couple of days, and literally just having ice cream at Milk, so we were good on dinner, but I saw reviews about the salsa at this location and I wanted to try it out since we are Texan, and I know my salsas. I also love dumplings, so I wanted to check that out.

I didn't make a reservation because I wasn't sure if we were going to go here, after filling up on a bunch of different things in the area again, but I figured I might as well try it out since we were staying a few days at The Cosmopolitan so if I liked it, we could come back again.

Even without a reservation, we were quickly checked in and seated to our table. The woman next to us immediately rolled her eyes as soon as we sat down with our three kids.

We were given water and started with chips and salsa which, as stated above, was the reason I wanted to come to begin with. I was going to order the vegetable dumplings and a vegetarian noodle dish after we had drinks and our appetizer, but couldn't get over the lady and man sitting next to us giving us death stare and rolling their eyes at us when my children literally did nothing wrong. We were just having a good time and hanging out, but someone rolling their eyes and sighing at you gets real old real quick.

I asked for a to go bag and got out of there because I wasn't trying to get into a confrontation, but this was actually so upsetting. My daughter even told me that the lady at the table next to her said "finally" after we got up when we were there for less than ten minutes.

It was so upsetting, that I actually called down to apologize to our host, Jackie, I believe, about how I had to leave suddenly (after paying and tipping well, of course), but Beatrice on the phone made me feel so much better about the whole situation. She said that she remembered our kids and how well behaved they are. She even offered to make a little care package for us to come pick up with goodies for the kids, which we had to decline (unfortunately), because we have other things that need to be attended to, but even that gesture is so incredibly telling of how great of an establishment this is and what kind of work they do.

So even if I can't say how good the food is, besides the chips and salsa (which is good and has a nice kick!), I can tell y'all that I do believe that karma is real and I hope Beatrice has good things come back to her. And a woman that gives dirty looks to children so much so that they even notice, gets the type of karma...