Tastebudz Creole Kitchen Restaurant — Restaurant in Las Vegas

This review was for August 6, 2024 around 2:15p.m. I am not normally one to give reviews, good or bad. I felt I had to review this restaurant from the horrific experience I had today. On my birthday of all days. I learned about this place from a review Keith Lee gave. He gave them a very high review, might I add. I walked into this place excited, I first walked on and greeted the lady at the counter, let her know how I heard about the place, also it was my birthday and I was very excited to be there. Walking into the place it was empty, granted it is Tuesday around 2pm. It was hot, little to no air conditioning. I looked over the menu, but already knew I wanted Ox tails. I mentioned to the lady at the counter, I had surgery and could not have spicy food. I saw they had ox talis with gravy...cool, that's what I wanted.She let me know they came with rice and 2 sides. I choose candied yams, and mac and cheese (because Keith said "it was the best mac and cheese he had ever had")! His was so creamy looking on the video!! My husband ordered jerk shrimp. He was given jerk chicken with jerk Brussel sprouts , and greens. ok no problem! he said maybe she didn't hear him. I also ask for cornbread which we did not receive, nor were we charged for it, who wants greens with no cornbread?...ok fine. Food comes out in plastic containers to dine in, maybe that's proper here. Opened my container, and oh my these had to be the dryest oxtails I had EVER saw, the yams were under cooked, not sweet, no cinnamon, or butter taste AT ALL they seemed to be just thrown in a pot with a lil sugar. mac n cheese...cheese where? and dry why is mac and cheese dry?..how Sway? My plate was just a huge and utter waste of any bodies time and the worst disappointment!

My husband's chicken was kinda tasty it was an okay attempt at jerk. Maybe some kind of jar seasoning. The greens needed seasoning...bad!!, and needed to be cooked a lot longer, the Brussel sprouts and the rice were the best things that we were served. I took my plate to the counter, explained to the lady the ox tails were dry, after going back and fourth for a second or 2 about them not having any gravy, she told me they were out of gravy, again how Sway?..its literally flour and broth.. water if you dont have broth. The lady admitted she didn't know what happened to the ox tails on this day. but she stated she could clearly see they were dry. I first ask for something else, was told i could not do that. Instead i was brought out a huge bowl of unsaled butter. (I guess to give it some juice) I ask for a manager or to speak with the owner, same lady said she was the manager, I then ask could I just get a refund at this point because now I'm just over it, and I had been eating some of my husband's food. Of course they don't do refunds. She offered to give me beef short ribs, and assured they would not be dry, So I waited on Juicy short ribs! Instead after about 15-20 she came with a plate of the same meal, ask me to try it while she stood and watched. It was the same crap still dry heated maybe in a microwave, to give the illusionof hot and fresh...no STILL DRY!!! I didn't even ask what happened to the non dry short ribs. I just took my dry plate of food and left. After spending $73 on this crap. I left feeling really disappointed, and disgusted at the same time. I don't know what happened to this food since Keith Lee was here and gave his raving review..but this can't be the same ish he was served. Don't...

My mother in law has been randomly sending us clips of Tastebudz Creole Kitchen from food bloggers. I told my wife for her birthday we are taking her there. She is really hard to please in this town so I said if she don't like it then this one is her fault LOL! I had to make sure this was the right one because there's different TasteBudz in NLV but was told they serve different food. The best part was we live right in the area so it's a quick drive up the road. Coming inside we were shocked how large the space was. Since it was out first time, it took us a minute to figure out what we wanted and how to understand parts of the menu. Shoutout to Ivorie and Shelly for taking care of us, being patient and answering all questions.

My mom ended up ordering the Oxtail & Lobster Mac Meal ($60), a Banana Pudding ($7), and a sweet tea ($3.50). My wife ordered the Cajun Shrimp Alfredo ($20), a side of Mac for my daughter ($7) and a Tiki Punch pop ($2). I ordered the Jerk Chicken Meal ($20), it comes with 2 sides I ordered Yams and subbed in Jerk Brussel Sprouts (additional $5). All together with the 3% service charge and taxes came out to $139. My jerk chicken was good, it was a bit different because instead of the parts of the chicken they shred the meat up and put white rice at the bottom. I could have used some sauce because the rice was a little dry but no problem. My yams were really good and my eyes popped out 👀when I tried the Jerk Sprouts those were a hit! I didn't really care for my wife's pasta that day but when she let me try it for left overs and I got the taste the shrimp it was pretty good. My mom actually loved her food.

We are from the Chicagoland areas and when I saw the mural saying they were from Hopkins, IL I was like okay we got some people from back home and part of me thinks her mindset shifted to get ready for some good food. She was so happy with her food we asked if the owners were there it was a Thursday they were out but we met their daughter Aniah to let her know she threw down in that kitchen!! My mom said "I didn't even have to add salt LOL" The food took about 30 minutes, at first it was pretty empty but then people kept flocking in and I can tell these people come all the time and know they have to wait for good food. This also tells us that they make it fresh to order which we did confirm so it was worth the wait. We were told its really busy on the weekends, with the stage and DJ booth. Leaving there I felt like everyone in the neighborhood knew about this gem but us LOL!!! Oh and that banana pudding was really good. I added a picture but it doesn't do any justice on how good it was. Can't wait to come back and wow they actually have turkey sausage here which is hard to find in restaurants (THANK YOU TRISH!).

One of my co-workers saw that I posted this place and said she has been coming to Chef Trish since she had a food truck and to ask for her secret sauce whenever you order food 😉. Thank you for placing food inside storage containers. They are reusable and...

I have to be 100% honest. My expectations were super high and I was lowkey disappointed. The restaurant is very spacious but had no AC and it was 105 degrees outside. They had fans going but it kinda ruined the fresh eat it right there idea. We did end up sitting there and tasting everything before we walked out the door but couldn’t sit and enjoy the food because it was so hot in the restaurant. We came in and there was a lady sitting down taking orders. She was friendly, but didn’t seem really happy and we totally understand because it was very hot. She explained how the menu worked, but unfortunately they were out of a lot of the things we wanted to try. No peach cobbler, no black eyed peas and I forgot the other items but it was a few. That was shocking because it was a Monday afternoon and it was only a few people inside picking up orders. We placed our orders and waited about 15 minutes. Again, we wanted to taste the food as fresh as possible so we bit the bullet and sat for about another five or 10 minutes after getting our food to taste and try everything. I got the Cajun seasoning and my protein was chicken. I thought it was going be a whole piece of chicken but it was kind of like shredded like a pulled pork. All the protein is grilled. It came on a bed of white rice and my two side dishes were collard greens and some type of house made potatoes. He got the Cajun shrimp over a bed of white rice, mac & cheese and candied yams. The food was well seasoned, but it didn’t seem like it was prepared fresh. It didn’t even seem like it was prepared that same day. The portions were nice, but the seasoning choices they used were not a good combination to in my opinion. The greens were undercooked, a little too crunchy for my taste and the potatoes were cold in the middle. The sauce on the potatoes was good. I want to reiterate that the food was well seasoned meaning there was plenty of seasoning but the seasoning choices were not good together. His macaroni and cheese noodles were so overcooked that they didn’t even hold a noodle shape. It looked more like chunky mashed potatoes. I think had they had prepared the noodles properly, the macaroni and cheese would’ve been better. You didn’t even have to chew it because it was so overcooked. The candy yams tasted OK but nothing to brag about. Lastly the cornbread! I think Jiff out the box with no extra butter or honey etc. taste better than what they served us. We came to this restaurant because Keith Lee bragged about how amazing the food was, and it was the best soul food he ever had. I will no longer trust Keith...